I highly recommend that you watch the film mentioned: "The Story of Stuff".
It is a very detailed look at how companies drive consumerism to keep the economy going at the expense of third world countries.
It is a very detailed look at how companies drive consumerism to keep the economy going at the expense of third world countries.
She deliberately chose to paint government as good and corporations as bad even though they are both only composed of people, who are just looking out for their self-interest, trying to get money from other people, who are also just looking out for their self interest.
It's a intellectual shortcut to paint corporations OR government as evil, and not accurate or meaningful at all.
In addition, I see no reason why painting government or corporations as evil is a bad thing because when it comes down to it, what they are doing to third world countries is evil.
We execute murderers for killing people. Yet corporations are killing people overseas by poisoning and maiming them in dangerous factories.
I see no reason why calling a corporation evil is not accurate or not meaningful.
Steinbeck portrayed the bank as a great machine in which each person working for it played a small role that they didn't necessarily like to play. Agents were forced to evict people from their land because they were not able to pay their mortgage, yet that was not something that they really wanted to do. It was something they had to do because of the corporation they were a part of.
No individual person in the corporation is evil (generally). However the corporation is bigger than each individual member.
So calling a corporation evil does not mean branding each individual person. Rather it means that you recognize that the corporation as a greater force causes evil things.
In that respect I don't see it as unrealistic to say then that the corporation can be evil.
Have not watched the video, but this is a great article. I find downsizing living to be such a relief; it's almost like having a burden lifted. One thing that drives me kinda nuts to have too much "stuff" to worry about. Quantity of possessions grows to accumulate in the space a person lives; smaller space = less room for frivolous items. Makes a lot of sense.
http://www.storyofstuff.com/pdfs/annie_leonard_footnoted_scr...
I would have preferred an HTML version because PDF is a newer, more complex, format that forces us to use newer, heavier applications to read. PDF is incompatible with old and lightweight computers so it forces us to buy powerful new computers and throw away our old ones. Given an HTML version I could have consumed even less stuff.