‘The Corporation” by Joel Bakan Analysis

‘The Corporation” by Joel Bakan Analysis

‘The Corporation” by Joel Bakan Analysis

‘The Corporation” by Joel Bakan Analysis documentary begins with unusual details, which comes from the 14th Amendment.   Companies are seen as persons under constitutional law.  The filmmaker, Mark Achbar, intends to assess the kind of a person than a corporation would be. The film depicts evidence from political campaigners such as Noam Chomsky and Michael Moore, a filmmaker. The movie intended to reveal IBM’s Nazi tries and how huge corporations exploit human privileges. The film features Robert Hare, a consultant who aids the FBI to profile suspects, and his diagnosis is that all corporations suffer from a personality disorder, and it can be categorized to be psychopathic. The reason is that they pursue their interests without considering the rights and values of other people and mainly the employees.  The corporations, according to him, are immoral, and they undertake actions that are only beneficial to them.  The film is based on the 14th Amendment of the Constitution that advocated for equal rights among the former slaves. The ruling was intended to give equal rights to individuals in society, mainly by corporations. The slaves were freed at last from the oppression that they were going through at this time.

Part 1

Some of the organizations that are listed as unethical in the film include; Corporate America dairies. The reason is that it was pumping antibiotics to sick cattle of the stuff. It means that people were consuming milk with antibiotics.  Eventually, cows became ill and started to emit pulse, and the udders were painfully distended.  The other company that has been named to be unethical is the Coca-Cola Company in the production of the soft drink owing to the trade embargo on Nazi Germany. It also documents the role that IBM played in the Holocaust incidence. It also lists the deprivations of water that happened in Bolivia, resulting in the demonstrations of over 2000 Cochabamba protests (Bakan 1:41.57). IBM is a computer company that was involved in supplying the Nazis with the technology which intended to transport millions of people to the places that they would encounter death in the concentration camp at Treblinka and Auschwitz (Bakan 1:37.28). The company regularly supplied machines to the German subsidiaries that Hitler’s government had seized. The dealing of the company, according to the movie, was controlled in New York headquarters in the Second World War. Nike and Wal-Mart and American companies in the film showed their reluctance to engage in Nazi Germany because it would affect the kind of business that it had with the stakeholders.

McDonald’s has also been listed as unethical in the movie because it sells food products that have high cholesterol, and its advertisements are targeted at children who pressure their parents to buy the products for them (Bakan 1:07.02). Tonka Company has also been listed because of the way its adverts are intended at children. The adverts indicate that the kids can do extraordinary things such as skating and riding with the trucks, which is quite unethical (Bakan 1:04.06). The kind of promotion that the Tonka uses is meant to manipulate children who then pressure their parents to buy the toys for them.  The movie assembles the sins that corporations make, for instance, Bovine Growth Hormone, Agent Orange, and researches how it inspires children to nag their parents to be bought the products by their parents.   The companies claim that they are selling certified products that are desirable and good for human consumption.   Consumers do not know about the origin of the non-organic chicken that we eat, cows, which are vegetarians, and how they are processed to form animal protein resulting in the intriguing possibility. They can pass down a mad cow illness to the consumers of the products. The movie argues that salmon that is raised in the farm contains some levels of mercury. It also mentions that a great number of corporations are enriching their present at the expense of the future.

Part 2

The most unethical entities that are listed in the film include McDonald’s and Tonka. The reason why I consider them to be the most unethical is that they target children regardless of their vulnerabilities.  The companies are also deceptive in their adverts; for instance, Tonka makes in the advert indicates that children can drive the toy truck products that they make since they work the same way as real trucks. McDonald’s personalizes the food products to the experiences of children (Bakan 1:07.02). The advert indicates that children become happy when they consume food. It is entirely unethical because children are not capable of making their own decisions regarding the kind of food that they6 are supposed to take.

The most unethical companies are McDonald and Tonka. McDonald’s is a fast-food company that is widely recognized for the production and sale of burgers and chips.  The advertisements of the company are mainly intended at young children since they are not able to resist.  The promotion has led to an increase in health and obesity problems among children, teens, and even pre-teen (D’Souza, 2018).  Young children often pressure their parents to buy for them the products, which is entirely unethical. McDonald’s knows quite well that children are vulnerable, and they cannot make choices on their own, yet they target them as the primary consumers of the products that they produce.

