The film doesn't go into depth on the legal arguments that established corporations as "persons under the law," but generally talks about how the ruling was based on applications of the 14th Amendment. So now corporations are "people," but they're people with infinite capacity to accumulate wealth, grow larger, and diversify. Looking at the legal basis and legal challenges to such a reading and its implications for the limits of the corporation would be enough material for a documentary alone. It might be a bit dry, but it would be of great interest to a niche audience.
Two parts really stuck out, and again, both could be their own documentaries:
- The corporate patenting of living organisms.
- Corporate collusion with totalitarian regimes and claims of ignorance as to working conditions.
Business ethics are a contradiction in terms for most multinationals, as they go from third world police state to third world police state in search of the cheapest possible labor. One interviewee, a representative of the Fraser Institute -- a "free market" think tank in Canada -- rhapsodizes on how wonderful it is that these corporations go into abject poverty and lift everyone around them out of poverty, then move on to the next impoverished nation where wages can be pushed even lower. It's so unbelievably naive that I think it must be an act. What does he think happens when the factory pulls up its roots in those communities they've supposedly lifted out of poverty? And can he really be serious in his contention that these corporations are somehow doing good by exploiting labor to maximize profits?
OK, I had a long diatribe about "free marketeers," but I don't want to head into the weekend on that note. Let's suffice to say that Marx's "Wage Labor and Capital" is a much more compelling analysis of what corporations are doing by jumping from country to country in search of cheaper labor: they're locating the subsistence level of the workers. In other words, they're identifying how little they can pay to allow the workforce to reproduce itself and nothing more. It has nothing to do with "lifting people out of poverty"; if they're lifted out then the wage is too high, and the corporation moves on and sets it lower.
Now I'm pissed off. I'm going to play some basketball.
9 comments:
The only thing worse than low wages is NO wages. Didn't Marx say something like that?
Anyway, you're correct that the business model's intention has nothing to do with "lifting people out of poverty". The intention has been the same for over 100 years: maximize profit. Change in poverty levels is of little concern to big business.
However, I think it's a simplification to say that, "the corporation moves on and sets it lower." Perhaps, but not always, and it's naive to say that ruin or desolation is left in the company's wake when it leaves. Often, something more is contributed to the economy when the company leaves---sometimes, something better, sometimes something worse.
I thought "The Corporation" was full of leftist platitudes and at times I felt embarassed for its producers. People in the so called 3rd World---at least the ones I've met---welcome multinational corporations and, really, ANY kind of business. Hell, in places like Cambodia, 10-years-olds are working their asses of selling cigarettes to tourists or some other drudgery. Not to say they should be employed in a factory, but I am saying that the old knee-jerk leftie arguments are moot when seriously discussing what's at the root of 3rd World poverty or how to alleviate it.
Like other discussions we've had, Mass, we probably agree on the fundamental issues, but get bogged down in the minutiae.
Have a good weekend.
LB
LB many good points. At times I thought the film was a bit too easy; that's why I thought it was powerful to allow the Fraser Institute guy to talk in that context and in my opinion look like a fool.
There is great poverty in the world and corporate investment under current conditions is not going to help anyone but the corporations (and corrupt officials), much like colonial rule brought great benefit to the colonizer but little benefit to the colonized.
I'm really interested actually in exploring how corporations are really the new form of power -- how the state is in retreat and structurally incapable of handling the challenges of multinational corporations
"... corporate investment under current conditions is not going to help anyone but the corporations (and corrupt officials), much like colonial rule brought great benefit to the colonizer but little benefit to the colonized." -This is an egregious oversimplification. But let's bring it out of the sky, and down to the real world.
1 - Cambodia: a country I've visited and have an ex-pat friend living and working there. The Hun Sen regime is one of the most corrupt in SE Asia. One part of that has to do with exploiting their own timber resources. The timber company is owned by the state of Cambodia. They log in illegal areas, brides paid, you name it---every form of corruption on record.
2 - McDonald's, the left's biggest whipping boy for the last 30 years, does not exist in Cambodia. but there's a horrible-tasting imitation called "BB World". Absolutely inedible. Bringing McDonald's to Cambodia would certainly improve their quality of life. Trust me, I've eaten at BB World and it's doing nothing but harm.
Often, in the real world, things are the exact OPPOSITE from what you're saying, while other times it's true. In the end, reality is far more complex than the rhetoric of the left or right would like it to be.
In general, corporate investment helps countries more than it hurts. In 2006, it's a very different world from the one Ghandi lived in.
Sorry, just bored at work on a Friday ...
Again, minutiae, minutiae. We're both on the same side of things in the end.
LB
For what it's worth, living organisms (except varieties of plants) are not patentable.
RCR, then the documentarians lied to me. Lied I tell you! They claim the "Harvard Mouse" is one such patented organism. But you're a lawyer and I'm not.
LB, I'm not suggesting that countries can't fuck themselves up without any help from outside countries. Look at the job we're doing in the USA...BUT I'm thinking that corporate colonization is really what we're seeing. I would have liked the documentary to go in deeper as to who actually benefits from the relationship (other than the corporation, because it's obvious they benefit).
Read The Company by Max Barry. Fairly new book and funny. Really rips into business with good satire and humor. Fast read too. My only critique is that once he's set the "tone" of the piece, it does tend to go on with more of the same. I could see this more as a novella or short story.
Ohh funny I have a glut of documentaries coming through netflix too... I have seen Control Room. Ghosts of Rwanda is next. I havent seen The Corporation yet so I have no comment about that. It is in my queue though.
Mass, sorry meant to come back to this. It's a semantic distinction: when they say the mouse is patented, they mean the method for producing the mouse is patented. The organisms themselves are not patentable, but the methods are - same for genomes and the like.
Thank you, RCR.
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