The Corporation

The Corporation

Amazon.com

An epic in length and breadth, this documentary aims at nothing less than a full-scale portrait of the most dominant institution on the planet Earth in our lifetime--a phenomenon all the more remarkable, if not downright frightening, when you consider that the corporation as we know it has been around for only about 150 years. It used to be that corporations were, by definition, short-lived and finite in agenda. If a town needed a bridge built, a corporation was set up to finance and complete the project when the bridge was an accomplished fact, the corporation ceased to be. Then came the 19th-century robber barons, and the courts were prevailed upon to define corporations not as get-the-job-done mechanisms but as persons under the 14th Amendment with full civil rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (i.e., power and profit)--ad infinitum.

The Corporation defines this endlessly mutating life-form in exhaustive detail, measuring the many ways it has not only come to dominate but to deform our reality. The movie performs a running psychoanalysis of this entity with the characteristics of a prototypical psychopath: a callous unconcern for the feelings and safety of others, an incapacity to experience guilt, an ingrained habit of lying for profit, etc. We are swept away on a demented odyssey through an altered cosmos, in which artificial chemicals are created for profit and incidentally contribute to a cancer epidemic in which the folks who brought us Agent Orange devise a milk-increasing drug for a world in which there is already a glut of milk in which an American computer company leased its systems to the Nazis--and serviced them on a monthly basis--so that the Holocaust could go forward as an orderly process.

The movie goes on too long, circles too many points obsessively and redundantly, and risks preaching-to-the-choir reductiveness by calling on the usual talking-head suspects--Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Michael Moore. And except for an endlessly receding tracking shot in an infinite patents archive, theres scarcely an image worth recalling. Still, it maps the new reality. This is our world--welcome to it. --Richard T. Jameson

Product Description

This charts the spectacular rise of the corporation as a dramatic pervasive presence in our everyday lives. Features illuminating interviews with noam chomsky michael moore historian howard zinn .. As well as corporate honchos whistleblowers & big business spies. Studio: Zeitgeist Films Release Date: 04/05/2005 Run time: 145 minutes Rating: Nr
Rate Points :4.0
Binding :DVD
Brand :MOORE,MICHAEL
Label :Zeitgeist Films
Manufacturer :Zeitgeist Films
MPN :ZEIDZ1065D
ProductGroup :DVD
Studio :Zeitgeist Films
Publisher :Zeitgeist Films
UPC :795975106535
EAN :0795975106535
Price :$29.99USD
Lowest Price :$17.51USD
Customer ReviewsPoorly constructed anti-business diatribe
Rating Point :1 Helpful Point :5
This film claims to be a documentary about the corporation and corporations impact. Theres a lot that one can say about the corporation, both good and bad. The filmmakers largely squander the chance, instead embarking on a shrill anti-business rant. Its not even well done - most of the criticisms are poorly justified, and they often have to resort to emotional imagery to overcome a lack of substance.

For example, they point out that the 14th Amendment (guaranteeing equal protection under the law) was passed to protect freed slaves. Corporations then used lawsuits citing the amendment to protect themselves. Did that hurt freed slaves somehow? The film doesnt even try to discuss that, but shows several provocative images of African-Americans to try to imply a linkage.

As I said, the movie is anti-business, not just anti-corporation. The film does explain briefly the legal basis of corporations and how it differs from other company forms (such as a partnership). But then the film largely turns to emotional condemnations of businesses and business practices in general.

Theres a discussion of "externalities," where costs get shifted onto other people. An example is businesses using roads built by others. This is neither new nor unique to corporations - thousands of years back ago in the Roman Empire, craftsmen and traders were using government-built roads. Nor do the filmmakers explain why its bad, instead just leaving the impression that businesses are taking advantage of everyone else.

Similarly, the film criticizes corporations for running "sweatshops" with low pay and poor working conditions. Again, thats nothing new to corporations: many farms and garment-makers have done the same for centuries, without the benefit of a corporate structure. Theres nothing in the film to demonstrate that corporations have made the situation worse than other types of business.

Just for emotional appeal, they show a Latin American worker who says shes the only one in her household of seven with a job. It turns out, its hard for her to support seven people on her factory pay. Sure, its hard to support a large household on one income. Does that make the pay unfair? The film doesnt bother with any statistics, it just tries to imply that shes underpaid, and thus her employer is bad.

The authors simply didnt do their homework. They just strung together a series of vignettes and soundbites designed to make us angry, as long as we dont think about them too much. There are certainly well-justified criticisms they could have made, and instead they went for the cheap shots.

In short, dont expect a documentary on the order of "Who Killed the Electric Car?" that gives a lot of information. This is really a movie for people who are simply mad at American business and want to spend a couple of hours reinforcing their anger.

Really, Really Dumb
Rating Point :1 Helpful Point :0
I was hoping I could show this film to my business ethics class, in order to spark some interesting discussion. I was very disappointed. It is certainly one of the worst pieces of ratiocination I have ever examined -- I would not want to waste my students time with it. Its not worth discussing. It makes heavy use of a version of the economic notion of "externalities" which is more or less incoherent.

Corporation
Rating Point :5 Helpful Point :0
Excellent. A must see for everyone and how corporations strongly influence government which in turn affects YOUR daily life.

Todays dominant institution
Rating Point :5 Helpful Point :1
The Corporation is todays dominant institution. This awkward entity is considered a "person" by law, but has all the characteristics of a psychopath when examined closely : it shows no emotions nor feelings, has no conscience, is incapable of experiencing guilt, and its sole purpose it is to make profits, no matter how.

Therefore corporations are very fond of fascist regimes, such as Nazi Germany, where IBM offered support with their machines counting the deaths in the concentration camps. Corporations themselves sometimes behave as mass murderers, like the asbestos companies. They sometimes hire murderers, like Chiquita did in Colombia, to kill syndical leaders. Corporations deplete our natural resources, like Big Oil does. Corporations pollute our environment and our food with artificial chemicals, causing a cancer epidemic, affecting nowadays 44 % of the men and 38 % of the women, following Dr. Samuel Epstein.

Corporations are so powerful that they are never prosecuted. If necessary, they change the legislation to suit their interests. They even succeeded patenting things that were impossible to patent - life itself, as Jeremy Rifkin explains.

Corporations got so powerful they determine how governments should behave, even if they go broke. Then the government must help them, socializing the losses to the people in general.

Corporations always want to make more and more money. They see "business opportunities" in every imaginable service to the people. Noam Chomsky gives his point of view on the privatizations we suffered in the last decades : "Privatization does not mean you take a public institution and give it to some nice person it means you take a public institution and give it to an unaccountable tyranny". In this movie the example is showed of the privatization of Cochabamba public water in Bolivia, but you can also consider what Enron did in California, what the "health companies" did with health care in the US (look at Sicko by Michael Moore), what the pension funds are doing with our expected retirement money, etc.

Michael Moore sometimes wonders why companies finance his films, but then he considers that when he succeeds making money for the big media companies, theyre fine with whatever he says. Corporations think people are too numb to do something. Moore hopes however that people will stand up from the couch, and do something. Will you ?

Amazing but watch past the first 15 minutes.
Rating Point :5 Helpful Point :0
This is the best movie I have ever seen. It allows us to think more clearly about the worlds psychotic obsession with capitalism.

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