What a company usually wants for its business is for it to be an successful establishment and to make an abundance of profit. Some businesses do not pose any concern on what they have to do to make this profit as long as it done. Multinational companies are firms with their home base in one country and operations in many other nations. (Molyeux, 133). Most of these very immense firms establish in third word countries were they can manufacture the same identical product for very low costs compared to establishing the same firm in the western Countries producing that product. Most of these multinational companies are heartless and treat workers as slaves giving them diminutive wages for their work. The lifeboat ethics concept is the best way to describe these heartless firms. The concept of Lifeboat Ethics is fairly lucid. It is based upon choosing who lives, and who departs. Environmentalists argue that no single being or institution has the right to extinguish, waste, or use more than a fair share of its resources (Psychology Today, 54). Obviously, this is not happening. The philosophy of Lifeboat Ethics sees each wealthy nation as a lifeboat full of ric

During the 1970's and early 1980's, Nestle began advertising infant formula to the people of the Third World through signs, and promoting formula throughout hospitals. The question is, What does the Third World want with baby formula when breast milk is free? The answer is simple, there is a colossal profit to be made in the developing countries of the world because they have a lot of children. Ever since the declining birth rates in western countries, formula manufacturers found themselves glancing at the Third World. They launched aggressive advertising campaigns to convince mothers that bottle feeding is "more modern" and that breast feeding is backward and primitive (Media Center, 1). Since most developing nations look up to the west, sadly, most Third World mothers bought into these campaigns. The largest difference was in Singapore where in 1951, 71% of all babies from low-income families were breast fed. Twenty years later, only 5% were (Media Center, 1). But this problem is much more serious than marketing an unnecessary product to people that do not need it. To use infant formula effectively, you must have uncontaminated water, refrigeration, funds to buy it, and methods of sterilization. All of these factors are not available to the average person in a developed country because many people cannot afford to buy the formula, they dilute it, which leads to malnutrition. This malnutrition causes brain damage in infants, and was so widespread that doctors called it "baby bottle disease".

Underdeveloped countries have three major weaknesses when dealing with multinational companies. Their laws are inadequate when dealing with modern accounting practices. They also lack trained personnel and unions to handle the ever dated laws they do have. The last weakness is that local businessmen have trouble competing with the massive companies (Elliot, 139). Throughout these weaknesses there is one common trait, a lack of resources. The Third world just cannot compete with the money and resources to which multinationals have access to. These multinationals also resort to very desperate tactics to get what they want, as seen in the boycott of Nestle in the 1980's.

There are solutions to the massive problem of multinational domination. Firstly, government legislation can keep multinationals on their toes providing minimum wage agreements, unions, and safe working conditions to help safeguard the lives of people working for large corporations in developing countries. Secondly, we in the First world can assist our brothers and sisters in the Third world countries by boycotting companies that subject their workers to low wages and slave labour. This was evident with the boycott of Nestle. Because of the boycott, Nestle and other companies had to abide by strict rules when selling products in developing countries. One could also look at the situation as being our fault because we are the ones that have the hunger for the products that the Third world is producing. Most of us do not realize that the banana we eat, or the juice we drink, could be causing pain and ultimately death to the peasant that cultiv

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2120
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)