Why Are Global Corporations So Powerful

Multinational Corporation - business enterprise with manufacturing, sales, or service subsidiaries in one or more foreign countries, also known as a transnational or international corporation. These corporations originated early in the 20th century and proliferated after World War II.

According to Derber, “Globalism promises to further weaken the social ties and values that civilize both individuals and business. Unencumbered by national loyalties, corporations now ram the world searching for the cheapest labor in desperately poor countries” (Derber, p. 54). Globalization is a form of corporate wilding because the corporation will do anything to increase their profits and pay for cheap wages.

Social stratification implies the separation of a given populace into progressively superimposed classes. It is showed in the presence of upper and lower social layer. Its premise comprises in an unequal conveyance of rights and benefits, obligations and duties, social esteems, social power and impacts among the individuals from a general public. No general public is unstratified. Stratification includes the dissemination of unequal rights and benefits among the individuals from a general public. Social stratification is the division of society into lasting gatherings or classes connected with each other by the relationship of prevalence and subordination.

The film turns the spotlight towards the new rulers of the world, the great multinational and governments. Looking into the functionality of international institutions such as the IMF, World Bank, and more recent WTO the successor to GATT (general agreement on Tariffs and Trade). Under whose rules millions of people worldwide have suffered loosing their jobs and livelihood. The film demarcates the West having increased its stranglehold on poor countries misusing the power within these institutions. Pilger mentions, "just 200 giant corporations dominate a quarter of the world’s economic activity. General Motors is now bigger than Denmark. Ford is bigger than South Africa”. Showcasing how the extent to which these corporations exploit the developing nations. International institutions such as the IMF, World Banks were established post world war to help rebuild the economic infrastructure of European countries. However the principle policies these institutions are established upon are eroded and their new policies reflect the interests of the West especially

Globalization has been a process underway for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. From the Roman Empire, to caravans on the Spice Road, to the Transatlantic Slave Trade, the process of connecting the globe in an interdependent web has been underway for a long time. Today, it seems that this process has been quickly accelerated. Since the end of World War II and the rebuilding effort that followed it, global development has increased at an intense rate fueled by transnational corporations, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. These multilateral organizations have transformed our global economy and reshaped our society.

Transnational Corporations (TNC’s) play a large role in the development of the global economy, through the sharing of research, trade and technological advances between the different countries. They also play a big part in increasing the interconnection in the world’s economic, cultural and political systems, otherwise known as globalisation. Nevertheless there are both positive and negative impacts that TNC’s bring to the global economy, socially, economically, politically and culturally.

Globalization, when considered in relation to trade and money, can lead one to wonder if it is all about powerful people, organised as corporations, making goods where labour is cheapest, carting it to where the price is highest, benefiting no one but themselves, trampling the planet in the process. Was it all worth it?

Multinational Corporations have always been and are currently now under harsh criticism. They are mainly condemned for exploiting resources and workers of third world countries, taking jobs away from the US industry, and destroying local cultures. Although there are negatives of multinational corporations, there are also positives. Business done overseas provides jobs for the people of the host country, improving the standard of living, and transfers technology. Richard T. De George explains moral standards, in five basic theses, that multinational corporations must adhere to in order to maintain corporate ethics.

Behind the increasing interconnectedness promised by globalization are global decisions, policies, and practices. These are typically influenced, driven, or formulated by the rich and powerful. These can be leaders of rich

Personally, controversies in global capitalism is one of the most interesting that I have taken so far. After the first module which comprised of different topics, including topic 1 was about introduction: The politics of the global economy, topic 2 was about the history of the world economy, topic 3 was about neo-liberalism & global capitalism and topic 4 was about protesting global capitalism. However, topic 1 was the most remarkable topic in my opinion because it gave me the basic understanding about capitalism and the reasons behind its controversies. There were two readings that I found interested, including ‘Is Modern Capitalism Sustainable?’ by Rogoff and chapter 1 ‘Introduction: The politics of the global economy’ by O’Brien and Williams.

In this chapter the author David Kaplan wrote about globalization and how it changed international relations between countries. According to Kaplan, “globalization refers to the movement of capital , information, goods and services among huge multinational corporations, largely ignoring the traditonal role of national boundaries” (Kaplan 88). Many multinational companies have their headquarters based in some of the world cities. World cities are sometimes called global cities as well. An example of a multinational corporation in a world city would be the company that I work for which is Realtime Resolutions. Realtime is a collection agency. Our office headquarter office is here in Dallas and we have two other offices, one in Phoenix Arizona

Analysts agree that TNCs have altered the international relations principles that were once dominated by nation-state relations (Kline, 2005).Transnational Corporations have in many ways exploited the weaknesses in the territorially guarded national laws. In many developing countries, organizations affiliated to external control have challenged and in some instances threatened government sovereignty. Economically stable countries such as the United States of America, have attempted to extend their influence to other countries of the world through TNC. This situation is what led to governments endorsing the non-interference policy in national political affairs (United Nations, 2003). Interesting to note is the role that non-governmental organizations played in this debate. Nongovernmental organizations have been known to not only exert political pressure on governments with little democratic space, but also collaborate with TNCs in this quest. (Heinrich, 2001). For example, many NGOs sort the active involvement of TNC in removal of the apartheid regime in South Africa. This in return, has created tension between these governments and the NGOs with the NGOs calling for the increased political involvement of the TNCs.

For the globalization of competitors, companies are aware that if they leave companies overseas too long without challenge or competition, their investments or foreign operations in the world market may be so solid that competition will be difficult. Therefore, they try to act quickly.

Events in resent history have made a clear statement to the executives of the world that Globalization and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) are tightly linked in projecting a positive brand image. Most of the negative publicity surrounding the globalization debate is directed at one key area, the perceived lack of corporate social responsibility in the business culture of the developed world. The European Commission defines Corporate Social Responsibility as, “a concept whereby companies integrate social and environmental concerns in their business operations and in their interaction with their stakeholders on a voluntary basis."(European) As the heat is turned up on firms,

As trade increases hyper-competition grows forcing organizations to go global. By a company going global it requires them to rethink strategy and reform (Ananthram and Pearson, 2008). Global organizational structure is the way a company aims to merge local preferences with global strategy. The definition of global strategy is “strategic choices that have the characteristics of being globally uniform or integrated,” (Yip et al., 1997) such as standardization of products, uniform marketing, and competitive moves, but all globally (Townsend et al., 2004; Zou and Cavusgil, 2002; Bayraktar and Ndubisi, 2014). Global strategic strategy is a way to adjust to globalization. Globalization is “the economic and social process by which economies and communities grow inextricably interdependent “(Jhirad et al., 2009). The recent financial crisis (Das, 2010), large amount of poverty, and climate change are all problems that show how the world is globally connected because all countries impact each other (Jhirad et al., 2009).