Regardless of the content of the movie, what's the deal with linking to a Hulu page which offers little more than a player for this 2 hour and 24 minute movie? The entire "description" on this page is a single sentence and there's no supporting information on who made this film or why it's being linked to on HN.
Can the OP or anyone who's seen the film share their opinion of it?
The movie is very popular in some circles, enough so that I can understand why the OP did not add more of a description. (I assume he wanted to just tell people that it now exists for viewing on hulu.)
The movie is an indictment of the corporation as a "legal person." In my opinion, it conflated a lot of general adverse phenomenon associated with collective action and the consequences of corporate personhood.
The Killing Buddhas[1] rule has lead me to dig up information.
Initial investigation:
Bolivia seem to be a country that got into a lot of debt. Following the advice of the World Banks, they privatized everything in rapid order.
Wikipedia article on the privatization of Bolvia states that the public utility is having water shortage, high tariff, accounting errors, and such. The citation was from a Spanish source, but the link was expired. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_privatization_in_Bolivia#...
I have to say that the Water War is a lot more complicated than it look. First, there is the issue of privatization and how it is conducted. Second, we need to know the economic consequences of privatization. The possible bias of the World Banks that argued for privatization of water will have to be investigated, and so on.
Note this is only a cursory look into the issue of water privatization. It is also unlikely that I will go much into the issue as water use is not that interesting to me.
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1. Killing Buddhas is taken from the Zen maxim If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him. ESR generalize it as a rationalist maxim that said that our strongest belief should not be immune to and should be subjected to attempted refutation. This help avoided fixed beliefs that are totally wrong and help make sure that we do not mistake beliefs for reality.
Having seen the film and read the book I can say it's definitely worth a watch.
It's a documentary that asks, "If a corporation were a person, what type of person would it be?"
It then follows through on the history of corporate personhood, has interviews with capitalists and anticapitalists and concludes that if a corporation were a person it would be a psychopath, concerned only with the acquisition of power and money.
It's a good film, it's worth a watch especially if you're not familiar with the concepts of corporate personhood.
If I remember correctly, there was an officially sanctioned torrent of the movie, a year or so after the release.
(P.S. I'm not sure if hn readers who haven't seen it would like it; I thought it was two hours of high gloss propaganda, and I am undecided on the issue in general.)
As a supporter of capitalism, I was taken in by the socialist propaganda.
My interpretation is rather different. I thought the corporations are creature of politics and political institutions, rather than a product of free markets. The state make a bunch of laws that influence the size and nature of corporations, determine what they cannot do and often what they can do, and so on. The state would then give favors and listen to what corporations wanted the law to be, and so on.
Politics is the partitioning of a cake without expanding the cake. Indeed, in some case, the cake probably become smaller. Interests are easily given into thinking short term, not the general long term prosperity. They rather not work so hard amongst their competitors to get what they want.
Ease of life with no competitors to contend with on the market lead to less innovation, laziness, and blindness.
We see that the record labels are lazy and blind, and less keen on innovations. This of course make them vulnerable to adversaries and emerging competitors.
No matter how intensive their lobbying is, they are targeting consumers, not competitors. Unless their behaviors change, it will only be a matter of time before they are out-competed.
This tacky, sensationalist film, reminiscent of YouTube conspiracy videos, encourages public ownership as the solution. People on this site should be starting corporations, not demonizing them with rhetoric more appropriate for a college dorm room. We have Reddit for that.
Considering that some start-up founder here might end up as CEO of some bigcorp like ones portrayed in the movie I don't think it's totally out of place on HN.
it's a well reasoned look at framing the observable results of corporate behavior in the context of allowable human behavior; this is an important issue in light of the the law's assertion that corporations are legal entities in as much as humans are.
watching the corporation is an excellent way to better understand the way our world works, whether or not you agree with the sentiment that corps have a moral obligation to anything.
it's a bit of an intro-level look at the issue. for more of the same i can't recommend adam curtis's series of bbc documentaries.
...the law's assertion that corporations are legal entities in as much as humans are.
No they aren't. In coding terms, this is a LegalPerson:
interface LegalPerson {
public void signContract(Contract c);
public void enforceContract(Contract c);
public void sue(Lawsuit s); // Plus a few more
}
class Human implements LegalPerson, HumanRightsHolder, etc { ... }
class Corporation implements LegalPerson, Property { ... }
LegalPerson is just an interface. Whenever you deal with a LegalPerson, you can use the enforceContract method, etc.
Since Netflix implements LegalPerson, I don't care about their implementation details. We have a contract - they owe me 3 DVDs and I owe them $14.00/month. Because of legal personhood, I need not worry about Netflix corporate structure or other implementation details.
well that's a clever way of framing the issue in code, but i think the point of the movie is that your comment '//plus a few more' is a grey area wide enough to drive a feature film through. law deals mostly with edge cases (in that the easily decided issues aren't interesting in terms of new law)
your other point, that you don't have to worry about implementation details is true until someone tries to bill you for your tap water or shut your factory down without regard to the human consequences. if you have an abstraction for dealing with those situations i look forward to it.
