Big business poor peoples: the impact of transnational corporations on the World's poor

What is the effect of transnation corporations (TNCs) on the world's poor? In his exploration of this little-investigated aspect of their activities, John Madeley's charge is that TNC power is causing hardship for millions of the poor in developing countries.

Madeley examines the impact of TNC activities in the main economic sectors where they invest and sell their products: agriculture, forestry, fisheries, mining, oil extraction, manufacturing and tourism. He charts how natural resources are being ceded to TNCs at the expense of local communities. He shows how weak are the productive links which much TNC activity makes with national economies. He documents how the power of governments to control these largely unaccountable corporations or to create their own development strategies is declining. Sovereignty, he concludes, is passing into corporate hands and the poor are paying the price. Yet the news is not all bad, since some producers, consumers, comunities, even governments and shareboots are beginning to assert their rights and and that large. corporations behave in ways where profits are only one of the obligations required of them.
This readable book places on the agenda what ought to be purposes of giant enterprises and charts new ways in which we can seek to influence them.