Some people feel that multinational companies improve life in the foreign countries where they sell their goods and services. To what extent do you agree or disagree.

Thanks to globalisation, companies now find it easy to set up branches all over the world. However, although some feel that multinational companies have had a positive impact on the countries in which they operate, I believe they actually harmed them in three ways. Firstly, multinational companies often dominate local markets at the expense of local businesses. While I concede that global businesses often produce goods of a high quality, they also take advantage of economies of scale to produce these items cheaply. As a result, local companies can't compete, and go out of business trying to do so. A good illustration of this is supermarkets, with large multinationals often squeezing the profit margins of small corner shops to such an extent that most have gone bankrupt. Employment is another area of concern. Many supporters of multinational companies claim that they provide thousands of jobs worldwide. While this may be true to some extent, I would argue that when global corporations move their operations to another country, they generally only offer low-paid work. In fact, very often such companies build factories in less developed areas so that they can lower labour costs, keeping only the more highly paid corporate jobs back in their home country. The final area which multinational companies have a negative effect on is culture. When multinational companies enter a foreign market, they tend to dilute local customs and traditions. Take McDonalds for example. The fact that it operates in so many countries means that many people outside America are eating fast food at the expense of their own local cuisine. With the same products and goods on offer in every society, the world is becoming more and more homogenised.