The great global corporations are a new expression of the entrepreneurial thrust that thrives on the free exchange of goods, services, factors of production, technology, capital, and ideas. They are now the principal agents for the peaceful transfer of technology and ideas... .Since no country has a monopoly on industrial and agricultural skills, or on other knowledge, this transfer is necessary if we are to raise the world's living standards....

Politicians have been fragmenting the world, while the multinational corporations have been viewing the planet as a single marketplace, and drawing peoples together in the process.

In the tough, competitive global marketplace, it does not matter where a multinational corporation's headquarters are located; sooner or later it will have to operate under the same economic and' political rules that govern its competitors....

The concept of global wealth creation places a great strain on even the most liberal of modern nation-states. Every country at some point subordinates possible economic advantages to military security, domestic stability, the protection of home industries or economic groups, or even national pride... .There is always the temptation to solve short-term problems by exchanging them for long-term instability.

No matter what a government's politics, often the public and private sectors conflict. This natural interplay has generated a great deal of nonsense about the relative power of multinationals and governments.... A multinational corporation is essentially helpless in the hands of a nation-state.

All any global company can do in its relations with a sovereign state is to make an appeal to reason. If that fails, capital will leave for countries where it is more welcome....

The future of a global company in any one area will be determined by the degree to which a particular government puts the material well-being of its citizens ahead of outmoded political, protectionist, or other local narrow interests.

The reality of a global marketplace has pushed us along the path of developing a rational world economy. Progress owes almost nothing to political imagination....

The development of truly multinational organizations has produced a group of managers who really believe in one world. They know that there can be no truly profitable markets where poverty is the rule....They recognize no distinction because of color or sex, since they understand that talent is the commodity in shortest supply... .They are against the partitioning of the world on the pragmatic ground that the planet has become too small, that our fates have become too interwoven for us to engage in the old nationalistic games which have so long diluted the talent, misused the resources, and dissipated the energy of mankind....

The multinational corporation can function amid diverse value systems, though like all instruments of progress it must move in a resisting medium.

Although political ideology remains disruptive, many nations now recognize that self-interest and the common interest are not mutually exclusive....

History confirms again and again that not only do controls fail, but, on their way, they distort the global marketplace-discouraging producers, causing shortages, and creating uncertainty.

The World Bank has documented that if someone gains a dollar from protection, someone else in the same country loses a lot more. For every $20,000-a-year job in the Swedish shipyards, Swedish taxpayers pay an estimated $50,000 annual subsidy... Protectionism slows economic recovery....

To the degree we cut our imports, we increase costs to the consumer and invite retaliation, for the only way the world can sell more abroad is to buy more abroad.

Economic chauvinism is obsolete in a world where the prosperity of all nations depends more and more on cooperation and free trade.