It is indeed paradoxical that an industry which epitomizes all that is new and up-to-date at the same time harbours some of the oldest and least desirable attributes of work in manufacturing industry.

Without the parallel development of systems of monetary - and credit-based exchange - there could have been no development of economies beyond the most primitive organizational forms and the most geographically restricted sales.

In the United Kingdom, for example, the sheer overwhelming dominance of London makes it extremely for provincial cities to develop more than a very restricted financial function. London, in that sense, is akin to the notorious upas tree, a fabulous Javanese tree so poisonous that it destroys all life for many miles around itself.

the internationalization of economic activity and its major vehicle, the TNC, can be regarded simply as being part of the normal expansive process of capitalist development.

In fact, technology in, and of, itself does not cause particular kinds of change. It is, essentially, an enabling or facilitating agent. It makes possible new structures, new organizational and geographical arrangements of economic activities, new products and new processes, while not making particular, outcomes inevitable.

Every production network has spatiality - the particular geographical configuration and extent of its component elements and the links between them.

More broadly, strategic alliances are more difficult to manage and coordinate than single ventures; the potential for misunderstanding and disagreement, particularly between partners from different cultures, is great. Certainly many such alliances are short lived.