T T AP O L i S T A NG L0 £ e R
P e P P e e S 2 -

B

PR

elans

CAPITALISM UNLIMITED: PUBLIC COR-
PORATIONS IN PARTNERSHIPS WITH
MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS*

Issa G. Shivji

The aim of this paper is to explore one particular problematic
area facing the public corporations in Africa as vehicle of
economic development. Special reference will be made to the Tan-
zanian situation though, I believe that much of the analysis in this
paper also applies to other African countries as well as many other
‘third world’ economies. The problem to be analysed here is the
partnership relations between the public corporations in an un-
derdeveloped country and the multinational corporations based in
the developed capitalist countries. Reducing the legal form to its
economic substance, what this really means is the association bet-
ween local public capital and foreign private capital. How did this
association develop? What does it take? What are the benefits
and/or losses derived by each partner? What is the net effect of
this association on the economic development of the host country
concerned? These are some of the questions we shall be dealing
with in the subsequent sections of this paper. Before we do this,
let us briefly discuss the crucial question of economic develop-
ment/underdevelopment that faces the African and other ‘third
world’ countries.

Economic Development and Underdevelopment in Africa
One aspect of underdevelopment on which almost all interested
parties including their academic ideologues are agreed is the fact

 

* Originally published in ‘The African Review’, Vol. 3 No. 3

40