NationMaster - Encyclopedia: The Corporation

The Corporation is a 2003 Canadian documentary film critical of the modern-day corporation, considering it as a class of person and evaluating its behaviour towards society and the world at large as a psychologist might evaluate an ordinary person. This is explored through specific examples. Download high resolution version (772x1000, 61 KB)The Corporation movie poster, deemed fair use This work is copyrighted. ... Jennifer Abbott is a director, cinematographer and editor, best known as a documentary maker. ... Mark Achbar is a Canadian documentary film director, focusing mainly on progressive political issues. ... Joel Conrad Bakan (born 1959) is a Canadian lawyer and writer. ... Jane Akre, together with her husband Steve Wilson, were former employees of FOX News. ... The following notable people are called Ray Anderson Ray Anderson (boxer) Ray Anderson (broadcaster) Ray Anderson (musician) Ray Anderson (entrepreneur) Category: ... Maude Barlow Maude Victoria Barlow (born May 19, 1947) is a Canadian author and activist. ... Mark Ro Anthony Viper Barry (born 26 October 1978 in Manchester) was a member of the most notorious football hooligan gang in the country, the Inter City Jibbers, where his bravery and reputation earnt him the nickname The Barrynator. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Canada_(bordered). ... September 9 is the 252nd day of the year (253rd in leap years). ... 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... June 4 is the 155th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (156th in leap years), with 210 days remaining. ... // Please note that these are the top grossing films that were first released in 2004; because they may have made most of their income in a later year, they may not be the top-grossing films for calendar year 2004. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... // February 24 - The Pianist, directed by Roman Polanski, wins 7 Cesar Awards: Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Sound, Best Production Design, Best Music and Best Cinematography. ... Documentary film is a broad category of visual expression that is based on the attempt, in one fashion or another, to document reality. ... Corporate redirects here. ...

Creators

The film was written by Joel Bakan, and co-directed by Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott. The documentary has been displayed worldwide, on TV (sometimes in 3 parts) and is also available in DVD. The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power is also the title of a book (ISBN 0-74324-744-2) written by Bakan during the filming of the documentary. Joel Conrad Bakan (born 1959) is a Canadian lawyer and writer. ... Mark Achbar is a Canadian documentary film director, focusing mainly on progressive political issues. ... Jennifer Abbott is a director, cinematographer and editor, best known as a documentary maker. ... See TV (disambiguation) for other uses and Television (band) for the rock band European networks National In much of Europe television broadcasting has historically been state dominated, rather than commercially organised, although commercial stations have grown in number recently. ... DVD (commonly known as Digital Versatile Disc or Digital Video Disc) is an optical disc storage media format that can be used for data storage, including movies with high video and sound quality. ... A chained book in the Bodleian Library at Oxford University A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of paper, parchment, or other material, usually fastened together to hinge at one side, and within protective covers. ...

Basic plot

The film charts the development of the corporation as a legal entity from its genesis to unprecedented legal protection stemming from creative interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, that is from its origins as an institution chartered by governments to carry out specific public functions, to the rise of the vast modern institutions entitled to some of the legal rights of a "person." One central theme of the documentary is an attempt to assess the "personality" of the corporate "person" by using diagnostic criteria from the DSM-IV; Robert Hare, a University of British Columbia Psychology Professor and FBI consultant, compares the modern, profit-driven corporation to that of a clinically diagnosed psychopath. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (952x509, 90 KB) Licensing File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (952x509, 90 KB) Licensing File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Amendment XIV in the National Archives The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (Amendment XIV) is one of the post-Civil War amendments, intended to secure rights for former slaves. ... The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual published by the American Psychiatric Association The poopDiagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), published by the American Psychiatric Association, is the handbook used most often in diagnosing mental disorders in the United States. ... Dr. Robert D. Hare is a researcher renowned in the field of criminal psychology. ... The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a Canadian public university with its main campus located at Point Grey in the unincorporated Electoral Area A, immediately west of Vancouver, British Columbia. ... Psychopathy (pronounced in General American), not to be confused with psychosis, is a term derived from the Greek psyche (mind) and pathos (suffering), and was once used to denote any form of mental illness. ...

Detailed summary

The film starts with modern day corporate logos rapidly flashing across the screen. After the logos begin to flash steadily faster the narrator's voice emerges and starts recounting the history of the corporation. She asserts that the corporation is today's dominant institution replacing bygone monarchies and other totalitarian regimes. A speech made by George W. Bush starts the discussion about how a few "bad apples" are bound to be present in the corporate system. The narrator then points out the irony in that a metaphor with apples describes a machine that has and creates great wealth but also causes enormous and frequently hidden harms. Various interviewers then go on to use many other metaphors including a jigsaw puzzle, a sports team, a family, the telephone system, a whale, and Frankenstein's monster. Harvard University's Ira Jackson suggests the metaphor of a "majestic eagle", and scoffs at it immediately afterwards. Next, the interviewers ask the question, "What is a corporation?" Joe Badaracco, a professor of ethics at Harvard Business School, defines it as a group of individuals working together to serve various objectives, principally to create large, growing, sustained, legal returns for the owners of the business. This page meets Wikipedias criteria for speedy deletion. ... Forms of government Part of the Politics series Politics Portal This box: A monarchy, from the Greek Î¼Î¿Î½Î¿Ï‚, one, and Î±ÏÏ‡ÎµÎ¹Î½, to rule, is a form of government that has a monarch as head of state(KING)In most monarchies the monarch usually reigns as head of state for life; this is... Totalitarianism is a term employed by political scientists, especially those in the field of comparative politics, to describe modern regimes in which the state regulates nearly every aspect of public and private behavior. ... George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is the 43rd and current President of the United States, inaugurated on January 20, 2001. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Picture puzzle. ... A sport consists of a normal physical activity or skill carried out under a publicly agreed set of rules, and with a recreational purpose: for competition, for self-enjoyment, to attain excellence, for the development of skill, or some combination of these. ... A family in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso in 1997 A family consists of a domestic group of people (or a number of domestic groups), typically affiliated by birth or marriage, or by analogous or comparable relationships â€” including domestic partnership, cohabitation, adoption, surname and (in some cases) ownership (as occurred in the... The telephone is a telecommunications device which is used to transmit and receive sound (most commonly voice and speech) across distance. ... A Fin Whale The term whale is ambiguous: it can refer to all cetaceans, to just the larger ones, or only to members of particular families within the order Cetacea. ... Boris Karloff as Frankensteins Monster in Frankenstein (1931) Frankensteins monster (sometimes Frankensteins creature or the Frankenstein monster or even Frankenstein) is a creature first appearing in Mary Shelleys novel, Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus. ... Harvard University (incorporated as The President and Fellows of Harvard College) is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. Founded in 1636,[2] Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning still operating in the United States. ... Ira A. Jackson is the dean of Claremont Graduate Universitys Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management. ... Harvard Business School, officially named the Harvard Business School: George F. Baker Foundation, and also known as HBS, is one of the graduate schools of Harvard University. ...

Birth

The beginning of the modern corporation is detailed starting with Ray Anderson, the CEO of Interface, the world's largest modular carpet manufacturer. He explains that the corporation began in 1712, when Thomas Newcomen invented a steam driven pump to increase the productivity and output of coal mines. The desire to increase product output per man hour, be it steel, pens, or computer chips, led to the modern corporation and the modern industrialized world. Noam Chomsky then explains the historical function of a corporation. In the past, individual states in the United States issued charters which stipulated what, where, and for how long a corporation could last in order to protect the public good. Richard Grossman states that in early America, the common viewpoint was that the corporation is a subordinate entity which is considered a gift from the people to help the general public. According to Howard Zinn, this all changed after the American Civil War, when the Fourteenth Amendment was passed to help insure the rights of former black slaves. Corporate lawyers saw this as an opportunity to increase their powers considerably, by claiming that a corporation is in fact a sort of person who is being deprived of their rights. Mary Zepernick of the Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy further states that between 1890 and 1910 there were 307 cases brought to the Supreme Court dealing with the 14th amendment. Out of the 307 only 19 cases were made by African Americans, while the other 288 came from corporate lawyers seeking "equal" rights for their corporate entities. Image File history File links The_Corporation_looking_in. ... Image File history File links The_Corporation_looking_in. ... Ray Anderson is founder and CEO of Interface, Inc, the worlds largest carpet manufacturer. ... // Events Treaty of Aargau signed between Catholic and Protestants. ... Thomas Newcomen (baptised 24 February 1664; died 5 August 1729) was an ironmonger by trade, and a Baptist lay preacher by calling. ... Wyoming coal mine Coal mining is the mining of coal. ... Avram Noam Chomsky, Ph. ... Richard Grossman is co-director of the Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy (POCLAD). ... Howard Zinn (born August 24, 1922) is an American historian, social critic, playwright and political scientist. ... This article is becoming very long. ... Amendment XIV in the National Archives The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (Amendment XIV) is one of the post-Civil War amendments, intended to secure rights for former slaves. ... Federal courts Supreme Court Chief Justice Associate Justices Elections Presidential elections Midterm elections Political Parties Democratic Republican Third parties State & Local government Governors Legislatures (List) State Courts Counties, Cities, and Towns Other countries Politics Portal The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest judicial body in the...

