Tags: capitalism, corporations, knowledge, marx/marxism, media, political economy, theory, censorship, fox, ideology, monsanto, news, 00 to 05 mins,  06 to 10 mins
Year: 2003; 1999
Length: 10:20; 4:17
Access: YouTube (clip from The Corporation)
                YouTube (clip from The Insider)

Summary: This pair of excerpts exposes corporate censorship of the news via a documentary (The Corporation) and through a Hollywood film (The Insider). In recent years, the news media has become increasingly concentrated and controlled by corporations. The implications of this is that corporations are responsible to shareholders and must earn high profits. This concentration of corporate news has led to conflicts of interests when a news source wants to air a story that could hurt their advertisers or their shareholders. The first clip from The Corporation shows this process. In 1997, investigative journalists Steve Wilson and Jane Akre of Fox News, had prepared a story about Monsanto and the negative impacts of their bovine growth hormones (e.g. their milk was potentially carcinogenic to humans). Monsanto was an advertiser for the Fox News channel, and the company threatened to both sue Fox and pull their ads. Because this would have cost Fox News significant advertising revenues, Fox decided to edit the news story so Monsanto would not pull their ads. The clip describes the process of 83 rewrites that either removed or minimized any negative effects of the hormone, until the journalists were ultimately fired and the story never aired. The second clip, from The Insider, features Al Pacino arguing how a story at 60 Minutes was being censored because of financial interests. The film is based on a true story about a whistle blower who worked for Big Tobacco and CBS was hesitant to air the interview on 60 Minutes because it might jeopardize the sale of CBS to Westinghouse Electric. Both clips illustrate the political economy of news media and Marx's concept of ideology, in which ideas and knowledge reflect the interest of the ruling class. Marx argues that the class having the means of material production (e.g. technology, money, labor, tools, etc.) also has control over the means of intellectual production (newspapers, schools, books, broadcast media, etc). One can see Marx’s claim come to life with the influence that Monsanto had over Fox News. Corporate interests shaped what news was aired, and a Fox executive later told the journalists "the news is what we say it is"; when the journalists used the courts to fight back, a Florida appeals court ruled that falsifying the news is not against the law. In both cases, financial interests shaped what constituted the news, and how it was presented--ultimately shaping knowledge in the interest of the dominant class.

Submitted By: Avery Winston and Paul Dean

Tags: capitalism, class, economic sociology, inequality, marx/marxism, organizations/occupations/work, political economy, social mvmts/social change/resistance, labor, labor law, occupy wall street, unions, 21 to 60 mins
Year: 2011
Length: 24:00
Access: aljazeera.com

Summary: This mini-documentary from Al Jazeera's Faultlines analyses the contemporary US labor movement. The video begins by documenting the plight of American workers today, including rising unemployment, stagnating wages, and higher benefit costs. It emphasizes the importance of National Labor Relations Act (aka Wagner Act) that provides a governmental structure to allow collective bargaining. We also hear from several union critics that provide the typical complaints against unions. For example, business leaders talk about their choices to shift jobs to lower-paying states and countries to lower costs. Republican politicians and business representatives argue that public workers must accept the lower wages and benefits typical of private sector employment. A corporate lawyer argues that unions must change and that if they don't understand the pressures business is under, then they will become obsolete. The video also emphasizes the struggle over labor law in several ways. For example, it documents Wisconsin's Governor Scott Walker who attempted to strip the right to collective bargaining from public workers. While it notes Obama's support for unions, it notes the fight over Employee Free Choice Act, which died when Obama failed to push it through the Senate because they prioritized other issues (e.g. health care) over labor law. Obama created the White House Jobs and Competitiveness Council which was tasked with developing a policy to create jobs, but appointed a corporate CEO (from GE, which has eliminated many American jobs) to lead it, drawing the criticism of powerless workers. Toward the end, the video discusses the occupy movement and the development of alliances to promote labor rights and economic justice. It identifies the new alliance-building that has reinvigorated the labor movement, but contrasts the frequent top-down organization of labor unions with the bottom-up organization of OWS. Viewers may reflect on the assertion that without active unions, would companies be willing to pay their workers decent wages or to implement better benefits? What should the union movement do to become more effective? One worker noted that there is "orchestrated movement to vilify and blame unions for all our problems," which is also reflected in this anti-union ad. How is public sentiment about unions shaped in the US? Why does the US have the weakest labor movement of all industrialized countries?

