The Corporation – An Introduction to the Film

corporation

"My message to you today is that the first industrial revolution is flawed and is not working. We must move on to another and better industrial revolution."

"Our company's technology, and that of every other company that I know of anywhere in its present form, is plundering the Earth.

CEO Ray Anderson

 

We are just now entering a political/ecological perfect storm. Geological events comparable to the great extinctions of the past are already unfolding. Even if we manage to avoid nuclear war, political, and economic events that are destroying community and radically altering the ecological balance of the natural order are already bringing untold hardship to millions of people. It will get worse. It is no longer a question of whether we can avoid a perfect storm – only whether we will be able as a species to survive it.

Several factors are converging to create this storm:

  • The domination of the world by unregulated multinational capitalist corporations, whose only bottom line is greed.

  • A commitment to growth by all the major economies on the earth at a time when our species has already exceeded the carrying capacity of an environment that can no longer tolerate our wastes.

  • The almost magical belief in a technological fix.

  • The insistence of the United States to cling to it's economic and military empire at all costs.

  • The influence of primitive, powerful, and nationalistic Christian, Muslim and Hindu religious organizations in a time when we are in desperate need of more universal and compassionate spiritualities.

Most of these forces are brought into sharp relief in the two hour film “The Corporation.”

Here is a link where the entire film can be viewed (with, I am afraid, some annoying advertisements), or one could rent it from Netflix or perhaps other places. Based on the book by Joel Bakan, this film makes it clear that a fundamental rethinking is needed if we are to survive the coming storm and find a way of living together that is equitable and sustainable.