Michael Clayton exposes the corporations — again

By
Saul Landau                                                           Read Spanish Version

As
a college sophomore I did market testing for a company hired by
Pfizer Drug, the world’s largest pharmaceutical company. I put a set
of questions to farmers about Pfizer’s new drug to treat mastitis,
a common disease in milk cows. I would drive to
the
designated farms, identify myself and write down everything the
farmers said. Then I would “probe,” meaning urge the farmer to
say more. I visited some 50 farmers in the course of a week. My
finding showed that most used another Pfizer product to treat
mastitis. Since that product seemed to work they saw no reason to
switch to a new one.

In
other words, Pfizer made two drugs to “cure” the same bacteria
and then did “market research” to see if they could make profit
from both. I discovered later that Pfizer withdrew the one I did
marketing for because it did not sustain a market niche.

Why,
I naively asked my economics professor, would a company spend time
and money to manufacture a drug no more effective than the one they
already had?

“Well,”
he smiled, “to increase profits. Their marketing people must have
seen evidence that farmers might be induced to buy both drugs,
perhaps if they devised a clever sales pitch. That’s the way
industry works.”

He
neglected to add that multinational corporate operations also often
utilize criminal activities as well as wasteful marketing devices to
achieve their super profits. Chief executives
will do almost anything — and indeed have done — they can get away
with. In
2004, for example, Pfizer executives got caught promoting
non-approved uses for one of its drugs and pled guilty to violating
the Food and Drug Cosmetic Act. They paid “an undisclosed amount to
settle the case” — almost approached $500 million. (AP May 13,
2004)

In
April 2005, the FDA removed Pfizer’s Bextra from store shelves
because this painkiller apparently increased heart attack risks.
Rumors of Pfizer using “influence” to get early FDA approval
circulated widely before the federal agency decided by a narrow
margin that its benefits outweighed potential threats. Bextra also
produced rare, occasional fatal skin reactions. The FDA subsequently
found that Pfizer’s product had no “demonstrated advantages”
over other pain relievers.
(http://www.corporatenarc.com/bextrascandal.php)

In
the real corporate and “legal” world — as shown in the fictional
film
“Michael Clayton” — the
very notion of conscience has long since disappeared.
George Clooney plays the lead, a super priced New York law firm’s
fixer (“janitor,” he calls himself). He cleans up messes, makes
pay offs and facilitates ways out from “situations” created by
irresponsible corporate clients and the corporate lawyers themselves
— like hit and run driving or paying off whoever needs to get paid
to keep quiet. He dresses and lives in high style. Something about
this fast, dangerous and expensive life supposedly seduces bright
people — modern Richard IIs and Lagos.

In
the movie, Tilda Swinton as Laura, chief counsel for an agribusiness
monster, portrays a corporate Lady Macbeth, devoting her legal and
criminal brilliance to sustain corporate profits and growth. The real
version of this film character, the antithesis of Doris Day, might
also have vied for a top post
in the
Bush — or Clinton — Cabinet.

But
the film does not imply that women dominate the realm of arch
villainy. Quite the contrary! The male dominated corporation Board
and chief council stand for “crime pays,” while Michael Clayton’s
male heavy law firm stands for “crime pays our bills.” Sidney
Pollack, as the head lawyer, possesses a lamb’s exterior and a
wolf’s interior. These once bright and highly skilled people have
developed ultra high living styles; their once treasured ethics have
dissolved before their “needs.” “You know,” many an affluent
person has said, “it costs a lot of money to be rich.”

Life
without wealth after having it seems, well, impossible. So, rich
lawyers and corporate executives narrow their world to perpetuating
their comforts and privileges, no matter the erosive impact on their
already diminished consciences.

In
Michael Clayton, the fictional mega-corporation, like the real ones,
manufactured a cancerous product and faces a class action law suit.
Clayton’s firm works to disprove the facts: the product has caused
deaths and illnesses. A company like Archer Daniels Midland promotes
itself with reassuring commercials about how good and healthy the
agricultural product is while in reality it is a killer. (From
1971-80, Ford built the Pinto. Its top executives knew of a design
flaw, exploding gas tanks, but instead of recalling and refitting the
cars, Ford execs decided it would cost less to pay off the lawsuits
from the explosions. Finally, after public exposure of Ford’s choice
of profit over human lives Ford recalled the Pintos and replaced the
exploding gas tanks.)

