THE PRACTITIONERS' VIEWPOINT

Nature

The MNC is the most creative international institution, representing humanity's highest accomplishment in the art and science of organizing material and human resources.

The MNC is the most destructive mechanism ever invented. Its current structure and function represent humanity's worst accomplishment.

The MNC has the potential for becoming a very useful vehicle for improving the human condition all over the world.

Role

The MNC must and will play a more active and more visible role in domestic and international human affairs. There is basically no incompatibility between the nation-state's plan and the MNC's objectives and specific goals.

Because the MNC's existence in an area undermines the power of the nation-state to maintain political and economic stability within its sovereign territory, the MNC's role must diminish.

By its very existence the MNC will continue to play a very important role in human development. This is an organization-dominated and -dependent world and it will become more so.

The MNC and the worldorder

The Third World's demand for a "new" economic order seems to be justified but must be accomplished by their "putting their own house in order" and not by handouts from the MNCs. They must create an environment conducive to more freedom for the MNC, not less. Those Third World nations that have made progress toward industrialization have done so through the offices of the MNCs.

The Third World's demand for a new economic order is not only legitimate and justified but a manifestation of the end of economic imperialism, which has through years of exploitation of the poor by the rich created a yawning gap in economic development between the rich and the poor. The new order will give the poor their just share.

The Third World's demand for a new economic order reflects certain changes in our conception of the earth's carrying capacities and of our own purpose in life. Specifically, humans are becoming more and more "limits-conscious" and adopting a long-range perspective. As a result, people are attempting to prolong the use of their finite resources so that future generations will have the minimum means of survival.

Future proposals

The MNC should be left alone to evolve into a more effective and efficient wealth-creating mechanism. Do not kill the Golden Goose. Both the host and the home country will depend on the MNC to lay the golden eggs of a peaceful, prosperous, and viable world.

The MNCs must be controlled. Their objectives and goals are basically incompatible with the aims of the nation-state (particularly in the Third World). One sees today that there are a few very visible multinational managers creating a world that is very pleasant for them but essentially unbearable for those who work for them and have to live with them. Nothing short of an international, supragovernmental agency will suffice.

The MNC must change drastically, in terms of its goals and objectives, its structure, and its policies and procedures. Although some degree of institutionalization of this change appears necessary, it is by no means sufficient. Both the MNC and the nation-state are much more diverse problems than Adam Smith and the Westphalian organizers had in mind.

SOURCE:   A. G. Kefalas, "The Multinational Corporation and the New International Order," in A. J. Dolman (ed.), Global Planning and Resource Management (New York: Pergamon Press, 1980), 38.