Guys, I need your help...why multinational corporations are bad

In my Economics class, we got an assignment to write a persausive paper about multinational corporations--and rather we think they are good or bad. I've done some research, which has led to me other areas to research, and so on. I'm taking the position that they are bad...so if you guys could point me to websites and resources that prove my point, that would be greatly appreciated. Also I need coutner arguements--so if someone disagrees with my stance speak up...and point me to a site that proves why you think they are a good thing. In my research so far, I've learned a lot about McDonalds, adn will definently be highlighting why fast food corporations are bad for peopel's health. In Economics today, we watch a video that talked about what they did to the environment that was bad...so if you guys could point me to some resources like that, or anything else that would be greatly appreciated! Thanks for the help!

 

Get ready for the maze. I'd encourage you to go beyond just the paper and keep up with the research. Many of the real facts surrounding multinationals are kept in ambiguity and clouded reference on purpouse. They know what they're doing when it comes to an info trail. But here's a couple links that might be beneficial to your research, and it goes from there.....

Corpwatch.org
Transparency International

good luck on your paper

 

Get your hands on a copy of the 3 part documentary "The Corporation". That will also provide numerous references and case studies to help pinpoint your research for your project.

 

I'm happy to provide the counter arguments, although I'd rather respond to whatever questions you have than just dump links on you.

One of the best authors in favor of MNCs and globalisation is Jagdish Bhagwati, a professor at Columbia. One article he wrote on the subject:

http://www.taemag.com/issues/articleid.18014/article_detail.asp

 

If you want some empirical examples of corporations behaving badly, here are some of the ones which I found to be most revolting:

coke workers for instance have become victims of anti-union intimidation, including kidnap and murder:
http://www.cokewatch.com/

Nothing is more disgusting than genocide... except genocide against babies. 1.5 million children die p.a. due to inadequate breast feeding. Nestle have had a hand in this tragedy:
http://www.babymilkaction.org/pages/boycott.html


However, my REAL criticisms of corporations come across as simply criticisms of capitalism. Capitalists can only create a surplus value by exploiting workers. This to me is something against which I choose to fight per se. Corporations only represent a distinct form of this exploitation, taken out on a large, rationalised scale. If you really want to know the root of my opposition to corporations, your best bet is to browse through the link in my sig...

 

Midget said it as for a economics class. Questioning corperations is one thing, yet questioning capitalism in a economics class, could give you a low mark.

 

^psy.
Yeah, especially if it' s an amerikan classroom. There it is that you will be primed to 'enter the workforce'. lol.

 

hehe, thats true. Same in the UK economics classes. They do talk superficially about this and that problem with capitalism but the economic forms considered to be opposites are "moneterism" and "keysianism". capitalism IS economics in these classes from what I hear. Labour theory of value doesnt even enter till degree level.

 

Why would we want students to waste their time studying failed ideas like marxist economics? They may as well study alchemy.

 

do you understand the labour theory of value? It is based upon scientific study and is grounded in ricardo and smith before Marx. I suggest you consider what you are really talking about. Very well then, students study "alchemy" at degree level. hehehe, funny. even most capitalist economists give credit to marx's economics as having some elements of genius.

The reason you might want to study marxist economics is because they reveal the truth about the course of historical development and the inevitability of the collapse of capitalism.

 

There is nothing scientific about the labor theory of value. It is an abstract economic theory, and more philosophy than anything. Most economists consider it discredited, as is Marx's theory that the rate of profit will fall over time and capitalism will fail under its own contradictions. We're still waiting for that more than a hundred years later. Why read such nonsense when you can read Adam Smith, someone who actually made a genuine contribution to economic theory? Or dozens of others?

Studying Marx is interesting if you want to know the history of economic thought. He was influential. But if you want to learn the way economies work, you can skip Marx completely, along with alchemy.

Maybe you plan on staying in the academic world, and insulating yourself from reality. In that case, you can read Marx and find your place among the many generations of bearded crackpots which study a dead ideology in defiance of common sense. But please accept that you will be deservedly marginalised.

 

Some of the stuff I read for my paper, I don't understand. But some of it pisses me off...like what coporations do to the environment, how they exploit the people, the effect on health...it's sick. Someone here in one of the replies (don't recall who it was--sorry!) told me to not just stop researching after I've gotten done with this paper. I won't...some of the stuff I've read is pretty interesting, and I'd like to learn some more about it. And maybe eventually I'll start to understand some of the stuff I dont' understand in the reading now. If I wasn't so rushed to write this dang paper, I think I would understand more...lol Thanks for all the help, guys!

 

What help? Have you looked into a single alternative viewpoint yet?

The most obvious questions are these:

1. Are wages, working, or environmental standards at MNCs lower than for other companies in the same country? No. In particular, MNCs pay higher than average wages. How is that exploitation?

2. If MNCs are bad for the economy, then why do the poorest countries in the world have the least investment from MNCs?

 

Wall-Mart practices illegal union busting and wages are much lower then union jobs in the same sector.

