Multinational Corporations and Development: Friends or Foes?

The earliest arguments as the leaders of the newly independent developing countries began to plan for accelerated growth and resulting reduction of poverty – what I have called the progressive and activist ‘pull up’ strategy for reducing poverty, in contrast to the conservative characterization of it as a passive ‘trickle down strategy’ suggesting that the Earl of Nottingham and his vassals are eating leg of lamb and venison at a high table, with crumbs falling to the dogs and serfs below – involved answering a basic economic-philosophical question: How would integration into the world economy on dimensions such as trade, equity investment (i.e. multinationals), migration and technology (e.g. intellectual property protection) work? Would, as the opponents argued, integration into the world economy on these different dimensions lead to disintegration of the national economy; or would it help instead?