In his book The Cancer Stage of Capitalism, Professor John McMurtry says that our social immune system is being overwhelmed by growing out-of-control money market cancer. In this bold new look at the recent uncontrolled spread of global capitalism, John McMurtry, professor of philosophy at the University of Guelph, Canada, develops the metaphor of modern capitalism as a cancer. Its invasive growth, he argues, threatens to break down our society's immune system and -- if not soon restrained -- could reverse all the progress that has been made toward social equity and stability. This essay is a condensed version of an article Prof. McMurtry wrote for the American journal Social Justice in 1995. Another of his recent books is Unequal Freedoms: The Global Market as an Ethical System |
THERE ARE ETHICAL CORPORATIONS: Not all TNCs (Transnational Corporations = Multinational Corporations) are predatory and solely driven by greed. Check these links (but e-mail us if you have facts suggesting they are not truly ethical): http://www.ccmadvisers.com/ http://www.citizenstrust.ca/efunds.html http://www.heartsandminds.org/links/respbizlinks.htm http://www.investorama.com/features/oswald1.shtml http://www.betterworld.com/BWZ/9606/opkinder.htm
CORRUPTION by certain TNCs exposed and discussed, with references, at Novartis Foundation's Webpage: http://foundation.novartis.com/corrupt.htm
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DICTATORSHIP'S ARMY COMPANIES INVESTING OVERSEAS: Some
of the Multinational Corporations or TNCs that have already made overseas
investments, according to news media reports this week, are companies run
by a dictatorship's army. The People's Liberation Army of Beijing China,
following its road away from classical Marxism, has formed corporations which
have invested overseas.
"Some of the firms are owned by individual units, others belong to one of
China's seven military districts and still others are controlled directly
by China's central military establishment -- such as the General Logistics
Department or the army's General Political Department. Some firms owned by
the army have a toehold in the United States and other foreign countries.
During the 1990s, army-owned firms sold millions of assault weapons to American
gun collectors and thousands of kilograms of whitefish to American fish-finger
manufacturers.
"Companies controlled by the Chinese army own big chunks of property in Thailand
and Hong Kong and, at one time, had property holdings around Atlanta and
Dallas." -- The West Australian, July 24 1998, p 16
MOVING PRODUCTION TO LOW-WAGE COUNTRIES: "As proposed, the MAI would force countries to treat foreign investors as favourably as domestic companies; laws violating this principle would be prohibited. Under these conditions, transnational corporations would find it easier and more profitable to move investments, including production facilities, to low-wage countries." -- Social Justice webpage about MAI at: http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/6980/mai.html
WORLD DEVELOPMENT MOVEMENT'S
EXPOSÉS: "... multinational companies ... have more power and
influence over the lives of the world's population than most governments
* Of the world's 100 largest economic entities, 51 are multinational companies
and 49 are nation states. * Shell, the world's most profitable company, has
annual sales of £68 billion, two and a half times the income of Nigeria's
110 million people. * Multinationals account for two-thirds of world trade
and an entire industry the world over can be dominated by a handful of companies.
...
"Many of the world's largest companies such as Shell, Nestlé and BP
are the targets of international campaigns. WDM's campaigns on companies
behaving badly in someone else's backyard include: * Rio Tinto for its refusal
to recognise indigenous people's land rights in West Papua, Indonesia. *
Poor working conditions in factories in Thailand and China which make toys
like Barbie dolls for companies such as Mattel and Hasbro. * Victimisation
of trade union members on plantations in Costa Rica which grow
bananas for Del Monte, Chiquita and Dole. (See
Unholy banana wars.)
"WDM is campaigning to make multinational companies put people before profits.
We want: * Companies to agree to voluntary codes of conduct on working conditions
and to have their operations independently monitored. * Companies to accept
free trade unions. * Government and international regulation which promotes
the positive benefits of multinationals and limits their harmful impacts.
* The withdrawal of the
Multilateral Agreement on
Investment [MAI], currently under negotiation, which would increase the
power of multinationals but not their responsibilities."
