The Corporation Video Worksheet

By: Mharla Jhane Toca

1. What metaphors were used to describe the modern Business Corporation? (It starts
with a description of how the Corporation is like an Eagle)
The metaphors used to described the corporation are jigsaw puzzle in society, sports
team, eagle, monster, whale, family unit and telephone system.
2. What is a Corporation according to the video? (It starts when there is big text saying
What is a Corporation?)
A form of business ownership. Its a group of individuals grouping together to serve a
variety of objective the principal one which is earning large, growing, sustained legal
returns for the peope who owned the business
3. How did the Corporation go from being a gift from the people to Capital to becoming
legally equivalent to a person? (It starts when it says that corporate lawyers realized that
they needed more power, and the 14th amendment was passed)
The 24th amendment was passed at the end of the Civil war to give equal right to black
people. And therefore it said, "no state can deprive any person of life, liberty or property
without due process of law ".
And that was intended to prevent the state from taling away life, liberty or property from
black people as they had done for so much of our history. And what happens is the
corporation come into court and corporation lawyers are very clever and they say "oh you
can't deprive a person of life, liberty or property. We are a person, a corporation is a
person" And so the supreme court goes along with that.
And what was particularly grotesque about this was that the 14th amendmend was passed
to proctect newly freed slaves. So, for instance, between 1890 and 1910, there were 307
cases brought before the court under the 14th amendmend, 288 of these brought by
corporations, 19 by African American.
4. What kind of person is a Corporation? (It starts when Noam Chomsky, a famous
academic, starts to speak)
A corporation is given the right of a mortal person but person who have no moral
conscience. These are special kind of person which are assign by law who are concerned
only for stockholders and not to stakeholders

5. Is the Corporation legally required to place maximising shareholder value before all
other considerations including the public good?
They are required by the law to place financial interests of their owner competitors
interest. The corporation is legally bound to put it bottom line head of everything else
even the public good.
6. Why are externalities so important to corporate profitability? (It starts when Milton
Friedman, a famous Economist, starts to speak)
An externality is the effect of transaction between two individuals on a third party who
has not consented to , or played any role in, the carrying out of that trnsaction. And there
are real problems in that area there's no doubt about it.
7. Why the Corporation is best defined as an externalizing machine?
A corporation is an externalizing machine in the same way that a shark is a killing machine.
Each one is designed in a very efficient way to accomplish particular objectives. In the
achievement of those objectives, there isn't any question of malevolence or of will, the
enterprise has within it, and the shark has within it, those characteristics that enable it
to do that for which it was designed.
8. In the section entitled The Pathology of Commerce, why is the Corporation legally
designed to be a psychopath according to the standard psychiatric diagnosis
Dr. Robert Hare, M.D. Consultant to the FBI on psychopaths said that a corporation can be
considered to be psychopathic. Moreover according to him if we look at a corporation as a
lawful person, it may not be that difficult to draw the change between psychopathy in the
individual, to psychopathy in a corporation. There are characteristics that define this
disorder that actually match to corporations.
9. Why do corporations routinely employ professional spies to infiltrate their competitors?
Some business employ spies to look after their competitors who is their greatest rivalry.
They are looking if they are creating new products, planning to enter new markets or even
maybe floundering which serves as an edge to other party.
10. Why does the academic think that the only solution to the problem of pollution is the
privatization of everything?

According to the film, privatization does not mean you take a public institution and give it
to some nice person. It means you take a public institution and give it to an unaccountable
tyranny. Public institutions have many side benefits. For one thing they may purposely run
at a loss. They're not out for profit. They may purposely run at a loss because of the side
benefits. So, for example if a public steel industry runs at a loss it's providing cheap steel
to other industries.
11. How did corporations get children to nag their parents to buy products which make up
20% to 40% of their parents discretionary spending?
From 20% to 40% of purchases would not have occurred unless the child had nagged their
parents. Just like in the given example, a quarter of all visits to theme parks wouldnt have
occurred unless a child nagged their parents. Four out of ten visits to places like Chuck E.
Cheese would not have occurred. Nagging positively influences parents.
12. For what purpose do corporations try to instil a philosophy of futility into society?
Why is this important to maximising profits and market share?
The goal for the corporations is to maximize profit and market share. And they also have a
goal for their target, namely the population. They have to be turned into completely
mindless consumers of goods that they do not want. You have to develop what are called
created want. So you have to create wants. You have to impose on people whats called a
philosophy of futility. You have to focus them on the insignificant things of life, like
fashionable consumption. The ideal is to have individuals who are totally disassociated from
one another.