A LegalPerson implements the methods signContract, enforceContract, sue, beSued, ownProperty, transferProperty, and I think that's about it. That's what was hiding in my "plus a few more".
LegalPerson does not need to implement getPersonalityType.
If you have a problem with the Bolivian government passing a law making it illegal for anyone besides Bechtel to sell water, take that up with the Bolivian government. That has nothing to do with corporate personhood. They could easily have granted monopoly rights to a flesh and blood person - would that have changed things?
I'm not trying to address the "oh noes, big scary corporations, lets pretend they have a mean personality" part of the movie. I'm just pointing out that corporate personhood doesn't mean what you think it means.
right so in your model you're not addressing the moral impact of strategy decisions, because it doesn't make sense for an org, but the reason it's not addressed in discourse related to people is that it's inferred. any entity that's described in any terms has a responsibility to not be against people.
Legal personhood is about creating a single entity for counterparties to sue and a single entity which owns corporate property.
I'm not attempting to engage in the completely orthogonal issues which you are raising. But let me point out one specific place where you are wrong:
your other point, that you don't have to worry about implementation details is true until someone tries to bill you for your tap water...
This is utterly false. If you wish to file a lawsuit in any of these cases, you will sue one of two legal persons: Bechtel or the Bolivian government. You just go to court and name them in your suit. Figuring out the internal organization of Bechtel Bolivia, Inc. is not your problem - it's up to someone on the other side of that interface to figure out, e.g., how to pay damages if they lose.
(I'm assuming the Bolivian Govt. is a legal person, I'm not sure of this. If not, your lawsuit will be considerably trickier.)
Corporations have a lot of the same rights as people though. That was one of the big deals about the supreme court striking down campaign finance reform: the idea that corporations have the freedom of speech to influence elections.
To co-opt the analogy, a more illustrative programming language might be Ruby rather than Java, to reflect the ability of the courts and Congress to monkeypatch the original implementation.
Citizens United was not about corporate personhood at all, it was about freedom of speech.
From the decision: "If the First Amendment has any force, it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech."
Corporate personhood is irrelevant as far as Citizens United vs FEC goes, except in minor points (Citizens United, rather than a list of members of Citizens United, was one party in court).
The only "rights" corporations have is the same rights that property of their members has. If you pass a law saying my computer can't criticize the government, you've violated my freedom of speech. The court ruled that you similarly can't pass a law saying my corporation can't criticize the government - that would violate my rights, not my corporations rights.
Y'know, I don't think film is a good medium for making a political argument.
I do think it's a powerful medium for making a political argument, since you can capture a viewer's whole attention for two hours, tug at their heartstrings with music and pictures of crying children, overwhelm your audience's critical faculties and gloss over the main flaws in your argument without anyone noticing. And that's exactly the reason why I won't watch political films... not even if they're saying something I agree with.
For a complicated issue like corporate personhood (if indeed that's what this is about), I'm willing to entertain arguments either way, but I want them written down in black text on white paper and limited to a few pages, so I know I'm not being manipulated. And then I'd like to seek out an opposing viewpoint in a similar format, and make up my own mind. I don't see why anyone would want to subject themselves to a political film at all.
Film is a perfect medium for delivering a political punch to your face, after which you can wash off the gloss that was deemed necessary for the film to be seen my millions, evaluate the facts you were offered in the light of new or existing ones, and make up your own mind. That's the whole point of good, biased political documentary, as summed up by Michael Moore at the very end of this one.
There are enough millions of people who are completely oblivious to critical issues that a well prepared, biased, flawed, powerful punch can wake them up to, who do not otherwise stand a chance of forming a stance for or against and getting involved in those issues. Delivering punches and sitting down calmly and evaluating sophisticated issues thoroughly in an impartial manner should not be mutually exclusive; there's room for both.
Just watch Fox News for half an hour. I was going to suggest Jim Cramer, but then I realised that Jim Cramer actually counts as a case against corporate personhood.
32 comments
[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 75.9 ms ] thread(I've seen it previously and it has a point)
Can the OP or anyone who's seen the film share their opinion of it?
The movie is an indictment of the corporation as a "legal person." In my opinion, it conflated a lot of general adverse phenomenon associated with collective action and the consequences of corporate personhood.
Everyone is free to think what they want.
The privatization of the Bolivian water supply was the most poignant moment for me.
Initial investigation:
Bolivia seem to be a country that got into a lot of debt. Following the advice of the World Banks, they privatized everything in rapid order.
Wikipedia article on the privatization of Bolvia states that the public utility is having water shortage, high tariff, accounting errors, and such. The citation was from a Spanish source, but the link was expired. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_privatization_in_Bolivia#...
I have to say that the Water War is a lot more complicated than it look. First, there is the issue of privatization and how it is conducted. Second, we need to know the economic consequences of privatization. The possible bias of the World Banks that argued for privatization of water will have to be investigated, and so on.
Note this is only a cursory look into the issue of water privatization. It is also unlikely that I will go much into the issue as water use is not that interesting to me.
