The Corporation

Has anyone seen this movie?

Synopsis on official site: _http://www.thecorporation.com/index.cfm?page_id=312

A LEGAL "PERSON"

In the mid-1800s the corporation emerged as a legal "person." Imbued with a "personality" of pure self-interest, the next 100 years saw the corporation's rise to dominance. The corporation created unprecedented wealth but at what cost? The remorseless rationale of "externalities" (as Milton Friedman explains, the unintended consequences of a transaction between two parties on a third) is responsible for countless cases of illness, death, poverty, pollution, exploitation and lies.
THE PATHOLOGY OF COMMERCE: CASE HISTORIES

To assess the "personality" of the corporate "person," a checklist is employed, using diagnostic criteria of the World Health Organization and the standard diagnostic tool of psychiatrists and psychologists. The operational principles of the corporation give it a highly anti-social "personality": it is self-interested, inherently amoral, callous and deceitful; it breaches social and legal standards to get its way; it does not suffer from guilt, yet it can mimic the human qualities of empathy, caring and altruism. Four case studies, drawn from a universe of corporate activity, clearly demonstrate harm to workers, human health, animals and the biosphere. Concluding this point-by-point analysis, a disturbing diagnosis is delivered: the institutional embodiment of laissez-faire capitalism fully meets the diagnostic criteria of a "psychopath."

[...]
PLANET INC.

You'd think that things like disasters, or the purity of childhood, or even milk, let alone water or air, would be sacred. But no. Corporations have no built-in limits on what, who, or how much they can exploit for profit. In the fifteenth century, the enclosure movement began to put fences around public grazing lands so that they might be privately owned and exploited. Today, every molecule on the planet is up for grabs. In a bid to own it all, corporations are patenting animals, plants, even your DNA.

Around things too precious, vulnerable, sacred or important to the public interest, governments have, in the past, drawn protective boundaries against corporate exploitation. Today, governments are inviting corporations into domains from which they were previously barred.

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I haven't seen it, but it sounds interesting. Some potential problems - to take attention away from governments as the poor "victims" of corporations, and from people who are the ones who create and constitute those corporations. After all, any corporation or group/project is only as psychopathic as the people that run it. So it could potentially be a vacuum-cleaner movie, avoiding the inevitable logical conclusions, or it could be pretty good, I dunno. Anyone seen it?

Robert Hare is interviewed in this film. In his and Paul Babiak's book "Snakes in Suits" he points out that they misrepresented his view on the subject matter. Hare says that, just as with humans, it is possible that only SOME corporations are psychopathic. He does not think they are psychopathic by definition. Similarly, he and Babiak estimate, based on studies they have read/done, that about 3-5% (figure recalled by memory, could be off) of managers are psychopathic, a much larger figure than the 1% of the general population that is psychopathic.

It's not bad, a good one to show to your friends and family who still believe in the inherent good in humanity.

Absolutely.
I think it's a way to introduce psychopathy to people who might not be aware of it.
In any case it's an interesting movie to start a conversation in this direction.

hkoehli said:

He does not think they are psychopathic by definition. Similarly, he and Babiak estimate, based on studies they have read/done, that about 3-5% (figure recalled by memory, could be off) of managers are psychopathic, a much larger figure than the 1% of the general population that is psychopathic.

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As I see it, only top companies then should be the most psychopathic as they would have done everything possible to be at the top. right ?

If companies aren't psychopathic in the beginning, I think that once they become successful enough, they will attract more psychopathic individuals and they will take over.
The pattern is always the same at every level.

Tigersoap said:

As I see it, only top companies then should be the most psychopathic as they would have done everything possible to be at the top. right ?

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Not necessarily. I think it's important to distinguish, first of all, between "psychopathic" behaviour and behaviour by normal people that we deem to be "immoral". Also, and related, is the hysteroidal cycle. As people acquire more "stuff" and a better way of life, it is necessarily due to the exploitation of those less fortunate. As such, normal people will repress this inconvenient information from the consciousness.

So in business we may see normal human hypocrisy and "immorality", that is, repressing from consciousness any data that shows they are actively exploiting others. You could call this "psychpathological", but not necessarily "psychopathic".

So many businesses are founded on "good business", that is, making as much money as possible and ignoring the inconvenient details of such a rise. Psychopaths do not "repress" their exploitation of others, they make their lives' work out of it and revel in it.

If companies aren't psychopathic in the beginning, I think that once they become successful enough, they will attract more psychopathic individuals and they will take over.
The pattern is always the same at every level.

