Tell Me Something I Don't Know

By Bruce Campbell

The Corporation

Distributed by Zeitgeist Films

Produced/directed by Mark Achbar, Jennifer Abbott, Joel Bakan

Based on The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power by Joel Bakan

[For more info on the movie and the book on which it's based, including current info on screening locations and DVD orders: www.thecorporation.com .]

As a documentary film, it's a strongly worded argument against the status quo, laying bare corporate influence in the setting of domestic and foreign policy. And it's not Fahrenheit 9/11 .

It's the other activist movie this summer: The Corporation .

The film serves as a kind of protester's MBA course, limning out a brief history of business in America and the rise of the corporation. With archival footage from educational films, corporate promotional reels, old TV commercials, and some slapstick – all served with “Atomic Café”-style irreverence and occasional irrelevance – the filmmakers tell us that the corporation was created to have all of the legal rights and responsibilities of a person. But, of course, it's a person devoid of personal morality. Hammering home that point, a CIA expert on pathological personalities demonstrates how a corporation is really a sociopathic person by definition, complete with DSM-IV codes.

An impressive and diverse array of interviewees – the best part of the film – set out the terms of the now-historic critique. Some do it by conviction: economist Milton Friedman, author Noam Chomsky, management guru Peter Drucker, Michael Moore (he's everywhere!), and historian Howard Zinn are some of the greater lights. Others do it by negative example, such as a spokesperson for Disney-built Celebration, Florida; a vice president from Pfizer, the former chairman of Royal Dutch Shell, and an astonishing lady with an unfortunate permanent grin who justifies a marketing plan that encourages children to nag their parents to buy branded products.

The rest of the film lays out a number of gross corporate misdeeds, which the filmmakers see as the logical extension of decades of legislated amorality. One running story is that of Monsanto's launch of Posilac, its bovine growth hormone whose promise of greater yield was at the expense of healthy cows and increased amounts of pass-through antibiotics in humans and the environment. We learn about the struggle not only of the scientific community against the product, but also that of two investigative reporters on their first assignment for the Fox network, whose attempt to nail Monsanto in their story resulted in their dismissal. That episode, in turn, becomes a case study of Fox's own corporate behavior as the principals pursue legal action. The Fox and the Cow, complete with morals.

Beyond particulars, disturbing trends are noted. One of the most pungent, dealt with in only tantalizingly brief detail, is the scurry to patent as many human and animal genomes as quickly as possible. Little clarification is given of the science behind this business, making you want to see the Frontline episode on it or something, but if Jeremy Rifkin asserts on camera that it's a crisis, then we have to take his word for it.

The film correctly calls corporations to task, and the capitalist critique is fair. But beyond labeling the desire to make money, we don't get much insight into more complex factors that lie behind corporate decisions and actions. Most of the examples shown are already well-known to activists. . .

The film correctly calls corporations to task, and the capitalist critique is fair. But beyond labeling the desire to make money, we don't get much insight into more complex factors that lie behind corporate decisions and actions. Most of the examples shown are already well-known to activists, suggesting that the film isn't for them but for a new generation of consumers, who presumably watch TV all the time but wandered off during Martha Stewart, Enron, WorldCom, and other such reality shows. If that is indeed the case, this new audience deserves somewhat more than poisoning-the-well logic if they are to take significant action.

It's valuable to remind consumers that corporations have the capacity for wrongdoing, for disinterest in the public interest, or for outright evil. But caricature that, and you leave unanswered questions. For example, what is more difficult to discuss, and much more difficult to film, is the reality that corporations, though not actual persons, are comprised of people. If you're working to get a corporation to change its ways, what are you gonna do about all those people? Are they going to change? Another kind of issue: When accounting giant Andersen went down in flames, so did the productive contributions and even careers of thousands of people who were in fact committed to corporate rectitude and responsibility. Yes, many landed on their feet, but what did they learn was the reward for their ethical dedication? And are they now in any hurry to care as much, ever again?

The filmmakers' critique would be that corporations live and move and have their being irrespective of the actions or convictions of all but a few at the top. The film makes this point by depicting the Damascus Road experience of Ray Anderson, the C.E.O. of Interface, the Southern corporation that is the world's largest commercial carpet manufacturer. Ray was just another guy who didn't care, until he was confronted with questions he couldn't answer about the sustainability of his enterprise; and when he popped open a book about long-term environmental degradation, he got it. Now he's a disciple of corporate social responsibility and has set sustainability targets for Interface's processes and products.

[W]hat action do we suggest to the majority of viewers of this film who will not be C-suite executives, or know any, and have every reason to ask what they can do if, for reasons of their own, they prefer not to be gassed in protest marches in Cochabamba or Seattle in order to get executives' attention?

The film tells Anderson's story to point out that corporations need not be destroyed, can be reformed, and can still cut a profit. But C.E.O.-ism is only one way to understand the complex dynamics of corporate organisms. Once the C.E.O. starts setting the tone and the targets, things can often happen more quickly; now what action do we suggest to the majority of viewers of this film who will not be C-suite executives, or know any, and have every reason to ask what they can do if, for reasons of their own, they prefer not to be gassed in protest marches in Cochabamba or Seattle in order to get executives' attention?

Every year, right about now, one or two young women come to our door in the evening, asking us to sign a petition to eliminate one or another form of mass-generated power in the Hudson River valley. Last year it was nuclear; this year, hydroelectric. I take them very seriously, and ask lots of questions. But I quickly discover that, from one brief stint in the chemical industry myself, I usually know more than they do about emissions, testing protocols, public reportage, or pollution control. I hate doing it, but I always tell them that I cannot sign their sheets on the principle that I won't support bad science, even to do something I believe in. I can and do find other ways to keep the nuclear plant's owners on the hook. I just wish I didn't have to wade through vague proof and reasoning, however dedicated and earnest the presenter, to get to the things that we really can change, for the reasons that really matter.

It's probably an unfortunate trick of timing that this film would be released in the days of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and SEC crackdowns, when only people under a rock need to be told that corporations are sinners. What we needed more right now was a way forward – in fact, multiple ways. But perhaps pulling together a slice of neighbors or congregants who are all drawing corporate pay stubs, viewing the film together, then musing on just that question, will liberate some creativity and generate some real-world business solutions – one person at a time.

Bruce Campbell is a contributing editor to The Witness who frequently reviews popular culture and the media. He lives in Tarrytown, N.Y., and may be reached by email at bcliz@verizon.net .