Bear in mind that when we are talking about targeting multinationals, what you are targeting is not the company or its products; you are targeting the wealth of the shareholders. You are targeting the mechanisms of their power and control.
Increasingly, corporations are simply one of the main ways that the super-rich organize their money.
Even if you find a company which you do not think is itself an instrument of domination; a company which you believe has no political agenda, and which does not seem to you to be part of the neoliberal project (I would argue that this would be a mistaken evalusation, but just for the sake of discussion, let’s assume that multinational corporations exist that are not essentially preadotory), nevertheless, our concern is not with the company itself, so much as with its undeniable power and with the company’s shareholders
Regarding their power, what we want is to commandeer their influence in favor of revolutionary goals. So, even if you believe the company is itself innocent of neoliberal imperialism; a common example I am given is a company like Microsoft; there is no denying that the company has tremendous economic power. We want that power to support our demands.
Let’s say that Microsoft is not an aggressive participant in the neoliberal invasion (I don’t agree with this, but, again, just for discussion), let’s say Microsoft is neutral. When a company has the unparalleled power that Microsoft has, neutrality is a political position; it is support for the status quo. The status quo is the coup; it is brutal oppression, it is dictatorship. Neutrality in Egypt equals collaboration with the coup. We need the power of a company like Microsoft to be mobilized in support of justice, not the status quo.
With regards to shareholders, after a handful of private individual owners like Steve balmer and Bill Gates, Microsoft’s shareholders are mostly institutional investors, led by Vanguard.
These institutional investors represent the richest of the rich, the elite of the global owners of capital, who are, absolutely the new emperors of the corporate imperial system.
They have to be taught that their wealth-creation and power-management mechanisms are not safe when they rely on oppression and exploitation.
No, when you see a multinational company, you should realize that you are looking at the money of the super-rich, you are looking at an institution of power and control, even if that particular company seems harmless to you.