think or thwim

This movie was released in 2003. I pointed to it when the producer released it for free through bittorrent in 2006, and now it’s available without downloading it.

When the corporation was invented in 1712 it was simply intended to be a group of people working together on a common goal for a short period of time. The lifespan of corporations was limited by law. After the Civil War the 14th amendment was passed to grant equal rights to former slaves. Corporate lawyers co opted the law and claimed that corporations deserved equal rights. In the first 20 years of the amendment’s existence, it resulted in 307 lawsuits being tried before the Supreme Court. 288 were brought by corporations. 19 were brought by black people.

It is also at Google Video.

Now corporations have essentially the same rights and protections that people have, but they don’t have the same responsibilities. Since they are not physical beings, they aren’t concerned about trashing the environment. They don’t get sick, and they don’t have to die. The lives of individual people are of no consequence. In the movie an FBI psychological consultant demonstrates that corporations meet the DSM-IV diagnosis for a psychopath. We’ve created a race of virtual monsters motivated by profits. Even the people running them are helpless when it comes to making moral decisions. If a CEO chooses what’s right over what’s profitable too often, he will be replaced by someone that will better protect the corporation’s/shareholders interests.

Economist Magazine reviewed the film when it came out. They point out that the psychopath idea is not new:

Although the movie makers claim ownership of the company-as-psychopath idea, it predates them by a century, and rightfully belongs, in its full form, to Max Weber, the German sociologist. For Weber, the key form of social organization defining the modern age was bureaucracy. Bureaucracies have flourished because their efficient and rational division and application of labor is powerful. But a cost attends this power. As cogs in a larger, purposeful machine, people become alienated from the traditional morals that guide human relationships as they pursue the goal of the collective organization.

Weber was talking specifically about the shortcomings of socialist governments, but I think you can say the same thing about our capitalist government in the US. Just like corporate CEOs, politicians who don’t play their role as a cog in the industrial-political complex have a short career.

:: Smashing Telly