We went to see a documentary film called The Corporation this evening. It was very interesting, and gave me lots of stuff to think about. It was basically about how the corporation gained status as a "person" in the eyes of the law, and what the effects of that has been.
A major component was detailing how the corporation, as a person, has many of the same characteristics of a psychopath. It looks at what motivates corporations, what the consequences are, how people within a corporation behave, and asks questions about how much ethical responsibility various individuals within a corporation have.
There are a number of case studies, from Goodyear (tires) to Interface (carpets), and the interviews with their CEO's are revealing. Ray Anderson, the CEO of Interface, was asked to give a speech to a task for that was being created in his company to look at Interface's environmental impact, so that they could formulate a response to customer queries. He didn't really care about it, but he looked around for inspiration, and found a book, or it landed on his desk, and read it. And it really opened his eyes to how his company relates to the environment, and he worked to create positive change at Interface, by increasing the use of recycled material and so on.
Contrast this with a former Goodyear CEO who said that if he could, he would make change, but the CEO is really beholden to all these other people and it's difficult to make "morally or ethically correct" decisions. True to a certain extent, and what I found interesting was that corporations, as legal entities, are required by law to maximize shareholder profit. That makes it almost impossible to make decisions which have socially responsible results.
There was also quite a bit from a former CEO of Royal Dutch / Shell. He entertained protesters on his lawn after they hung a "murder" sign on the roof of his surprisingly modest home out in the countryside. So he talked to them for a while, and basically found out that they are worried about basically the same things he is worried about, but that the difference was that they felt they couldn't do anything about it, while he felt he could.
They also talk about how Bolivia turned to the World Bank for a loan to fix up it's water supply in its third largest city. The World Bank told them they had to privatize the water supply to get the loan, and the water works ended in the hands of Bechtel (I used to work for a company that was largely owned by Bechtel, Bantrel, and I see they still have the same ugly ass web page as they did six years ago). The water was being metered out, with people having to make the choice between water and food, or water and sending their kids to school, and it led to a bit of a revolution, which returned control of the water supply to the people.
Then there was Monsanto, and the patenting of genes, and so on. Patents, especially on things like genes, always get my knickers in a twist. Anyway, I think it was a fairly well rounded documentary, there were people on both sides represented. The main theme of the film was the problems with the corporation, but I think it was a pretty fair look at it. It was well put together and cleverly done.