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I think this is another misconception. I doubt it is possible for a company to be "psychopathic from the beginning". If you read Babiak and Hare's "Snakes in Suits", you'll see that psychopaths are not very good at creating real businesses or companies, or even doing any real work in them. The only thing they are good at is infiltrating companies. The use the inadequate system against itself. Some of the factors that make this easy for them: secrecy (this allows them to avoid getting caught in their lies and manipulations with different people in the same company), the hedonistic worldview inherent in capitalistic corporations (they end up seeming like really good businessmen), bureaucracy (they can fake documents easily), etc.

When a psychopath gains influence in a company, the company does not benefit. In fact, it loses money, morale goes down, people quit, and it may eventually end in catastrophe, a la Enron. Psychopaths are only able to function because normal people are the ones that have created the companies and run them in the first place. But because of their ignorance of psychological realities, normal people have created a workplace that gives psychopaths an easy way to get ahead.

beau said:

It's not bad, a good one to show to your friends and family who still believe in the inherent good in humanity.

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Don't you think there is inherent good in humanity? The idea that we're not seems to me a ponerized concept. Perhaps a better way to phrase it is that not all those who appear as people are inherently good. It seems to me that most of those who care and pay attention to what's going on in the world have the notion that the world is the way it is because humanity is inherently evil, and without the knowledge of ponerology I can see why they think this. And then there's those who think everything is rosy... :O

hkoehi said:

So in business we may see normal human hypocrisy and "immorality", that is, repressing from consciousness any data that shows they are actively exploiting others. You could call this "psychpathological", but not necessarily "psychopathic".

So many businesses are founded on "good business", that is, making as much money as possible and ignoring the inconvenient details of such a rise. Psychopaths do not "repress" their exploitation of others, they make their lives' work out of it and revel in it.
(...)
I doubt it is possible for a company to be "psychopathic from the beginning". If you read Babiak and Hare's "Snakes in Suits", you'll see that psychopaths are not very good at creating real businesses or companies, or even doing any real work in them.

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I found this useful. I had a minor disagreement with Hare in his stating how a corporation isn't necessarily psychopathic and that such a low percentage is truly psychopathic as I had considered the model of a corporation as a ponerizing agent which doesn't need a psychopath within to achieve such an effect. However, 'psychopathological' seems better suited, and then it is still not in all cases. I think I was skipping over some logic as all ponerizing agents are not essentially psychopathic and the initial and effective ones closer to humanity are certainly not. I think remnants of the distaste I experienced during my business schooling had taken over.

Thanks a lot Hkoehli, now I understand :)

I liked it a lot and thought it made its points well. It is a very easy point of introduction to harsh realities for some people who have the "but they wouldn't do that" attitude, because there's no heavy science, metaphysics, or anything else in it to "turn them off" the process of understanding the self-serving nature of corporations.

I particularly remember the point that corporations will routinely break the law if it makes business sense for them to do so. Whether or not to obey the law (which is supposed to have some moral connotation) is simply a business decision to them. I'm reminded of it because of the current US illegal immigration issue and the fact that corporations ignore the law against hiring illegals, because it is profitable, and the gov't won't prosecute the corporations because they are owned by them.

AdPop said:

I'm reminded of it because of the current US illegal immigration issue and the fact that corporations ignore the law against hiring illegals, because it is profitable, and the gov't won't prosecute the corporations because they are owned by them.

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And on the same note, how companies place job ads specifically to turn off American applicants, so that they can claim that nobody applied and therefore it was necessary to hire (cheap!) immigrants.

_http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17909.htm

Not illegal, just using dirty tricks and loopholes to still get what they want, without having to technically break laws.

I mean, here they are begging to have the restrictions officially/legally be lowered. And we know what psychopaths do when they don't get their way. Anything and everything to get their way anyway.

Shane said:

[
Don't you think there is inherent good in humanity? The idea that we're not seems to me a ponerized concept. Perhaps a better way to phrase it is that not all those who appear as people are inherently good. It seems to me that most of those who care and pay attention to what's going on in the world have the notion that the world is the way it is because humanity is inherently evil, and without the knowledge of ponerology I can see why they think this. And then there's those who think everything is rosy... :O

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Yes, that was essentially my point. I probably could have phrased it better. Although, I did not specifically state that their is no good in humanity, just that many people are naive about the amount of evil in this world, and that this movie can help disabuse one of the particular notion that most people are like them.

i have seen 'The Corporation' too and can recommend it.

it had some weaknesses but nothing major - i agree with what was said here, that it is a good conversation starter for the topic 'psychopathy' and also an eye-opener for people who blindly trust large corporations.

