Notes on "The Corporation", documentary by Mark Achbar, Jennifer Abbott and Joel Bakan

A anti-corporate documentary, with a storyline that acts as a investigator identifying the corporation as a psychopath. The documentary aims to brings you down into the dark depths of the corporate world.
What makes the whole thing work so well is their considered study and approach of the subject, notably seen through their repertoire of quality interviewees.

Focusing on the United States, the documentary begins with the historical birth of corporations, by interviewing Naom Chomsky (Professor MIT): Grown from the Industrial Age in the UK (1712), the main goal of enterprise was increased productivity. In the USA, corporations were originally created as an association of people, chartered by the State to perform a particular function. These had clear stipulations of what they did; shareholders were liable etc.. They were seen as "a gift from the people to serve the public good". All corporations cannot exclusively serve the public good nowadays; but that's at least what the film reminds us they were created for.

They then go on to explain the evolution of the corporation. Corporate lawyers were constantly seeking more power and freedom in order to achieve their many objectives. And then a formidable event occurred: the 14th Amendment was established, to protect newly freed African Americans. " No state can deprive any person from life liberty or property without due process of law". The corporate lawyers followed suit by claiming that corporations are "a person" and therefore can act pretty much like a human being. A significant number that strikes: between 1890-1910, 307 cases were brought before the court under the 14th Amendment; of these 288 were by corporations, only 19 by African Americans.

Now that the corporation has become considered a "legal" person, we are lead to question what kind of person are they? For they prove to lack much of what we define as a moral conscience; Robert Monks (corporate governance adviser) finely states "they aren't like the rest of us. As Baron Thurlow in England is supposed to have said: "They have no soul to save, they have no body to incarcerate"".
In defense of the corporation, Sir Mark Moody-Stuart (ex-chairman of Shell) replies "People accuse us of only paying attention to the economic leg. Because they think that's what a business person's mind set is - it's just money. And it's not so, because we, as business people, know that we need to certainly address the environment, but also we need to be seen as constructive members of society". Corporations are aware of the environment and of society, and therefore make sure they construct an appropriate image. The problem being that the image is constructed, and never reflects their true reality.

This raises the whole issue of balance, between the profit motive, and other more socially and environmentally directed motives. The balance always tips deeply towards the profit motive. Not because every man in power is by nature evil or greedy, but because corporations are required, by law, to place the financial interests of their owners above competing interests. The bottom line is superior to everything else. "That's not a law of nature, that's a very specific decision. In fact a judicial decision. So they're concerned only for the short-term profit of their stock-holders who are very highly concentrated" - Naom Chomsky.

To whom do these companies owe loyalty? They already owe in obligation to themselves, to get large and more profitable. In doing this it tends to be more profitable to the extent that it can make other people pay for the bills for its impact on society. There's a terrible word that economists use for this called "externalities": "The effect of a transaction between 2 individuals on a third party who has not consented to or played any role in the carrying out of that transaction - and there are real problems in that area. There's no doubt about it" states Milton Freeman. Through this profit incentive, which drives the corporation, it is turned into what is effectively an externalizing machine. "Let somebody else deal with that" is the mentality - until exterior forces to the corporation force it to have to deal with those externalities. Then comes a long list of case examples pointing out many of the terrible effects these "externalities" have, ranging from nuclear waste to bio-hazardous products and sweat-shops (where they denounce in a most precise way the science of exploitation)
"It was more or less as if we created a doom machine. In our search for wealth and prosperity we created something that's going to destroy us" - Robert Monks on the corporation.

With so many negative and near inhuman aspects, we do wonder how on earth this business has been going on for so long, with so many people involved and actively participating towards it. The Corporation brings us a insightful interview with Carlton Brown, a commodities trader, who gives an explanation on traders' ignorance: "Our information that we receive, does not include anything about the environmental conditions because until the environmental conditions become a commodity themselves or are being traded, then obviously we will not have anything to do with that. It doesn't come into our psyche at all. It's so far away and you hardly hear anything about it."

