All Over the Globe

Global Reach: The Power of the Multinational Corporations, by Richard J. Barnet and Ronald E. Muller. New York: Simon and Schuster. 508 pp. $11.95.

Large industrial corporations with heavy investments abroad are nothing new. But they used to be concentrated mainly in extractive industries and the direction of their expansion was determined by the location of the mineral deposits in undeveloped areas that lacked the capital and/or the incentive to exploit their own resources.

Not until after World War II did the multinational corporation (MNC) develop in its present shape, a direct result of the dominant position of U.S. capital in a war-weakened world, and of the breakdown of the prewar cartels. Except for oil, the...