For links to Armaments sold to dictatorships subsidised with taxpayers' money,
Tied "Aid" to impoverished nations, International Debts, including the
World
Bank and the International Monetary Fund
(IMF), the
MAI (direct link given above), Banana Monopolies trampling human rights,
Mining Corporations in Australia's near north stomping on indigenous people
and the environment, Toy Businesses exploiting workers, and WDM's
publications, click:
World Development
Movement of 25 Beehive Place, London, SW9 7QR, UK; Tel: 0800 328 2153,
Fax: 0171 738 6098, at: http://www.wdm.org.uk/background/multinat.htm
MONEY MARKET OVERWHELMING OUR SOCIAL IMMUNE SYSTEM: Book The Cancer Stage of Capitalism. "Our social immune system is being overwhelmed by growing out-of-control money market cancer. In this bold new look at the recent uncontrolled spread of global capitalism, John McMurtry, professor of philosophy at the University of Guelph [Canada], develops the metaphor of modern capitalism as a cancer. Its invasive growth, he argues, threatens to break down our society's immune system and -- if not soon restrained -- could reverse all the progress that has been made toward social equity and stability.This essay is a condensed version of an article Prof. McMurtry wrote for the American journal Social Justice [22(4): 1-25, 1995.]." Click: http://www.policyalternatives.ca/articles/article58t.html or for fuller details, including the title of another recent book Unequal Freedoms: The Global Market as an Ethical System, Toronto: Garamond, 1998, click the link given above at his name, which is: http://www.uoguelph.ca/philosophy/McMurtry.html
"FREE MARKET" FALLACIES: John McMurtry also wrote "Free Market" Fallacies. "The corporations, in other words, are assumed not only to have the right to a free ride on costly services and infrastructures paid for by the citizens of free-trade countries, but the right to be held non-liable for any costs and damages they inflict within these countries." John McMurtry's work in social and political philosophy, political science and sociology has been widely published internationally in journals, textbooks and public forums. His latest book, The Invisible Prison: The Global Market as an Ethical System, will be published by Garamond Press this fall [1998 northern autumn]. The article at the above-linked Webpage was excerpted from a longer essay he wrote for the Journal of Business Ethics.
NEWS EMPIRE AVERAGES ABOUT 5.7% TAXATION: Kylie
Morris: "Pulling together the global threads of Murdoch's business is an
art practised by Washington
Post journalist, Paul Farhi.
His work culminated in an article in December, titled 'A Global Reach Keeps
Taxman at Arm's Length'. In it, he described how little tax Murdoch pays.
...
Paul Farhi: "In the most recent fiscal year reported, Murdoch's company,
News Corp, paid taxes at a rate of
7.8% on operating income. That compares with companies like Walt Disney which
had a tax rate of about 28%, Viacom, which owns MTV and Paramount Pictures,
paid 22%; Time-Warner, which is a US-based company that is about the same
size as News Corp, paid at about a 17% rate. This was not an unusual year
for News Corp in terms of its taxation, in fact if anything it was a high
year. Throughout the 1990s the company averaged about 5.7% taxation on its
operating income, and the other three companies that I just mentioned, averaged
anywhere from about 27% to more than 32%. So he is clearly way, way under
his peer group."
Kylie Morris: "Murdoch's success in minimising his worldwide tax bill means
more ready cash to service debt, and more to grow new business. Ironically,
investment-hungry governments sometimes encourage those new ventures by offering
tax breaks. For example, the New South Wales Government is lightening Murdoch's
tax load by $7-million to aid the Fox Studios developments at the Sydney
Showground." And there's more, all revealed on the Australian Broadcasting
Corporation's
Background
Briefing "Not Shaken, Not Stirred: Murdoch, Multinationals and Tax,"
of 22 March 1998, at: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/bbing/stories/s10609.htm
And check the staff list of the Taxation Law and Policy Research Institute,
at:
http://www2.deakin.edu.au/Research/research_centres/TLPRI/members.htm
MOVING MONEY AROUND TO AVOID TAX:
Rick Krever [Professor, Director,
Taxation and Policy Research Institute,
Deakin University]: "In the last
decade there's just been an absolute explosion in types of derivatives, and
derivatives based on derivatives, ... governments worldwide have been struggling
to keep up [with] this explosion of new financial instruments, and nowhere
have they done it successfully, the Canadians, the Americans, the New Zealanders
have all brought in legislation to try to recognise some of these things
for tax purposes. ... "
Kylie Morris: "Tim Edgar ... says
there's no question cross-border companies ... use the new tricks of the
finance markets ... to lower the tax bill in the country where they make
their money. ..."
