As far as the company is concerned, this is an era of lies, deceit and interests. "Corporation is created by law to function like a psychopathic personality."
This book was written during the production of the documentary with the same name. The author, Joel Bakan, is a Canadian law professor and jurist.
(1) Corporations are required by law to elevate their own interests above those of others, making them prone to prey upon and exploit others without regard for legal rules or moral limits.
Corporate social responsibility, though sometimes yielding positive results, most often serves to mask the corporation's true character, not to change it.
(2) The corporation's unbridled self interest victimizes individuals, the environment, and even shareholders, and can cause corporations to self-destruct, as recent Wall Street scandals reveal.
(3) Despite its flawed character, governments have freed the corporation from legal constraints through deregulation, and granted it ever greater power over society through privatization.
As Winner of 24 INTERNATIONAL AWARDS, 10 of them AUDIENCE CHOICE AWARDS including the AUDIENCE AWARD for DOCUMENTARY in WORLD CINEMA at the 2004 SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL. The dvd "The Corporation" published in 2004, ecstatic.
The film lasted 145 minutes and interviewed 40 people from all walks of life. Companies, media, academia, psychologists, historians, etc., including Peter Drucker (worship), Milton Friedman (worship again), Michael Moore (the man who became famous for Fahrenheit 9/11).
(1) Not a few Bad Apples.
Following Enron, WorldCom, all those mis-conducting firms are not a few bad apples. Problems fall into essence of Corporation.
(2) Origin of "legal personality"
The most important feature of the company system is Limited Liability. On the day Charter was announced, the company existed and acted independently as a "legal person." However, such "persons" only take profit as their ultimate goal, which will inevitably lead to the problems of responsibilities and obligations to stakeholders and to society. The company became a "Pathological Person".
However, ironically, after the company went public, the interests of the company (managers) and the shareholders (owner) conflicted, and the owner could not really own the company. Cause a series of so-called Corporate Governance problems. Enron, AA are all ruined on this issue.
(3) What have they done?
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(4) What can we do?
Reminiscent of Li Ao's speech at Peking University, "Bumped, ran away, persuaded" is quite interesting. Of course, the company is not as mandatory as the government, but the company's penetration of society and life has nowhere to hide. And in many cases, consumers are faced with collusion between the company and the government.
Cochabamba wants to privatize the water supply system, directly resulting in a quarter of the income per capita being used to buy domestic water. The masses organized large-scale demonstrations. During the government's suppression, one person died and numerous wounds were made. In the end, the privatization of water supply was abandoned, and the people won.
Michael Moore proclaimed himself an anti-capitalist fighter. He made a metaphor in the film. What he did was anti-corporation, but the corporations allowed or even supported him for profit because of the needs of the people. This is equivalent to "give me a rope and let me strangle him."
(5) "Strangle" them, what shall we eat?
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