The Corporation is a documentary intended to shine light on the evil that corporations wreak on our society and the world at large. It’s a fascinating film, and seems to me to be well-done journalism. I haven’t double-checked all the facts, but it seems to be well-balanced in that spokespersons for corporations are given a chance to speak and be heard.
When I went to trucking school, I met a guy named Jared who told me about a very creepy experience with a corporation. There had been an accident at his job site. The company (owned by General Dynamics) had not bothered to get the safety equipment that they were supposed to. He went to the doctor. At some point later he called the doctor again to set up a new appointment. The receptionist said she had no record of him ever having been there. After a number of other peculiar occurrences, he started talking to some lawyers to see if he could sue the corporation. Every time he mentioned that the suit involved General Dynamics, the lawyers would back off. I have no idea if this is merely the product of a wild-eyed story teller or if it is the truth. But, if you had known the guy and heard him tell the story you might have a hard time disbelieving him. Now that I have seen The Corporation, I have to say the renewed sense of creepiness I have about some (not all, but some) corporate activities and modes of operation makes me lend just a little bit more credibility to what Jared told me.
Chapter 11 discusses corporations creating an illusion of need in order to sell their product, which does harm by distracting people from the more important things in life. This reminds me very much of the Buddhist philosophy that chasing after one’s needs creates misery; the way to defeat misery is to destroy desire. For the most part I agree with Buddha’s philosophy; though I don’t think we can get rid of all our desires. To be human means having desires. However, I think it’s bad idea to be a high maintenance type of person: if you have lots of needs and desires, your chances of being dissatisfied and miserable is much higher. Corporations cause unhappiness when they fool people into believing that they’re no good if they don’t own X, Y and Z. The solution to this is not to wipe out the corporations. As the saying goes, it’s easier to wear shoes than to pave the earth with leather; Likewise, it would be more prudent for you and I to learn to resist the illusions of commercial fairy tales than to tear down the corporations creating those illusions.
You can watch The Corporation on youtube for free or you can buy a 2-DVD set for only $5.20.
Unrelated Tidbit: In chapter 11 it’s said that the ‘Happy Birthday’ song is under copyright and owned by a corporation. I found a published paper decrying this claim as false, and a New York Times and LA Times article attesting its truth. Personally I’m inclined to think this is true. Weird, ain’t it?
