As noted at the start of the course, extractive industries are among the most visibly destructive and obviously exploitative areas of MNC activity. Forestry MNCs in Irian Jaya, the Philippines, and throughout Southeast Asia have contributed to a staggeringly rapid and widespread depletion of rain forests. And mining activities are intrinsically dangerous and destructive, bringing numerous MNCs into confrontations with host societies, their citizens, and advocates. These are obvious examples of the environmental/cultural impact of MNCs. These impacts, however, are often more subtle.

The increasingly concentrated nature of MNC dominated business is a familiar theme is this course. Nowhere is this more controversial than in the recent concentration and global vertical integration of agriculture. The rising prominence of agri-business (MNCs that specialize in various aspects of food production and distribution) has come to entail increasing corporate control of the food production cycle, extending from the proprietary creation and sale of seeds/crops, fertilizers, pesticides, to the distribution and retail sales of vast quantities of foodstuffs—often in MNC run supermarkets. Potable water too is well on the way to becoming an oligopolistic, MNC dominated industry. The rapid privatization of foodstuffs and water, along with deepening vertical control, means that MNCs are increasingly coming to control access to some of the basic necessities of life.