In the 1970’s, Chevrolet released an advertisement of the integral nature Chevrolet has on the American way of life. The phrase “baseball, hotdogs, apple pie, Chevrolet” implies that Chevrolet is as uniquely American as the aforementioned commodities. By extension this advertisement shows how MNC’s are a uniquely American invention. After the Second World War, the United States was put in a unique position to establish the post-war order. Through the Bretton Woods System, the United States avoided creating an international regime of investment policy. In doing so, the growth of the US MNC largely went unchecked, particularly during the Marshall Plan and European reconstruction.

As Gilpin argues, MNCSs and the US government do not exclusively cooperate together. However, MNC’s are subject to favorable public policy and regulations. This is because MNC’s and the US government operate on a mutually beneficial relationship. The spread of US MNC’s is the spread of American capitalism and ideology. In doing so, the US consumer culture expands further into foreign countries, able to do so by the lack of international investment policy.

One US based theory on the spread of US consumerism the Product Cycle Model by Raymond Vernon. The PCM follows the birth , growth , maturation, and decline of the product. With the example of the TV, RCA held the monopoly on the TV market. Utilizing patented proprietary technology, RCA was able to fend off competition to grow and mature their product in the domestic market and expand into the foreign markets. Yet , the TV as a product is still in high demand in the USA. The difference is in that Japanese and Korean brands now control a larger chunk of the market. What this shows is that consumerism is more embedded into the American social fabric than specific MNCs. Given the lack of coordination between MNC’s and government, it shows how government prefers to have inward FDI’s and market competition based on the principles of liberal capitalism. Therefore, it can be said that MNC’s re bi-products take advantage of the consumerist nature of the US social fabric. However, the relationship is not reciprocal, where consumers prefer market diversity instead of a single , monopoly-based choice. This desire for diversity is what Japanese MNC’s take advantage of in their initial investments into US markets in the 1970’s.

Owen Tsang

Sources:

Crawford , R. (2019 , January 22). Week 4 US Power and Multinational Corporations. University of British Columbia, Vancouver BC. Retrieved March 4th , 2019 , from https://blogs.ubc.ca/a12012/files/2019/02/POLI-37A-Week-4.pdf

Gilpin , R. (1975). Corporate Expansionism and American Heremony. In R. Gilpin , US Power and the Multinational Corporation. Retrieved February 2019

Spero , J., & Hart , J. (1997). The Mulitnational Corporation and the Issue of Management. The Politics of International Economic Relations, 110-112.