The Corporation

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One of the best documentaries I have ever seen, which is saying something as that is the only thing I watch really.

It details the many things wrong with corporations in a very palatable manner.

The equally good Wiki article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Corporation

Part 1/2:
[GVideo]http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3969792790081230711[/GVideo]
Part 2/2:
[GVideo]http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7365345393244917682[/GVideo]

The Corporation (the documentary) is pure unadulterated BS from the first minute. I could pick it apart line for line but that would take hours.

Im sure somebody else has... can you point me to it please?

EDIT: No really, I'm not trying to be an ass... I'm trying to find out if where I'm getting information is bad.

EDIT2: I can't seem to find one, I'm still looking though...

Still looking...

Edit: I have been able to only find one bad review, the economist...

I found a few so-so reviews

and a bunch of good reviews over at rotten tomatoes (which is an aggregator), so unless I'm missing something, it's generally thought of as a good documentary.

I think it was excellent.

Last edited by jijin on 02 Jun 2007, 9:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The corporation is actually one of my least favorite documentaries. Like Phssthpok stated, it is a lot of BS and one can pick it apart line by line but that would take too long and it would force me to watch it again. Really though, if you doubt my opinion on this matter then look through it and see how much real analysis is done by real experts, AKA economists, the people who spend their lives studying these things and how much analysis is done by "experts", the ideologues who do not have a solid background on these matters but still are put forward. If you'll note, economists are barely mentioned and usually only to define an idea and "experts" are used to make up the soul of this documentary. That alone is enough to question this documentary. It also misdefines economic terms such as the externality which is only a term used when a third party is harmed not a participating party as is seen in some of the cases, it is imbalanced in regarding the success of the systems we have in place, and of course, it really is not designed to show anything approaching a full picture.

In order to answer your question above, yes, the corporation as we know it is on average a good thing. It allows people to pool their capital in manners where they could not effectively do so before and because of that it is responsible for helping our economy grow and take advantage of opportunities, and reach economies of scale that a single operator could not likely do. That is not to laud it as perfect, but we are better with it than without it.

Its bad, because they have too much power and are actually considered persons. Corporations are quite evil and only there for pure profit.

Actually, the profit maximizing tendencies of corporations is typically somewhat good. If they did not watch the bottom line then they would not push so quickly for efficiency and we would have stagnation. Profit is not something separate from consumer desire, but rather it is a reflection of it as that which is most desired is most profitable as the most people buy it. The real issue is with information asymmetry which can be problematic.

Here is an article critical of it. link

Well, the other issue is not what the average person reviews it as but the person educated on economics. The heart and soul of this film is a matter of economics. My complaint on it is that it misrepresents itself, not that it was not well written to get emotional appeal, or to persuade: the things that the average person would pick up, but rather that I saw it as being invalid on a few issues. Like I said earlier, it is very telling when we have the real experts only defining terms and non-experts are getting the air-time in voicing actual opinions and giving reasoning.

and for the interest of profit they will undercut and make defective and possibly dangerous products. Corporations only have loyality to the execs and the share holders. Wait not even the share holders. What about tubby black. that arse.
Coporations are an evil, and must be stopped before they undermine our mixed economy and democracy.

Actually, for the interest of profit they won't. The reason being that defective and dangerous products will get them in major trouble with consumers. People were looking more closely at their spinach after the spinach scares and the mad cow crisis caused people to be more cautious with their beef. Heck, Heinz actually used to be known for soups and their claim to fame was having less botulism problems than their competitors as in that age, canning was problematic.

Corporations are a major cause for the modern successes of the economy. They are necessary to pool capital and use it effectively. It must be remembered that all organizations of the economy have had their flaws so with most claims of "evil corporations" it must be remembered that state organizations have failed as well.

The only reason that the soviet bloc fell was because of america using dirty tactics to cause its economy to implode. Socialist systems work well, when not having capitalists try to attack it. Rabidly of course.

It's called the cold war because both sides were trying to break the other.

HA HA HA HA!! !! Yes! The evil capitalists caused the soviet economy to misprice its goods! Oh yeah! The evil capitalists also caused incentive problems and forced them to push for bad goals too! The evil capitalists are also behind inflation and shortages in Venezuela and they are responsible for all evil in the world! Everything is due to the evil capitalists! Dude, that is pure BS there. The reason why the soviet system had problems was because they had no real pricing mechanism to keep things going and no reason to have any quality control. We did not attack them viciously enough to cause all of their problems, if that were so they would have probably nuked us because the problems that they were having were rather grand! The issue really comes down to a debate known as the Socialist Calculation Debate. Capitalism won, there were even socialists of the day such as Robert Heilbroner recognized the intellectual victory of capitalism. The soviet system cannot price goods, it is even beyond computers to deal with effectively due to the number of equations that must be simultaneously solved. Capitalism does reasonably well at this though.

Fine. I'll temporarily accept that, and I don't expect you to singlehandedly refute the whole thing. But give me a link that does it for you, it's a widely seen documentary, you would think it could grab the same heat that any of Micheal Moore's films have.


You miss the point, I think of much of the film is not about "is it good for the economy?". It's about "is it good for people?". In fact much of it is about labor conditions, pollution, sustainability, invasion of advertisements, etc.


So nobody has any say about the economy unless your classically trained in it?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality - Seems about right to me, there are both positive and negative. If you watch though and don't focus on the negative of the classic film (pie throwing) they showed while explaining it. (A throws pie at B, but hits C with pie. C then buys 2 pies from the store owner and goes off to throw one at both A and B.)

This shows both types of externalities. C getting hit with the pie; negative. But it also shows C buying two pies (which he would not have purchased otherwise) to throw at A&B; positive.


So in this argument it's either there is a corporation or a single person owned company? As well with this pool money thing... maybe I'm missing something, but what the heck is a bank? (Yes they did exist before the 14th amendment gave them personhood)

I'll agree, we wouldn't be were we are today, but who knows were we would actually be.

Please note I'm not against corporations. I am against corporate personhood, otherwise I feel that the natural course of human governance is anarcho-syndicalism. (but I'm not debating anarcho-syndicalism here so please don't tangent.)

Last edited by jijin on 02 Jun 2007, 10:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.

nevermind.... mis read something in that... I will read again when I have more time

Last edited by jijin on 02 Jun 2007, 10:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.