Topic and Issue
The Corporation is a documentary that aims to show the audience several sides of this organization. The viewpoints expressed in the mass media diverge significantly from the facts connected to corporate enterprises. Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott collaborated and produced the film based on Joel Bakan’s book The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power.
The Thesis Implied in the Movie
As the book’s title implies, corporate firms are frequently guilty of prioritizing their financial interests over those of others and the environment. The documentary’s collection of interviews, movie footage, and historical case studies effectively illustrate this theory. The documentary, broken up into three one-hour parts, successfully highlights to the audience the bad aspects of a commercial firm that frequently receive little attention in the media and public discourse.
The Reasons Used to Explain the Thesis
The destruction of the environment by big commercial firms is one of the main themes of the documentary movie. Many huge organizations fail to address the detrimental environmental influence since their main goal is economic profitability. For instance, many paper mills in the United States discharge hazardous waste from their processing facilities into a nearby stream or river, harming the ecosystem and raising danger to humans.
The tendency of multinationals to take advantage of inexpensive labor in Third World nations is another accusation thrown against them. The poor pay given to Nike employees in Indonesia, who receive less than 1% of the listed price of the products they produce, is a famous illustration of this.
The psychological evaluation of a corporation’s characteristics is another important topic discussed in the film because corporations now have the same legal rights and benefits as citizens. This psychological profile revealed something astonishing—namely, that the organization had psychopathic tendencies. This psychopathic mentality is by no means inherent; instead, it was created by corporate attorneys eager to please their clients and an unwise and unrestrained judicial system.
Evidence to Support the Reasons
The documentary offers enough proof from published records, firsthand testimonies of workers, and interviews with business executives, public intellectuals, and social activists. As a result, it can be said that the documentary did an excellent job of delivering its message impartially without sacrificing the truth and the evidence. Its main points and conclusions are both logically solid and convincing. The fact that experts from various sectors, including academia and industry, are interviewed strengthens the film’s credibility since the filmmakers would have been biased if they had not.
These problems have been brought up by activists including Noami Klien, Joel Bakan, and Noam Chomsky in speeches, interviews, and essays. These initiatives have increased public awareness of commercial firms’ “social responsibility” facets and raised public expectations. As the globe struggles through the most significant financial crisis since the Great Depression, this allegation is getting louder and louder.
Counterarguments the Film Director Addresses
Although companies’ primary goal is to increase profits, the director attempted to rebut this claim by arguing that they may still benefit society. In some interviews, senior executives sought to implement social responsibility and ongoing growth in their organizations, but they were unsuccessful (unlike the documentary’s primary responders). When he notes that he produces trenchantly anti-corporate movies sponsored and disseminated by the businesses he is criticizing, Michael Moore sums up the irony and contradiction of the movie (Achbar & Abbott, 2003). They finance even assaults on themselves because they know they can profit from it, a justification that is as perfectly consistent as it is ludicrous. Adopting techniques to enhance a product or service that would not affect the environment needs a significant amount of resources and finances; therefore, firms must focus their primary operations on increasing profits.
Reference
Achbar, M. & Abbott, J. (2003). The corporation. YouTube. Web.