[Corporations] FW: Corporations Need Treatment, Documentary Argues

[Mike Spears]

January 20, 2004 by the Inter Press Service

http://www.thecorporation.tv/

Corporations Need Treatment, Documentary Argues

by Stephen Leahy

TORONTO - Corporations are not only the most powerful institutions in the
world, they are also psychopathic, a new Canadian documentary on
globalization elegantly argues.

While the corporation has the rights and responsibilities of a legal
 person, its owners and shareholders are not liable for its actions.
Moreover, the film explains, a corporation's directors are legally required
to do what is best for the company, regardless of the harm created.

What kind of person would a corporation be? A clinical psychopath, answers
the documentary, which is now playing in four Canadian theatres.

Everything we do in the world is touched by corporations in some way, says
'The Corporation' writer Joel Bakan.

Six years ago he was researching a book on the subject and teamed up with
documentary makers Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott, and then set out to drum
up enough money to make the film and to do more than 40 interviews.

Corporations are the most dominant institutions on the planet today. We
thought it was worth taking a close look at what that means, Bakan told
IPS.

In law, today's corporations are treated like a person: they can buy and
sell property, have the right to free expression and most other rights that
individuals have.

This legal creativity came as a result of U.S. businesses using the
Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution -- designed to protect blacks
in the U.S. South after the Civil War -- to proclaim that corporations
should be treated as persons.

The filmmakers show four examples of corporations at work -- including
garment sweatshops in Honduras and Indonesia -- to demonstrate that this
legal person is inherently amoral, callous and deceitful.

The corporation, the film points out, ignores any social and legal standards
to get its way, and does not suffer from guilt while mimicking the human
qualities of empathy, caring and altruism.

A person with those character traits would be categorized as a psychopath,
based on diagnostic criteria from the World Health Organization (WHO),
points out the film.

Unlike 'Bowling for Columbine' -- to which it has been compared -- 'The
Corporation' ( http://www.thecorporation.tv/) does not follow a shambling
yet crusading interviewer (Michael Moore) into corporate head offices to ask
tough questions.

Instead the filmmakers use simple but beautifully lit head and shoulder
shots of its subjects against a black background. The interviewer is never
seen or heard; the corporate chiefs, professors and activists speak directly
to the viewer.

The technique is so compelling that not listening or turning away would seem
impolite.

The interviews are interspersed with archival footage from many sources,
including scenes from sweatshops and news conferences. It also includes some
ironic and darkly humorous excerpts from corporate ad campaigns and training
films from the 1940s and '50s.

But the film is not a rant. It gives ample time to corporate chief executive
officers (CEOs) and representatives of right-wing organizations, like
Canada's Fraser Institute.

Fraser's Michael Walker tells viewers that hungry people in the developing
world are better off when a sweatshop pays them 10 cents an hour to make
brand name goods that sell for hundreds of dollars.

And it is just good business sense that a corporation moves to seek out more
hungry people when its workers demand higher wages and better working
conditions, Walker argues.

Many others are less ruthless. Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, former chairman of
Royal Dutch Shell, is honestly concerned about protecting the environment.
Under his guidance, Shell adopted many green initiatives and a commitment to
developing renewable energy.

At the same time, Ken Saro Wiwa and eight other activists were hung in
Nigeria for protesting Shell Oil's pollution of the Niger Delta.

Social critic and linguist Noam Chomsky -- the subject of Achbar's 1992
award-winning 'Manufacturing Consent' -- carefully points out that people
who work for corporations, and even those who run them, are often very nice
people.

The same could have been said about many slave owners, he observes. The
institution -- not the people -- is the problem, Chomsky argues.

Eminent economist Milton Friedman sums up the role of the corporation
succinctly: it creates jobs and wealth but is inherently incapable of
dealing with the social consequences of its actions.

'The Corporation' documents a bewildering array of these consequences --
including the deaths of citizens who protest corporate ownership of their
water in Cochabamba, Bolivia -- that demonstrate the extent and power of
today's corporations.

It looks at the often-cozy relationships between corporations and fascist
regimes, such as that of IBM and Nazi leader Adolph Hitler.

It demonstrates the power of advertising to create desires for luxury items,
as well as how corporations can suppress information.

The documentary shows agribusiness corporation Monsanto successfully
preventing the news media from airing a story about the potential health
hazards of a genetically engineered drug given to many U.S. diary cows.

'The Corporation' also tells a number of success stories, including
activists' successful fight to overturn corporate patents on the neem tree
and basmati rice.

Bolivia's Oscar Olivera describes how citizens of Cochabamba city re-took
control of their water. The lesson, he explains, is the people's capacity
for reflection, rage and rebellion as an effective counter to corporate
globalization

That is one of the film's messages, says Bakan. We want people to
understand that they can change things.

Everyone keeps thanking us for making the film, says Mark Achbar, from the
Sundance festival of independent films in Utah state.

People are fed up with being talked down to and enjoy being intellectually
engaged, he adds, trying to explain the documentary's popularity and
several international festival awards.

Despite its current limited distribution in Canada, 'The Corporation' has
been sold as a three-part, one-hour TV series to international markets, and
Achbar is hoping it will be translated into Spanish.

Of course, there will not be a multi-million marketing campaign. The number
of people who will see it will depend on those who have, spreading the word.

That is just one way to take back the power that corporations have usurped.

) Copyright 2004 IPS - Inter Press Service

http://www.thecorporation.tv/



----------------------------------------------------------------------
All emails scanned for viruses using the Avast Email Antivirus system.