Monday
May112009
Life Inc: The Movie
Monday, May 11, 2009 at 10:18AM | in Books, Life Inc, Press, Video/TV/Movies
Bigger version and more info at http://LifeIncorporated.net
Vimeo version for sharing on social networks Life Inc. The Movie
Subtitled in Spanish Life Inc. The Movie
Reader Comments (8)
Woohoo! Well done Doug, and Janine. The movie looks great. I'll send it the link to all my friends. :)
Definitely whetted my appetite for the book :-)
Well done Doug, I`m from Argentina and I saw the video via Michel Bauwens.
I´ve appreciated sow much that I subtallied in Spanish. You can see it here in my blog: http://carlosboyle.blogspot.com/2009/05/life-inc-reloaded-subtitulada-en.html
We hope you enjoy it
I remain unconvinced by just a little. Is he arguing that now is a good time to move away from corporate structure and banking systems as they are, or is his argument that these were never good ideas in the first place? Currency is an incredible tool that got us where we are today, both technologically and medically. Many of these companies produce things that make the world go 'round like medical supplies, drugs, transported herbs, scientific instruments, tools for education, billions of books, documentaries, I could go on and on; there's much more to it then TVs, iPods, and McDonalds. Society's problems are godlessness, too much government and dependency on government, lack of dependency on neighbors, etc. If you want to fix these problems, sure, the economy could use some massive restructuring, and government could regulate it properly, but you will have a hard time transitioning in my mind from a dysfunctional backyard grill to the need for an overthrow of currency and corporate structure. If the grill became competitive when he moved to the rich neighborhood, he got a taste of life with rich snobs, not corporatism. The difference is between working for the corporation and running the corporation. We need to structure our culture so that everyone from the CEO to the blue-collar will be properly instilled with virtue. Killing Wells Fargo isn't going to do that, it will just make us poor and dysfunctional at the same time. We CAN have the best of both worlds.
Mr. Rushkoff, I was just reading your excerpt on social evolution theories and I was wondering what you think about the Dunbar's Number, Rule of 150 idea? I'm no expert but a limit on the number of people our brains can fully recognize (due to finite computing power) sounds right. Past that, things get wonky and the line between person and object is blurred to some extent, no matter how much we consciously fight it. That can't be helpful when the decisions of so few affect so many. Do you think it's plausible/relevant?
I got fired from 2 corporate jobs in the span of 6 months and have been independent for the past 5months since then. It's really changed the way I deal with money and the value of my time, labor and exertion.
I'm not sure that corporatism is totally the root of this disconnect between people, though. I'm sure if there were a trend toward people getting together and working with each other, that corporate marketers would see it as a trend and figure out how to capitalize on it.
Having lived without cable for years and decreased my television viewing, I'm constantly amazed at the hold that advertising has on the American psyche, however. It's amazing that we pay to be fed a steady diet of insecurities, jealousies and envy through TV ads.
Doug, I've viewed your politics in the past as basically progressive or very liberal (beyond mainstream liberal). Your view that the banking system should have been left to die seems not to be shared by many Democrats(!) -that I'm aware of- and it is not the consensus among progressives. Politically speaking, if forced to describe your overall political views what would ya say? Just curious. Something I've found interesting are connections between progressives and libertarians.
I'm not allied with either of the main brands of politics, I don't think. Left is too often really big labor, right is really big business. I'm more into local politics than national, and I don't find the left/right progressive/conservative spectrum very applicable to questions of how we're going to accomplish one thing or another.