We rented the Canadian documentary, “The Corporation,” and we enjoyed it immensely. I almost burst out crying during one part, when we were informed that corporations are buying copyrights on the human genome. The best part of the whole thing was when the narrator intimated that corporations may have outlived their usefulness and will someday become extinct.
I recommend all Canadians run out, rent it and watch it.
I wasn’t aware that it was Canadian, but yeah, I’ve seen it.
I thought it was well done. Many of their viewpoints were good and valid, but many of them were totally manipulative and in some cases total exaggerations.
Yes there is a lesson there, yes changes are needed, but I think they over sold their point in many ways.
“almost burst out crying”?..um, if you say so, we must have seen a different movie.
I thought it was well made and entertaining but overblown manipulative and propogandistic. It didn’t offer any alternatives to corporations as a means of economic organization. The worst polluter in modern history is almost certainly the former Soviet Union, not any corporation. And the point about corporations being psychopathic. That was just asinine. The corporation is only a “person” in that it’s property cannot be seized without due process. It’s not an actual person.
The film didn’t explore ideas for reform or alternatives to corporation based capitalistic economies. If you’re going to eliminate the limited-liability corporation (which would be a terrible idea IMO) you should have a viable replacement for it. I’m not a libertarian and I’m all for government oversight and regulation of corporations, but the film didn’t go into proposals for that at all. It struck me as just “look at the EEEEVILL capitalists” propoganda.
I don’t know, China is giving them a run for their money.
True, and China seems to be dealing with the worst excesses of both capitalist and statist systems.
The repercussions of corporations owning the patents on the human genome don’t bug you at all?
Good points, Larry, but a film doesn’t have to tell you any alternatives to tell you what is wrong with something. That strikes me as being beyond the scope of this film; maybe they will address that issue in a follow-up film.
Um, not really, patents are a critical and necessary part of the innovation process. It oversimplifies matters, and I can’t precisely recall the context this had in the movie, but if a company can’t patent it’s discoveries it almost means they can’t profit off it. If the can’t profit off it, they won’t research it.
So allowing the genetic biologists to patent their discoveries in the pursuit of cures to devastating diseases seems like a good thing, since without it there’d be no discoveries. Certainly there needs to be intelligent limitations on this process, and it must be addressed on a case by case basis, but there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with it.
I’ll stop there since the discussion certainly will get off topic and devolve into a mudslinging GD thread.
Okay, I have a confession to make. I slept pretty much all the way through it. I really wanted to like it and I tried sooo hard. I mean I liked the movie Gerry and all they do is wander the desert for the entire movie for christ sake so it’s not like I have a short attention span. Nothing but talking heads for 2hr20 minutes? Shudder
I think the point they were trying to get across was that the corporation can have the rights of a person, like you mentioned, yet doesn’t abide by moral codes that most people would follow.
I’ve met Leonard Paul (who did the soundtrack music) a few times. Go on, touch me. 
To be honest, The Corporation bored the tits off me – but only because there was little in it that I hadn’t already read. I think it’s a great film, though.
I agree that it dragged on just a bit, it feels like they could have eliminated a storyline or so and got it under 3 hours. At a certain point it feels like they are flogging a dead horse.
As a movie it’s pretty decent (though not as well crafted as most Michael Moore films are) but you need to be cautious not to take the dogmatic message as the whole story.
But they weren’t patenting the discoveries genetic biologists were making in pursuit of cures - they were patenting the human genome - they were patenting our dna. So when somebody somewhere has a brilliant idea about how to cure diabetes, they need to get permission from the corporation who owns the patent on the Islet of Langerhans and all that entails.
I agree that this is probably a subject for a larger debate - trust me when I say it broke my heart that this is being allowed to happen.
I haven’t seen the movie, but that doesn’t seem like it could be true. I’m sure all they have patented is their map of the genome, since they didn’t exactly invent our gene pattern.
We could be talking past each other here, but what I understand is corroborated in this article:
There is no hedged wording here; they are saying private companies are buying patents on human genes. Reading a little further in that article, it looks like companies are trying to patent human proteins as well, if they haven’t already.
Hmm, I didn’t realise Leonard Paul did the music, but that’s interesting. I saw him last year at the Alibi Room. Sexy, sexy man. Where’d you meet him?
Anyway, several people involved in the film are profs at my university, so I saw it when it first came to theatres. I dunno, I remember being somewhat underwhelmed, but there was lots of Chomsky, so I didn’t mind. Good ol’ Chomsky.
(Sorry, I’m a bit slow.)
Friend of a friend, so I’ve bumped into him at a coupla house parties.
And yeah, old Noam is pretty watchable.