The Corporation is a complex and sobering yet darkly amusing video documentary that takes its audience on a graphic and engaging quest to reveal the corporation’s inner workings, curious history, controversial impacts and possible futures. Based on Bakan’s best-selling book, ”The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power,” the film has achieved box office success, has won 28 awards from prestigious festivals around the world, and stands as the top-grossing Canadian feature documentary of all time. The Corporation includes encounters and interviews with CEOs and top-level executives from a range of industries: energy, pharmaceutical, computer, tire, carpet, sporting goods, public relations, branding, news, advertising, and undercover marketing, as well as a Nobel-prize winning economist, a corporate spy, and a range of academics, critics, historians and thinkers.

The Corporation reveals that legally, a corporation is granted the status of a “person”, and asks: “If that’s the case, what kind of person is it?" It turns out the operational principles of the corporation give it a highly anti-social “personality”: it is self-interested, inherently amoral, callous and deceitful; it breaches social and legal standards to get its way; it does not suffer from guilt, yet it can mimic the human qualities of empathy, caring and altruism. In short, the modern corporation is a psychopath and in need of regulation and reform. You can order the 2-DVD Special Edition version, which includes over 8 hours of excellent extras at www.thecorporation.com, but we include links below to the entire movie on YouTube (in 23 chapters).

 Psychopathic Behavior

CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY (1:16 teaser | 2:00 trailer | 3:42 review | 2:00 screening)

Michael Moore's new film explores the root causes of the global economic meltdown and takes a comical look at the corporate and political shenanigans that culminated in what Moore has described as the biggest robbery in the history of this country the massive transfer of U.S. taxpayer money to private financial institutions.

“Managed” Capitalism vs. Free Markets (4:09)

Michael Miller of Action Institute argues that Free Markets are not to blame for the financial crisis; government managed capitalism is.

THE CORPORATION [Chapter 1/23] What is a Corporation? (7:14)

The Corporation is today's dominant institution, creating great wealth but also great harm. This 26 award-winning documentary examines the nature, evolution, impacts and future of the modern business corporation and the increasing role it plays in society and our everyday lives.

THE CORPORATION [Chapter 2/23] Birth (4:55)

How the corporation came to be. Originally, corporations were set up to serve the public good. Corporation lawyers gained rights through the US Supreme Court using the 14th Amendment (set up to protect slaves) that gives them the rights of a person. In the last century, the corporation is given more and more rights while people are increasingly stripped of theirs.

THE CORPORATION [3/23] A Legal "Person" (5:47)

Having acquired rights of immortal persons, what kind of person is the corporation? By law, the corporation can only consider the interests of their shareholders. It is legally bound to put its bottom line before everything else, even the public good.

[A landmark Supreme Court decision in Jan/2010 gave corporations the Freedom of Speech right to influence political campaigns with no funding limits.]

THE CORPORATION [4/23] Externalities (2:12)

What is an externality? Milton Friedman describes it as the effect of a transaction between two parties on a third party who is not involved in the transaction. A technical sounding term that basically means let somebody else deal with the problems the corporation creates.

THE CORPORATION [6/23] The Pathology of Commerce (0:46)

If we look at the corporation as a legal person, it exhibits all the characteristics of a psychopath using a personality diagnostic checklist by the World Health Organization.

THE CORPORATION [7/23] Monstrous Obligations (6:14)

Who bears the moral responsibility for the actions of a psychopathic institution? The employees of the corporation can be the nicest people in their personal lives but still engage in monstrous endeavors at work. Can we separate the individual from the corporation?

THE CORPORATION [8/23] Mindset (8:05)

The profit motive drives the actions of the corporation and creates a mindset of competition and anything goes. Meet corporate spy and self-described predator Marc Barry as he describes his tactics for gathering intelligence from competing corporations. Juxtapose his attitude with Ray Anderson, President of Interface, who, in an epiphany moment, realized he was a plunderer and it was only a matter of time before the law figures it out.

THE CORPORATION [9/23] Trading on 9/11 (2:10)

A trader describes the tragedy of 9/11 as a blessing in disguise because for some people, it translated into great riches. Brokers celebrated the death and destruction of the Iraq war because "in devastation, there is opportunity". 

THE CORPORATION [10/23] Boundary Issues (7:21)

We used to regard many areas as too essential to the public good to be commercialized; they were protected by tradition and regulation. Now, everything is becoming fair game in the private taking of the commons -- land, oceans, air, water, education, health, energy and social assistance. Where do we draw the line?

THE CORPORATION [11/23] Basic Training (9:56)

Marketing has transformed itself into a sophisticated, pervasive force that extends into every part of our lives. Slick advertising campaigns are designed for the express purpose of manipulating children into buying products and training them to become mindless consumers of goods they don't really want. The Nag factor, a marketing study that evaluated the effect of nagging, was designed to teach children how to nag more effectively. Consumers are made, not born.

THE CORPORATION [12/23] Perception Management (3:00)

Some of our best creative minds are employed to create illusions that divert us from the real issues and manufacture our consent. Beyond their products, the corporation sells us the idea of a better way of life and produces propaganda that affirms their power as necessary for human progress.

THE CORPORATION [13/23] Like a Good Neighbor (3:35)

Pfizer attempts to "make the community better" with its own private transit security system. An illustration of how the corporation works behind the scenes to reconfigure public policy to suit its needs, yet the image we're shown is markedly different. Can corporations be trusted to provide public services?

THE CORPORATION [14/23] A Private Celebration (4:24)

Branding is not just advertising, it's production. It's the dissemination of the idea of the corporation, such as Disney building a town called Celebration, Florida. They are selling the living embodiment of what the Disney brand is supposed to represent.

THE CORPORATION [15/23] Triumph of the Shill (3:09)

Welcome to the new world of undercover marketing and product placement. With staged encounters such as passer-bys discussing a hot new CD, advertising is infiltrating our lives in ways we're not even aware of.

THE CORPORATION [16/23] Advancing the Front (5:48)

Where do tomorrow's opportunities for profit lie? In the US, the Supreme Court ruled that anything alive can be patented except a human being. When life itself is ruled commercial fair game, gene pirates scour the world for new sources and the human genome project takes on new fervor. [Another landmark Supreme Court decision in Jan/2010 gave corporations the Freedom of Speech right to influence political campaigns with no funding limits.]

THE CORPORATION [18/23] Expansion Plan (4:46)

The beginning of the fight for the world's most important resource: water. In Bolivia, privatization makes water unaffordable for many of its citizens and the resulting protest turns violent when the military opens fire.

THE CORPORATION [19/23] Taking The Right Side (6:55)

The rise of fascism has links to corporate power. American corporations played a role in Nazi Germany and the holocaust, such as IBM's punch-card machines that tabulated the victims' data. Corporate allegiance to profit trumps their allegiance to nationalism.

THE CORPORATION [20/23] Hostile Takeover (3:24)

Despotism was often a useful tool for the corporation to secure foreign markets. Corporations once even attempted to overthrow New Deal President Roosevelt and impose a fascist dictatorship in the US. The story of Major General Smedley Darlington Butler.

THE CORPORATION [23/23] Prognosis (5:06)

Epilogue. Victories are being won around the world but are they enough to turn the tide of global corporate dominance? Can we exploit the corporation's inherent weakness to pursue profit at any cost, even to itself?