Analyzing 'The Corporation' Documentary: Key Attributes and Ethics

This report provides an analysis of the documentary film 'The Corporation,' which is based on the book by Joel Bakan. The film explores the corporation's nature and its pursuit of profit, often at the expense of public well-being. The report addresses key attributes of a person as presented in the film, contrasting them with the characteristics of a corporation. It examines how corporations are both similar to and different from people, touching upon legal and ethical considerations. The analysis delves into the concept of externalities, explaining how corporations often shift the consequences of their actions onto others. The report uses the film to illustrate corporate behavior and its impact on society, referencing the book and other academic sources to support its arguments and provide a comprehensive understanding of the documentary's core themes.

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The documentary film titled the corporation is based on The Corporation: The
Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power book by a law professor, Joel Bakan. In reference to
the book, the film shows different facets of this institution and how its main aim is to generate
profits regardless of how such efforts affect the public. The film describes the corporation as a
psychopathic individual who is led by greed other than good deeds ("The Corporation - Full
Movie", 2017). In the light of the above knowledge, the film answers the questions below.
According to the movie, what are the key attributes of a person?
According to the film, one of the key characteristics of a person is birth. This implies that
a human being is created as result of birth whereas corporations are created as result of legal acts
(Bakan, 2005). A person has an attribute of death where after a certain period of time a human
being’s life comes to a halt. Moral responsibility is also one of the key attributes of a person. It is
difficult for a person to see a wrong and keep mum, hence justice. Rights is another key attribute
of a person. People have a moral legal right to have or obtain something for instance, right to
live.
How is a corporation like or unlike a person?
The film touches on the issue where a corporation achieves the status of a person in
which at some point a corporation tends to resemble people. It is no doubt that a corporation, just
like a person can be able to borrow money from financial institutions. A person can be able to
sue or get sued so is a corporation. This is evident because many people sue corporations for
adverse effects of their products or a corporation sue another corporation. On the contrary,
corporations are unlike a person, case in point, a corporation is considered as an immoral person.
This implies that a corporation can stay as long as it wishes. Unlike a person, a corporation lack

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moral consciousness where they are focused on making a profit without keeping in mind the
effect to the consumers or the public (Crowther and Seifi, 2017). Since a corporation is designed
by law for the satisfaction of shareholders, they are unlike human beings. As much as corporates
engage in corporate social responsibility, they lack human characteristics of a soul and a body.
How does the notion of "externalities" relate to the legal and ethical status of a corporation as
a "person'?
According to Nicholson and Snyder, (2014), externality can be defined as an undertaking
between two parties which affects a different party, third party who is not involved in the
transaction. In layman terms, externality means that corporations let other people deal with the
problems that they create. Case in point, corporations can make deals for creating cars, leaving
the third party, the government, to seek ways of creating roads that can be used by the cars.
Externality, in the film, is described in a way that corporations are viewed as killing machines
which only do what it was supposed to do. In relation to the legal and status of a person,
externality relates in a very different way. This is because a normal individual’s activity is
conscience of the effects of the activity to other people. For instance, when people are having a
party, they are conscious on the level of music volume being played which failure to that, they
can be charged with disturbance.

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References
The Corporation - Full Movie. (2017). YouTube. Retrieved 28 September 2017, from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHrhqtY2khc
Nicholson, W., & Snyder, C. (2014). Intermediate microeconomics and its application (12th ed.,
p. 519). Cengage Learning.
Bakan, J. (2005). The Corporation: The pathological pursuit of profit and power. Simon and
Schuster.
Crowther, D., & Seifi, S. (2017). Modern Organisational Governance (p. 60). Emerald Group
Publishing.