Submitted By: Paul Dean

Tags: capitalism, class, globalization, historical sociology, inequality, methodology/statistics, political/economy, absolute poverty, antônio conselheiro, charity, colonialism, comparative historical analysis, industrial revolution, poorhouse, relative poverty, social history, welfare state, workhouse, 21 to 60 mins
Year: 2013
Length: 58:05
Access: YouTube

Summary: This exquisitely animated documentary tells a sweeping social history of world poverty. You, the viewer, are the protagonist in this film floating through the meandering jet stream of world history. "If we want to make poverty history," the narrator explains, "then first, we need to understand the history of poverty." The documentary appropriately begins in prehistory (2:35), and in a more or less linear fashion, moves through humanity's early large scale civilizations, including ancient Egypt (4:40) and ancient Greece (5:40). Zipping forward to the Middle Ages, the story unfolds again in Cairo (8:20), and then lingers in Paris of the same period (10:50). The history of colonialism is woven into the story with a look at the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire (14:20), the Portuguese conquest of West Africa (16:20 and 34:40), and British colonial rule in India (36:00). Poverty in a neocolonial context is later examined in Ghana (38:50 and 43:55), and China makes appearances as the site of both model relief efforts and tragic famine (18:30 and 43:20). At the 20:30 mark the story returns to Western Europe in order to consider the impact of the Industrial Revolution on poverty, and then moves toward a conclusion which contemplates the changes wrought by globalization. While this 58-minute film understandably fails to deliver a truly exhaustive account of the the world-historical processes associated with poverty, the film would be an excellent tool for illustrating comparative historical analysis in sociology. Systematic comparison is of course central to comparative historical work, and this film succeeds in illustrating the importance of comparison by briefly drawing on eighteenth century China as a rare instance where prosperity for some didn't necessarily come at the cost of desperate poverty for others. What does the film's analysis of poverty gain by including this "negative" case in the story? One answer is that the case of China complicates the viewer's understanding of poverty by exposing its causes as far less determined and far more contingent.

Submitted By: Lester Andrist

Tags:  capitalism, class, economic sociology, inequality, marx/marxism, organizations/occupations/work, political economy, contingent work, cooperatives, flexible labor, temp work, 21 to 60 mins
Year: 2012
Length: 25:24
Access: YouTube

Summary:  Contingent workers include part-time work, independent contractors, self-employed, agency temps, and on-call workers. In this segment of MSNBC's Up with Chris Hayes, Hayes discusses contingent work with his four guests from academia and worker advocate groups. After a brief introduction, the video focuses on contingent labor in the economy today (2:16-10:59) and moves to a more critical conversation of possible alternative worker organizations (11:00-25:24). It notes that contingent workers comprise 30% of the American workforce, which has increased dramatically in the last 10-20 years. It includes both low-skilled labor (e.g. janitors) and high-skilled labor (professors, computer engineers), who usually do not receive overtime pay, unemployment benefits, health care, etc. While some workers might prefer this relationship, it is mostly capitalists that benefit from this arrangement and the guests discuss the role of power in shaping contingent labor. They argue that business owners strive to maintain a flexible workforce, avoid providing benefits, and workers have much less bargaining power (through unions) today and have little control over this relationship. In the second portion of the segment, the guests discuss the desirability of this model and possible alternatives, especially worker cooperatives. The guests differ on if they see an inherent tension between employers and contingent labor, and viewers may reflect on how they believe work should be organized. If you prefer alternative arrangements, how would we get there? How does contingent labor fit into Marx's theory of capitalism and worker resistance?