----
1. Killing Buddhas is taken from the Zen maxim If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him. ESR generalize it as a rationalist maxim that said that our strongest belief should not be immune to and should be subjected to attempted refutation. This help avoided fixed beliefs that are totally wrong and help make sure that we do not mistake beliefs for reality.
It's a documentary that asks, "If a corporation were a person, what type of person would it be?"
It then follows through on the history of corporate personhood, has interviews with capitalists and anticapitalists and concludes that if a corporation were a person it would be a psychopath, concerned only with the acquisition of power and money.
It's a good film, it's worth a watch especially if you're not familiar with the concepts of corporate personhood.
(P.S. I'm not sure if hn readers who haven't seen it would like it; I thought it was two hours of high gloss propaganda, and I am undecided on the issue in general.)
My interpretation is rather different. I thought the corporations are creature of politics and political institutions, rather than a product of free markets. The state make a bunch of laws that influence the size and nature of corporations, determine what they cannot do and often what they can do, and so on. The state would then give favors and listen to what corporations wanted the law to be, and so on.
Politics is the partitioning of a cake without expanding the cake. Indeed, in some case, the cake probably become smaller. Interests are easily given into thinking short term, not the general long term prosperity. They rather not work so hard amongst their competitors to get what they want.
Ease of life with no competitors to contend with on the market lead to less innovation, laziness, and blindness.
We see that the record labels are lazy and blind, and less keen on innovations. This of course make them vulnerable to adversaries and emerging competitors.
No matter how intensive their lobbying is, they are targeting consumers, not competitors. Unless their behaviors change, it will only be a matter of time before they are out-competed.
watching the corporation is an excellent way to better understand the way our world works, whether or not you agree with the sentiment that corps have a moral obligation to anything.
it's a bit of an intro-level look at the issue. for more of the same i can't recommend adam curtis's series of bbc documentaries.
No they aren't. In coding terms, this is a LegalPerson:
LegalPerson is just an interface. Whenever you deal with a LegalPerson, you can use the enforceContract method, etc.Since Netflix implements LegalPerson, I don't care about their implementation details. We have a contract - they owe me 3 DVDs and I owe them $14.00/month. Because of legal personhood, I need not worry about Netflix corporate structure or other implementation details.
your other point, that you don't have to worry about implementation details is true until someone tries to bill you for your tap water or shut your factory down without regard to the human consequences. if you have an abstraction for dealing with those situations i look forward to it.
LegalPerson does not need to implement getPersonalityType.
If you have a problem with the Bolivian government passing a law making it illegal for anyone besides Bechtel to sell water, take that up with the Bolivian government. That has nothing to do with corporate personhood. They could easily have granted monopoly rights to a flesh and blood person - would that have changed things?
I'm not trying to address the "oh noes, big scary corporations, lets pretend they have a mean personality" part of the movie. I'm just pointing out that corporate personhood doesn't mean what you think it means.
I'm not attempting to engage in the completely orthogonal issues which you are raising. But let me point out one specific place where you are wrong:
your other point, that you don't have to worry about implementation details is true until someone tries to bill you for your tap water...
This is utterly false. If you wish to file a lawsuit in any of these cases, you will sue one of two legal persons: Bechtel or the Bolivian government. You just go to court and name them in your suit. Figuring out the internal organization of Bechtel Bolivia, Inc. is not your problem - it's up to someone on the other side of that interface to figure out, e.g., how to pay damages if they lose.
(I'm assuming the Bolivian Govt. is a legal person, I'm not sure of this. If not, your lawsuit will be considerably trickier.)
The case is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._Federal_Elec...
From the decision: "If the First Amendment has any force, it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech."
Corporate personhood is irrelevant as far as Citizens United vs FEC goes, except in minor points (Citizens United, rather than a list of members of Citizens United, was one party in court).
The only "rights" corporations have is the same rights that property of their members has. If you pass a law saying my computer can't criticize the government, you've violated my freedom of speech. The court ruled that you similarly can't pass a law saying my corporation can't criticize the government - that would violate my rights, not my corporations rights.
I do think it's a powerful medium for making a political argument, since you can capture a viewer's whole attention for two hours, tug at their heartstrings with music and pictures of crying children, overwhelm your audience's critical faculties and gloss over the main flaws in your argument without anyone noticing. And that's exactly the reason why I won't watch political films... not even if they're saying something I agree with.
For a complicated issue like corporate personhood (if indeed that's what this is about), I'm willing to entertain arguments either way, but I want them written down in black text on white paper and limited to a few pages, so I know I'm not being manipulated. And then I'd like to seek out an opposing viewpoint in a similar format, and make up my own mind. I don't see why anyone would want to subject themselves to a political film at all.
There are enough millions of people who are completely oblivious to critical issues that a well prepared, biased, flawed, powerful punch can wake them up to, who do not otherwise stand a chance of forming a stance for or against and getting involved in those issues. Delivering punches and sitting down calmly and evaluating sophisticated issues thoroughly in an impartial manner should not be mutually exclusive; there's room for both.
It's a great read. I thought the film was very good.