“Domestic in every place, foreign in none”: corporate futurism, multinational corporations, and the politics of international trade in the early 1970s
Date
2023-09-08
Authors
Benke, Gavin
Version
Published version
OA Version
Citation
Benke G. “Domestic in Every Place, Foreign in None”: Corporate Futurism, Multinational Corporations, and the Politics of International Trade in the Early 1970s. Enterprise & Society. Published online 2023:1-20. doi:10.1017/eso.2023.26
Abstract
This article documents how business lobbying groups, corporate leaders, and even some members of the Nixon administration drew on futurist discourse and rhetoric to defeat the Burke-Hartke bill, proposed legislation that would have imposed new taxes on multinational corporations. For several years, self-described futurologists had reconceptualized multinational corporations as ideal institutions for securing world peace and, more broadly, meeting society’s needs, thereby taking over some of the government’s functions. These ideas allowed business interests to invoke a utopian vision of the multinational corporation while working toward the more concrete goal of building a global economy defined by free trade and fending off unwanted regulation.
Description
License
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Business History Conference. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited. This article has been published under a Read & Publish Transformative Open Access (OA) Agreement with CUP.