Corporate influence, with its fatal blend of power, money and unaccountability, is particularly potent and dangerous in frail states. Corporations are insufficiently regulated, and where the purchasing power of a large company can outbid or overwhelm an underfunded government.
The lobbying power of the
largest corporations can even make and break governments: The Anglo-Persia
Oil Company (now known as British Petroleum) was able to induce a
coup that toppled the government in Iran in 1953; United Fruit Company which
owned 42 percent of Guatemala’s land, lobbied to bring about a C.I.A.-backed
coup a year later in 1954. The International Telephone and Telegraph
Corporation campaigned for the ouster of Chile’s Salvador Allende in the
1970s, while more recently Exxon Mobil has lobbied the United States to
protect its interests in Indonesia and Iraq.
The roots of this
predatory corporate culture go back 400 years to the foundation and the global
rise of the East India Company. Many modern corporations have attempted to
match its success at bending state power to their own ends, but the
Company remains unmatched for its violence and sheer military might.
Using the looted wealth of
Mughal Bengal, the Company started ferrying opium east to China, then fought
the Opium Wars to seize an offshore base at Hong Kong and safeguard its
profitable monopoly in narcotics. To the west, it shipped Chinese tea to
Massachusetts.
The Company had become, as
one of its directors said, “an empire within an empire,” with the power to make
war or peace anywhere in the East. It had also by this stage created a vast and
sophisticated administration and Civil Service, built much of London docklands
and came close to generating a quarter of Britain’s trade. Its annual spending
within Britain alone equaled about a quarter of total British government annual
expenditure. Its armies were larger than those of almost all nation- states and
its power now encircled the globe.
Although it has no exact equivalents, the Company
was the ultimate prototype for many of today’s corporations. Today we can
blame MNCs for the evils of the world. But there are some who resort to nothing
short of murder and mass genocide for profit. These are the latter day “saints”:
1. Monsanto
/ Bayer
Round-up is a flagship of Monsanto. Its weed
killer kills humans as well. Bayer bought the U.S. firm for USD63 billion in
2018. On Wednesday 24 June 2020, Bayer announced it will pay more than USD10
billion to Americans who say their cancer was caused by Roundup. That sure is a
“Rounddown”.
Roundup is a
flagship Monsanto product containing glyphosate. (AP pic)
2. Big Pharma
High concentrations of drugs have been dumped
into water supply systems (e.g. India and U.S.). U.S. pharmaceutical companies
with factories have been known to dump 100 lbs of ciprofloxacin into a stream
per day.
3.
Rio Tinto (“RT”)
RT operates mostly out of Africa. They have the
worst track record for human rights. It has its “own private mercenary army” to
keep blacks from rising up against them and the government. They have been
known to act forcibly against activists opposing their gold mines in Indonesia.
There are many more and we need to be vigilant of
MNCs that operate with scant regard for human life or environment. Many
multi-lateral agreements have their stamp of approval, and weak or poor
governments are “bullied” into submission. That’s western imperialism
translated into corporate capitalism.
References:
1. The Original Evil
Corporation, William Dalrymple, The New York Times, Sept 4, 2019
3. Bayer Agrees USD$10
Bil Settlement Over Weedkiller Cancer Cases, by AFP, 25 June 2020 (www.freemalaysiatoday.com)