Tim Edgar [Associate Professor, University of
Western Ontario]: "We have this silly convention internationally that
multinational corporations operate as separate units within different countries.
... Financial instruments are just one particular way ... to stuff all the
income in the low [tax] rate countries and keep all the expenses in the high
tax rate countries."
Kylie Morris: "Tim Edgar says multinationals can stage-manage transactions
to legitimise them, and at the same time, minimise tax. ... Despite two
sophisticated reports that represent eight year[s] work by Treasury and the
Tax Office, we haven't acted on their proposals."
Tim Edgar: "... Merton Miller, from the
University of Chicago, a Nobel Prize
winning economist, has written extensively in this area, says that tax avoidance
is one of the driving forces underlying financial innovation." -- Extracts
from another important part of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's
Background
Briefing, of 22 March 1998, at:
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/bbing/stories/s10609.htm and at:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/features/tax/page6.htm
Background on Rick Krever is on:
http://www.law.deakin.edu.au/Staff/krever/default.htm
Publications
of Merton Miller include: Financial Innovations And Market Volatility;
Macroeconomics; A Neoclassical Introduction Miller, Merton
H./Upton, Charles W.; Merton Miller On Derivatives;
Preliminary Study Of The Pueblo Of Taos New Mexico
DICTATORS GIVING DONATIONS TO U.S. LEADERS
(2): In a recent article, Greg Poulgrain wrote about the
aftermath of the 1998 Indonesian riots, rapes, burning, and looting, which
concentrated on businesses and homes of certain wealthy Indonesians, including
members of the Soeharto family and associates, and Chinese-Indonesians. Listing
some of the premises destroyed, he wrote around mid-1998: "So too was Bank
Lippo on Jalan Gajah Madah, owned by Riady who achieved notoriety by
donating half a million dollars to assist in the re-election of President
Clinton." [SOURCE has been omitted; sorry.]
Dr Greg Poulgrain is a Lecturer in the Department of Asian Languages and
Societies at the University of New
England, Australia.
CENTRALISING AND RAISING PRICES IN THE 19TH CENTURY: Standard Oil,
railroads, steel, etc: Reformers in the 19th century were
opposing the monopolisers, centralisers, and consolidators in the railroad,
steel, oil and other industries. See
The Robber
Barons, The Great American Capitalists, 1861-1901, by Matthew
Josephson, New York, Harcourt Brace and Company, 1934 edition. The book was
republished by Harvest/ Harcourt Brace & Co in 1995. ISBN
0-15-676790-2.
See part of the publisher's
description:
"Originally published in 1934. ... The book looks at this phenomenon through
the eyes of the men that came out on top in the frenzied and unstructured
rush for development, and it becomes in part the biographies of Rockefeller
(oil), Carnegie (steel), Gould and Vanderbilt (railways) and Morgan (banking)
among others. ... For example Rockefeller's switch from being the largest
to the only oil refiner came in secret agreements with the Erie, Pennsylvania,
and New York Central railroad "pools" whereby he and refiners invited to
join the Standard Oil Trust (they received half the real value of their assets)
had freight rates reduced by up to 50% whereas competing refiners had their
rates increased by 100% with half of this being paid straight back to Standard
Oil (drawback) by the railroads. Within three months his remaining 25 competitors
surrendered to him and he fixed all U.S. oil sales at a new high price."
OIL MONOPOLIES, JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER, INCOME, POLITICAL DONATIONS
AND THE TAX-FREE FOUNDATIONS: A book review in
The Weekend Australian,
August 8-9, 1998, "Review" section, p 14, includes a note that the author
Ron Chernow is also the author of award-winning books on J.P.Morgan and the
Warburgs. "By 1877, about 49 years before the car displaced more stately
forms of transportation, John D. Rockefeller controlled 90 per cent of the
refined oil in the US. ... By 1902, he had an untaxed income of $US58 million.
... Rockefeller created the organic unity known as the trust, which would
be emulated by all the great industrial enterprises -- steel, copper, tobacco
and rubber. ...
