the psychopathic corporation
The threepart Canadian documentary 'The Corporation' asks the interesting question: if corporations are considered legal persons, what kind of personality do they have?
It signals widespread (Anglo-Saxon) corporate behavior including:
- indifference to the possibility of punishment;
- disregard for the consequences of their actions;
- lack of empathy for the suffering of others;
And proceeds, DSM-IV in hand, to diagnose corporations as essentially psychopathic.
Corporations are required by law to elevate their own interests above those of others, making them prone to prey upon and exploit others without regard for legal rules or moral limits.
Featuring such well-known critical voices as Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Michael Moore and others, 'The Corporation' provides ample food for thought. It has a companion piece in the book 'The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power'.
The downside is that the film is better in its diagnosis than in its proposed cure of the patient. Especially when it views the recent trend of corporate social responsibility as "most often [serving] to mask the corporation's true character, not to change it."