Submitted By: Paul Dean

Tags: capitalism, class, economic sociology, inequality, marx/marxism, political economy, social mvmts/social change/resistance, theory, class consciousness, exploitation, hegemony, ideology, 00 to 05 mins
Year: 1998
Length: 1:14
Access: YouTube

Summary: Disney's Pixar film, A Bug’s Life, follows the life of a young ant, Flik, who leads a rebellion against greedy grasshoppers that feed on food harvested by the ants. In this clip, Hopper, the head Grasshopper, berates one of his minions for suggesting that the grasshoppers give in to the demands of one ant. Hopper points out that one ant's actions may be miniscule in effect, but several ants acting in unified collective action can overthrow the entire system that allows the grasshoppers to live such a comfortable life of abundance. This clip can be used to stimulate discussion on several Marxian theories and concepts. For example, given that the grasshoppers rely on the surplus of the ants' labor to maintain their own way of life, it illustrates Marx's theory of exploitation. But as Hopper notes here, "those puny little ants outnumber us 100-to-1, and if they figure that out, there goes our way of life." So if the ants were to recognize their class interests in this system, thereby attaining class consciousness, they would be likely to organize and fight back against the exploitative grasshoppers. He further notes "it's not about food, it's about keeping those ants in line." Viewers may reflect on what Hopper means by this. Specifically, the grasshoppers cannot give in to one ant's demands and believe they are entitled to the food they harvested. They have to keep the ants from recognizing their right to the food, and therefore must maintain ideological control (i.e. belief in ideas that support the ruling class) over the oppressed ants. The film clip can also be used in illustrating social movements and inequalities in general because it provides a cogent example of collective agency and its possible relationship to individual resistance.

Submitted By: Chris Hardnack

Tags: capitalism, commodification, consumption/consumerism, corporations, economic sociology, marketing/brands, marx/marxism, political economy, theory, culture industry, false needs, max horkheimer, theodor adorno, wal-mart, 00 to 05 mins
Year: 2004
Length: 3:48
Access: South Park Studios

Summary: In this South Park clip, Kyle and Stan enter the local Wall-Mart in an attempt to ruin the business because the people of South Park have been negatively affected by its recent opening in their town. Having been led to believe that destroying the “heart” will destroy the business, the boys search the store for the “heart” of Wal-Mart . While Randy (Stan's father) is walking through the store with the boys, he is distracted by the fact that Wal-Mart continues to lower their prices. Everywhere he looks there are items that he does not need, but he continues to buy them because of the low prices.  In this way, Wal-Mart is creating “false-needs,” which are created and fulfilled by capitalism, and exert power over Randy. When the boys meet the man that calls himself “Wal-Mart,” he claims that he can take any “form” that he chooses. He then switches clothes, thereby acquiring different forms through consumer goods, and asks the boys which “form” they prefer. When the boys find the “heart,” they are surprised to see that it is a mirror; i.e. the “heart” of Wal-Mart is the consumer. The man adds that his “forms” can be Wal-Mart, K-Mart, and Target, but that he represents one single entity, “desire.” This desire is the power that is exerted over people by major corporations. While the clip seems to suggest that Wal-Mart is simply fulfilling the desires of the consumer, viewers may consider how such desire and the low prices of Wal-Mart are produced more broadly. Through advertising and Wal-Mart's artificially low prices (e.g. by exploiting cheap labor), these desires are produced like a commodity in a factory and are a fundamental mechanism for capitalist control over people. By suggesting that the "heart of Wal-Mart" is the consumer, does it offer hope in us being able to change the corporate giant or does it unfairly place blame on individuals for a bigger structural issue?

Submitted By: Sean Kelley and Ian Hammer

Tags: corporations, crime/law/deviance, economic sociology, government/the state, historical sociology, inequality, political economy, copyright law, subtitles/CC, 06 to 10 mins
Year: 2011
Length: 6:30
Access: YouTube

