I've only seen part 1 so far. It's a good documentary, even though they could have made it much shorter, with the same amount of information.
Especially the second half, about branding, was good.
The diagnosis of 'the corporation' as a psychiatric patient is a bit far fetched, IMO. Transnational corporations are extremely predictable, since they only have one goal so I'd rather call them robots. Neither do I think TNCs are so evil. They just need strict governmental regulation, so they pay for their externalties and won't display 'immoral behaviour' because they would be fined more then it would gain them. Besides that, their are legal systems thinkable where the shareholders don't have all the power. In most European countries for example, employees also have quite some power.
Also an interesting movement is sustainable investment, which is quite booming in the Netherlands at the moment, and maybe in other countries also. Sustainable investment stock funds only invest in corporations that follow strick criteria about wages for their employees, human rights en environmental policy and are not involved with weapon industry etc. The strange thing is that these stock funds are yielding more profits then the average stock funds for many years in a row.
IMO it's far worse that western countries force third world countries to open their markets, while the western world protects their own markets.
The second part about branding is more impressive. I myself only recently realised what harm extensive branding can cause. Especially in the third world, because they are not used to it. It's quite sad when a local industry (for example a soap industry) has to close only because a western compatitor is more sophisticated in branding.
Personally I'm all against extensive consumerism and the clasic economic philosophy to regard the human as a never satisfied wishing machine. If you recognize that purchasing things won't make you hapier in the end, you'll quickly become one of the richest people on earth. Not because you'll save so much money, but simply because you'll be part the exclusive group of people who can say they can buy everything they want.
Consumerism is really chasing your own tail. It's so funny to see that technology has made producing things so much more efficient over the years. Yet we didn't chose to work less and enjoy the time we saved by this efficiency gain. We simply raise our standards. The vacuum cleaner is much more efficient than the broom, yet we spend as much time in cleaning the floors as we did 100 years ago. Simply because the social standard about how clean a room is supposed to be has risen at the same speed.
