56 SOCIAL SCIENTIST inroads were again made by the former powers in some dominant U.S. areas. In the seventies and eighties this trend became further strengthened simultaneously matched with a deeper penetration of the U.S. capital in many underdeveloped countries. It has been contended by many social scientists1 that the origin of underdevelopment of the less developed countries, especially the ex-colonies, lies in the imperialist domination and the nature of their present relation with the developed nations; that capitalist system is prevailing over in an integrated manner, disregarding the nation-state boundaries. In this integrated system the less developed countries act primarily as assembly points and markets and secondarily as manufacturing sites of the core countries even at the cost of losing hold over their own resources; while developed countries act as the core manufacturing and decision making centres. In the late 20th century i.e. the period of decolonisation, the principal instrument of this world capitalist integration has been the international capitalist organisations. Among them multinational corpora-dons are leading so far as internationalisation of economy is concerned. SPATIAL SPREAD OF MNCs / The development of multinational corporations is often regarded2 as part of a natural progression in the evolution of enterprise structures in markets and mixed economies that relates to the major advances which occurred in the fields of technology, marketing organisation and the nature of oligopolistic competition. The intimate links between science and technology necessitated international operation and intricate association of different branches of knowledge. This was balanced with a massive, large-scale production which again intensified competition. The development of monopolies ultimately pushed out the upper and middle level industrialists from operation and their entire network or the innumerable diverse subsidiaries started being controlled by a few conglomerates ranging from activities of research and processing of raw material right up to manufacturing and marketing of the finished products. These corporations3 essentially keep their headquarters in one country and build factories, manufacture and sell products simultaneously in different countries.4 They not only make direct investment in the host countries but also enter into collaboration with the governments of the latter or private firms therein or supply or transfer technology or goods in exchange of licensing fees and royalties. Thus a distinction arose between foreign direct investment and MNCs. In the broad sense MNCs cover all enterprises with control over assets, factories, mines, sales office and like in two or more countries and are also responsible for most direct investment. Further, MNCs are not limited to by the function of investment.5 Dunning6 argues that besides investing capital, MNCs organise all the resources under them for promoting activities like transfer of technology, goods, managerial