Rovereto+The+Corporation


 * Title:** The Corporation
 * Directors:** Mark Achbar, Jennifer Abbott
 * Release Year:** 2003

The argument the film makes is that corporations are huge constructs that came out of our culture, and then began to control that culture, along with controlling the government, economy, media, and international policies. The corporations have great power at their disposal, and use it to promote their products and to make sure people buy them. The corporation is considered an individual under US law, but it is an individual unlike any normal person and in many ways fits the criteria of the prototypical psychopath, an uncaring individual devoid of morality and only concerned with profits.
 * What is the central argument or narrative of the film?**

The film discusses several of the problems with corporations themselves, as well the environment that allows corporations to become so powerful. The first of these is the legal system in the US, which originally created the legal precedent that a corporation is a legal person with many of the same rights as an individual. This was done in the mid-19th century, as a way of making the entire corporation responsible for paying debts and to allow it to be sued, rather than suing individual people in the corporation. Since that time, court cases and legislation have led to the corporation gaining more and more of the rights that actual people have, with implications outside the ability to owe and pay debts as well as the ability to sue and be sued. Earlier in legal history, corporations were severely limited in what they could do, how long they could exist, and where they could operate. The case is much different now.
 * What sustainability problems does the film draw out?**

Corporations enjoy limited liability, where no one person in the corporation and have legal actions brought against him for actions the company performed. This means that any violations the corporation breaks, the corporation pays for. This money is not the money out of the CEO’s pocket, but is drawn from the corporation’s funds. This makes illegal activity more of a strategic choice for some corporations than a real danger.

The main problems with corporations spring from the way in which they were designed. It is their legal obligation to put their stockholders and bottom lines above all else. In this respect they are not compelled to be considerate, ethical companies that work with communities. Their sole concern is money, and making more of it. Corporations by their very nature are also excellent at producing externalities, which are basically problems for everyone around them that they claim no responsibility for. The way in which corporations are designs allows people to have a duality of personality, a separation between work and personal life. The CEO of a shoe company may be a really nice guy, but he also allows his company to utilize sweat shops in third world countries.

Corporate influence spreads into many different sectors, including the media. Corporations pay for news stations with advertising time, and so television and radio news outlets rely on the advertising to continue their journalism. However, this allows the corporations to influence the broadcasters and producers of these stations. The film has an excellent example of this with the Monsanto Corporation and its artificial bovine growth hormone (BGH). FOX News hired two journalists to have their own segment where they were to do investigative reporting. Their first story was on the harmful effects of BGH. The story was all finished, and there was some very serious evidence that BGH had negative side effects on the cows, and was linked to increased cancer rates in humans. Monsanto heard of this story, and sent FOX threatening legal action if the episode aired. Not wanting to lose advertising money or to get involved with legal action, FOX shut down the show, after intimidating those journalists, and basically firing them because they refused to keep quiet about what they found out.

With corporations also come advertising, which creates artificial needs in our culture, and evolves constantly to get us to buy more things. This is what created our consumer culture, and it is being compounded every day by advertisements wherever there is space, from TV to newspapers, magazines, posters, and sides of buildings. There was one advertising expert in the film who said that it was interesting to find out new ways to get people to buy new products all the time, that it was a game. Not far behind corporations are the PR companies that create and reinvent images for companies constantly, as the one firm in the film did for Union Carbide after the Bhopal chemical disaster killed thousands of Indians. Large successful companies sell their images, their brand more so than they sell their products. People grow accustomed to this brand, and it is seen by many experts as a new form of imperialism, where instead of owning colonies and land, corporations own peoples’ minds and wallets.

