The Corporation
150 years ago the corporation was a pretty insignificant institution, but in the mid-1800’s, corporate lawyers fought for, and won the right for it to be considered a person under the law. Over the next hundred years, the corporation rose to dominance in world affairs. The Corporation is a new film based on the book: “The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power” by Joel Bakan. The film was created by Joel Bakan, Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott, who have demonstrated through a series of in depth interviews and examples, how the corporation has become too powerful, trampling everything in it’s path for the ultimate goal of profit. The film touches on a huge range of stories and issues, from Bolivians fighting for their right to water, to Indians contesting biotech companies who patented Basmati rice. Through interviews with some of today’s key activists and thinkers, from Vandana Shiva, to Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Naomi Klein and Mike Moore, to philosophers, and journalists who were ordered to suppress corporate-damaging information, and even CEO’s of large corporations, the film explores it’s subject in a visually stimulating and informative way. Cinnamon Nippard spoke to Jennifer Abbott, the film’s editor and one of the directors who explained how the corporation became so powerful.