Because of low wages, low taxes, nonexistent
work benefits, weak labor unions, and nonexistent occupational and environmental
protections, U.S. corporate profit rates in the Third World are 50 percent
greater than in developed countries. Citibank, one of the largest U.S.
firms, earns about 75 percent of its profits from overseas operations.
While profit margins at home sometimes have had a sluggish growth, earnings
abroad have continued to rise dramatically, fostering the development
of what has become known as the multinational or transnational corporation.
Today some four hundred transnational companies control about 80 percent
of the capital assets of the global free market and are extending their
grasp into the ex-communist countries of Eastern Europe.
General Motors has factories that produce cars, trucks
and a wide range of auto components in Canada, Brazil, Venezuela, Spain,
Belgium, Yugoslavia, Nigeria, Singapore, Philippines, South Africa, South
Korea and a dozen other countrie
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