A Legal Person

A black-and-white clip is shown of two actors discussing how to create a corporation. One of the characters states that a corporation is in fact a legal person. After this, Noam Chomsky explains that a corporation is a very special kind of person with no moral barometer, solely concerned with generating the maximum profit possible for its owners. Various people are then interviewed and asked to explain what type of person they would describe particular corporations as. For instances, General Electric is a kind old man and Nike is young and energetic. Several interviewers refute this claim, saying that legally the corporation must look out for the interests of its shareholders above all else, including the environment and the community. In corporations' efforts to minimize cost and maximize profit they came up with externalities. Milton Friedman explains that an externality is the effect of a transaction between two parties on a third party who is not involved. Such externalities include the use of national militaries to secure oil rights for energy corporations, and governments that provide roads and bridges to drive automobiles on. A juristic person is a legal fiction through which the law allows a group of natural persons to act as if it were a single composite individual for certain purposes. ... Avram Noam Chomsky, Ph. ... GE redirects here. ... Nike, Inc. ... In economics, an externality is a cost or benefit from an economic transaction that parties external to the transaction bear. ... Milton Friedman (July 31, 1912 â€“ November 16, 2006) was a prominent American economist and public intellectual. ...

Case Histories

The adverse effects of corporations are viewed beginning with the harm they inflict upon workers. Such harms include: layoffs, union busting, factory fires, and sweatshops. Charles Kernaghan, the director of the National Labor Committee, shows off various consumer goods made by sweatshops, and compares the prices they were selling for with the amount the workers were paid. He then recounts his travels to a Honduras sweatshop where various guards and spies try to prevent him from talking with the workers. He eventually finds out the workers were making Kathy Lee Gifford brand clothing and a media circus followed in America. After various pledges were made to end the sweatshops, nothing significant changed. Michael Walker of the Fraser Institute offers a different take. He states that the places in the world where people are starving desperately need sweatshops which provide an opportunity to feed themselves. Walker continues by saying that corporations come in and raise the living standards until the people demand more money and the corporation moves on to the next starving part of the world. Downsizing refers to layoffs initiated by a company in order to cut labor costs by reducing the size of the company. ... Union busting is a practice, considered by some to be unethical,[1] which is undertaken by an employer to prevent employees from joining a labor union, or to disempower, subvert, or destroy unions that already exist. ... A sweatshop is a factory, where people work for a very small wage, producing products such as clothes, toys, shoes, and other consumer goods. ... The National Labor Committee in Support of Human and Worker Rights, commonly known as the National Labor Committee or the NLC, is a non-profit NGO founded in 1981 by David Dyson to combat sweatshop labor and United States government policy in El Salvador. ... VHS box cover of Kathie Lees Rock n Tots Cafe: A Christmas Giff starring Kathie Lee Gifford, copyright 1995 Rock n Tots Joint Venture. ... INS agents recover EliÃ¡n GonzÃ¡lez by force from his uncles house; this photo, taken by AP photographer Alan Diaz, won him a Pulitzer Prize. ...

The harm to others induced by the corporation is viewed next including: dangerous products, toxic waste, pollution, and synthetic chemicals. Samuel Epstein explains that in 1940 a miraculous change occurred. Chemists began formulating synthetic chemicals to combat things like disease and insect infestation. Some of these chemicals like DDT have been found over the course of many years to cause cancer and birth defects. Epstein makes a point about the difference between creating and allowing products that kill people over time and killing them with a gun. Toxic waste is a hazardous waste that is toxic (poisonous or hazardous) for a variety of reasons. ... It has been suggested that Pollutant be merged into this article or section. ... This article does not cite its references or sources. ... DDT or Dichloro-Diphenyl-Trichloroethane is the first modern pesticide and is arguably the best known organic pesticide. ... Cancer is a class of diseases or disorders characterized by uncontrolled division of cells and the ability of these to spread, either by direct growth into adjacent tissue through invasion, or by implantation into distant sites by metastasis (where cancer cells are transported through the bloodstream or lymphatic system). ... A congenital disorder is a medical condition that is present at birth. ...

The harm to animals is also accounted for, such as habitat destruction, factory farming, experimentation, and rBGH/rBST Posilac. Epstein recounts the deceitfulness of the Monsanto corporation when trying to cover up the harmful effects of Posilac on cows and humans. Jeremy Rifkin points out the uselessness of Posilac stemming from the fact that the world overproduces milk and the demand for increased output is idiotic. A Monsanto promotional video is then shown instructing farmers to "inject every available cow" because the more cows you inject the more milk you produce, and the more milk you produce results in higher revenues. Bovine somatotropin (bST), or bovine growth hormone (BGH), is a protein hormone that occurs naturally in the pituitary glands of cattle. ... The Monsanto Company (NYSE: MON) is a multinational agricultural biotechnology corporation. ... Jeremy Rifkin (b. ...

The harm to the Earth's biosphere is then examined, including clear cutting, carbon dioxide emissions, and nuclear waste. Robert Monks, a corporate governance advisor, recalls a night in Brewer, Maine when he awoke with hay fever. He looked out the window and saw the pollution from the local paper factory was creating white suds in the river. Carlton Brown, a commodities trader, is interviewed next. He explains that traders only care about the money generated by commodities, and not about any environmental implications. Robert Weissman of the Multinational Monitor recites the biggest fines paid by corporations in the 1990s for breaking the law. Some of the biggest include $125 million paid by Exxon for the mishap in Valdez, Alaska and several companies paying up to $500 million for antitrust violations. Ray Anderson finally explains that all of the earth's major life support systems are in decline, but because there is still so much abundance left, no entity is willing to make the changes necessary for sustainability. Clearcutting or clearfelling is a method of timber harvest in which all trees in a selected area are cut. ... Carbon dioxide is a chemical compound composed of one carbon and two oxygen atoms. ... An illustration showing the various sources of nuclear waste Radioactive waste are waste types containing radioactive chemical elements that do not have a practical purpose. ... Brewer is a city located in Penobscot County, Maine. ... For the play, see Hay Fever. ... ISO 4217 Code USD User(s) the United States, the British Indian Ocean Territory,[1] the British Virgin Islands, Cambodia, East Timor, Ecuador, El Salvador, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau, Panama, Turks and Caicos Islands, and the insular areas of the United States Inflation 2. ... Exxon Mobil Corporation or ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM), headquartered in Irving, Texas, is an oil producer and distributor formed on November 30, 1999, by the merger of Exxon and Mobil. ... Valdez (IPA: ) is a city in Valdez-Cordova Census Area in the U.S. state of Alaska. ... This article is about anti-competitive business behavior. ...

The Pathology of Commerce

Dr. Robert Hare, a consultant to the FBI on psychopaths, draws parallels between a psychopath and the modern corporation. His findings corroborate the following behavior: The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is a federal criminal investigative, intelligence agency, and the primary investigative arm of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). ... Psychopathy (pronounced in General American), not to be confused with psychosis, is a term derived from the Greek psyche (mind) and pathos (suffering), and was once used to denote any form of mental illness. ...

Monstrous Obligations

Noam Chomsky theorizes that flesh-and-blood humans are all basically made up of the same things, but the moral freedom in the species allows for many different types of behavior. Sam Gibara is then interviewed about his experiences as the CEO of Goodyear. He explains that he felt very bad about laying off over 20,000 workers and closing 8 plants since 1990, but that it was just the nature of the beast. Chomsky furthers this by stating that there is a large difference between the system of slavery and the slave owner, as well as a difference between the CEO and the corporation. While the system is inherently malevolent the people that contribute to it can be honorable and good. This is exemplified by Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, the former CEO of Royal Dutch Shell. A clip is shown of him and his wife, talking with and feeding a group of protestors staged in front of his house. After some discussion the student draws the conclusion that Sir Moody-Stuart was a good person but the system was to blame. The narrator returns and states that while large corporation may donate some of their money to honorable causes, they still put the bottom line before all else. This is noted when a story about Nigerian oil production is shown. Nine protestors were hanged when they rose against the environmental standards set by Shell in Nigeria, creating some of the worst pollution in the world. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company was founded in 1898 by Frank Seiberling. ... MCMXC redirects here; for the Enigma album, see MCMXC a. ... Royal Dutch Shell PLC is a multinational oil company (oil major) of Anglo Dutch origin. ...

Mindset

Dr. Vandana Shiva gives an insight into the mind of a corporation by exposing the fact that corporations now genetically modify seeds that have a "suicide gene" built in them so they will self destruct after one season and can only be used if activated by the company's fertilizer. Marc Barry, a corporate spy, is interviewed next and recounts the extremely complicated measures he has taken to gain information from a company. He has personally set up an office complete with business cards and a corporate logo to woo an employee into interviewing for a fake job where he or she tells valuable information about their current employer. After this, Michael Moore gives an insight which states executives are not in touch with the rest of the world because they are "rich white men" and the majority of the world is colored, female and/or poor. Moore, Anderson, and others then come to the conclusion that being a member of the corporate machine is not a valid excuse and "passing the buck" has to stop eventually or the world's ecosystems collapse. After this, Carlton Brown gives another insight into the mindset by explaining how September 11, 2001 and the Iraq War benefited the commodities traders greatly because the price of gold nearly doubled. He explains how other industries like defense manufacturers also made huge profits from the increased military spending after the attacks. Vandana Shiva (b. ... Spreading manure, an organic fertilizer Fertilizers (British English fertilisers) are compounds given to plants to promote growth; they are usually applied either via the soil, for uptake by plant roots, or by foliar feeding, for uptake through leaves. ... Michael Francis Moore (born April 23, 1954) is an American political-activist, a film director, author, social commentator, and political humorist. ... A sequential look at United Flight 175 crashing into the south tower of the World Trade Center The September 11, 2001 attacks (often referred to as 9/11â€”pronounced nine eleven or nine one one) consisted of a series of coordinated terrorist[1] suicide attacks upon the United States, predominantly... For other uses, see Iraq war (disambiguation). ...

