The Corporation is one of the most acclaimed documentaries released in the year 2003, and it was directed by Jennifer Abbott and Mark Achbar. The film was written by Joel Baken and goes to examine the scenario of modern day corporation and its responsibility towards both the society and the larger scenario (Lamb, 112). The film serves the role of a psychiatrist and what he or she does with a common person, and it is done through several specific examples in the process. In the film, the development of a business corporation is shown from a legal angle.
Initially it was originated as Government chartered institution and later changed to the new age commercial structures. One of the assessment themes is ‘personality’, which says that the corporations will have the same rights that a common human being has in the general legal structure. Mainly it focuses on the North American corporations, and mostly the corporations that are centered in the United States of America (Lamb, 112). In The Corporation, the directors have criticized the corporate business practices. It goes to show that the corporations are generally trying to behave with the basic symptoms of DSV-IV; that is they do have a geneal disregard for the general feelings of other peoples.
That ultimately leads to the incapability to have general human relationships among themselves. Along with that, in most cases these corporations do not have any regard for the safety of other people or they fail to understand any guilt or in most cases fail to respect the law.It dealt with the historical “Business Plot” (Lamb, 113) of 1933, when Smedley Butler, General exposed a corporate plot against the President of USA, different types of economic extremities, the alleged role played by IBM in the Nazi Holocaust, the protests in the year 2000 when Bolivian Government privatized the water supply to the Bechtel Corporation among other cases that have risen in the course of time. In dealing with these, other themes like the corporate social responsibility of any business corporation, and the corporation as a psychopath as well as a person have been discussed here. There are a number of interviews included in the film.
These interviews range from different thinking classes of the society. While we have the interview of Ray Anderson, the CEP of the famous Interface Carpet and Fabric Company, Milton Friedman, Peter Drucker, as the persons who advocates for free markets, as weell as the corporate critics like Michael Moore, Howard Zinn, Charles Kernghan and Vandana Shiva. Dr. Samuel Epstein, who was involved in the “Bovine Growth Hormone case in the lawsuit against the Monsanto Corporation” (Lamb, 113), had also given interview to the directors.
Max Weber once dealt with the idea of an organization as a psychopathic entity and it can be seen as a prominent theme in the case. Mostly, the film tries to stay in the favor of public ownership of the corporations and it can bring the basic evils of corporations as it has been depicted.The Corporation is a documentary to initiate thoughts in the viewer. Now, corporate culture is one of the most important cultures of the World. The ideas that have been discussed are really hard to implicate in today’s scenario.
But it is up to the corporate head bosses to decide the future. Most of the corporations are indulged in one or more problematic affairs and they should think about the problem from the point of view of the common people depending on them. That can surely give the corporation the idea of a common person. Only than the problems can be solved and general people as well the Government can be happy with the working of the corporations.
