sol- Condensed from an apparent 33 hour initial cut, this Canadian documentary about the evolution of corporations in North America tends to ramble at times, but features lots of interesting information, even if one might be skeptical about some of it. The first stretch of the movie is the best as the filmmakers use a checklist of symptoms of psychopathic behaviour to conclude that a corporation operates like a psychopath, which is all the more fascinating when one considers legal precedents that allow corporations to have the rights of a human being, to sue others, buy investments and so forth. After this initial stretch, the film is a bit of a bumpy ride with far too much footage recycled from Michael Moore's 'The Big One' for its own good; Mikela Jay's cold and impersonal voice-over narration is a minus too. The majority of the archive footage here is very well used though, perfectly juxtaposed against dialogue and narration. There are some captivating interviews too, most notably with a Goodyear CEO who simply rules corporations off as an expected "consequence of modern capitalism". There is also an interesting stretch towards the end of the film dedicated to corporations manipulating kids due to their 'pester power' when it comes to pleading for their parents to buy certain items. In fact, the film flies by very quickly for a 2.5 hour documentary.

diomavro Its quite funny how many concepts are brought into this movie. From psychology of psychopaths to pricing everything to environmental recklessness to marketing manipulation. So many in fact that its impossible to properly explain to a layperson why some of these ideas might make sense in a single documentary. In fact this seems to be purposefully done to give a biased view of the world so as to create more radical nuts in the world. This review is mostly just a few things I specifically remember being misrepresented. If someone were to read some philosophy on moral dilemmas one would have an interesting framework with which to compare some of the points made in this film. Some of the famous moral dilemma's have to do with someone about to get run over by a train and the actor(you) have the option to save them by pulling a lever, which will kill someone else. There are then things that pile on top of this that I can't possibly explain in a review however the point is that most philosophers would agree that it would indeed be ideal if the person making these decisions were a cold calculating psychopath without much regard for human emotion, so just calling someone a psychopath is not an argument. It might indeed be best if the corporation looked only at profits, for instance if you have one good and two people, chances are by finding who is willing to pay more, you are also maximizing value for that good to society. There's a segment where they explain how a company studied how nagging affects sale and the documentary concluded that this is a horrible thing to do. Sure its terrible to manipulate children to nag more but the company did no such thing, it merely wanted to understand what is driving the demand for their products, maybe it can help them predict something in the future, nothing bad about that. There was a segment in which I thought the film would dig for interesting solutions when it started talking about externalities but it totally just used the concept to further manipulate the layman.There is such a thing as a positive externality and you can make the market have such a thing. For instance on pricing revolting transactions, watch Alvin Roth's Nobel prize speech, to see why putting a price on Kidneys could be a good thing. Its frustrating because the movie gives you some concepts unknown to the layman(except in its more intuitive form) yet fails to help him piece together how these things are combined into a wonderfully synergistic process. There was a short segment on how privatization is bad and public institutions are bad but ALL the MIT/Harvard economists/business people who talked in this movie would tell you that only under certain circumstances is making a good public a good idea, such as the fire brigade example. Its annoying because all this simultaneous cutting in interviews can lead you to think that credible people hold these opinions, because they were talking a few seconds earlier. I think its a good exercise to leave those who disagree to imagine industries which have thrived under privatization. There is honestly a lot of bad things going in the corporate world and some of the issues are mentioned here, maybe limited liability needs to be rethought, maybe patent law as well but advocating that people go out into the streets and "take action" without understanding the issues at hand is the reason why Democracy can fail. Micheal Moore is an idiot by any standard and sensationalism should not triumph over reason, having him be the role model of the story shows the ignorance of the maker of this film. I invite anyone who wants to know more about any of the issues raised to message me for studies/discussion.

