THE CORPORATION

Key concepts:

CAPITALISM: an economic, political and social system based on private ownership of property, business and industry, and directed towards making the greatest possible profits for successful organizations and people. Corporations grow in capitalist economies as they have their basis in private property, incomes, and reduction of costs.

PSYCOPATH:  this term is used for mental illness characterized by an abnormal lack of empathy with no moral conscience conduct and no guilt feeling. According to the Manual of Mental Disorders, corporations exhibit characteristics of psychopaths.

LEGAL INSTITUTION: corporations are legal institutions that can only consider the interests of their shareholders. As being legal, they are driven to care about the profit more than anything else. They became members of our society. Legal institutions have the capacity of borrow money, buy and sell properties, go to court, they are part of the social system.

EXTERNALITIES: make costs externally managed. According to Milton Friedman it is the effect of a transaction between two parties on a third party who is not involved in the transaction. In other words, let somebody else deal with the problems the corporation has. “Make other people pay the bills”

LIMITED LIABILITY: when an investment occurs, there are different degrees of responsibility taken by the investors. As “limited liability” is established, it means the investor does not have to suffer any consequence but the one of loosing the amount of money he or she has invested. Corporations give owners this “advantage”.

In this documentary, corporations are defined as legal entities and they meet the clinical definition of psychopathic behavior. Do you agree? Why or why not?

The documentary present proofs that some corporations don’t care about anything or anyone instead of their stockholders, they don’t care about the others, they believe in their permanent innocence, and they used externalities all the time. This brings awful consequences of the performance of corporations within a society. I believe documentaries like “The Corporation” are really important and useful because people need to know that things happened behind the curtain! With this kind of accusations, corporation managers can understand the need of changing to protect our home, the earth. Then they can contribute directly from their positions to improve the conditions of life of many people. When a corporation exhibits characteristics of a psychopath, I think this is misunderstood. The corporation itself is not the psychopath; the persons behind those harmful strategies are, so this is why I think managers play an important role in the process of changing.

I disagree in one specific point of the documentary; we can’t generalized when speaking of corporations. I perceived exaggeration from the documentary, because they used words like “monsters” including even the employees of and organization just for being part of it. I believe here in the world, we are more the good ones than the bad ones, and I believe in the existence of transparent institutions that make their things right so they don’t harm the society. Now-a-days their is an increment of environmental, poverty, work and life conditions, and dignity awareness.

·      Available 28 Feb 2011. Capitalism definition. http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/capitalism

·      Available 28 Feb 2011 FILM: http://www.thecorporation.com/