The Corporation (film)

The Corporation is a 2003 Canadian documentary film written by University of British Columbia law professor Joel Bakan, and directed by Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott. The documentary examines the modernday corporation. Bakan wrote the book, The Corporation The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power, during the filming of the documentary.

Topics addressed include the Business Plot, wherein in 1933, General Smedley Butler exposed an alleged corporate plot against then U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt the tragedy of the commons Dwight D. Eisenhowers warning people to beware of the rising militaryindustrial complex economic externalities suppression of an investigative news story about Bovine Growth Hormone on a Fox News Channel affiliate television station at the behest of Monsanto the invention of the soft drink Fanta by the CocaCola Company due to the trade embargo on Nazi Germany the alleged role of IBM in the Nazi holocaust see IBM and the Holocaust the Cochabamba protests of 2000 brought on by the privatization of a municipal water supply in Bolivia and in general themes of corporate social responsibility, the notion of limited liability, the corporation as a psychopath, and the corporate personhood debate.Through vignettes and interviews, The Corporation examines and criticizes corporate business practices. The films assessment is effected via the diagnostic criteria in the DSMIV Robert D. Hare, a University of British Columbia psychology professor and a consultant to the FBI, compares the profile of the contemporary profitable business corporation to that of a clinically diagnosed psychopath however, Hare has objected to the manner in which his views are portrayed in the film see Critical reception below. The Corporation attempts to compare the way corporations are systematically compelled to behave with what it claims are the DSMIV s symptoms of psychopathy, e.g., the callous disregard for the feelings of other people, the incapacity to maintain human relationships, the reckless disregard for the safety of others, the deceitfulness continual lying to deceive for profit, the incapacity to experience guilt, and the failure to conform to social norms and respect the law. However, the DSM has never included a psychopathy diagnosis, rather the DSMIV proposes antisocial personality disorder

Source: Wikipedia