Those people espousing the third viewpoint in Table 3.3 are given the name meliorists because they subscribe to meliorism: the doctrine, intermediate between optimism and pessimism, that affirms that the world can be made better by human effort. This viewpoint recognizes and accepts the evolutionary changes that have taken place over the last quarter of this century in the relationship between humans and nature.
The meliorist believes that the MNC is indeed a potentially useful instrument and can play a constructive role in the orchestration of a new world economic order. The meliorist's point of departure is that an unattended Golden Goose might lay eggs in too few or too many places and some of these might turn out not to be golden. On the other hand, a closely attended Golden Goose might not lay any eggs at all.
Although the meliorist's camp is composed primarily of Third World scholars, a number of First World intellectuals and practicing executives of MNCs are becoming proponents of this view. This change in the mood of the First World toward a meliorist attitude regarding the role of the MNC in a new world order is exemplified by some of the suggestions and opinions that have emerged in recent years.
Scholars have recommended maintaining minimal external institutionalized control over MNCs through such mechanisms as an international treaty, suggested by scholars such as Charles Kindleberger, Eugene Rostow, and Paul Goldberg; an international charter, proposed by Professor Kindleberger and former Undersecretary of State George Ball; procedures, codes, and international institutions, proposed by Professor Joseph Nye; the Sullivan Code for MNCs in South Africa; and the OECD Code of Conduct for member multinationals. 1 The views of high-ranking executives of some of the largest MNCs in the world appeared in a series of thirteen articles published in 1976 in the Christian Science Monitor. Condensed from a report by the International Management and Development Institute titled "Corporate Citizenship in the Global Community," these articles offered opinions on the role of the MNC in the world economy. Contributors included such figures as Henry Ford II, chairman of the Ford Motor Company; Reginald H. Jones, chairman and CEO of the General Electric Corporation; Walter B. Wriston from Citibank; Donald M. Kendall from Pepsi Cola; and U.S. Secretary of the Treasury William Simon; as well as the heads of UN agencies, the International Chamber of Commerce, and other influential corporate and governmental bodies. 2 Although the messages offered to the public by these corporate and public giants were basically the conventional ones to be expected from free enterprise "flag wavers," overt hints surfaced as to the graveness of the MNCs' present and future situation. The unreserved optimism of earlier decades had to some extent given way to a more cautious hopefulness.
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