The part of the film I found most compelling was the segment where various CEOs were interviewed on why they don’t make major changes to their corporations. Based on most of their answers, they seem to sincerely want to change the structure of their company, but are unable to be effective in doing this. This shows the difficulty in enacting change in the corporate structure. CEOs are often perceived as having ultimate power in a company, but they are more like highly visible pawns in the system.
 * What parts of the film did you find most persuasive and compelling? Why?**

I found the one CEO, Ray Anderson of Interface Carpeting, to be an incredibly interesting individual, as it seems he is sincerely concerned about the environment and what his company is doing to it, and he is also acting on his concerns by enacting change in his company.

The segment about the way Monsanto got FOX news to pull a scathing expose on the bovine growth hormone was also very interesting. Monsanto scared the FOX legal team into bulling the journalists who did the story on behalf of the company, so that FOX would look bad instead of Monsanto. It makes me wonder how much of the mainstream media is censored by corporations who have a stake in hiding the truth.

I was not very compelled by the inclusion of the psychopathic symptoms that corporations display, and the checklist for these symptoms. I understand the point that the film is trying to make is that corporations shouldn’t be considered people under the law, but the way in which the movie has an actual checklist of the symptoms was unnecessary and a bit cheesy. It is easy to see throughout the course of the film that corporations are far from moral or ethical entities; in that respect, the psychopath classification was a good organizational tool.
 * What parts of the film were you not compelled or convinced by? Why?**

The film is meant to address people already skeptical of our consumer culture, and the corporations that fuel it. The film contains great information on the reasons for why corporations are as powerful as they are today. It discusses and analyzes what makes corporations an inherent sustainability problem, which means it is also a good film for CEOs and people high up in a company to view. It would make them think about what goes on in their companies, and what can be improved from a humanistic and sustainable viewpoint. The segments with Ray Anderson, a CEO trying to make a difference, could serve as inspiration to them in enacting their own changes. The film portrays corporations as highly restrictive frameworks that CEOs get caught up in and have little control over the operations of these frameworks. To me, this seems like an accurate description in most cases, and is a view people skeptical of today’s corporate structure would most likely agree with. With the addition of showing this to CEOs and board members of corporations, maybe some of this framework could be reformed.
 * What audiences does the film best address? Why?**

The film mentions that corporations are now the dominant force in global politics and the global economy, but fails to elaborate on this. Statistical information, either spoken or represented graphically, on the imbalance of corporate economic power versus national power would have been a powerful addition to the message of the film. I know from my research into globalization that a Princeton study showed that in 2003, the annual profit of McDonald’s was $41 billion, while the GDP for Afghanistan in that year was only $21 billion. Information like that in the film would have fleshed out that argument in the film.
 * What could have been added to this film to enhance its environmental education value?**

With the final segment of the film citizens of a town hold a meeting where they discuss what they should do about the corporations in their town. It is this kind of municipal and personal cooperation and critical thinking that the film promotes, as another example from California shows. Citizens in this town banned the construction of any new fast food restaurants within the municipality limits. Despite the power corporations have, it is still within the legal powers of the US higher court system to revoke the charter of any corporation I violation of regulations and force them to sell off their assets. The film implies that one course of action would for the courts to use this power more often to punish regulatory violations by corporations of an environmental or public heath nature.
 * 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.**

Other points of intervention not mentioned in the film would by the support of small local businesses, as they are being hurt by corporations as well. Better education on our economic system and some of the problems with it should be included in our school curricula at the secondary level (middle school and high school). Also, utilizing your purchases to their fullest extent is another way to combat our culture of disposability. It could be as simple as wearing old clothes around the house to repurposing objects if they can no longer be used for their designed purpose.

From watching the movie, Ray Anderson struck me as an interesting person. From the film, it’s obvious that he sincerely wants to change corporate practices, and so I looked up some of his progress. There is a website dedicated to his speaking engagements and his sustainable message as a part of the website for his carpet company. He has a TED lecture as well, where he talks about sustainability and its necessity from a business standpoint.
 * What additional information has this film compelled you to seek out?**


 * References:**

Website on Ray Anderson’s Sustainability work: < [] >

Ray Anderson’s TED talk: < [] >