Boundary Issues

Jeremy Rifkin details how the current ideology of ownership came to be. In the 14th and 15th centuries, he argues, the common view was that God owned the land and the land owned the people. The church and the aristocracy simply made sure everything ran smoothly. However, beginning with Tudor England, the nobles started fencing off the land, claiming it as private property. This idea of private property spread across the world and began applying to the oceans for fishing, airwaves for broadcast, and airspace for commercial aviation. Elaine Bernard then presents the current history of private property and the fact that in the last twenty years laws have been created that states all life except human life can be considered intellectual property and can be owned by corporations. Michael Walker of the Fraser Institute continues the discussion in private property by telling us the amount of pollution created by corporation is now a commodity and can be bought and sold. Walker then advocates the private ownership of every thing on Earth because people only value something when there is a price attached. The Ancient Greek term aristocracy originally meant a system of government with rule by the best. The word is derived from two words, aristos meaning the best and kratein to rule. Aristocracies have most often been hereditary plutocracies (see below), where a sense of historical gravitas and noblesse oblige demands... Allegory of the Tudor dynasty (detail), attributed to Lucas de Heere, ca 1572: left to right, Philip II of Spain, Mary, Henry VIII, Edward VI, Elizabeth The Tudor period usually refers to the historical period between 1485 and 1558, especially in relation to the history of England. ... Elaine Bernard is executive director of the Labor and Worklife Program at the Harvard School of Law. ... The Fraser Institute is a libertarian think tank based in Canada. ...

Basic Training

Susan Linn, a children’s advocate, introduces the how corporations manipulate children through advertising into purchasing their products. Lucy Hughes, the vice president of the marketing firm Initiative Media Worldwide, explains that in the late 1990s their firm conducted an experiment to determine the effectiveness of nagging on purchasing habits. They found that 20 to 40 percent of purchases would not have taken place without children nagging their parents. The study also concluded 25 percent of theme park trips and 40 percent of visits made to Chuck E. Cheese's resulted from nagging. She goes on to say psychologists are hired along with 12 billion dollars a year spent on children's marketing in the United States. Hughes finally advocates "getting children early" so they can be profitable consumers for life. Kingswell, Chomsky, and others then began discussing the notion that corporations along with churches, governments, and other forms of power make it their job to mold the people into a "mindless consumer" that will continue to keep the entity profitable. Created wants or non-necessities are then discussed and the role the corporations have in inventing things people feel they need through the philosophy of futility such as brand names. Finally, Chris Barrett and Luke McCabe are detailed and how they paid their way through college by becoming walking advertisements for First USA. Commercialism redirects here. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Chuck E. Cheeses is a chain of family entertainment centers. ... A psychologist is a scientist and/or clinician who studies psychology, the systematic investigation of the human mind, including behavior and cognition. ... Wikibooks has more about this subject: Marketing Look up marketing in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... This article is about brands in marketing. ... Chris Barrett (born July 24, 1982 in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania) is an American film director and producer who was featured in the Sundance Award Winning Documentary, The Corporation Chris is producing partners with Efren Ramirez, who is most well known for his portrayal of Pedro in Napoleon Dynamite. ... Bank One, based in Chicago, Illinois, was the sixth-largest bank in the United States. ...

Perception Management

Richard Grossman begins with how over the past 50 years corporations have marketed themselves to appear important to the public and represent progress. Chris Komisarjevsky is then interviewed about his job as an executive at a corporate relations firm and how he helps corporations appear friendly and helpful to the average consumer. Some of his former clients include: Union Carbide, which killed 20,000 people in the Bhopal disaster, Phillip Morris, the cigarette company, and the Canadian Forestry Corporation, which clear cuts Canadian forests. The Senior Vice-president of Pfizer, Tom Kline, then is shown talking to the everyman and commenting on how Pfizer helped revitalize the area around their office building. He goes down into the subway system to show off the call-for-help system installed by Pfizer but Kline cannot manage to get the system to work. Grossman then returns to talk about how only the good aspects of the corporations are shown while the parts such as the manipulating of the government through lobbyists is buried for the public eye. This article or section is incomplete and may require expansion and/or cleanup. ... Time cover about Bhopal disaster. ... Altria Group, Inc. ... Pfizer, Incorporated (NYSE: PFE) (pronounced faÉªzÉ™É¹ or faÉªzÉ™), is the worlds largest pharmaceutical company. ... It has been suggested that Interest representation: Academic overview be merged into this article or section. ...

A Private Celebration

Naomi Klein describes how corporate branding is not advertisement but rather a production that constantly surrounds all of us. She then goes on to talk about Celebration, Florida, which is an entire town based on a brand. Clay Timon then explains how corporations like Disney differentiate their branding by having Mickey Mouse for children all the way to Touchstone Pictures which makes adult oriented cinema. The interviewer then goes on to ask if the human race can continue if all of our interactions with other human beings are a result of commercial branding. Naomi Klein (born May 5, 1970 [1]) is a Canadian journalist, author and activist. ... Celebration, Florida is a census-designated place and an unincorporated master-planned community in Osceola County in the U.S. state of Florida, near Walt Disney World Resort. ... Mickey Mouse is an Academy Award-winning comic animal cartoon character who has become an icon for The Walt Disney Company. ... The current logo for Touchstone Pictures films since 2002 Touchstone Pictures (also known as Touchstone Films in its early years) is one of several alternate film labels of The Walt Disney Company, established in 1984. ...

Triumph of the Shill

Jonathan Ressler, A Marketing Specialist, explains how in any given day the average person sees several different examples of undercover marketing. This marketing can range from a group of boxes with branding laying in front of your door, to a branded bottle of water in the company fridge, to a fast-food wrapper, to even people talking casually about a product. Ressler then goes on to say there is no way to escape marketing and you shouldn't be critical of those buying into a brand because everyone buys into a brand and if the brand of product works and makes your life easier there is no reason to complain.

Advancing the Front

Jeremy Rifkin tells us how in the 1980s Professor Chakrabarty, a scientist for General Electric, "invented" microorganisms that ate hazardous waste. General Electric then went to the United States patent office claiming they had invented this bacteria and needed a patent. The Patent Office immediately turned down the request citing a living organism cannot be patented. To this the corporate lawyer went to the court system fighting for their patent rights. By a 3-2 decision the court overruled the patent office. Rifkin then appealed this decision by going to the Supreme Court. His argument was that if the verdict was upheld the blueprints of life would be owned by corporations without congress or the public's consent. By a ruling of 5-4 chief justice Warren E. Burger upheld the decision and seven years later the Patent Office wrote into its laws one sentence that stated any life except a full birth human being can be patented. Rifkin finally states the current race is on in the corporate biotech world to "cash in" on the Human Genome Project so they can patent the genetic code that causes all known diseases. Rifkin finishes by stating within ten years corporations will not only own all human life but that of every other species on Earth. GE redirects here. ... For the 2003 film, see Blueprint (movie). ... Warren Earl Burger (September 17, 1907 â€“ June 25, 1995) was Chief Justice of the United States from 1969 to 1986. ... The Human Genome Project (HGP) is a project to de-code (i. ...

Unsettling Accounts

Jane Akre and her news crew for Tampa, Florida television station WTVT recount the battle they had with Fox Broadcasting Company and Monsanto in the late 1990s. She and her fellow reporters planned on airing an investigative report on the negative effects on Posilac. Before the story aired corporate lawyers for Monsanto threatened to sue Fox News if the story went on. The Fox Broadcasting Company owned 23 separate stations at the time and did not want a loss in advertisement dollars so they agreed to cooperate with Monsanto's lawyers. After over 83 rewrites were made to the story it still wasn't aired and the reporters were eventually fired. They sued and won $425,000 in damages but the decision was overturned on appeal after Monsanto lawyers found a way to remove the "whistle-blower” status of the news team. Their status was removed because falsifying news is not technically against the law. Today, some of the US milk supply still comes from cows that have been modified with posilac to produce more milk. Jane Akre, together with her husband Steve Wilson, were former employees of FOX News. ... Nickname: Location in Hillsborough County and the state of Florida. ... A television station is a type of broadcast station that broadcasts both audio and video to television receivers in a particular area. ... WTVT is a television station in Tampa, Florida. ... For the animal, see Fox. ... The Monsanto Company (NYSE: MON) is a multinational agricultural biotechnology corporation. ... Bovine somatotropin (bST), or bovine growth hormone (BGH), is a protein hormone that occurs naturally in the pituitary gland of cattle. ... For the animal, see Fox. ...

