The documentary shows the development of the contemporary business corporation , from a legal entity that originated as a government-chartered institution meant to affect specific public functions to the rise of the modern commercial institution entitled to most of the legal rights of a person . The documentary concentrates mostly upon North American corporations , especially those in the United States . One theme is its assessment of corporations as persons , as a result of an 1886 case in the United States Supreme Court in which a statement by Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite led to corporations as " persons " having the same rights as human beings , based on the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution . Topics addressed include the Business Plot , where in 1933 , General Smedley Butler exposed an alleged corporate plot against then U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt ; the tragedy of the commons ; Dwight D. Eisenhower 's warning people to beware of the rising military-industrial complex ; economic externalities ; suppression of an investigative news story about Bovine Growth Hormone on Fox affiliate television station WTVT in Tampa , Florida at the behest of Monsanto ; the invention of the soft drink Fanta by The Coca-Cola Company due to the trade embargo on Nazi Germany ; the alleged role of IBM in the Nazi holocaust ( see IBM and the Holocaust ) ; the Cochabamba protests of 2000 brought on by the privatization of a municipal water supply in Bolivia ; and in general themes of corporate social responsibility , the notion of limited liability , the corporation as a psychopath , and the corporate personhood debate
Nazi holocaust
The Holocaust
The Corporation (2003 film)