Midterm Paper

My midterm paper is going to focus on corporations who worked within Nazi Germany. The film The Corporation talked about companies such as IBM and Coca-Cola, who instead of following Allied trade restrictions, they either created new products or subsidiaries to continue to sell their product in Nazi Germany. Along with exposing the companies who did such things, I also want to tie it together with corporate greed and lack of accountability. These companies were defying trade embargoes, potentially breaking law, and supporting Nazi suppression, all to make a profit.

In this paper I would really like to show how corporations have such blind greed that they will work around international laws and genocide to make a profit. Certain companies, such as IBM, actually helped the Nazi's in their oppression and murdering of Jews and other people groups by creating a punch-card system. They would use codes to keep track of each prisoner, making the task of killing millions of innocent people easier. Not all companies took such an appalling role in Nazi Germany and showed that kind of greed, but none they are still not innocent. I will not only focus on American companies however, I will research and talk about German corporations, such as BMW, who also participated in war-time activities in Nazi Germany. In my paper I plan on exposing these companies.

Sources I will use include scholarly articles, newspaper articles, and books that will help me write my paper. One of the main sources I will use is IBM and the Holocaust by Edwin Black. I plan on using such resources as LexisNexis, Jstor, Google Scholar, and other scholarly databases to find scholarly articles and newspaper reports. It is important that my sources come from a respectable source, such as university professors, working professionals, experts, and researchers in the field for accurite and reliable information.

The Corporation, a documentary about the "evil" nature of corporations around the world, shows us that each corporation has its own identity, influences culture through brand names, and creates identities within our culture. First, we will examine how corporations work according to the documentary, then explore how each corporation uses its resources to create an individual identity for itself, and how they influence cultures.

Corporations, by law, are considered to be a "person". Legally speaking, they have all the rights of a person, such as owning land, sue and be sued, to borrow and lend money, and all the other rights we as humans enjoy. While from a business standpoint this may make sense, it has given corporations far too much power over the daily lives of everyday people. As we saw in The Corporation, the government is even beginning to work hand in hand with large corporations, using them for national intelligence, receiving large amounts of money to do the bidding of the corporations, and forming national policy based on the interests of the corporations instead of average citizens. These kinds of practices have taken away power from the hands of the people and put them into large corporations. But who are the corporations responsible to? The answer is nobody but themselves. Aside from government restrictions, which are often broken, corporations have no concience, guilt, or accountability, essencially placing them above the law.

These corporations didn't obtain such power on their own, however. People have bought their products, giving them huge sums of money and with money, power. Corporations are first and foremost out to make money. They do this by convincing people that they need their product, that it is the best, and that it is worth the money people spend to get it. Brand names are essencial in this process, giving the corporation an identity and often placing that identity on different cultures. Brand names such as McDonalds, Wal-Mart, and Nike, are often used as symbols for American culture. American's even identify with brand names. People often classify themselves by the clothing they wear, which is usually supported by a brand name such as Polo, Nike, Tommy Hillfigger, Sean John, ect. Corporations are using their identity to influence culture and create an identity for themsevles and their costomers. This is often accomplished by using advertising. As we saw in the documentary, advertising companies often go after vulnerable, trusting children to sell their products. They know that children can often get their parents to buy them things when pushed hard enough, and that children do not know the difference between good and bad products, only what they see on tv, and use this to push their products.

The documentary The Corporation shows us clearly how corporations use their identities to influence culture, identities, and even government. This is driven by advertising, brand names, and this very identity they wish to create. Despite many instances where corporations break the law and even work outside the law, we continue to allow them to create a fake corporate identity and culture for us.

Klein's "No Logo" explains to us how corporate America has been using advertising and brand name marketing to create a new culture in America that revolves around brand names. Large companies, such as Nike, Intel, and of course Coke, according to Klein, have recently been selling brands instead of products. Indeed, she uses the examples of clothing makers who rarely even make their own products. Nike's CEO is stated as saying that they always saw themselves as a production oriented company, but had recently turned to selling their brand. When looking at advertising, especially with the biggest advertising event of the year less than 5 days ago, it is clear to see that Klein's example of Intel selling "business solutions" is what corporate America is truely doing today, selling brand names, concepts, instead of actual products.

A second point I found extremely interesting is in the chapter "Consumerism versus Citizenship" where she talks about how this new form of advertising and the brand culture concept have created a certain backlash against global governing bodies, banking institutions, and leaders in the globalization of the economy. She sites that companies such as McDonald's, Wal-Mart, and Shell have made it clear what the object of globalization and brand marketing are: to make money and push their name, symbols, concepts, and brands on the people. She explains how protests against these kinds of corporations and global organizations are now the norm, citing examples where protestors have done everything from trashing buildings to symbolically washing them. This kind of backlash is a phenominon in recent years as brand culture becomes more and more heartless, transparent, and obvious in their goal to sell the consumer a brand, not a quality product. She also cites abuses on workers in third world countries, where large corporations have taken advantage of poor living conditions to make millions off of cheap labor. If these kinds of trends continue, it should not be surprising to see riots, protests, and activists at every corner. As long as companies abuse workers, attempt to take over the identity of people through brand names, and sell a symbol rather than a product, people will be there to fight back.