Expansion Plan

The Narrator discusses the Cochabamba protests of 2000 brought on by the privatization of Bolivia's municipal water supply by the Bechtel Corporation. Up to one-quarter of the citizen's income had to go to pay for their water after the takeover and the collection of rainwater was made illegal. This did not sit well with Oscar Olivera and the rest of the Bolivian people so they started a massive riot to gain control of their water back. Six people died and 175 were injured but an agreement was eventually reached were Cochabamba regained full rights of its public water. Howard Zinn next discusses the collusions between fascist Europe and the role of the corporations. As Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini rose to power the business climate dramatically improved as radical leftwing dissenters and democratic bureaucracies were abolished. Michael Moore then brings up the collusion between American corporations and the Nazis during WWII. He explains how the IBM punch card computer was used to systematically sort and exterminate political enemies, homosexuals, Jews, and other persecuted groups and how Coca-Cola invented the Fanta orange subsidiary so they could continue making money on both sides throughout the war. The narrator then returns to list several American Corporations such as Chevron, Texaco, Citibank, and Exxon, which had been fined for trading with enemies of the United States. Chomsky and others concluded that a corporation has no national ties and only acts in its own best interest. The Cochabamba protests of 2000 were a series of protests that took place in Cochabamba, Bolivia, between January and April 2000, because of the privatization of the municipal water supply, which was sold to a private company, International Waters Limited (IWL) of London (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bechtel Corporation... This article does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... A water supply system provides water to the locations that need it. ... Bechtel Corporation (Bechtel Group) is the largest engineering company in the United States, ranking as the 6th-largest privately owned company in the U.S. With headquarters in San Francisco, Bechtel had 40,000 employees as of 2005 working on projects in nearly 50 countries with $18. ... The centre of Cochabamba Cochabamba is a city in central Bolivia, located in a valley bearing the same name in the Andes mountain range. ... Fascism is an authoritarian political ideology (generally tied to a mass movement) that considers individual and other societal interests inferior to the needs of the state, and seeks to forge a type of national unity, usually based on ethnic, religious, cultural, or racial attributes. ... Hitler redirects here. ... Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (July 29, 1883 â€“ April 28, 1945) was the prime minister and dictator of Italy from 1922 until 1943, when he was overthrown. ... The (German: Nazional- socialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP) [National Socialist German Workers Party]); generally known in English as the Nazi Party, was a political party in Germany between 1920 and 1945. ... International Business Machines Corporation (known as IBM or Big Blue; NYSE: IBM) is a multinational computer technology corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, USA. The company is one of the few information technology companies with a continuous history dating back to the 19th century. ... The wave shape (known as the dynamic ribbon device) present on all Coca-Cola cans throughout the world derives from the contour of the original Coca-Cola bottles. ... Fanta is a brand of fruit-flavored soft drink from the Coca-Cola Company, introduced for the first time in Germany in 1940. ... Chevron Corporation (NYSE: CVX) is one of the worlds largest global energy companies. ... Texaco is the name of an American oil company that was merged into Chevron Corporation in 2001. ... Citibank is a major international bank, founded in 1812 as the City Bank of New York. ... Exxon Mobil Corporation or ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM), headquartered in Irving, Texas, is an oil producer and distributor formed on November 30, 1999, by the merger of Exxon and Mobil. ...

Hostile Takeover

The narrator gives the history of the popular General Smedley Butler that was nearly implicated to lead a corporate coup against then US President Franklin Roosevelt in 1934 because the president's New Deal was seen as too progressive. The congressional investigation into the coup revealed some of the top industry players were involved in the plot including, J.P. Morgan, DuPont, and Goodyear Tire. Ira Jackson then goes on to explain how because of globalization governments have lost most of their power and multinational corporations have become the new dominant control. Marc Berry then gives an account of the Critical Thinking Consortium which was a meeting involving the heads of many large corporations and the CIA, NSA, and FBI. This recount shows how corporations work with governments to gain power and control over policy. Smedley Darlington Butler (July 30, 1881 â€“ June 21, 1940), nicknamed The Fighting Quaker and Old Gimlet Eye, was a Major General in the U.S. Marine Corps and, at the time of his death, the most decorated Marine in U.S. history. ... Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882–April 12, 1945), 32nd President of the United States, the longest-serving holder of the office and the only man to be elected President more than twice, was one of the central figures of 20th century history. ... 1934 (MCMXXXIV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... The New Deal was the name President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave to the series of programs between 1933â€“1938 with the goal of relief, recovery and reform of the United States economy during the Great Depression. ... JPMorgan Chase & Co. ... This article is about the DuPont company. ... Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company was founded in 1898 by Frank Seiberling. ... A KFC franchise in Kuwait. ... The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is an intelligence agency of the United States government. ... The National Security Agency/Central Security Service (NSA/CSS) is the U.S. governments cryptologic organization. ... The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is a federal criminal investigative, intelligence agency, and the primary investigative arm of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). ...

Democracy, Ltd. and Conclusion

The focus of why corporations try to not break laws and try to help others and the environment is examined. After various interviews from Anderson, Chomsky, and others a conclusion is drawn that corporations do these things in order to survive and make more money. Consumers will not buy a product if they feel strongly enough that it is harmful, so corporations manufacture a positive public image through various charities. Naomi Klein then states the biggest flaw in a corporation is the fact that they will do anything for money. Jim Lafferty then discusses the Unocal controversy and how he and many others fought to dismantle the corporation and return it to the public trust. A counterpoint is then made that socialist ideals like that can lead to unfavorable situations like Communist Russia. Moore returns to describe how personal accountability is important. An example given by him is that the main job for the parents of Columbine High School was Lockheed Martin, a company that manufactures weapons. The movie then shows Ray Anderson giving a speech pleading his fellow tycoons to develop sustainable industries so the planet does not get destroyed. This speech is met with guilty looks by other attendees as Anderson proclaims them (and him) to be "plunderers of the earth." The interviewers then all state there is a way to fight the large corporations by working together. Michael Moore ends the film by pointing out the major flaw of a capital oriented entity: "The rich man will sell you the rope you'll use to hang him." Unocal Corporation is the parent company of Union Oil Company of California (Union Oil) which was incorporated in California in 1890. ... Soviet redirects here. ... Address 6201 S. Pierce Street City Columbine CDP, Jefferson County, Colorado 80123 Established 1973 Type Public Secondary Superintendent Dr. Cindy Stevenson Principal Dr. Frank D. DeAngelis Grades 9 to 12 District Jefferson County Public Schools Mascot Rebels (American Revolution) Colors Navy Blue and Silver School website Columbine Home Page Columbine... Lockheed/BAE/Northrop F-35 Lockheed Trident missile C-130 Hercules; in production since the 1950s, now as the C-130J Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) is an aerospace manufacturer formed in 1995 by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta. ...

Topics addressed

Other topics addressed include the Business Plot – where in 1933, the popular General Smedley Butler was nearly implicated to lead a corporate coup against then US President Franklin Roosevelt, the tragedy of the commons, Dwight D. Eisenhower's warning people to beware of the rising Military-industrial complex, economic externalities, suppression of an investigative news story about Bovine Growth Hormone on a FOX News affiliate television station, and the Cochabamba protests of 2000 brought on by the privatization of Bolivia's municipal water supply by the Bechtel Corporation. The Business Plot, The Plot Against FDR, or The White House Putsch, was a conspiracy involving several wealthy businessmen to overthrow President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933. ... 1933 (MCMXXXIII) was a common year starting on Sunday. ... Smedley Darlington Butler (July 30, 1881 â€“ June 21, 1940), nicknamed The Fighting Quaker and Old Gimlet Eye, was a Major General in the U.S. Marine Corps and, at the time of his death, the most decorated Marine in U.S. history. ... Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882–April 12, 1945), 32nd President of the United States, the longest-serving holder of the office and the only man to be elected President more than twice, was one of the central figures of 20th century history. ... It has been suggested that Tyranny of the Commons be merged into this article or section. ... Dwight David Ike Eisenhower, born David Dwight Eisenhower (October 14, 1890 - March 28, 1969) was an American soldier and politician, who served as the thirty-fourth President of the United States (1953-1961). ... President Dwight Eisenhower famously referred to the military-industrial complex in his farewell address. ... In economics, an externality is a cost or benefit from an economic transaction that parties external to the transaction bear. ... Bovine somatotropin (bST), or bovine growth hormone (BGH), is a protein hormone that occurs naturally in the pituitary gland of cattle. ... Fox News Channels slogan is We Report, You Decide The Fox News Channel is a U.S. cable and satellite news channel. ... The Cochabamba protests of 2000 were a series of protests that took place in Cochabamba, Bolivia, between January and April 2000, because of the privatization of the municipal water supply, which was sold to a private company, International Waters Limited (IWL) of London (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bechtel Corporation... This article does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... A water supply system provides water to the locations that need it. ... Bechtel Corporation (Bechtel Group) is the largest civil engineering company in the world. ...

Other important topics Bakan brings insight into include: corporate social responsibility, the notion of limited liability, the corporation as a psychopath, and the corporation as a person.

Interviews

The film also features interviews with prominent corporate critics such as Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Michael Moore, Vandana Shiva and Howard Zinn as well as opinions from company CEOs such as Ray Anderson (from the Interface carpet & fabric company), the conservative viewpoints of Peter Drucker and Milton Friedman, and think tanks advocating free markets such as the Fraser Institute. Interviews also feature Dr. Samuel Epstein with his involvement in a lawsuit against Monsanto for promoting the use of Posilac, (Monsanto's trade name for recombinant Bovine Somatotropin) to induce more milk production in dairy cattle. Avram Noam Chomsky, Ph. ... Naomi Klein (born May 5, 1970 [1]) is a Canadian journalist, author and activist. ... Michael Francis Moore (born April 23, 1954) is an American political-activist, a film director, author, social commentator, and political humorist. ... Vandana Shiva (b. ... Howard Zinn (born August 24, 1922) is an American historian, social critic, playwright and political scientist. ... Chief Executive Officer (CEO) is the job of having the ultimate executive responsibility or authority within an organization or corporation. ... Ray Anderson is founder and CEO of Interface, Inc, the worlds largest carpet manufacturer. ... Interface Inc, founded in 1973, describes itself as the worlds largest carpet manufacturer. ... Peter Ferdinand Drucker (November 19, 1909â€“November 11, 2005) was an Austrian author of management-related literature. ... Milton Friedman (July 31, 1912 â€“ November 16, 2006) was a prominent American economist and public intellectual. ... This article is about the institution. ... The Fraser Institute is a libertarian think tank based in Canada. ... Doctor Samuel Epstein is a medical doctor and professor emeritus of environmental medicine at the University of Illinois who is perhaps best known for his contributions to environmental medicine, and his contributions towards cancer prevention. ... The Monsanto Company (NYSE: MON) is a multinational agricultural biotechnology corporation. ... Bovine somatotropin (bST), or bovine growth hormone (BGH), is a protein hormone that occurs naturally in the pituitary gland of cattle. ... Bovine somatotropin (bST), or bovine growth hormone (BGH), is a protein hormone that occurs naturally in the pituitary glands of cattle. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