The only MNC that have higer paying wages are the ones with unions, yet as MNCs grow in power the union has a harder time getting a livable wage.

Your asking the wrong question, you have to look at income disparity, the USA has a huge income disparity with the more and more wealth being unevenly distrabuted.

 

Anarchist Spain proved a number of Marx theories sound. In a short time, two hundred different hydraulic presses of up to 250 tons pressure, one hundred seventy-eight revolving lathes, and hundreds of milling machines and boring machines were built. They even build a optical factory, bring Anarchist Spain into the optical industry, all without the owning class.

Anarchist Spain only failed on the battle field.

 

No they don't. One of my economics teachers in college flat-out told our class "We'll study differing viewpoints on the economy, but if you're going to read Marx, make sure it's Groucho and not Karl." I don't know of a single economics curriculum at the university level that does anything more than briefly mentions Marx as someone who was dead wrong about practically everything. Furthermore, I don't know of a single serious economist who gives any sort of credence to Marx's theories. Perhaps you can cite some of these capitalist economists who consider Marx to be a genius.

 

Explain the Anarcho-Syndicalist of Spain. Workers explanding the means of production and increasing production without needing the owning class. Remeber a scientist must shead all preconceptions and focus on what evidence shows to be likely. The evidence while insufficient, points to the possibility that the Anarcho-Syndicalist could have become a industrial power, if not for millitary defeat (their millitary defeat is totaly irrelevant to the viability of their anti-capitalist economy).

In theory Anarcho-Syndicalist could have had thriving economy, without the need of the owning class, that would in theory, would make some of Marx's theories sound.

 

Midget, the most indepth analysis of how corporations are subverting our Democratic way of life can be found in Naomi Klein's book "No Logo". It basically became a paragon of the anti-corporate globalization movement. It's a great read, and I learned more than I ever hoped to from that one single book. GET IT AND READ IT!

It might also be advisable to ignore anything and everything Kandahar says, as he does nothing but spout assinine drivel that makes no empirical sense at all. He claims to be a moderate or liberal, yet is a proud supporter of corporate capitalist ideology without looking at it from the proletariat's position. He's completely lost and refuses to come to grips with that. PointBreak on the other hand, although I disagree with most of what he says, makes clear arguments that forces us to use our brains, and he's most appreciated for that.

 

OK, Marx,
Marx used the labour theory of value which states that the value of something is proportional to the labour content of the commodity and it is this which determines price.The only other theory proposed was "marginal utility" of J.S.Mill. This theory recommends that all things have properties that we value but that they can all be measured on the same scale. That is to say that I find that the proportion of prices of say my car and my computer show the proportion of how useful I find them. This is nonsense. In the field of philosophy utilitarianism, the logical philisophical counterpart, is widely unterstood to be nonsense. Philosophers understand the absurdity of comparing qualities on a quantitative scale. A working example of this is say that I buy a chocolate bar. If I am very hungry, the price does not raise to my hunger. Indeed, the "utility" of bread is possibly the highest of any commodity. Then need to eat is greater than anything. Utility theory is thus dismissable by a simple analysis. It is only for ideological purposes that it has ever survived. Vulgar economists say "supply and demand" to every question we ask them. But supply and demand can not explain a frame of reference for such a value; only an up down movement about some value. Marx indeed showed supply and demand to have little effect on value; a medium value still shows itself existant over time.

Take the most primitive exchange. A hunter a spends 2 hours hunting a deer. Another hunter b spends one hour hunting a rabbit. If hunter b has a use for the rabbit and hunter a has a use for the deer, no exchange will occur. If however they each have a use for the other's produce and no use for their own commodity, they will exchange. And logically 2 rabbits exchange for 1 deer. This represents labour time expended. THIS IS THE ONLY LOGICAL QUANTITATIVE VALUE CAPABLE OF DETERMINING VALUE.

So, for the doubters of Marx, simply explain to me where value comes from and thus how profit is extracted.

 

You ignored my question...What capitalist economists consider Marx to be a genius?

Spain has NEVER been anarchist for more than a couple weeks at a time. There is ALWAYS someone ready to fill any power vacuum. What you claim was an anarchy was really just a weak government that was quickly replaced by a much stronger government. Maybe it wasn't a "government" in the sense that its leaders didn't wear suits and ties and sit at the League of Nations, but there was definitely a ruling order that can best be likened to the mafia.

1. You're right that the evidence is insufficient. However it doesn't point to the possibility that it could have become an industrial power, because the "anarchy" lasted perhaps a month at most. It would be like saying "The stock market was up today, that proves that capitalism works."

2. Even in that short time, there were a lot of problems that you seem content to gloss over. Extrajudicial killings and a government (or whatever other word you want to call it) which the people feared, and convicted criminals being released from prison. Here's a good short read: http://www.jim.com/cat/terror.htm

3. Their military defeat is relevant. I'm not saying that if it had been some other type of government it would have been able to stand up to Franco, but it's common sense that people who don't believe in any kind of power structure have very few options in defending themselves against those who do.

As soon as the "anarchists" came to power, they ceased being anarchists.