The Corporation Documentary

The Corporation Documentary

• How did corporations begin in the US and specifically how did they get legal personhood recognition through history? What is the current extent of this legal recognition as seen in the recent Supreme Court Case “Citizens United v. FEC”

The industrial age began in 1712. Originally, corporations were associations of people that were chartered by the state to perform a function such as building a bridge. They were set up to serve the public good. However, 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. Over the last century, the corporation is given more and more rights. In “Citizens United v. FEC” the Supreme Court ruled that the government may not keep corporations and labor unions from spending money to support or denounce candidates in elections. This was due to the First Amendment guaranteeing the right to free speech and political spending being a form of that protected speech. This is another example of how corporations are recognized as people in the court of law still to this day.

• What are externalities and what are their effects?

Milton Friedman describes it as “the effect of a transaction between two parties on a third party who is not involved in the transaction.” It is a technical term that basically means let somebody else deal with the problems the corporation creates. Each corporation is an externality-creating machine. Externalities such as harm to employees through the use of sweatshops, using Third World countries' employees, result in a huge discrepancy of price versus cost. Other externalities such as pollution and adverse health effects such as cancer and birth defects. Another externality is harm to the biosphere and pollution to the environment.

• Assuming that the corporation has legal personhood, what are their specific “personality” traits based on the documentary’s psychological profile test? Give an example for each trait. So, if the corporation is a person, what kind of person is it?

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. This checklist includes: Callous unconcern for the feelings of others, incapacity to maintain enduring relationships, reckless disregard for the safety of others, deceitfulness: repeated lying and conning others for profit, incapacity to experience guilt, failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors.

• How do corporations impact American democracy?

A coup is no longer necessary for the corporation to dominate governments. The governments today do not have the same amount of control and power over corporations as they did 50-60 years ago. They have become powerless compared to what they were before. Industry and government have become intertwined to the extent that it's hard to tell when one ends and the other begins. Corporations have access to power far beyond the average person. Corporations have all the power and rights of a legal person even though they do not act like one. The ruling from “Citizens United v. FEC” has also allowed corporations to spend any amount of money needed to support a candidate in an election.