Global Reach: The Power of the Multinational Corporations

503 Pages·1974·20.034 MB·English

by  Richard J. Barnet, Ronald E. Müller

Books by Richard J. Barnet:
ROOTS OF WAR: THE MEN & INSTITUTIONS
BEHIND U.S. FOREIGN POLICY
THE ECONOMY OF DEATH
INTERVENTION AND REVOLUTION
WHO WANTS DISARMAMENT?
Global Reach
THE POWER OF THE
MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS
Richard J. Barnet Ronald E. Müller
SIMON AND SCHUSTER NEW YORK
Portions of this book appeared originally in The New Yorker.
Copyright © 1974 by Richard J. Barnet and Ronald E. Muller
All rights reserved
including the right of reproduction
in whole or in part in any form
A Touchstone Book
Published by Simon and Schuster
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Simon A Schuster Building, Rockefeller Center
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020
simón and Schuster and colophon are
trademarks of Simon A Schuster
ISBN 0-671-21835-2
ISBN 0-671-22104-3 Pbk.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 74-2794
Designed by Jack Jaget
Manufactured in the United States of America
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Acknowledgments
The authors wish to express their special thanks to Joseph D. Collins,
Michael P. Moffitt, David H. Moore, and Susan Berner for their
original and dedicated work in the preparation of the research for
this book.
The following have carried out indispensable research for various
parts of this study: Marcos Amida, Richard C. Barnett, Susan Berner,
Bruce DeCastro, David Dyer, Paula Echeverría, Jacques Ganzler,
Fred Goff (and NACLA-West Coast), Robin Hahnel, Suraj Kanowa,
Sandra Kelly, Jesus Montañés, Hugo Valladares, and Jeff Zinnsmeyer.
We have benefited greatly from comments or suggestions from the
following: Eqbal Ahmad, David Apter, Helmut Arndt, Orlando
Arraujo, Jack Baranson, Ann Barnet, Nancy Barrett, Barbara Bick,
Sergio Bitar, Jack Blum, Nicholas Bruck, Robb Burlage, Martin
Camoy, Bettina Connor, Ana deKarpf, Guido DiTella, Arthur Domike,
Joan Ronder Domike, José Epstein, Max Flores, Ricardo French-
Davis, Celso Furtado, Peter Gabriel, Walter Goldstein, William Hen­
derson, Jr., Birgitta Hessel, Jorge Katz, Helen Kramer, Saul Landau,
Roger Lesser, Jerome Levinson, Michael Maccoby, Harry Magdoff,
Lewis McCoy, Susan McKnight, Hector Melo, Ignacio Millán, Robert
Eric Miller, Nancy Mills, Gabriel Misas, Richard Morgenstern, Hans
Morgenthau, Cynthia Taft Morris, Paul Neville, Francisco Otero,
Marcus Raskin, James Ridgeway, Steve Roday, Leonard Rodberg,
Paul Rosenstein-Rodan, Gert Rosenthal, Stanford G. Ross, Herbert
Schiller, John Sinclair, Elliot Stein, Jr., Paul Streeten, Osvaldo Sunkel,
Stanley S. Surrey, Paul Sweezy, Frank Tamagna, Oliver Thorold,
Father Gene Tolland, Louis Turner, Victor Urquidi, Constantine
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6 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Vaitsos, Carlos Villarroel, Howard Wachtel, Albert Watterston, James
Weaver, Peter Weiss, Stanley Weiss, Rolando Weissman, Charles K.
Wilber, Miguel Wionczek, and William Wipfler.
We are grateful for the dedicated help we have had on the manu­
script, particularly from Susan Berner, and from Dee Albert, Beth
Barnet, Mary Brock, Sherry Cramer, Irma Dodd, Laurie Ann Kaye,
Ruthanne Müller, Tina Smith, Margot White, and the staffs of the
Institute for Policy Studies and the Department of Economics, The
American University.
The intellectual debt to the pioneering work of the late Stephen
Hymer is acknowledged with gratitude and sadness.
Our thanks go also to our editor, Alice Mayhew, for her great help
and her devotion to the manuscript.
Needless to say, all are absolved from any responsibility for the
ways in which we have made use of their help.
Note to the Reader
The subject matter of this book is both global and controversial.
Global corporations operate everywhere. They cross the frontiers of
academic disciplines as easily as they cross national frontiers. Any
serious attempt to understand what they are doing or the meaning of
what they are doing involves a journey into politics, sociology, and
psychology as well as economics. Because they are bold, powerful,
and new, they elicit strong opinions of all sorts. We have arrived at
ours after sifting a înass of widely scattered materials. Any reader
who wishes to explore our data or reasoning in greater detail than
appears in the text should consult the extensive notes at the back. The
general reader should not feel burdened by them.

Contents
PART i
1 The World Managers 13
2 From Globaloney to the Global Shopping Center 26
3 Personal Identity and Corporate Image 45
4 Corporate Diplomacy and National Loyalty 72
5 The Great Crusade for Understanding 105
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PART II
6 The Global Corporations and the Underdeveloped
World 123
7 Engines of Development? 148
8 The Power of the Poor: Changing Prospects
for a Postcolonial World 185
PART III
9 The LatinAmericanization of the United States 213
10 The Global Corporation and the Public Interest:
The Managerial Dilemma of the Nation-State 254
11 The Obsolescence of American Labor 303
12 The Ecology of Corporations and the Quality
of Growth 334
13 The Transformation of Wealth and Ae Crisis
of Understanding 363
notes 389
index 479