The Corporation, or how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb

With all due respect to the late Mr. Kubrick and the immortal Dr. Strangelove.

i watched the movie, the corporation (twice) last weekend and i gotta hand it to the people who made it: very good job indeed. and so as not to look too random i'll explain the association i made to strangelove above--the military/industrial complex is ever present and keeps the gears moving whether you like it or not.

the problem with the movie, as is the problem with corporations and my worldview, is that there are so so many problems that it gets to seem overwhelming in the end. the problem is focus. much as i would like to save the world, where do i start? if i work the environment angle, the human rights issues are still there. if i work the human rights angle, there's still the question of manipulative advertising and its effect on the young and naive. and so on.

the big bitch of it all is that corporations usurped human rights from the 14th amendment, the stated aim of which was helping the freed slaves. but corporations got human rights thanks to some dirty deals and probably one or two corrupt judges... rights afforded to humans, but with limited liability and no pesky conscience to deal with. in fact, one thing that the movie glossed over that i had to research for myself was the fact that the bottom line for the corporation is money above all else. i mean, i knew it to be true, but it was stated so matter of factly in the movie that i was left wanting to know "why?"

the why is this: Dodge v. Ford Motor Company. ironic name, i know, but here's the thing that bugs me. henry ford noticed that he was making incredible profits, and as ceo he decided to use some of that extra capital for altruistic, philanthropic purposes. he thought it'd be nice to drop the price of cars while employing more people. what a novel idea, to use a corporation to benefit the people.

but the shareholders didn't like it. mr. ford was going all "robin hood" on the people who owned his company, and that just wouldn't do.

in the 1919 case, the court told ford, effectively, "to hell with the public good"... in capitalism your job is to serve your shareholders. and you aren't serving them by giving them the warm and fuzzy feeling that they are helping people. the way you serve them is by turning their dollars into more dollars. and that case was applied to all corporations for the last (almost) 90 years.

and, you know, the implications are great.

sweatshops help the bottom line, outsourcing helps the bottom line, and polluting the environment is generally cheaper than not (er, financially, not philosophically). simple economics tells you that if it's cheaper to go to court than to pay your employees' pension, you should probably cut them off and let them bring suit (if they can afford it).

there are examples of good guys in the movie, and i'm sure there are more than they showed. but for every interface there's a thousand philip morrises. and sure, philip morris is working on helping smokers quit, or some other such bullshit line they try to feed us, but they make it too easy to question their real motives. they're helping smokers quit because it's good pr, not because they sell an addictive product loaded with carcinogens in a handy flip-top box. how. sick.

and much like the movie, i'm finding it hard to keep my focus here. because this is bigger than me, and i want to do something, and i'm not really sure where to start. well, i suppose thinking about it and talking about it is a good place to start. step two is cutting myself from the wage-slave mentality. just following orders was not good enough for the nazis, so how can i justify that it's good enough for me. if i'm not working on the solution, i'm part of the problem, and that's a fact.

unfortunately, i still do need a paycheck. but it's high time i get my heart and work more aligned.

my mission, should i choose to accept it, and all that...