Response and OPVL to the movie, The Corporation

Origin: critics, anti-corporation activists, Joel bakan –> high education gives it authority,
Purpose: to show the viewers the truth behind corporations and their corporate social responsibility, to educate viewers about the damages done
Value: uses many professional perspectives (people from the corporation, critics, well-known/famous people), cases, footage from the past, photos, and dates
Limitations: only shows one side of the story (showing only the negative perspectives on corporations), some of the cases that the video showed that were caused because of corporations, (eg. animal extinction) may not be the direct cause of the problem

After watching Mark Achbar’s, The Corporation, I believe my view on corporations and corporate social responsibility (CSR) has drastically changed. Before the movie, I was convinced that corporations had good intentions and used fair sources of labour to sell their products to their customers. Their CSR promoted donations for causes such as poverty, disease, and other problems, through their campaigns that enabled them to send their profits to these causes. The film, however, showed me a different perspective to corporations. I learned that instead of having their consumers as a priority, corporations are always thinking about their self. They twisted the truth and conned others in a way that benefits their company. For instance, Walmart’s CSR states that the proceeds made from their campaign will go to organizations against child labour. Ironically however, those same products were made using child labour. Although child labour is not the most socially acceptable labour force, it is the cheapest one there is. This is because children have less value compared to a full grown man, which can probably do the job better (and has more rights). Therefore companies, although they never admit it, use child labour because it costs less to pay the workers, especially in Lesser Economically Developed Countries (LEDC), where the workers who produce the products have a smaller pay than the price of the actual product. Another thing I learned from watching this film, was that corporations will do anything to gain profit, even if it was something that can endanger man kind. In 1948, a swish chemist named Paul Hermann Müller discovered a new chemical called “dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane”, or in other words, DDT. At first it was used as a poison in 1939 during WWII however, after the war Müller found potential in it as a synthetic insecticide, and thus corporation used this chemical to create products that would get rid of insects that pry in agricultural farms. However, as it became more popular and the demands grew higher, the company found out that the chemical caused cancer, birth defects, and other illnesses. Yet, because the corporation is always thinking of themselves first, they never told the consumers about it and instead encourage the people to buy more in order to benefit the company. The stories and cases shown in the film made me change the way I viewed corporations change overall. No longer will I be fooled by the fake advertisements and campaigns sponsoring non governmental organizations, instead I will keep what I learned from the film in mind and be more considerate in what I buy.