AdPop said:

I particularly remember the point that corporations will routinely break the law if it makes business sense for them to do so. Whether or not to obey the law (which is supposed to have some moral connotation) is simply a business decision to them.

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This reminds me of a boss I worked for some 10 years ago. At the time the employees were getting quite passionate about total quality management and how the company needed to embrace it. His attitude was that unless it demonstrably increased profitability there was no way the company would even consider doing it. So what if it improved the customer experience, so what if it meant fewer errors and faults, unless that turned into increased profit we would not be doing it. What we ended up doing instead was getting an ISO 9000 quality certification.

The laughable thing about the ISO qualifications is that they have nothing to do with quality as such - they are totally focused on repeatable processes. Did not matter if the process was crap and did not work properly, the ISO standard was about fully documenting the method by which it was done so that everybody would do it the same way and getting the same result - be that a good or a bad one.

Also reminded me of a car company that I worked for. QCS (Quality Control Service) was the banner this whole thing ran under. It had much to do with service (selling more things to the customer than was needed) and very little to do with quality, since the “quality” side of it consisted of the very same components, parts and installations.

The meetings, the incentives were given to the “front” of the house people, those who saw the customers. But never involved the mechanics who actually installed the parts. In other words, nothing changed back of the house, it was a huge sales motivation to make more money and sell more maintenance agreements.

This company also got kickbacks from the health insurance company that they had at the time. For each employee that gave blood, or got a flu shot (given in the conference room), the company got a $5 kickback. I was pressured more than once to give blood, (something I am unable to do), and get flu shots every year, (something I NEVER do.) When it became apparent that I was not going to “cooperate” with this, the GM sent the managers to talk to me, various days, various times, to find out why.

Eventually I came to think of this company as a money-grabbing troll who cared little about customers if they couldn’t make a buck from them, and even less about their employees. Why would you pressure someone to do something to their body that they simply do not do? I refuse to even buy, or rent, one of their cars to this day.

Hint: If Found On Road Dead, leave it there.

Peg

[edited] This company never seemed to notice that everyone that got a flu shot, eventually got sick within two weeks with the flu. Often I was left to do three jobs because people were out sick.

I sympathize with you MR, about Quality Control. It is a joke from what I experienced
over the years. QC is always given a bum rap, given very little resources
or time, and products *has* to be bum rushed out the door because it translate
to money, money, money. I have seen QC people walking around almost like
zombies because of the stress and eventually the stress 'gets to them' and turns
them into such. I am not saying that QC is not needed, not at all. It surely is,
but most of the people who are given these sort of jobs are NOT at the expert
level, are lower paid positions (compared to the engineer/designer/architect)
and often times, are always one step (or more) behind (the level of the engineer)
so you can imagine the pressure brought to bear on QC people with inadequate
resources to get the job done properly so that a good product is given to the
customer.

I don't know about you, but have you ever been able to return and get repaired a
electronics product made by a manufacturer after the warrantee expires? Did you know
there are NO repairs done on their products, especially products under the $150 range?
There are exceptions such as TV's and VCRs MAYBE (depending on brand).

I have looked at many electronic products and often times find "patches" and "modifications"
on some of their circuit boards and sometimes it looked like someone threw up on it.

We have become a 'get screwed and throw-away' society simply because there are no
longer 'high quality products that last "years"' (except maybe your VCR/TV) but product
lifetimes have gotten worse and worse, especially the cheap brand names.

As for flashgordonv's comment, this is absolutely correct. ISO certification is a paper trail,
documenting process, and in most cases has NOTHING to do with quality or specifications
of a PRODUCT rather it is more concerned of the quality of ORANIZATION / DOCUMENTATION
but the odd thing is, even it the process is of documenting, you can document anything you want,
anything at all, since there is no standard specification model say, "software" or "hardware"
engineering procedures, and also since no two companies are exactly alike because people
themselves have different ideas or "uniqueness" as to their own interpretation as to what the
ISO standards means to THEM. As for corporations, getting a "certificate" means they get "bragging
rights". Just like computer manufacturers with labels affixed to their boxes that has "Intel Inside",
or "Certified for Micro$oft ABC", ISO9000, and so on so perhaps the ignorant customer thinks: "ooooh,
ahhh! Must be high quality product!" and so on.

Well, I guess the adage: "You get what you pay for it", may no longer apply because there is no
guarantee that a "high end" product has a "long lasting high quality factor" anymore.

OSIT

I have just seen the Corporation and I agree with the comments presented here. It was quite a good film.

I just wanted to add that it can now be seen legally online on youTube at the following link (it is the official 'shareware' version with reminders to buy/donate at the end of each chapter):
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=FA50FBC214A6CE87