Criticism

The Maoist Internationalist Movement, in their review [1] criticizes the film for the opposite: depicting the communist party in an unfavourable light, while adopting an anarchist approach favoring direct democracy and worker's councils without emphasizing the need for a centralized bureaucracy. The film, in their view "offers no realistic alternative to imperialism." and "it shares some of the strengths and downfalls" of Mark Achbar's film Manufacturing Consent, which celebrated the life of anarcho-syndicalist, linguist, and activist Noam Chomsky. In their view, "corporate power for profit [is] not the same as megabureaucracy without profit." The Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM) is revolutionary communist organization based primarily in the United States. ... In modern usage, the term communist party is generally used to identify any political party which has adopted communist ideology. ... Anarchism is a generic term describing various political philosophies and social movements that advocate the elimination of hierarchy and imposed authority. ... A workers council is a council, or deliberative body, composed of working class or proletarian members. ... Mark Achbar is a Canadian documentary film director, focusing mainly on progressive political issues. ... Manufacturing Consent movie poster Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media (1992) is a documentary film that explores the political life and ideas of Noam Chomsky, world-renowned linguist, intellectual, and political activist. ... Anarcho-syndicalism is a branch of anarchism which focuses on the labour movement. ... The following is a list of linguists, those who study linguistics. ... Activism, in a general sense, can be described as intentional action to bring about social or political change. ... Avram Noam Chomsky, Ph. ...

The Economist review points out that the idea for an organisation as a psychopathic entity originated with Max Weber^[1], in regards to statist government bureaucracy. The review does say that "...“The Corporation” is a surprisingly rational and coherent attack on capitalism's most important institution." Also, the review points out that the film weighs heavily in favor of public ownership as a solution to the evils depicted, while failing to acknowledge the magnitude of evils committed by government in the name of public ownership, such as those of the Communist party in the former USSR, the Imperial Government in Japan, and the National Socialist party in Germany." The review fails to make the point that the film favours democratic control rather than totalitarian control and conflates the two different structures, assuming a false dichotomy: It's either state control, or capitalist control; without realizing that anarcho-syndicalists and libertarian socialists like The Corporation's director Mark Achbar favor democratic worker's control of the means of production without a state. The Economist is a weekly news and international affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd and edited in London, UK. It has been in continuous publication since September 1843. ... Antisocial personality disorder (APD) is a personality disorder which is often characterised by antisocial and impulsive behaviour. ... For other persons named Max Weber, see Max Weber (disambiguation). ... The Politics series Politics Portal This box: Bureaucracy is a concept in sociology and political science referring to the way that the administrative execution and enforcement of legal rules are socially organized. ... This article is about state ownership. ... This article is about state ownership. ... In modern usage, the term communist party is generally used to identify any political party which has adopted communist ideology. ... Anarcho-syndicalist flag. ... Libertarian socialism is a political philosophy dedicated to opposing coercive forms of authority and social hierarchy, in particular the institutions of capitalism and the state. ... Mark Achbar is a Canadian documentary film director, focusing mainly on progressive political issues. ...

The Corporation, in its last section, underscores the fact that democratic control of industry should not be classified as state "socialism" or "marxism", as detractors of economic democracy do. There are a variety of ideologies that are in favor of democratic control of industry, such as anarchism, council communism, libertarian socialism and anarcho-syndicalism. Applying the label "marxist" to anyone critical of colonialism, imperialism or advocating democratic control of the means of production is to disregard the wide variety of anti-hierarchical anti-capitalist ideologies in an attempt to smear democratic control of industry with the doublethink equation: Anarchism is a political philosophy or group of doctrines and attitudes centered on rejection of any form of compulsory government (cf. ... Council communism is a Radical Left movement originating in Germany and the Netherlands in the 1920s. ... Libertarian socialism includes a group of political philosophies that aims to create a society without political, economic or social hierarchies - a society within which individuals freely co-operate together as equals. ... Anarcho-syndicalism is a branch of anarchism which focuses on the labour movement. ... Marxism is the political practice and social theory based on the works of Karl Marx, a 19th century philosopher, economist, journalist, and revolutionary, along with Friedrich Engels. ... It has been suggested that Benign colonialism be merged into this article or section. ... // Cecil Rhodes: Cape-Cairo railway project. ... In economics, a capitalist is someone who owns capital, presumably within the economic system of capitalism. ... Doublethink is an integral concept in George Orwells dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, and is the act of holding two contradictory beliefs simultaneously, fervently believing both. ...

The fact that The Economist is a capitalist magazine, leads it to ignore an important point that was made in the film: that German fascism, i.e. "National Socialism" was based on a corporatism that was very much supported by American and western capitalists, and had nothing to do with worker's control of the means of production (traditional socialism). American anarchist Noam Chomsky, who appears in the film, says that since declarations of benign intent on the part of leaders are universal and predictable (therefore carrying no information), dismissing worker's control on the grounds that leaders like Stalin or Lenin used lofty rhetoric about socialism's worker's control, is like dismissing democracy on the grounds that Iraq is called a democracy by George W. Bush or that countries like the USSR were called "people's democracies" by their leaders and intellectuals. Chomsky asks several questions: Why wasn't the Soviet Union declared a "failure of democracy" instead of a "failure of socialism"? After all, the Soviet Union called itself both "socialist" and "democratic". Why, when talking about the USSR do we fail to acknowledge the magnitude of evils committed in the name of democracy? Chomsky's answer: Both American and Soviet propaganda insisted on applying the label "socialist" to the Soviet Union. American elites did it to defame socialism, and the Russian elite to exploit "the aura of socialist ideals and the respect that is rightly accorded them" [2] [3]. The Economist is a weekly news and international affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd and edited in London, UK. It has been in continuous publication since September 1843. ... In economics, a capitalist is someone who owns capital, presumably within the economic system of capitalism. ... Anarchism is a generic term describing various political philosophies and social movements that advocate the elimination of hierarchy and imposed authority. ... Avram Noam Chomsky, Ph. ... Iosif (usually anglicized as Joseph) Vissarionovich Stalin (Russian: Иосиф Виссарионович Сталин), original name Ioseb Jughashvili (Georgian: იოსებ ჯუღაშვი&#4314... Vladimir Ilyich Lenin ( Russian: Влади́мир Ильи́ч Ле́нин listen?), original surname Ulyanov (Улья́нов) ( April 22 (April 10 ( O.S.)), 1870 – January 21, 1924), was a... George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is the 43rd and current President of the United States, inaugurated on January 20, 2001. ...

Chomsky, who deems government to be an illegitimate autocratic institution, and in today's world largely a tool of capitalists, claims that government is nevertheless potentially more democratic that capitalist corporations, which, in his words, are "internally totalitarian and tyrannical". The democratic potential of government is therefore feared by corporations and magazines like The Economist: "[Government] can somehow stand up against private power to some extent... It's not that governments don't do bad things, but that's not what [corporations] worr[y] about. The defect of governments is that they can be influenced by the public. They're potentially democratic, and that's unacceptable. So, you have to demonize government and shift power more and more into the hands of private tyrannies, which are totally unaccountable... "[4]. Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is Institute Professor Emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. ... In economics, a capitalist is someone who owns capital, presumably within the economic system of capitalism. ... A corporation (usually known in the United Kingdom and Ireland as a company) is a legal entity (distinct from a natural person) that often has similar rights in law to those of a Civil law systems may refer to corporations as moral persons; they may also go by the name...

The Economist review assumes capitalism to be human nature, suggesting that capitalism's coercion is the lesser of two evils. The review compares it with what it deems much worse coercion and totalitarianism stemming from the complete statism that inevitably results from any attempt at having democratic control of the means of production. This ignores the success of the Spanish anarchist revolution (which involved millions of people and didn't rely on state coercion to control the means of production) as well as the fact that the film explains how in the past, many forms of illegitimate authority (monarchy, slavery, Bolshevism etc) were wrongly considered to be "human nature"--implying that any alternative would be disastrous. The film conveys an "economic freedom" that is based on non-hierarchical structures, describing how under capitalist or statist hierarchy, the "freedom" of a minority (capitalists, managers, bureaucrats, advertisers etc) interferes with the freedom of others, and is no more legitimate than the freedom to steal or take someone's life. That is why terms such as "free market" are considered to be propagandistic. Capitalism generally refers to in philosophy and politics, a social system based on the principle of individual rights, including property rights. ... Management (from Old French ménagement the art of conducting, directing, from Latin manu agere to lead by the hand) characterises the process of leading and directing all or part of an organization, often a business, through the deployment and manipulation of resources (human, financial, material, intellectual or intangible). ... A bureaucrat is a member of a bureaucracy, usually within an institution of the government. ... Generally speaking, advertising is the paid promotion of goods, services, companies and ideas by an identified sponsor. ...

