Annotation_2_The_Corporation

Annotation #2 Word count: 901 The main argument is well explained through the commentary of one of the interviewees who said, “a corporation is an artificial moral structure”. It is said that corporations are treated as people by the law yet they don’t have moral consciousness and only cares about making money. A brief history was first introduced with the highlights of how corporations gained the power that allows them buy things, join with other companies and get sued in court. It was said that when 14th amendment was passed corporations used the chance to gain more power and get rid of liability. After the history brief, the film starts evaluating the personality of a corporation since it was said to be a “person”. An FBI agent makes the verdict that a corporation is in fact a psychopath based on personal traits. The film touches on each of the abovementioned sustainability problems in one way or another. With capitals often exceeding GDP’s of certain countries they collect immense amount of power and able to impact what politicians do and/or say. This goes to a point where many brokers openly wanted bombs to be dropped in Iraq because when it first happened in 1991 barrel of oil went up from 13 to 40 dollars per barrel which created a lot of profit for big companies. From a legal viewpoint any corporation is considered to be an individual but it doesn’t have a moral conscience. This why there are bad conditions on factories located in third world countries. From the ecological viewpoint it is obvious that many corporations choose to pollute and harm the environment because proper disposal of waste is more expensive. Many of the arguments that were brought up appeared to be persuasive because people who were presenting the issues were actually related to the business industry. For example, there were four CEOs shown in the movie, two current and two past. Each of them presented his own experience and gave an opinion on why the corporations were doing such terrible things as using child labor overseas and creating products that harmed people. Also, many facts were presented such as past lawsuits and payments by corporations for violating ecological and other types of regulations. Overall picture that the film tried to paint was that corporations are evil. I would not believe in this for a second because there are actually a lot of corporations that care about their employees and how their products are produced; however, there was only one corporation shown that did everything right. I think the film was a bit overly critical in that sense. I think it suits all people and the general idea is to create consumer awareness. Knowing how corporations operate is a great start for creating such awareness. Also, reading labels is something the film stressed each consumer should do to become more informed. The film did a great overall job by presenting many valid points that were backed up by good arguments. A lot of historical data was presented to show that corporations did terrible things in the past and continue doing them now. I wish a solution how to fight them more effectively was presented, of course if it actually exists. Reading labels doesn’t seem like something that could change a lot. One of the actions that was presented a few time throughout the movie was reading labels. This surely shows that you are concerned with how the product you are buying is made. However, it doesn’t seem to be very impactful at all. Have you heard of any corporation that went out of business because consumers didn’t like how their products were made stopped buying them? I looked at what advantages and disadvantages corporations have compared to small businesses: [] I looked at corporations that donate the most to politics and found interesting correlations. Also, I looked whether they sponsored republicans or democrats. So since the republican party tries to give more tax breaks to corporations than democratic party it was interesting to see that financial corporation like Goldman Sachs mostly supports republicans. [] On the other hand a tech company like Microsoft supports mostly democrats which is probably because of Bill Gates’ legacy who is known for making amazing impact over the world and not being overly concerned just about money and tax breaks from republicans: []
 * 1. Title, director and release year?**
 * Title: “**The Corporation”
 * Director:** Jennifer Abbott and Mark Achbar
 * Release Year:** 2003
 * 2.** **What is the central argument or narrative of the film?**
 * 3.** **How is the argument or narrative made and sustained? How much scientific information is provided, for example? Does the film have emotional appeal?**
 * 4.** **What sustainability problems does the film draw out?** **Political? Legal? Economic? Technological? Media and Informational?** **Organizational? Educational? Behavioral? Cultural? Ecological?**
 * 5.** **What parts of the film did you find most persuasive and compelling? Why?**
 * 6.** **What parts of the film were you not compelled or convinced by? Why?**
 * 7.** **What audiences does the film best address? Why?**
 * 8.** **What could have been added to this film to enhance its environmental educational value?**
 * 9.** **What kinds of action and points of intervention are suggested by the film? If the film itself does not suggest corrective action, describe actions that you can imagine being effective.**
 * 10.** **What additional information has this film compelled you to seek out? (Provide at least two supporting references.)**