Educational Media Reviews Online

This radical but sound film proposes that companies begin to understand the world’s poor as consumers with spending power and entrepreneurial spirit. Companies like Advanced Micro Devices and Microsoft have begun making computer products for the poor. Many impoverished people have come to own hand-charging radios, giving access to a media starved population. The documentary continues to examine use of cost effective materials such as aluminum, in more creative ways. It uses the Dutch multinational Philips as its prime example of a company that both employs and makes products for those in poverty.

Again, The Last Market treats the poor strictly as consumers, and does not act as a cry for government subsidies for better healthcare, education, etc. It calls for creating capacity for the poor to consume. The principal speaker of this work intrepidly states that the poor can “harness the power of globalization.” The film skillfully manages to give a spark to this idea, without appearing naïve or absurdly sanguine.

“Bold” does not begin to describe this work. In a time when many documentaries assail globalization, this film brazenly calls for embracing it and working within its constraints. Though it does not fully address the numerous malignancies of globalization, it is to be praised for its innovative and “outside the box” approach to this issue.