aggressive foreign salesman who has some machinery to sell sets
the ball rolling and probably also offers to do the feasibility sur-
vey, etc.

Some financial corporations have their own consultancy depart-
ments to ‘fish’ out new areas of investment and give other ‘ser-
vices’. Thus for instance, T.D.F.L. (discussed above) has a ‘Project
Constancy Department’, which according to one report, ** ‘should
be of great help to the local entrepreneurs’.

(3) LEVERAGE OF THE HOME STATE.

The foreign partner — the multinational corporations do not
stand alone but in various ways are backed by their home states.
Thus, besides the political leverage that the home state exerts, it is
often the case that a loan from the foreign partner is secured by
the home government, or the purchase of machinery and equip-
ment is backed by suppliers’ credit. In these cases, there is every
reason to believe that the foreign state can in important ways af-
fect the destination of particular investment. In fact reliance on
foreign finance from such institutions as the World Bank and the
International Finance Corporation very much affect the pattern of
investment of the recipient countries. These institutions have their
own ideas about the types of investments that should be made in
the ‘third world no different from those of the multinational cor-
porations. 44

All in all, association with multinational corporations plays a
decisively influential role in structuring the pattern of investment,
i.e. the mode of utilisation of the economic surplus—thereby
deciding the direction of development. And as we have shown,
this is in the direction of reinforcing the externally-oriented
economy. Therefore whatever ‘development’ that takes place is in
fact the development of underdevelopment.

THE TECHNOLOGICAL UNDERDEVELOPMENT

One of the chief arguments of the protagonists of partnership
with foreign corporations is that it helps the underdeveloped coun-
try to get the necessary technology and train skilled manpower
and managerial personnel. We propose to deal with the question
of the importation of technology through partnership with a
multinational corporation from two important aspects: (1) What is
the extent of technology imported, and the technical skills

60