david-sarkies The corporation itself is a dichotomy, namely because despite what is wrong with these entities (the film proves that they have all of the characteristics of a psychopath), these entities are responsible for the lifestyle that we currently have. To be honest, to remove the economic institutions and return to the era of the cottage industry and the local store owner is going to end up driving up prices and undermine our current lifestyles.That does not necessarily mean that it is good for us to live luxurious lifestyles that we are living in the west, particularly since our lifestyles are supported on the backs of slaves. While they may not be slaves in the literal sense, they are slaves in the economic sense, living on less that two dollars a day and working extra-ordinary hours in horrendous conditions. Despite the fact that many of the senior executives of these corporations (as well as the shareholders, which include any of us who have a pension fund) pretend that we don't know how these goods are being made, or the conditions that the workers are working in, in reality we wish to remain wilfully blind to the reality of what is going on.Granted, I may not own a car, and resist the temptation to buy things that are not needed, I still live a life of luxury, and the fact that I can jump on a plane and fly to Europe and back, is testament to that. There are people that I work with that to them such an adventure is little more than a pipe dream, and I am not even earning big bucks, however relatively speaking, because I have no dependants and no debt, I have a much higher disposable income than many other people that I work with, even those who hold higher positions than I do.There are a few things that come out of this movie that I wish to explore, and one of them is the corporation as the externalising machine. Externalising is the art of making something somebody else's problem, despite the fact that you are the cause of that problem. For example, when a corporation dumps all of its toxic waste into the river, and lets the government and the community deal with it, then it is externalising waste management. It is too expensive to actually deal with it properly, and the laws that prevent it from doing such things are weak, or even non-existent, that the most cost effective way to deal with waste is to externalise it.Labour is another thing that is externalised, and one way to do that is to contract out certain areas so that the corporation can cut back on labour costs and not have to feel responsible for how products are used. In fact, where in the past a corporation was defined by what it made and in turn sold, this is pretty much disappearing as we speak. Nike do not make shoes, they contract that out to some sweatshop in Indonesia which is not even owned by them. Instead, they buy the shoes, and then sell the shoes, either direct to the consumer or through an intermediary. As such Nike is no longer a manufacturer of shoes, they are simply a brand that makes money by being a middle man. However, it is not even that by contracting labour to the sweatshops that the product becomes cheaper. The price of the product actually stays the same, it is just the profit that the corporation makes increases (and even then there is no guarantee that the shareholders will ever see any of that profit. Instead they will keep the profits, which no doubt will result in an increased share price, and even then the shareholder must know when to sell (which is nigh impossible) to maximise their investment.What we need is not to get rid of the corporations, because at heart we need them to be able to maintain our extravagant lifestyles. However, what we do need is a paradigm shift, within ourselves and within our society. We have to begin to learn to be content with less. The Socialists are right when they say that even if we live in a country like Australia, we must still remain vigilant less the freedoms and the laws that we have here are undermined by corporate greed. However, how many of us live in houses with electricity, and how many of us watch television. Can we go without our laptops or our mobile devices, because it is our desire for these things that keep the corporations in control. Granted they make our lives easier, but at what cost? Even if climate change is not a man made phenomena, the pollution that is spewed into the air, and the toxins that are pumped into our water supply are having a significant impact upon the world in which we live, and to be honest with you, it is unsustainable.We may wonder if there has ever been a similar period in history like our own, and my answer is that on one hand there hasn't been one, but in another there has. The period I point to is that of the mid to later Roman Empire, where people were living such luxurious lives that they blinded themselves to the ecological destruction that they were causing. It is not simply that either, because inflation was running rampant, and while the rich were getting richer, the basic necessities of life were unreachable by the masses. Rome ended up collapsing, and with it creating a dark age of epic proportions, and that is something that even now we are also looking at.

ERJD60657 As you can read from the other posts, most viewers will fall into one of two camps. Either they are business sensitive and thus are repulsed by the slant of the documentary/propaganda, or they are frustrated by the sense of lack of control over the undesired consequences of some business activity and thus cheer the big business-bashing. But what can centrists get out of the film, and can a productive message be derived from this stylish, intensive work of art with its overly ambitious agenda and misguided message? First, be forewarned that the filmmakers at numerous instances were either naively uninformed or willfully attempting to deceive their audience. Unless you are knowledgeable of terms such as deregulation, public-private partnerships, corporate and other business entities, privatization and above all, externalities, this film will try to force-feed you a limited, self-serving definition.Second, the film is spread too thin. It tries to cover monopolies, sustainability, child labor laws, consumer protection, racism and military collateral damage, to name just a few subjects, in only the first twenty minutes! Each a fascinating subject worthy of discussion, but more focus would have produced a higher quality documentary and not left it feeling more like a slick rally cry for the left.Third, the film is misnamed. It is primarily about activities of big business (which essentially means publicly-traded corporations, but not necessarily). The film does not explain what a corporation is and makes only a superficial effort to describe how it developed historically.High points. Raising issues, such as 1) are fines large enough to deter undesirable consequences, thus insuring long-term balance in the drive to raise quality of life?, 2) are virgin materials priced correctly to insure sustainability?, and 3) how do companies market products subliminally (the "nagging" angle)?; Noam Chomsky, who although described by some as the ultimate leftist, is always lucid, intelligent, and not necessarily political; and the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, who must have a soft spot for the producers.Low points. The "boxes" ('layoffs', 'union busting', "sweatshops'); the psychopath analogy; the overseas sweatshops; the Bolivian water episode; US businesses in Nazi Germany; the glorification of ignorance (the WTO protests); and Michael Moore. Although I personally find Mr. Moore's films entertaining and thought-provoking on public policy issues, he is simply out of his league when it comes to economics. He appears awkward and is utterly dead wrong in a number of his statements.This film could have been about raising the standard of living by generating enthusiasm at a grass-roots level for better government with which to manage the externalities generated by prosperous business. In that way, it would have still become a "message" film, as it had intended, but in a more productive, realistic and honest fashion. Instead, it spits on the word "externality" and launches a frontal attack on the principal means of producing goods and services. Nonetheless, I give it some credit for looking good and titillating the senses.