Summary: States, it is often said, must regulate corporations in order to ensure the greatest good for the greatest number of its citizens. Even the most ardent fiscal conservative would concede that antitrust laws are necessary in order to sustain a competitive market and protect consumers from price fixing. To take another example, when states enforce copyright laws, they "promote the progress of science and useful arts." While corporations may want to own a copyright forever, states are obliged to limit the duration of copyright protection in the interest of allowing other authors the ability to remake or build from classic stories. This is what benevolent, well-meaning states should do, but in practice, corporations often wield power over state regulators, and as C. G. P. Grey remarks in the above clip, on four separate occasions Congress has aligned with the narrow interest of corporate copyright holders that the length of copyright is too short to turn a profit and so extended it. But as Grey also points out, it's hard to imagine that J. K. Rowling "wouldn't have written Harry Potter if the copyright protection was just for her whole life and not an additional seven decades thereafter." The clip works well as a rather vivid antidote to the myth that markets are best left unregulated, and the clip is also a useful entrée into a discussion about how power—in this case, corporate power—shapes the formation of law, and perhaps even the ideological premises, which become the foundation of discussions about whether those laws should be changed in the first place.

Submitted By: Sparhawk

Tags: class, inequality, marx/marxism, political economy, theory, weber, charasmatic authority, class conflict, class consciousness, exploitation, ideology, labor, rational-legal authority, subtitles/CC, 00 to 05 mins
Year: 1975
Length: 3:11
Access: YouTube

Summary: This hilarious clip from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, illustrates several key concepts from Marx. After Dennis (a peasant) gets a presumptuous greeting from a visitor, he states "what I object to is you automatically treating me like an inferior." The visitor responds with "well, I am King." Dennis challenges him by arguing: "How'd you get that? By exploiting the workers. By hanging on to outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic and social differences in our society." Marx's concept of exploitation refers to the value that comes from workers' labor, but which gets taken by the ruling class (whether it be feudal lords, kings, or capitalists) because they own the means of production. The peasant describes this process as an unfair dimension of the class system. This awareness reflects his own class consciousness, or understanding of the class system, how it affects him, and how to act in his own class interest. Another peasant notes they are part of autonomous collective, which Dennis describes as their own self-rule based on equality. When they challenge the King's authority because they didn't vote for him, the king argues he obtains his authority from "the Lady of the Lake" that gave him Excalibur and right to rule by divine providence. Dennis comically responds that "Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is not basis for government; supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony." Their competing interests reflect the class struggle in which the workers' interest (self-rule that allows them collective ownership of the means of production) are inherently in conflict with those of the ruling class (who seek to control the workers and keep the value of their labor for themselves). Finally, the notion of divine right to rule is an example of ideology, or ideas supported by the ruling class, and which legitimate the current order and obscure the oppressive class system.

I would like to thank Camilla Hayes and Andrew Hanko for recommending this clip.

Submitted By: Paul Dean

_Tags: capitalism, economic sociology, globalization, marx/marxism, political economy, theory, financial collapse, global recession, power elite, wall street, 00 to 05 mins
Year: 2010
Length: 0:55 (entire film is 120 mins; trailer here)
Access: YouTube

Summary: This is a brief excerpt from Inside Job, an excellent documentary that explores the 2008 global financial collapse. The films draws upon in-depth research and interviews with major financial insiders, politicians, and journalists. By breaking down complex financial transactions in understandable terms, it traces the rise of the "rogue" financial industry and "unveils the corrosive relationships which have corrupted politics, regulation, and academia." This brief clip focuses on Obama's lack of action on regulating Wall Street because of the relationship between Washington and Wall Street. It notes that Obama, who was elected President the year of the financial collapse, was quoted as saying that "a lack of oversight in Washington and on Wall Street is exactly what got us into this mess," arguing for the need to reform the industry. But after years in the presidency, Obama's administration had not enacted a single major financial reform. When Robert Gnaizda (former director of the Greenlining Institute) is asked why, the clip ends provocatively with his quote "It's a Wall Street Government." Viewers can be encouraged to reflect on what Gnaizda means by the quote? This might be useful for illustrating Mills' concept of the power elite or Marx's concept of a ruling class. If using the entire film, you can have students complete exercise #4 (in the film's Study Guide) to examine the revolving door between government regulators and corporate executives. It can also be a good discussion starter about the cause of the financial collapse, the social construction of markets, the role of improper incentives, and economic ideologies.

Submitted By: Paul Dean