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international economic and political order. The expanding socialist
world provided the ‘third world’ with an example and the alter-
native of public state ownership to private ownership. The
monopoly of technology and science'? in the hands of the
multinational corporations plus the large size, relative financial
autonomy and long-time horizon, not to mention the military
might and political leverage of their powerful states meant that the
corporations commanded a very strong position (bargaining or
otherwise) vis-a-vis the underdeveloped countries. Hence, com-
plete ownership of the means of production in the ‘third world’
was not absolutely necessary. What was important was to retain

"control of the means of production so as to ensure supply of im-

portant raw materials, expanding markets and good profits.'* As
William H. Beatty, the Vice-President of the Chase Manhattan
Bank remarked in January 1965:

Most successful projects have been achieved without hard and fast
requirements for certain rigid percentages of stock ownership. The im-
portant element is that there be a meeting of minds at the beginning as
to who does what —who manages and controls. Under these cir-
cumstances, a minority shareholder can in fact functionally not only
manage but control the enterprise.'® (Emphasis mine.)

In fact as we shall show below, the economic benefits following
nationalisations may have increased.

The Partnership: Benefits to Multinational Corporations

We have how a number of factors, including the threat of total
nationalisation, has resulted in the new form-association between
foreign capital and local public - to serve the old relationship. In
this section we shall explore the reaction of the spokesmen of im-
perialist big finance to partial nationalisations and the varied
benefits that the multinational corporations stand to derive and do
derive from association with local state capital.

ATTITUDE TOWARDS NATIONALISATION

It is true that in some cases the foreign capitalists openly op-
posed the nationalisation in East Africa. This is not surprising,
given the age-old sentiments of the capitalists — especially the
smaller ones among them. But the far-sighted, especially the large
multinational corporations and their international media took the
African nationalisations calmly. In some cases the companies

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