Two fingers up from The Corporation

Last night, I watched The Corporation. This is a documentary film about what it calls, “The dominant institution of our time.” Comparing it to the dominant institutions of past times such as the Church and Communism, it argues that the Corporation, too, will fall from its position of power.

Well made and logically presented, if a bit long for a documentary, the film features interviews with CEOs, reporters, business and labour experts, and even Michael Moore when he’s not busy harassing Stupid White Men. However, it doesn’t stoop to Moore’s level of harassing people or trying to make them look ridiculous with slow motion shots of prominent members of society getting their makeup done before a live broadcast. That being said, the VP of Pfizer manages to make the company look pretty bad all on his own.

Starting with the legal arguments after the American Civil War that led to the Supreme Court recognizing the Corporation as a living person, we are then led through a series of arguments on how the corporation is, by its very nature (and is in fact required by law to be), driven solely by profit. The Corporation is presented as a separate (and maybe even inherently evil, though not malevolent) entity from the real people that fill its ranks. You can see real footage of the wife of Shell’s CEO handing out coffee to protesters in front of her house, and the massive and violent government response to the people’s unrest in Bolivia over the privatization of rainwater. There is a long section on a study of a particular pharmaceutical hormone administered to dairy cows. I, for one, was happy to learn that this drug was not legal in Canada. Personalities from Nobel-prize winning economist Milton Friedman to Kathy Lee Gifford make appearances. One of the best speakers is the CEO of the world’s largest carpet producing company, who confesses to some rather startling realizations in what he referred to as an “epiphany.” Michael Moore himself is even calm and makes more convincing arguments when he is sitting in front of the camera than when he is presenting his own one-sided productions.

I would rate The Corporation as one of the best investigative documentaries I have seen. The film is thought provoking, and leaves the viewer with a sense that he or she can actually do something to prevent the Armageddon that this crazy world is headed for. So if you can take a little over 2 hours of your time to learn a little bit more about the world around you, I would recommend checking out The Corporation. It has certainly made me think twice.

No advertising fee was paid by The Corporation or any of its subsidiaries for this review.