The Corporation is a 2003 Canadian documentary film, directed by Jennifer Abbot and Mark Achbar
and was written by Harold Crooks and Joel Bakan, which was released in theaters back in 2004 (Anon,
n.d.). The documentary tackles about the development of contemporary business corporation, mostly North
American corporations in the United States. Before, a corporation is just a relatively insignificant entity but
in today’s times, it is a pervasive presence and apparently, an invincible force in our lives and institution.
According to this timely film, CEOs, whistle-blowers, brokers, gurus, spies, players, pawns and pundits are
all part in revealing the corporation’s inner workings, history and controversial impacts. The interviewed
subjects were from ranges of industries such as oil, pharmaceutical, computer, tire, manufacturing, public
relations, branding, advertising and undercover marketing. There were some unsettling information such
as a corporation is considered as a person and not a thing according to the law ruled by the U.S. Supreme
Court. This will mean that under court ruling based from the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States
Constitution, corporations have the same rights of an individual in their society. Some of the major topics
discussed from the film are the “Business Plot” in 1993 which involves General Smedley Butler exposing
the alleged corporate plot against then U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt; the tragedy of commons; the
rise of military-industrial complex, economic externalization; general themes of corporate social
responsibility and many more. Through a series of interviews, the documentary examines certain corporate
business practices. Robert D. Hare, a psychology professor at University of British Columbia, compared
the profile of the contemporary profitable business corporation to that of a clinical psychopath. The
professor claimed that corporations are systematically compelled to behave with symptoms of psychopathy
which includes the callous disregard of feelings of others, incapacity to maintain human relationships and
experience guilt, deceitfulness, reckless disregard to the safety and welfare of others, and failure to conform
to social norms and the law. Some of the prominent corporate critics that were interviewed in the film were
Noam Chomsky, Charles Kernaghan, Naomi Klein, Michael Moore, Vandana Shiva, and Howard Zinn, as
well as other known figures from different companies (Ebert, 2004).
In the developing world, many development projects have come under criticism for damaging the
environment, even once they are presented as helping it. One of the main themes of the documentary is
the damage done to the environment by large business corporations. With commercial profitability being
their primary motive, many large corporations neglect to deal with the negative impact on the environment.
For instance, many paper mills within the U.S. A dump toxic effluents from their processing plants into the
nearby stream or river, causing irreparable damage to the local ecosystem and also increasing risk to
citizenry. Businesses that pollute the environment often hide what they're doing to avoid getting caught and
facing economic, legal, or social consequences. The sole witness could also be Earth itself, which
experiences the harmful impact of their invisible actions. For instance, as revealed during a recent report,
companies everywhere on the planet have for years been secretly burning toxic materials, like CO2, at
night. A corporation that must dump a toxic substance usually has three choices: eliminate it properly at a
secure facility, recycle and reuse it, or secretly dump it. There's little question that dumping is the easiest
and cheapest option for many businesses. As another example, approximately twenty-five million people
board cruise ships per annum, and as a result, cruise ships dump one billion gallons of sewage into the
oceans annually, usually in the dark so nobody sees or smells it. It takes a lengthy check out the
environmental damage that corporations have inflicted and still inflict. It blames the petrochemical era for
the large increase in cancer rates because they use hormone injections in cows to extend the assembly of
milk. (Anon, n.d.) The oceans face a growing threat from plastics. Consistent with the United Nations
Environment Programme (UNEP), the planet produces approximately 300 million tonnes of plastic waste
per annum, and most of this plastic finishes up within the world’s oceans. “Most plastic items never fully
disappear; they only get smaller and smaller,” the organization noted. Plastics break down into smaller
pieces that are eaten by fish and find yourself in our organic phenomenon. If current trends continue, the
ocean could contain more plastics than fish by 2050. The report found that big corporations like Coca-Cola,
Nestlé and PepsiCo are among the world’s most polluting brands. Coca Cola is the top global polluter with
a complete of 11,732 Coke branded plastics found in 37 countries across four continents. (Liyana, 2019).
Another example of environmental problems caused by multinational corporations, is the drive to extract oil
from Nigeria. Corporations have even backed the military to harass, even kill, local people that still protest
at the environmental and other problems the activities of the varied oil companies have caused. Some local
groups became extreme themselves, kidnapping foreigners for instance. (Shah, 2002)
References:
Anon, (n.d.). The Corporation. Retrieved from: https://www.thecorporation.com/film/about-film
Anon, (n.d.). Sustainability: Business, and therefore, the Environment. Retrieved
from:https://opentextbc.ca/businessethicsopenstax/chapter/sustainability-business-and-the-environment
Ebert, R. (2004, July 16). The Corporation movie review & summary. Retrieved from:
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-corporation-2004
Liyana,H. (2019). Big brands and plastic pollution. Retrieved from: https://theaseanpost.com/article/big-
brands-and-plastic-pollution
Shah, A. (2002). Corporations and therefore the Environment — Global Issues.Retrieved from:
https://www.globalissus.org/article/55/corporations-and-the-environment
