ABSTRACT
Businessmen want a world where increased prosperity leads to increased stability and greater world harmony. This chapter looks at how the multinational companies (MNCs), those profit-making, people-helping, world-shaping beasts, function in actual practice. It considers five broad categories of multinational enterprises. Divided by function, they are: labor-intensive, low-technology, high-technology, extractive, and services, especially in banking and finance. The first three categories represent manufacturing companies. The facts of resource investment reveal an interesting pattern. A captive copper mine is an extreme example of contemporary investment reality: there are no longer any one-night stands, and every businessman knows it. The Bougainville mine also illustrates the often neglected investor's side of risky multinational enterprise. Developing countries are also imposing other economic goals on MNCs. The multinational corporation may actually improve and enhance the traditional agricultural way of life in a developing country.