The capitalist "consumer freedom" so often hailed in The Economist is seen not as a democratic mechanism, but as a "one dollar one vote" system, where people are not informed, but deceived by advertising into buying things they would otherwise not want--creating uninformed consumers who make irrational choices due to the billions of dollars spent on selling products with shiny colors, catchy slogans, sexy models, sport stars, rainbows and puppies, cars flying into the moon etc which are an attempt to get a consumer to buy a product on the basis of things that have nothing to do with the product. This violates the very same free market principles corporations claim to adhere to. Participatory economics, which is Mark Achbar's libertarian socialist preference for a future society [5], states that a person's freedom ends where the next person's begins, and in order for people not to interfere with the freedom of others "they should have a say over decisions in proportion to how much they are affected by those decisions."[6]. This implies the elimination of hierarchical institutions like the state and corporations. In the libertarian socialist paradigm, economic institutions are considered to exert tremendous influence on the governments of the capitalist democracies, which are criticized on the grounds that they exclude democratic control of the economy. That's why anarchists agree with Marx's dictum that government is mainly "a committe to manage the affairs of the bourgeoise" [7] though they extend this criticism to communist governments, since they perceive that any government is a means by which a minority controls a majority i.e. a hierarchical institution which implies an inequality of power. The Economist is a weekly news and international affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd and edited in London, UK. It has been in continuous publication since September 1843. ... Commercialism redirects here. ... A free market is an idealized market, where all economic decisions and actions by individuals regarding transfer of money, goods, and services are voluntary, and are therefore devoid of coercion and theft (some definitions of coercion are inclusive of theft). Colloquially and loosely, a free market economy is an economy... Participatory economics, often abbreviated parecon, is a proposed economic system that uses participatory decision making as an economic mechanism to guide the allocation of resources and consumption in a given society. ... Mark Achbar is a Canadian documentary film director, focusing mainly on progressive political issues. ... Libertarian socialism is a political philosophy dedicated to opposing coercive forms of authority and social hierarchy, in particular the institutions of capitalism and the state. ...

More deeply, capitalist wage labor is criticized on the grounds that the freedom to choose between "work or starve" or "work for this of that boss" doesn't mean it is not an authoritarian and unjust system. This is something The Economist ignores. A slave who can choose his master is still a slave. A person being hit with a hammer who is offered to be hit with a wooden stick or whip will choose the latter voluntarily, but the "freedom to choose" is limited to a coerced set of choices. Capitalist propaganda and the freedoms won thanks to economic surplus and working class struggles in the western world have hidden the fact that at one point wage labor was considered to be worse than slavery, because it was in the interest of a slave owner to take care of his property, while a wage slave is just a "use and throw" tool that can be replaced--a slave to his/her own need. [8] [9] In an economy based on slavery, the slave is sold once and then belongs to that master until the master decides to sell him/her. This differs from capitalism in that the slave is sold once and for all whereas in capitalism the worker must sell him/herself repeatedly by the day or hour or some other unit of time. If the wage contract were made to last indefinitely, instead of for a fixed period of time, it would in fact constitute full-fledged slavery. Thus capitalism constitutes a kind of transient slavery repeated over and over, which is why capitalism is also called wage-slavery. The Economist is a weekly news and international affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd and edited in London, UK. It has been in continuous publication since September 1843. ... An Australian anti-conscription propaganda poster from World War One U.S. propaganda poster, which warns against civilians sharing information on troop movements (National Archives) The much-imitated 1914 Lord Kitchener Wants You! poster Swedish Anti-Euro propaganda for the referendum of 2003. ...

That is why libertarian socialists advocate worker's control of industry and elimination of autocratic institutions-- to create a society where power (and the responsibility that comes with it) is more decentralized. By relinquishing their role as subservient, unthinking and insentient cogs in a machine, people would feel more responsible and more aware of their actions; they wouldn't be indoctrinated by centers of power, and would become appalled by behavior that now is condoned within the hierarchical institutional structures. Decentralization would encourage the kind of checks and balances and self-examination that are now lacking--bringing the more positive values of human nature to the fore.

Most people don't go around punching and killing people, and the average person wouldn't steal food from a child just because there are no police around and he happened to be hungry. If he did we'd find such behavior pathological, not normal (as you'd expect if we were really so greedy). Yet states have killed millions through war, and corporations will literally take away water from children for profit (e.g. Bechtel in Cochabamba) and kill millions of workers through horrible working conditions and negligence. The institutional magnification of negative human tendencies is seen as the root of the problem. Libertarian socialists believe that in a world economy dominated by corporations with a legal obligation to maximize profit for their stockholders, people starve or die from disease because is it is not profitable to help them. Corporations follow the 80/20 rule and cater to the needs of the affluent-- e.g. producing anti-wrinkle creams for wealthy westerners rather than relatively cheap medicine that would save millions of lives in places like Africa. Bechtel Corporation (Bechtel Group) is the largest engineering company in the United States, ranking as the 6th-largest privately owned company in the U.S. With headquarters in San Francisco, Bechtel had 40,000 employees as of 2005 working on projects in nearly 50 countries with $18. ... The centre of Cochabamba Cochabamba is a city in central Bolivia, located in a valley bearing the same name in the Andes mountain range. ... The Pareto principle (also known as the 80-20 rule, the law of the vital few and the principle of factor sparsity) states that for many phenomena, 80% of the consequences stem from 20% of the causes. ...

The Economist's double standard in distinguishing between capitalist and statist coercion is seen in the ideology of right-Libertarianism, which is often featured in its pages, and is one of the few political theories that justifies slavery. For example, Robert Nozick asks whether "a free system would allow [the individual] to sell himself into slavery" and he answers "I believe that it would." [10] Naturally, "voluntary" slavery in capitalism is based on the desperation, propaganda and inequality of power created by capitalist hierarchy. Another right-libertarian Murray Rothbard thundered against the evil of the state, stressing that it "arrogates to itself a monopoly of force, of ultimate decision-making power, over a given territorial area." Then, in the chapter's endnote, he quietly admitted that "[o]bviously, in a free society, Smith has the ultimate decision-making power over his own just property, Jones over his, etc." [11] Murray Newton Rothbard (March 2, 1926 â€“ January 7, 1995) was a highly influential American economist, historian and natural law theorist belonging to the Austrian School of Economics who helped define modern libertarianism and anarcho-capitalism. ...

Other workers, not capitalists, produced the means of production. The capitalist obtains them with the money from previous profits. Those profits in turn came from previous profits and so on back to the origins of capitalism. Those original accumulations of money used to start this whole process of capitalist accumulation came from fortunes made as a result of conquest and direct expropriation (such as colonialism) as well as fortunes achieved under pre-capitalist class societies such as feudalism or slavery. Thus from a historical perspective capitalism cannot be considered just. ‘Providing the means of production’ simply means 'allowing it to be used.' Granting permission itself is not a productive activity, it does not produce anything. If producers cease to produce, production will stop in any society, regardless of the economic system. But if owners stop granting permission, production is impacted only if their authority over the means of production is obeyed. Their authority derives from the violent and coercive mechanisms of the state, which ensures that capitalists have this ability to allow or deny access to the means of production by workers. Not only is "providing the means of production" not a productive activity, it depends on a system of organized, systemic coercion to maintain the capitalist's monopoly (or near-monopoly) of the means of production. In the United States the richest 1% of the population (the wealthy capitalist class) owns more wealth then the bottom 95% of the population combined. It is physically impossible for that one percent to work harder then the other ninety-five percent. There simply aren’t enough hours in the day. The average American worker works around 50 hours a week; for the capitalists to work ninety-five times more than the average worker he would have to work 4,250 hours a week! There are only 168 hours in a week; it’s not possible for this wealth disparity to be the result of capitalists working harder. [12] In other words, if a libertarian socialist parecon style economy run democratically by the workers paid John $2,500/month for activity X and in a corporate-controlled economy only $1000, the $1500 deduction is due to capitalist exploitation (assuming, of course, a similar real value of money in both economies) It has been suggested that Definitions of capitalism be merged into this article or section. ... In economics, a monopoly (from the Latin word monopolium - Greek language monos, one + polein, to sell) is defined as a persistent market situation where there is only one provider of a product or service. ... Participatory economics, or parecon, a participatory economics system proposed as an alternative to other systems such as capitalism and coordinatorism, emerged from the work of the radical theorist Michael Albert and of the radical economist Robin Hahnel, beginning in the 1980s and 1990s. ...

Libertarian socialists don't think "the creation of jobs" or "social mobility" (e.g. a poor person becoming rich) justifies a system. Slave owners also "created jobs" and that didn't justify slavery-- furthermore, if workers democratically run the factories, they create their own jobs and don't need the capitalists. In Colonial Brazil, there were slaves who managed to become free and even become slave owners themselves. It was as rare as workers becoming capitalists in contemporary capitalism, but it did happen and was theoretically possible for many slaves. Just as the theoretical possibility of a slave becoming a slave owner does not justify slavery, the theoretical ability of a wage-slave to become a capitalist does not justify capitalism. If one could go from being homeless to millionaire fascist dictator, that wouldn't justify fascism. In many Leninist states there were individuals who went from being a worker to being part of the ruling class, in some cases even joining the Politburo, yet that does not make Marxist totalitarianism an acceptable system. In the libertarian socialist view, the authoritarian power that the owner acquires by owning the means of production, is a form of statism. The fact that there have been some improvements in the standard of living under capitalism does not justify capitalism. Studies by economists like Richard H. Steckel, have shown that there were significant improvements in the standard of living in American slave societies.[13] That didn't justify slavery. Libertarian socialism is a political philosophy dedicated to opposing coercive forms of authority and social hierarchy, in particular the institutions of capitalism and the state. ... It has been suggested that Definitions of capitalism be merged into this article or section. ...

