Multinationals are not all bad

In Foreign Policy Charles Kenny argues that, although multinationals have made a lot of money in underdeveloped countries, on the whole they have also done good things.  

Sometimes the good requires you to stop and think.  Vodafone, the cell phone company has 213,000,000 users in developing countries. It's doubtful that many of these users are teenagers texting.  Mobile phones now allow you to do much more than text and talk.  One thing that it does in South Africa, for instance, is enable people to search for jobs outside of their immediate area.  One benefit of this expanded job search is increased employment of around 15%.  In Kenya it makes banking much more accessible.  One-third of Kenyans use the mobile-banking applications Vodafone offers.  Why?  The number of bank branches is tiny, one for every 44,000 Kenyans.

Unilever sells a lot of soap in India, where the use of soap on such a simple task as washing your hands was not as widespread as one would think.  Yes, Unilever makes a lot of money from its soaps.  But using the soaps means that many people are less likely to develop diarrhea.

For the past ten years Glaxo has reduced the incidence  of intestinal worms by donating 2.6 billion treatments of their deworming drug to 58 countries.  Yes, they do sell drugs at exorbitant prices. But, like most things in life, the company is neither all good nor all bad.