The Corporation

By Curtis Ogden

The other night I watched The Corporation, a film that I had both been wanting to watch and avoiding. It certainly delivered as a powerful, provocative, and disturbing piece. I was left with many feelings and ultimately with the renewed awareness of the risk we run of blindly serving the institutions we create to serve us.

In the film, we are shown an extreme in the relentless pursuit of profit and market share that usurps virtually every other drive. Originally charters were granted to corporations by government provided that these companies met certain guidelines. Since then some of these creations, not unlike Frankenstein, have taken on a life of their own, overturned restrictions, and overthrown their masters. At their extreme, these growth-obsessed bodies are nothing short of cancers that seek to overtake every other organism in their midst. And they are clever, ever so clever, at co-opting the minds and skills of talented and otherwise decent people to serve their needs, convincing them that “moving product” is more important than protecting basic life support systems or preventing them from seeing the consequences of their actions.

To be clear, we are all susceptible to such shortsightedness, and collectively we can ill afford to fall asleep at the wheel. Media and marketing are so pervasive that we require extraordinary resolve and intention to listen to our own truths and those of the aching environment. Contrary to the misguided messages that are conveyed to us about patriotism and productivity, this may be our greatest act of courage -- to create a viable new story of what it means to be a good citizen (and a good steward) and to uphold the intrinsic value of life in the face of forces that only want to see it become a commodity.

It is a careful balance to strike between creating organizations to further our goals and potential without allowing these structures to constrain or subvert us. And we are certainly not immune to the risks in the nonprofit sector, where there are countless examples of mistaking organizational development for mission realization. What is it then that calls us back to ourselves, our original intents, and to the larger picture? How do we keep ourselves accountable? Perhaps a good starting place is to attempt to stay connected, keep ourselves open, and remember that we are characters in stories of our own making.