The risk and effort of a capitalist doesn't entitle him to profit, anymore than a bank robber's risk and effort, since the inequality of power granted by property rights means that capitalist profit results from the exploitation of workers who are always paid less than the value of the goods they produce. It is true that investing usually entails taking risks (one could lose the investment), but just because someone is taking a risk does not mean that s/he is producing anything. Most human activity involves risks of some sort. If a criminal robs someone at gunpoint s/he is taking a risk as well. S/he could go to jail, the robbery could go wrong, s/he could get hurt, etc. That does not change the fact that it is robbery. The same is true of the risks taken by capitalists. The workers take as much of a risk, if not more, as the capitalist. If the business fails the worker is unemployed. The worker is then usually in a worse situation then the capitalist because the capitalist is wealthy and can weather such a situation much easier then those on lower levels of the hierarchy. In addition, many jobs entail risks to workers' life or limb, whereas investment does not. A hierarchy (in Greek: , it is derived from -hieros, sacred, and -arkho, rule) is a system of ranking and organizing things or people, where each element of the system (except for the top element) is subordinate to a single other element. ...

Capitalists like to claim that their wealth is the result of them working hard by running their business, managing portfolios, etc. A mafia boss also does lots of work to plan his robberies and keep his illicit enterprise going but his actions are still theft. Many capitalists don’t even run a company, they derive their income solely from stocks, bonds, interest, dividends, rent, etc. This attempt to justify capitalist exploitation completely fails in these cases because they aren’t even running a company or doing any work at all. Manipulating portfolios doesn’t produce anything useful; sticking money in the bank and letting it accumulate interest isn’t hard work. Most of the “work” done by capitalists running a business is in reality manipulating workers so as to maximize exploitation (thereby maximizing profit). Most capitalists hire people to do whatever coordination and administration is necessary for production and do little of it themselves. In contemporary capitalism this has lead to the growth of a separate techno-managerial class that controls the workers for the capitalists. In general the higher up the hierarchy and the farther from the point of production the less genuine coordination is done. A thief that does a lot of scheming is still a thief. [14] The Mafia (also referred to as Cosa Nostra or the Mob), is a criminal secret society which first developed in the mid-19th century in Sicily. ...

In this sense, the Economist review ignores that the libertarian socialist view of states and corporations (and private ownership of the means of production more generally) is similar to St Augustin of Hippo's view of kingdoms: Libertarian socialism is a political philosophy dedicated to opposing coercive forms of authority and social hierarchy, in particular the institutions of capitalism and the state. ...

The Economist review also ignores how capitalist property is based on the coercion of the state, since any attempt by the majority of workers to take over the factories to run them democratically, will be met by state (or hired mercenary) violence, which is used to protect capitalist property rights. In their view, capitalists' support for state coercion, especially in the form of 3rd world fascism (to maintain cheap labor and subordination) [16] shows that they are against state coercion only if it harms their interests. Furthermore, corporations have always relied on state intervention via tax payer subsidized research and development, which entails radical cost and risk shifting-- a violation of free market principles. In the US, for instance the Pentagon system has subsidized technology industry for decades (computers, internet, airplanes, container ships that bring goods from China etc), and similar things can be said of biology-based industry and other heavily subsidized industries such as agriculture. Many protectionist measures such as tariffs and intellectual property rights have been imposed by governments to protect corporations from the ravages of the free market. [17] All currently industrialized countries developed violating free market principles. Only after protectionism had given them an upper hand did they insist on "free market"-- although always partially and selectively--almost invariably as a weapon against poorer countries. Free market policies, such as "comparative advantage" economic models have been a disaster in poor places like Latin America, that's why there's been a shift to the left. Western economists (as well as media and other doctrinal institutions) are part of the supply and demand market system, which entails that their point of view must satisfy the needs of those who can pay them i.e. rich people. That's why they disrespect poor people's democratic decisions to reject their model. Nevertheless, if the United States had followed the "comparative advantage" model, it would now be exporting fish and fur. It wouldn't have developed and industrial economy, nor would anyone else. [18] A free market is an idealized market, where all economic decisions and actions by individuals regarding transfer of money, goods, and services are voluntary, and are therefore devoid of coercion and theft (some definitions of coercion are inclusive of theft). Colloquially and loosely, a free market economy is an economy... In economics, the theory of comparative advantage explains why it can be beneficial for two parties (countries, regions, individuals and so on) to trade if one has a lower relative cost of producing some good. ...

Contrary to what liberal and right libertarian criticism asserts, The Corporation doesn't claim that private ownership of the means of production per se is only a product of state intervention. In fact, Mark Achbar had already documented in his film Manufacturing Consent that the distraction and propaganda produced by power structures, such as corporations, helps maintain them in place. Even Marx and Engels talk about protection of property and privilege in pre-state societies in the communist manifesto and liberal historians have documented the existence of different methods of coercion and propaganda to protect private property in prestate societies. [19]. The film just asserts what is obvious from the documentary record: that the State produces propaganda to justify its power and not only issues the corporate charter, but as Thomas Friedman, a pro-capitalist pro-interventionist columnist for the New York Times said, Mark Achbar is a Canadian documentary film director, focusing mainly on progressive political issues. ... Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media is a book by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, first published in 1988. ... Malayalam editon of the Manifesto The Communist Manifesto, also known as The Manifesto of the Communist Party, first published on February 21, 1848 by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, is one of the worlds most historically influential political tracts. ... A charter is a document bestowing certain rights on a town, city, university or institution. ... Thomas Loren Friedman, OBE (born July 20, 1953) is an American journalist and author, as well as a three-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize and an op-ed columnist for The New York Times. ... The New York Times is an internationally known daily newspaper published in New York City and distributed in the United States and many other nations worldwide. ...

"The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist -- McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the builder of the F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies is called the United States Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps." [20]

US planners make this clear. So for example in 1997 US space command published a pamphlet titled "Vision for 2020" (available to the general public) which lays out US plans to use space to dominate the world. The beginning of the pamphlet, in Star Wars style slanted text, states, "US Space Command--dominating the space dimension of military operations to protect US interests and investment. Integrating Space Forces into warfighting capabilities across the full spectrum of conflict." The pamphlet also says:

"Historically, military forces have evolved to protect national interests and investments -- both military and economic. During the rise of sea commerce, nations built navies to protect and enhance their commercial interests. During the westward expansion of the continental United States, military outposts and the cavalry emerged to protect our wagon trains, settlements, and railroads. ... space forces will emerge to protect military and commercial national interests and investment in the space medium due to their increasing importance. ... The emerging synergy of space superiority with land, sea, and air superiority, will lead to Full Spectrum Dominance. ... The globalization of the world economy will also continue, with a widening between "haves" and "have-nots." ... Space commerce is becoming increasingly important to the global economy. Likewise, the importance of space capabilities to military operations is being widely embraced ... there will be a critical need to control the space medium to ensure US dominance on future battlefields. ... The two principal themes of the USSSPACECOM Vision are dominating the space medium and integrating space power throughout military operations. " [21]

The liberal and right-libertarian dichotomy between capitalism and communism is also flawed. The Soviet Union was more accurately called "state capitalist." The state owned the means of production, and Lenin stated that for him "socialism is nothing but state capitalist monopoly made to benefit the whole people,"[22]). The Soviet Model, although rejected by libertarian socialists like all forms of capitalism and authoritarianism, did nevertheless quite well as compared to capitalist countries like Brazil, which were at a similar level of economic development in 1917, the year of the Bolshevik revolution (one can also compare "communist" Bulgaria with "capitalist" Guatemala). [23] South Korea, which is often called a "miracle" of the free-market, industrialized with massive western aid and through a highly protectionist series of state-guided five year plans-- in that regard similar to the Soviet Union, which also industrialized with state-guided 5 year plans. The same can be said of other hailed "free-market miracles" like Singapore and Hong Kong, which developed with economies coordinated by the state and industrial-financial conglomerates-- benefiting naturally from the cheap labor and raw materials afforded by state repression in places like China. [24] Bolshevik Party Meeting. ...

The idea, supported by many on the right, that a more laissez-faire form of capitalism will fix all of it's problems is based on a selective reading of evidence. Their methodology is to select prosperous countries, claim they are examples of the 'wonders of a free market' (no matter how extensive government intervention in the economy is) and to select poor countries and claim that they are examples of how government interventions ruin a country (no matter how little government intervention exists). In the early 1990s supporters of 'free market' capitalism pointed to Argentina as evidence that their theories were correct - it's prosperity at the time was claimed to be proof that deregulation and the free market are the answer. Several years later Argentina went into a depression and the economy imploded. The "free marketers" then changed their tune - the problem, they claimed, was that Argentina had lots of extensive government interference in the economy. Some even claimed it was "socialist." When the country was prosperous they claimed it was 'free market' but when it became less prosperous they claimed it was 'socialist.' Their selective identification of "free markets" and "government intervention" isn't limited to comparisons between countries. A corporation is basically a centrally planned economy. The different parts take orders from those higher in the hierarchy, they do not trade with each other. Modern capitalism is really a series of interlocking command economies (multi-national corporations) which trade with each other (just as the Soviet Bloc countries traded with each other). Corporations are actually the opposite of markets, the fact that they are defended under the laissez-faire philosophy further shows how facile their support for the "free market" is. Capitalism itself requires government intervention in the economy in the form of enforcing property rights. Without this the system will implode. Advocates of laissez-faire capitalism typically respond with something along the lines that it's the government's role to protect "individual rights" and so such intervention is justified. But left-liberals and state socialists say the same thing - that the kind of intervention they advocate is justified by "human rights" or something along those lines. The laissez-faire capitalist is no more against "big government" than the left-liberal or state socialist, they just disagree on which state policies should be implemented. In reality, whenever people who claim to advocate "shrinking government" in favor of "free market" capitalism get in power they implement extensive government interventions that benefit the rich (beyond enforcing private property). "Free market" regimes have a long record of giving large subsidies to big business, funding the military-industrial complex, following a foreign policy designed to help maintain a favorable foreign investment climate and even imposing tariffs when needed to support weak domestic industries. "Free enterprise" means state protection for the wealthy and market discipline for everyone else. In reality, the reason some countries are rich and others poor has more to do with imperialism then with the degree of government intervention. There is no correlation either way. [25]

Also, as Guatemalan Foreign Minister Toriello said shortly before the 1954 CIA coup, US policy amounted to The CIA Seal The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is an American intelligence agency, responsible for obtaining and analyzing information about foreign governments, corporations, and individuals, and reporting such information to the various branches of the U.S. Government. ...