When
facts like that become known, corporate lawyers suffer a clong – a
legal term meaning a sudden rush of shit to the heart. In the film,
the firm’s top litigator (Tom Wilkinson) suffers a combined
epiphany and nervous breakdown. He can no longer defend murderous
practices when he knows they kill nice and ordinary citizens. “Off
his meds,” as Michael describes him, the rebel lawyer becomes
corporate enemy number one.

In
one Pfizer scandal,
Ashok
S. Idnani a
former finance executive charged the company with hiring detectives
to bribe officials, He said they employed corporate spies, and paid
“competitor’s employees to leak confidential information.” He
provided ample documentation “to support his allegations.”

After
working for 28 years as Deputy Manager in Pfizer’s finance
department, Idnani accused Pfizer CEO Jeff Kindler of illegal acts,
sending documents to Pfizer’s Corporate Compliance and Corporate
Audit departments in support of his allegations. He was immediately
fired.
(http://peterrost.blogspot.com/2007/05/pfizer-finance-executive-blows-whistle_6858.html)

Substitute
for Pfizer, names like Merck and Johnson and Johnson.
All
have suffered similar revelations. Agri-business giants that receive
billions in government subsidies — like Cargill and Archer Daniels
Midland — have also gotten caught price fixing and prematurely
marketing genetically engineered products.

When
Hollywood films focus on corporate crime and show how high priced
lawyers cover up foul deeds, the public should gain awareness of the
nature of big business. Thanks to proselytizers of the “private”
and haters of the public spheres, corporate executives camouflage
their criminal activities as providing for human progress. The PR
campaigns led by sanctimonious prevarications of the Ronald Reagans
and George W. Bushs get repeated on National Public Radio — or
National Pandering Radio?

Films
like “Michael Clayton” reveal capitalism’s real nature — as
did “Erin Brockovich” some years ago. The real and fictional
Erin, a law clerk in mini skirts, took on a corporate utility giant
and won. She organized poor people. Like Erin, Clayton is divorced
and occasionally takes care of his grade school age son. He comes
from a semi-dysfunctional policeman’s family. His addict brother
has cost him lots of money because of a failed bar-restaurant
operation financed by shady guys who want their loans paid off or
else. Michael lives inside a psychic hell, feeling his values like
loyalty to and love for family at war with the way he earns his
living — love only for money, no matter how you get it. Events
combine to force Michael to look at his life and make a choice. How
long can he keep feeling like shell of a person with a gambling habit
and nothing but a lousy, albeit high paying job? Clayton finally and
reluctantly decides
to act morally —
but only after he becomes a target of the corporate system’s need
to literally kill off its enemies.

The
movie does not provide much incentive to mobilize people as “Erin
Brockovich” did. But it does spark resentment against
the mega corporate thieves and killers
so
loved by George Bush and his gang, the
guys telling us that government is inefficient and bad and the
corporate world reeks with rationality and panache.

In
April 2007, Pfizer pled guilty to charges of offering kickbacks for
sales of its human growth hormone, Genotropin. The sentencing
memorandum by the Department of Justice declared that Pfizer
executives and
had full
“knowledge and approval.” The pharmaceutical giant was
represented by a major Washington DC law firm, similar to the one in
“Michael Clayton.”

Film
audiences watch police enter to arrest the bad guys. The Genotropin
criminals got merely a deferred prosecution agreement. That’s the
difference between even good Hollywood films and bad American
reality. Will you believe in a good looking, honest-faced and sincere
sounding George Clooney who commits himself to decency over evil or
— well, we all know what Bush looks and sounds like.

Saul
Landau is an Institute for Policy Studies Fellow and author of A
BUSH AND BOTOX WORLD and
a new film, WE
DON’T PLAY GOLF HERE
(available on DVD from roundworldproductions@gmail.com).