The Corporation Documentary

What stood out most to you?

The Corporation is a 2003 documentary by Mark Achbar based on the book under the same

name by Joel Bakan. The most intriguing aspect of the documentary is the manner in which

corporations strayed away from their responsibility of social betterment. In the beginning, the

documentary illustrates that corporations started as elements to help the public and for the public

good. It further continues to discuss the corporations that were originally chartered with

stipulations that clearly layout to help avoid the injustices that are experienced today.

Intriguingly, the signing of the fourteenth amendment between 1890 and 1910 on the basis of

free slaves was the turning point for most corporations.

This amendment granted equal rights to people in terms of pursuits of happiness,

property, and capital. Rather than the amendment being used as a means to solidify the

objectives and purposes of corporations, corporations found a way to skew the amendment to

include all corporations as individuals. This way, the amendment allotted the rights granted to a

person to those of a corporation. In the corporation, a white CEO of a company says "No soul to

save, nobody to incarcerate." This statement illustrates the dangers in considering corporations as

individuals.

How did it make you feel?

In my view, granting corporations the same factor as an individual thing was the worst Supreme

Court decision because most of them started acting in a manner that they did not care for the

people or the environment, but just for themselves. This is evident in the psychological

assessment of the traits of a corporation since it is given the similar privileges and rights with

those of people. Being self-centered, most corporations are psychopathic in nature destroying the
environment and harming people. For example, the first segment of the documentary depicts

some of the corporate harms to workers in the form of layoffs, union busts, factory fires, and

sweatshops among others. It is saddening to see that most corporations pursue objectives that are

contrary to what they were intended to do, which is to provide a “public good.” In this sense, I

feel that the nature of corporations needs to be revisited and revised to correct the personification

element. Corporations need to be treated as entities and not as individuals.

What did you learn?

Despite the negative portrayal of corporations, they still have a constructive place in the modern

society. I have learned that there are many economic benefits that people could not be

experiencing today were it not for corporations. However, there is the need for people to rethink

what is happening within these corporations. They happen to be in control of the world today and

the influence spills over to governments, which are run by corporate influence. These corporate

influences are to an extent responsible for the decisions made regarding environmental laws and

legal reforms that tend to benefit the business community. This makes it more difficult for the

consumers to sue these corporations for the atrocities they cause to the environment and to other

human beings. From the documentary, it is evident that corporations disregard human health and

well-being and more horrible things that companies do to make ridiculous profits. With similar

rights with people, then they should be punished similarly with people who commit such offenses.