ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the implications of the evolution of dominant transnational corporations for the pattern of production and investment within and between the advanced industrial countries, and between this group of countries and the Third World. The old international division of labour divided the world up into the advanced industrialized countries and the backward primary producers with international trade between these groups of countries dominating world trade. De-industrialization within the United Kingdom (UK) has proceeded in this sector either because of the peripheral position of the UK economy in the European context or as a response to the power and militancy of workers in the UK. The process is basically inefficient because it is motivated by issues of control and distribution – the control of the work process by those who hire labour, and distribution in favour of those who control the location of production.
