Hugo Radice

Multinational Companies
and the Third World

From International Socialism, No.71, September 1974, p.30.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.

Multinational Companies and the Third World
Louis Turner
Allen Lane, £3.50

MULTINATIONAL companies are major institutions of present-day imperialism. Some 35 per cent of the world’s trade takes place within them, between affiliates of the same company, and the vast majority of foreign investments are now direct investments made by them all over the world. In the underdeveloped countries, they are the dominant force in capitalist exploitation: local capitalists and governments alike, whatever their rhetoric, are increasingly tied to them, and share the same interests in maintaining military and political links to the imperial powers and in repressing worker and peasant movements.

To understand the nature of imperialism in the ‘third world’ – the significance of industrialisation, the relationship with the capitalist world economy, and above all the developing class structure and class struggle – it is now essential to study the workings of multinationals and see in what ways they require modifications to the traditional Marxist analysis of imperialism.

This book is of little help in this task. The concept of imperialism is conspicuous by its absence, for Turner is basically a left-liberal (it is to his credit that he pretends to nothing more than this). He is against South African apartheid, cultural colonisation through tourism, excessive profits; for ‘development’, ecological sanity and ‘self-determination’.

Naturally, he is highly critical of the activities of multinationals in the third world, but he is content to accept the facts at their face value rather than to analyse the underlying social and economic system, and to propose pragmatic responses to the excesses of firms in the context of a continuing, indeed flourishing, world capitalist system.

Thus, in relation to the growth of the food industry, or ‘agri-business’, using advanced technology and machinery rather than labour, he writes:

‘Do we want to see the rural sector becoming less labour-intensive, given the horrendous unemployment problems most of the third world now faces? On the other hand, the markets in the developed world demand ever-improving quality and convenience ... As long as a particular country wants to sell to such markets, it will have to deal with the H.J. Heinzes of the world, whether it likes it or not.’ (p.157)

A socialist alternative, even ‘in one country’, is not considered. Elsewhere, his weakness for glib journalistic overstatement shows how fragile the liberal perspective is:

‘... it would be foolish to deny the fact that food production is becoming a more scientifically rigorous activity. A number of th world’s leading corporations are heavily involved in key areas, and at this stage of development, refusing to deal with them would be criminal.’ (p.160) (my emphasis)

Or when he attributes the stagnation of Argentinian capitalism

‘... partly to unfortunate government policies which have overstressed industrialisation’ (pp.69-70).

In South Africa, we are told, multinationals can be pressured into acting as a catalyst by improving the conditions of black workers: but are we seriously to believe that Guardian journalists are more significant in this respect than the growing militancy of the workers themselves? We are told at some length about bribery and corruption in third world countries-in the years of Poulson and Watergate; and the term ‘xenophobia’ is used to describe countries seeking to control foreign investments! And so on.

The book is partially redeemed by the wealth of facts, which can illustrate a revolutionary standpoint just as well, although at times the facts come so thick and fast that they fragment and swamp an otherwise useful narrative. And it has taken the publishers so long to get the book out that information on many matters of importance like commodity prices is woefully out of date. All in all, an irritating book, but one which can usefully be consulted for its illustrative case material.

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