2nd Week: The Corporation movie Anlysis

WE HAVE CREATED A MONSTER!

The corporations is an awards winning Canadian documentary that talks, analyses and evaluates the evolution of The Corporation and evaluates its impacts in society.
The movie attributes the condition of The Modern Corporation as a dominant institution to the given status of legal person. Thanks to this legal decision Corporations have been gaining rights that where in the past rights only for human beings, for natural persons.
Following this idea the movie makes a challenging question that will resume the nature of this study; If corporations are legally human what kind of people are they?.
Using psychological criteria, such as the manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) the movie analyses the behavior of the corporation, it evaluates it, through various cases studies, like a specialist would analyze the mental health and conduct of a person.
The cases that are studied easily fill all the symptoms of a diagnosed psychopath that shows the corporation as a irresponsible, out of control, heartless, antisocial, dishonest, person with out any conscience at all. From this moment on the movie is an illustration of the corporation as a threat for our future and our society. In the end there are some solutions and some examples about what people should do to stop this destructive monster, this psychopath.
All thought the movie has good points, convincing arguments and “puts in evidence” some actions of the corporations that are some times forgotten or overlooked, it was also “hard to swallow” for me and not that quite convincing or revealing. And I think its more sensationalist than enlightening.
Unlike Frankenstein, The Corporation was built by men in a rational way; The Corporation was not a mistake, not an experiment. The rights the corporation obtained where given only by men, by the legal system that men created.
“The Corporation” is a person, is a legal person because our legal system defines it as one, but in fact is not a natural person; it’s a group of natural or juridical persons that have legal rights. Corporations can not be analyzed as a person, it has to be analyses as a business, as a business community.
Corporations are legal persons--they have legal rights and responsibilities and can sue and be sued… Corporations are artificial or nonnatural because they are the creations of the law.[1]

At the beginning of the movie Monks[2] says “A corporation is an externalizing machine in the same way that a shark is a killing machine. Each one is designed in a very efficient way, to accomplish particular objectives. In the achievement of those objectives, there isn’t any question of malevolence or of will, the enterprise has within it, and the shark has within it, those characteristics that enable it to do that for which it was designed” then again the one that design this machine, was men, and what are or witch are the characteristics that The Corporation has with in? Isn’t again man? Man are inside, within, the corporation and are the forces, the characteristics that control this externalizing machine, men are the ones that design these machine with some specific objectives, and they are not precisely the objectives of “The Corporation” they are the objectives of the men in the corporation.

It’s true that the organization has a personality, but this personality is created by the people within the Corporation. The Corporation does not have like any other person intelligence and a will, The Corporations acts are reduce to the decisions that are made by the stakeholders, the managers, and so on. The Corporations personality is only a reflection, a projected image of the people than manage it, control it and work inside it.
Why aren´t any strike toward the CEO of a corporation? Why, he is the one that controls the company. in order to continue this idea I have to clarify my self and say that I agree in this one with Gibara, when he says that it’s a thought decision for the CEO, the truth is its not only his decision, its also the stakeholders decision. As I said I agree with him in this part, but I don’t agree with Chomsky when he says that an individual is a monster in their institutional life because the company is a monster but in real life he is actually a caring person. What is he a moppet? So he is saying that he is not himself at work? That he is controlled by the monster where he works? Well excuse me, but I think that is a bunch of lies. If your mother and father died because of cigarettes, and you hate them would you work in a tobacco company? The CEO takes this decisions because he is incapable or he dose not what to argue about it. Maybe if we put some ethical guy that cares about the people we could make some change. Companies like Google Inc have shown that they do care about the society and the take good care of the employees in fact they have the 20/5 policy, if 20% of the users need a function they leave it and if 5% need it, they leave it in advanced functions, and in addition the company has the biggest corporative panel. So you see, the owners of this company are “good” people, so the company is a “good” legal person, a “good” corporation.
The corporation was created in the image and likeness of man, we are actually the Gods of the Modern Corporation, we are the creator, and we are inside our creation, witch we continuously modify towards our needs. And even if I force my self to see the corporation as a person then I would have to disagree again with Monk; The Corporation seen as a person it’s not different than us, it’s actually the same.

It is generally accepted that people help others because ultimately it benefits them in some way. Research has shown two main classes of egoistic behavior for helping: reward-seeking (such as gaining social approval and punishment-avoiding (we don’t want to feel guilty or generate negative feeling in others).[3]

Monks asks some questions while saying that the corporation is not like us, he asks; to whom do these companies owe loyalty? What does loyalty mean? And the answer to the first is simple, to them selves. They are as selfish as we are, as all man kind is. To answer the second I will base myself in the same argument that all persons are selfish, and I will first ask and answer this; when are men loyal, and in those moments, to whom are they loyal? Men are loyal when they need something and they are loyal to the person that helps them reach this goal. So, what does loyalty mean? It means you backing up some one no meter what in bad times as in good times, but then again for men is backing up some one as long as it benefits them.



[1] http://legaltheorylexicon.blogspot.com/2004/03/legal-theory-lexicon-027.html
[2] Robert Monks CEO LENS; Founder, Institutional Shareholder “Corporate governance is who is responsible for running the company, how do they function and to whom they are accountable."
[3] http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=0&did=1625861051&SrchMode=1&sid=3&Fmt=6&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1233511916&clientId=65927