Rockefeller, and Standard, hated the government no less than the trust-busters
hated them, and they treated it with supreme contempt -- by bribing it. There
were big-time pay-offs to key senators and countless small-time corruptions.
John D. gave campaign contributions to John Sherman and Teddy Roosevelt.
But ... both took his money and turned on him. ... ... his great journalistic
nemesis was Ida Tarbell, whose 19-part series from 1902-05 ... led the president
to bring down the trust. ... all the break-up of Standard did was unlock
the wealth in its components ... he was enriched many times over as a result.
Rockefeller's voice is still driving the tax agenda in the US. ...Although
John D. is long gone, what is alive is his astounding array of philanthropic
projects: the Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research, Rockefeller University,
the Johns Hopkins Medical School, the University of Chicago and the Rockefeller
Foundation." -- review by Bruce C. Wolpe of Titan, The Life of John D.
Rockefeller, Sr, by Ron Chernow; Little, Brown; 774pp, $25.
In Nov-Dec 1999 Exxon and Mobil were amalgamating again. The constant contributions to politicians' campaign funds was paying off at last!
NEWS EMPIRE'S LOW TAXES (2): "Murdoch's tax holiday. Tax investigators from Britain, the US, Canada and Australia have launched a secret joint inquiry to examine why Rupert Murdoch's global media empire pays hardly any tax. last year, while other international media groups, such as Walt Disney, paid up to 28 per cent of their income in tax, Murdoch's News Corporation reported paying only 7.9 per cent -- only $103 million from an operating profit of $1.3 billion. In 1989 an Australian investigation found that News Corporation had routed its profits through subsidiaries in low-tax countries such as the Cayman Islands. World Press Review, Vol 45 No 5, reprinted in New Internationalist, August 1998, p 6
BRIBERY OF POLITICIANS (again): "Quote. 'The White House is like a subway: You have to put in coins to open the gates.' Johnnie Chung, who pleaded guilty to making illegal donations to US President Bill Clinton's election campaign." -- New Internationalist, August 1998, p 6
MULTINATIONALS RELY ON GOVERNMENTS, PAY NO
TAX: "But despite their brash free-enterprise ethos, TNCs
[=Transnational Corporations = Multinational Corporations] rely very heavily
indeed on the state. When a TNC thinks of setting up a plant it holds
an auction, commanding competitive bids from nation states with offerings
of tax-breaks, grants, roads, power supplies, a compliant, 'flexible' labour
force, a 'sympathetic' regime. Huge public subsidies prop up TNCs
everywhere.
"... finance houses and banks ... so much surplus cash now sloshes around
that they're becoming richer and more powerful than TNCs. ...
Because these institutions have grown so bloated, and because globalization
is all about paying no taxes, states are becoming virtually bankrupt. ...
... alternatives... the globalizers are opposed to every single one of them
... The simplest would be to impose a tax on the transactions of foreign-exchange
markets, which could generate two-and-a-half trillion (thousand billion)
dollars a year.
... the state bureaucracy ... has, by and large, aligned itself with
globalization, set itself against the people and lost all political credibility."
-- David Ransom,
"Globalization
-- an alternative view", in New
Internationalist, November 1997, pp 7-10.
PREACHING "FREE MARKET" WHILE ARRANGING TAX-FUNDED AID AND
BAIL-OUTS: Noam Chomsky, in "Free Market Fantasies" which
can be heard online from
http://www.worldmedia.com/archive/
or from
http://206.9.170.150/archive/audio/fmf.html,
said that all of the top 100 transnational corporations in the world had
benefitted from government assistance in their alleged "home" country, and
20 of them had been saved from collapse. Yet these companies were strongly
advocating "free market" theory, while receiving government subsidies or
being baled out. He covers the reasons for over-fishing through government
subsidies while "free" trade was introduced. Newt Gingrich was one
of the most successful politicians in obtaining government help for his
electorate's industries, while preaching the "market."
Chomsky wrote World Orders, Old and New: 1994: Pluto Press, London;
312pp, Paperback, ~$32.00. For a little more on this book and other
information try: GEA
Links and Contacts. For a wide review of his writings and speeches up
to recent times, including audio and video online, try:
http://www.worldmedia.com/archive/.