The Sovereign State

The Sovereign State
The Secret History of International Telephone and Telegraph

Hardcover edition
Author Anthony Sampson
Country United States
Language English
Subject ITT Corporation
Genre Non-fiction
Publisher Hodder & Stoughton Ltd.
Publication date
July 1, 1973
Media type Print
Pages 256 pp.
ISBN 0-340-17195-2

The Sovereign State is a non-fiction book by Anthony Sampson published on July 1, 1973 by Hodder & Stoughton Ltd.[1] The book focuses on the history of ITT Corporation to make a broader point about the weakening of the authority of traditional national governments by the multinational corporations.[2]

Plot

In part, it was a portrait of Harold Geneen, the chief executive of ITT from 1959 until 1977. Geneen was a legendarily hands-on manager, who believed it necessary to penetrate through layers of "false facts" to get to the "unshakable facts" about any of the markets or divisions of his conglomerate. In terms of its broader themes, though, this book was one of a spate of early-70s books that promoted the thesis that multinational corporations were taking over the traditional prerogatives and functions of national governments.

In a review of Sampson's book in the Sunday Telegraph, Sir Frank McFadzean, Vice Chairman of Royal Dutch/Shell, took issue with that thesis. Such corporations are "prisoners of their past investments," he wrote, because "even the most puny government can nationalize, and the only redress is to seek compensation."

Although as Sampson's book shows ITT has used other means of redress to defend its own business interests from nationalisation, that have not been confined to the courts. These have ranged from supporting the 1930s military takeover by General Franco in Spain, investing in Hitler's war machine throughout WWII, and funding a CIA-backed coup led by General Pinochet in Chile 1973.

Official information

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Friday, December 04, 2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.