Footloose economy, version 2.0

[A] new phase in the evolution of the multinational corporation ... At first companies set up overseas sales offices, to watch over the export of goods made at home. Then they built small foreign replicas of the mother ship, to cater to local demand. Today the goal is to create what Sam Palmisano, the boss of IBM, calls the “globally integrated enterprise”—a single firm in which work is sourced wherever it is most efficient.

The Economist leads off with the article, from which I have excerpted the above, and leads us on to the special survey on globalization. All the more that we need to understand that the footloose economy is here to stay. The magazine adds:

It is true that multinationals tend to shop around for taxes, but in other ways they are usually sticklers for good behaviour. ...
A globally integrated firm cannot allow corrupt practices by employees in some countries and not others, so it must outlaw them everywhere. On the other hand, it cannot enforce religious practices and holidays, or different ways of life, so it must preach tolerance. One investment bank, for example, is extending its lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender network to its Indian operations over the opposition of its local boss.

Interesting how multinationals in the 21st century can be messengers for liberal ideas that the left values--the same left that doesn't quite like multinationals.

But, here is the deal: the new version of multinational corporation promotes the idea of global citizenship--people see themselves not as part of a "nation", and citizen of a country, but as multinational individuals. I can relate to that idea. But, we also know how toxic this idea became in the campaign for the presidency. I hope we will slowly walk away from the narrow views that promote the us-versus-them attitudes. On that note, this post will end with another excerpt from that same Economist piece:

Chairman Yang Yuanqing of Lenovo, who has moved his family to North Carolina to deepen his appreciation of American culture, so as to help him integrate his Chinese and American workers. Or Lakshmi Mittal, the London-based Indian boss of Arcelor Mittal, who says his multinational team of executives get on so well that he forgets there are different nationalities in the room, and who believes his firm has no nationality, instead being “truly global”.
Lenovo and Arcelor Mittal are at the leading edge of a new phase in the evolution of the multinational corporation