We live a corporate world, and the evidence flashes in front of our eyes 5,000 times a day. Though there isn’t anything inherently wrong with this kind of business, and it can be used to further laudable common goals, our current corporatism, and the laws that enable it, have had disastrous results for our economy, government, environment, and bodies. The relaxing of anti-trust laws and the establishment of corporate personhood are largely responsible for the domination of our society by these inhuman giants. Thankfully, this trend in its many facets is well documented. A significant percentage of popular documentary films take big business as their subject matter, as do many popular nonfiction books, television shows and radio programs. These works are crucial in educating us and providing a view of the forest that can be hard to see from within our consumerist trees. We’ve rounded up a few of the most important and well done documentaries about our corporate society. They range from satirical to heartbreaking, but at their core they are all deadly serious.
Life Inc. may be one of the most underrated and important books of our generation, and its author Douglas Rushkoff one of our most important and perceptive thinkers about how to solve the problems of our time. Rushkoff is a self described “generalist.” He’s written books about the benefits of psychedelic drugs, taught media classes at NYU and The New School, played in a seminal industrial band, invented the term “viral,” and made acclaimed Frontline documentaries on marketing. His current project is organizing a conference to take place in New York in October called Contact that will explore our options in seizing the technological means of production from the corporations that control the internet, and threaten its future.
In Life Inc., Rushkoff focuses on an unconventional history of corporatism: how our economic system, through a mix of mistakes and intentional decisions, ended up the way it did. In the book, he tackles ideas that we often forget are even questionable, like what biases are inherent in our system of currency and how they could be better. The book is mind opening, entertaining and inspiring, and provides essential insights to understanding how we have progressed to a stage in our society where everything, even ourselves, has become part of the consumerist corporate system. And despite the serious, in-depth subject matter, it is a fun and compelling read.