Children are more vulnerable to incidences of obesity and other health issues, and yet they target them in their adverts.  There is a close connection between diet and obesity cases. Children’s market has been vital to marketers, and companies spend millions to reach them since they are a growing segment. McDonald’s spends about $10-12 billion to target children and adolescents (D’Souza, 2018). Children are exposed to millions of candy commercials, fast food, and cereal every year.  Food advertising has a potential impact on the children, and yet companies such as McDonald’s have heavily invested in the marketing of fast-food products to children.  Most of the professional marketing that McDonald’s engage in are intended at children, and this is what makes the company unethical. McDonald’s is aware of the upsurge in the cases of obesity among children, and yet it invests a lot of money in the marketing that is intended at children (Bakir & Vitell, 2010). The company does not consider the moral intensity of the advertisement before making them. Also, the behavioral intention of food advertising that targets children and the perceived moral intensity of the situation is the primary bone of contention when it comes to considering the ethicality of fast food advertisements. Therefore, McDonald’s targets children, and it does not consider the health impacts that fast food products might have on their health.

Tonka is an American toy truck producer, and that is widely recognized for making steel toys models of the construction type trucks and machinery as well (Bakan 1:08.01). The company uses false advertising for marketing the consumers of its products.  In the advert in the movie, Tonka indicates that children can ride the tricks and do even other things that are done by real trucks (Heath, Moriarty, & Norman, 2010). The adverts only intend to make consumers purchase their products, and this can have detrimental effects on them. For instance, children can be attempting to ride the truck while at home, and it can cause accidents. The information that the company uses is quite misleading to the consumer, and it seems to be more of an honest mistake.   We all know that children cannot ride the toys, and therefore this is considered to be false advertising. The adverts make children force their parents to purchase the product for which is quite unethical. It can be quite hard to judge whether it violates the regulations because the expressions that it makes are tiny. The results that the company obtained from the marketing of the toy products to the children is that they were able to acquire more sales, mainly because their target population is children.  Children often pressure their parents to purchase products that appeal to them, and this is the primary reason or the increased productivity of the company.

In the movie, the adverts that Tonka made are targeted at boys, and they contain elements of emphasizing, limited activity, and feelings of nurturing (Heath et al., 2010).  In the ads also, the speaking roles are scripted purposely for girls, and boys are revealed to have more polarized gender relations and voices as well. The use of power in words is evident in the advert that is intended at boys (Bakan 1:04.06). Therefore, this advert promotes polarized roles that represent different genders, and this has greater implications on the way the children perceive gender roles. The advert is unethical because children take everything that they see on social media channels as the gospel truth, and this would have detrimental effects on the way they perceive different genders even in real life.   In the video, the advert also indicates that boys will gain the power to use the trucks that the company sells when the purchase one, which is quite unethical.

In summary, the movie “The Corporation” intends to show how organizations manifest psychopathic manifestations like chronic neglect for the feelings of other people and incapacity to show concern for the human relationships and the safety of other people as well.  A significant number of corporations that are depicted in the film does not respect the social norms and the law as well. The general population within the organization does not depict collaborated solidarity in the business operations. The film indicates that a great number of corporations are concerned more with earning a profit than the impact that their actions will have on the intended consumer.  As a result, the end up even hurting creatures, soil, and to some extent abusing the workers, which becomes a habit that the corporation cannot stop quickly. The practices that the corporation engages in has detrimental effects on the consumers because they show significant levels of abandonment of the success of other people and the deception to consumers.

References

Bakan,J. The Corporation. YouTube uploaded by Encore on 7th Nov 2017, https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%23Documentary

Bakir, A., & Vitell, S. J. (2010). The ethics of food advertising targeted toward children: Parental viewpoint. Journal of Business Ethics, 91(2), 299-311.

D’Souza, V. (2018). ” Unethical advertising through social media”-A case study investigating ethical marketing issues in fast food industry of Ireland (Doctoral dissertation, Dublin Business School).

Heath, J., Moriarty, J., & Norman, W. (2010). Business ethics and (or as) political philosophy. Business Ethics Quarterly, 20(3), 427-452.