REAL ART VIDEO WEEK!
THE CORPORATION

From Wikipedia:

The film charts the development of the corporation as a legal entity 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 profile of the modern, profit-driven corporation to that of a clinically-diagnosed psychopath. The film focuses mostly on corporations in North America, especially in the United States.

The film is composed of several vignettes examining and critiquing corporate practices, and drawing parallels between examples of corporate malfeasance and the DSM-IV's symptoms of psychopathy, i.e. callous unconcern for the feelings of others, incapacity to maintain enduring relationships, reckless disregard for the safety of others, deceitfulness (repeated lying to and deceiving of others for profit), incapacity to experience guilt, and failure to conform to the social norms with respect to lawful behaviors.

More here.

So I throw around the word "corporation" quite a bit here at Real Art, usually as a derogatory word. Clearly, I believe that corporate business entities cause a great deal of trouble for our democracy--indeed, I believe that corporations have essentially rendered our democracy irrelevant in terms of the people's political power. But how did corporations gain so much power? How, exactly, do they harm our nation? This film, clocking in at two and a half hours over its two parts, made by the people who put together the Noam Chomsky documentary I posted yesterday, answers those questions.

Check it out:


via videosift.com

Watch part two here.

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