"[C]ataloguing as `Communism' every manifestation of nationalism or economic independence, any desire for social progress, any intellectual curiosity, and any interest in progressive or liberal reforms... any Latin American government that exerts itself to bring about a truly national program which affects the interests of the powerful foreign companies, in whose hands the wealth and the basic resources in large part repose in Latin America, will be pointed out as Communist; it will be accused of being a threat to continental security and making a breach in continental solidarity, and so will be threatened with foreign intervention." [26]

Nevertheless, the true measure of libertarian socialism is not to ignore it like The Economist or liberal/capitalist libertarians do by looking at examples of monopoly state capitalist ("socialist") states like the Soviet Union or North Korea, but by examining the unprecedented success of libertarian socialist worker's councils such as those of the Spanish anarchist revolution where the takeover of industry was surprisingly quick, was not based on state coercion, and proved beyond the slightest doubt that modern industry can be efficiently conducted without stock and bond holders and very highly place executives. Wage workers and salaried employees (engineers, technicians, etc.) can themselves operate the complicated machinery of modern industry. Examples are endless [27] The Economist is a weekly news and international affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd and edited in London, UK. It has been in continuous publication since September 1843. ... A workers council is a council, or deliberative body, composed of working class or proletarian members. ... Anarchism is a generic term describing various political philosophies and social movements that advocate the elimination of hierarchy and imposed authority. ... The storming of the Bastille, 14 July 1789 during the French Revolution. ...

The idea that the state assigns equal priority to protecting "individuals" as it does to concentrations of power, wealth and privilege is refuted by a plethora of historical facts. One of the main messages of The Corporation, is in fact about how the state assigns rights to "legal persons" like corporations, which coupled with their tremendous wealth and leverage-- grant them rights and privileges way beyond real persons. And as regards recent state actions, one might, for instance, calculate the number of American homeless or African children who would be saved with a fraction of the costs of the Iraq war-- which as many experts have demonstrated, would not have occurred if Iraq's main exports were lettuce and pickles. [28] [29]

Noam Chomsky has disputed the Economist's claims, by pointing at corporations' lesser accountability (e.g. governments, unlike corporations, release declassified documents and are generally far more accountable, offering services not based on profit), corporations' responsibility for starvation deaths around the world, global warming and degradation, the over 2 million deaths every year due to work related injury and illness, the daily exploitation, degradation and corruption of human beings, as well as the corporation's influence on government policy (wars or other harmful actions motivated by a perceived material gain). Chomsky cites a comparison by Nobel Prize winning economist Amartya Sen of post-independence democratic capitalist India and Communist China, covering the years 1949 to 1979, which concludes that capitalist social policy in India, just in those years, had killed more than 100 million people, a total exceeding the deaths caused by ALL Communist states after 1917.[30] In a world economy largely controlled by corporations, to deny capitalist responsibility for the close to 3 billion human beings living on less than $2/day and the over 1.2 billion living on less than $1/day is to deny reality. Erich Fromm has analyzed the harmful psychological consequences of renting oneself to survive under wage labor, explaining how subordination of the worker to the owner under capitalism, results in a diminishment of human freedom and a variety of pathologies [31]. Avram Noam Chomsky, Ph. ... Erich Fromm Erich Pinchas Fromm (March 23, 1900 â€“ March 18, 1980) was an internationally renowned Jewish-German-American social psychologist, psychoanalyst, and humanistic philosopher. ...

Magazines like the economists believe their philosophy stands on the tradition of classic liberalism, but libertarian socialists like Mark Achbar and Chomsky, believe that their ideology represents the tradition of classical liberalism, which in their view is at its core anti-capitalist. Mark Achbar is a Canadian documentary film director, focusing mainly on progressive political issues. ... Classical liberalism (also called laissez-faire liberalism[1]) is a term used: to label the philosophy developed by early liberals from the Age of Enlightenment until John Stuart Mill [2] to label the revived economic liberalism of the 20th century, seen in work by Friedrich Hayek[3] and Milton Friedman. ...

Classical liberal thinker Wilhelm von Humboldt, for instance, expreses a concern for spontaneity that touches the question of labor and exploitation. He observes that Wilhelm von Humboldt Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand Freiherr von Humboldt (June 22, 1767 - April 8, 1835), government functionary, foreign diplomat, philosopher, founder of Humboldt UniversitÃ¤t in Berlin, friend of Goethe and especially of Schiller, is especially remembered as a German linguist who introduced a knowledge of the Basque...

"[M]an never regards what he possesses as so much his own, as what he does; and the labourer who tends a garden is perhaps in a true sense its owner, than the listless voluptuary who enjoys its fruits. . . . In view of this consideration, it seems as if all peasants and craftsmen might be elevated into artists; that is, men who love their labour for its own sake, improve it by their own plastic genius and inventive skill, and thereby cultivate their intellect, ennoble their character, and exalt and refine their pleasures. And so humanity would be ennobled by the very things which now, though beautiful in themselves, so often serve to degrade it. . . But, still, freedom is undoubtedly the indispensable condition, without which even the pursuits most congenial to individual human nature, can never succeed in producing such salutary influences. Whatever does not spring from a man’s free choice, or is only the result of instruction and guidance, does not enter into his very being, but remains alien to his true nature; he does not perform it with truly human energies,but merely with mechanical exactness."

If a man acts in a purely mechanical way, reacting to external demands or instruction rather than in ways determined by his own interests and energies and power, “we may admire what he does, but we despise what he is.” [[32]]

On such conceptions Humboldt grounds his ideas concerning the role of the state, which tends to “make man an instrument to serve its arbitrary ends, overlooking his individual purposes.” His doctrine is classical liberal, strongly opposed to all but the most minimal forms of state intervention in personal or social life. Writing in the 1790s, Humboldt had no conception of the forms that industrial capitalism would take. Hence he is not overly concerned with the dangers of private power.

"But when we reflect (still keeping theory distinct from practice) that the influence of a private person is liable to diminution and decay, from competition, dissipation of fortune, even death; and that clearly none of these contingencies can be applied to the State; we are still left with the principle that the latter is not to meddle in anything which does not refer exclusively to security. . . ."

He speaks of the essential equality of the condition of private citizens, and of course has no idea of the ways in which the notion “private person” would come to be reinterpreted in the era of corporate capitalism. He did not foresee that democracy with its motto of equality of all citizens before the law and Liberalism with its right of man over his own person both would be wrecked on realities of capitalist economy. [[33]]

He did not foresee that, in a predatory capitalist economy, state intervention would be an absolute necessity to preserve human existence and to prevent the destruction of the physical environment.

As Karl Polanyi, for one, has pointed out, the self-adjusting market “could not exist for any length of time without annihilating the human and natural substance of society; it would have physically destroyed man and transformed his surroundings into a wilderness.” Karl Paul Polanyi (October 21, 1886 - Pickering, Ontario April 23, 1964) was a Hungarian intellectual known for his opposition to traditional economic thought and his influential book The Great Transformation. ...

Humboldt did not foresee the consequences of the commodity character of labor, the doctrine (in Polanyi’s words) that “it is not for the commodity to decide where is should be offered for sale, to what purpose it should be used,at what price it should be allowed to change hands, and in what manner it should beconsumed or destroyed.” [[34]]

But the commodity, in the case, is a human life, and social protection was therefore a minimal necessity to constrain the irrational and destructive workings of the classical free market. Nor did Humboldt understand that capitalist economic relations perpetuated a form of bondage which, as early as 1767, Simon Linguet had declared to be even worse than slavery: Slave redirects here. ...

"It is the impossibility of living by any other means that compels our farm labourers to till the soil whose fruits they will not eat, and our masons to construct buildings in which they will not live. It is want that drags them to those markets where they await masters who will do them the kindness of buying them. It is want that compels them to go down on their knees to the rich man in order to get from him permission to enrich him. . . . What effective gain has the suppression of slavery brought him?.. . . He is free, you say. Ah! That is his misfortune. The slave was precious to his master because of the money he had cost him. But the handicraftsmen cost nothing to the rich voluptuary who employs him. . . . These men, it is said, have no master–they have one, and the most terrible, the most imperious of masters, that is need. It is this that reduces them to the most cruel dependence."

If there is something degrading to human nature in the idea of bondage, then a new emancipation must be awaited, Fourier’s "third and last emancipatory phase of history, which will transform the proletariat to free men by eliminating the commodity characterof labor, ending wage slavery, and bringing the commercial, industrial, and financial institutions under democratic control." [[35]]

Perhaps Humboldt might have accepted these conclusions. He does agree that state intervention in social life is legitimate if

“freedom would destroy the very conditions without which not only freedom but even existence itself would be inconceivable” –precisely the circumstances that arise in an unconstrained capitalist economy [[36]] as described in the film The Corporation.

Content critiques

Topically related movies

Why We Fight is a documentary film directed by Eugene Jarecki that won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. ... Manufacturing Consent movie poster Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media (1992) is a documentary film that explores the political life and ideas of Noam Chomsky, world-renowned linguist, intellectual, and political activist. ... Surplus: Terrorized Into Being Consumers is a 2003 Swedish documentary about consumerism and anti-consumerism, directed by Erik Gandini and Johan SÃ¶derberg. ...

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