| The Company Men (2010) from IMDB When the GTX Corporation must cut jobs to improve the company’s balance sheet during the 2010 recession, thousands of employees will take the hit, like Bobby Walker (Ben Affleck). Bobby learns the real-life consequences of not having a job. Not only does he see a change to his family lifestyle, and the loss of his home, but also his feelings of self-worth. An ensemble drama that addresses the effects of downsizing on the upper-class American family. For high flying Bobby Walker, his lucrative job at GTX has given him the American Dream: a big house in the suburbs, a silver Porsche in his garage and a beautiful family. But when Bobby is one of the thousands laid off by his company in the wake of an ongoing recession, Bobby must join the lines of the unemployed but also deal with the effects it has on him and his family. Among the others laid off is Phil Woodward, an executive who rose from the factory floor to the corporate offices, but is now finding himself competing with men half his age as he reenters the job market. Meanwhile, Gene McClary is the number two executive at GTX and the vocal opposition to the layoffs, as he witnesses them happening to his friends and colleagues. • Look up the definition of Joseph Schumpeter’s Creative Destruction. In your own words, carefully describe how capitalism always involves creative destruction. • Is GTX a casualty of capitalism’s creative destruction in the marketplace? Or, in your opinion, is something else going on here? Is downsizing just part of creative destruction? Is this more a social problem than an economic one? Back up your analysis. • The film argues that market economics today is more about deal-making and the manipulation of stocks and bonds than the production of goods and services. Do you agree? Why? Should there be limits on this kind of activity? The paper should be about 1500 words. It should be professionally prepared, that is, word-processed with all identifying information included at the top of the first page (your name, name of the class, date, movie title, etc.), spell checked, edited, etc. will be submitting your papers through Turnitin.com assignment management system. This is a plagiarism detection service (I will see an “originality report” that compares your text against online and print resources; you will not see the report) and an online grading format that should allow me to give you more thorough feedback on your writing. |