The documentary proceeds with a long historical list of corporate fines (in the hundreds of millions) for violating the law. "Whether you obey the law or not is a matter of if its cost effective. It's seen as just another business decision." - Ray Anderson. The very nature of the corporation strips any sense of ethics or morals, for at its core is the necessity to grow and make more profit - as fast as possible. Which implies bigger numbers in less time; making the two fundamental notions in every serious business person's mind: time and money. The implications of this are disastrous.

The most enticing quote from this documentary is by Ray Anderson, CEO of Interface:

" Drawing the metaphor of the early attempts to fly. The man going off a very high cliff in his airplane, with the wings flapping, the air blowing in his face, and this poor fool thinks he's flying. But, in fact, he's in free fall - he just doesn't know it yet because the ground is so far away. But of course the craft is doomed to crash. That's the way our civilization is: the very high cliff represents the virtually unlimited resources we seemed to have at the beginning of this journey. The craft isn't flying because its not built according to the laws of aerodynamics and is subject to the law of gravity. Civilization is not flying because it's not built according to the laws of aerodynamics for civilizations that would fly. And, of course, the ground is still a long way away, but some have seen that ground rushing up sooner than the rest of us have. The visionaries have seen it and have told us it's coming." He continues " Every living system of earth is in decline. Every life support system of earth is in decline, and these together constitute the biosphere. The biosphere that supports and nurtures all of life - not just our life but perhaps 30 million other species that share this planet with us. We are leaving a terrible legacy of poison and diminishment of the environment for our grandchildren' grandchildren, generations not yet born. Some people have called that intergenerational tyranny, a form of taxation without representation, levied by us on generations yet to be. It's the wrong thing to do."

The documentary continues on this path of revealing the true nature of the corporation. From more shocking case studies (One in which Fox News, due to peer pressure, asks its reporters to edit a revealing health hazard story they found, and essentially lie and rewrite a fictional version. It ended with the case being brought to court by the 2 reporters, who in the end, lost, because the court deemed that Fox News asking them to write a fictional report for television, was not illegal.) to the hidden motives of marketing and its unethical manipulation of children' minds (openly discussed by marketing directors).

In the past, common folk were ruled by the major institutions that surrounded them, from the Clergy to the Knights. In our times it seems as though people are ruled by a major institution called the Corporation. It has the tightest links with government, and in my view the power struggle between the two might even be tipped towards the corporation (a look at IBM and their dealings with the 3rd Reich and you do wonder how an American company could be doing business with their countries' rival).

This raises the issue of who exactly should be responsible for corporations actions? For if IBM for example, was doing business with Hitler, shouldn't the USA have a say in this, considering IBM is an American company? But then IBM is also a multinational corporation, so which government, if any, holds the responsibility in monitoring their actions?

Another mindful question is how come people never seem to see it coming?
For effectively, what constitutes the majority of our vision of a corporation is the constructed facade they present us. The logo, the shop, the adverts, the website, the community good they bring etc.. What are corporations hiding from us?

Reality is, rare is a corporation that's proud of what they are doing and more importantly how they are doing it; and they will continue building image upon image to keep us mellowly tricked into believing that they are enriching us, and more formidably that they're necessary.

Man is no dumb sheep though; as history has proved, any invader who attempts to strip man's liberties to then remain in power amongst those he has violated, will always be overrun by the people, fighting to regain their selves.
Humans are not powerless, so they should put a stop in feeling that. They not only have the power to act, but the power of organizing their actions.

We happen to be born in this century, raised into this reality, and it is us who are constructing the future. We have a choice: do we simply continue running the relay, or do we chose to change the racetrack? Today we are the ones who can chose to build towards that new reality which will one day see our grandchildren' grandchildren' birth into this world. Cherish that opportunity for it is the most prized one we have.