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Multinationals as Engines of Growth
United Fruit and the Banana Republics
The United Fruit Company, a U.S. concern, is notorious for having economically colonized Central American in particular, using the support of the U.S. politically--and, on occasion, militarily--to ensure its taking of large profits in the region. Dissent within the U.S. against the U.S. government-United Fruit Company collaboration reached its peak in the second decade of the 20th century.
The United Fruit Company owned vast tracts of land in Central America, and sometimes the Company was said to be the real power in control of those nations, the national governments doing the Company's bidding. The Company several times overthrew governments which they considered insufficiently compliant to Company will. For example, in 1910 a ship of armed hired thugs was sent from New Orleans to Honduras to install a new president by force when the incumbent failed to grant the Fruit Company tax breaks. The newly installed Honduran president granted the Company a waiver from paying any taxes for 25 years.
The Company had a mixed record of encouraging and discouraging development in the nations it was involved in. For example, in Guatemala the Company built schools for the people who lived and worked on Company land, while at the same time for many years prevented the Guatemalan government from building highways, because this would lessen the profitable transportation monopoly of the railroads, which were owned by United Fruit. A popular name for the company was Mamá Yunay ("Mommy United").
Oil and Banking in Iran before the 1950s
In the nineteenth century Iran was one of the poorest countries on the world. The technological level ...