Notes from the "The Corporation" presentation, part 2

The Film and The Book

• Bakan called himself the content maker, giving credit to Achbar and Abbott for their filmmaking skills.
• Tried

  to make the book less driven by dry analysis and driven more by

  stories. He wanted to draw the the points he wanted to make from the

  stories, which really serve as metaphor.

• Some of the stories in

  the book are same as in the film, some are different. The media are

  different and require different approaches.

• Ray Anderson is

  major in the film, but not the book. Anderson had an epiphany in 1993;

  became a “sustainable business” kind of guy. “People just fall in love

  with him” on the screen. Bakan was able to say cover his story in 2 or

  3 pages in the book. In the film he’s in and out because he’s

  “incredibly compelling”, and works well in the “emotional medium” of

  film.

• To use him in the book as often as in the film would “seem strange”.
• Wanted to make the book not just informative, but interesting and fun to read.
• Joked: wished he could’ve got a “push button book” in which you can hear Ray Anderson speak.

Psycopathology of the Corporation

• Bakan did psych as an undergrad, many psychologists in the family (both parents, an uncle).
• In Psych 101, you learn a “psychopath” (someone with antisocial personality disorder) has these qualities:
  • Pathologically self-interested
  • Incapable of concern for others
  • No feelings of guilt or remorse
  • Relationships are limited to ones in which they use other people
  • No moral obligation to obey laws or social norms
• In Law School, you learn that:
  • Corporations are legally required to serve their own self-interest
  • Decisions had to be made to maximize the wealth of shareholders
  • Corporations are persons in the eyes of the law (something drilled into to you on the first day of Business 101)
• The

  corporation as a person is one that has been programmed to have a

  psychopathic personality. “We created this artificial person and we’ve

  required it to be self-interested.”