Even the population of business enterprises does not provide a comprehensive measure of ‘entrepreneurship’ in the United States because it excludes f… - Neil H. Jacoby

The emerging censorship of political payments by U.S. business corporations is a potentially important, but little noted, aspect of the recent controversies about these payments. The operating behavior of American business overseas is becoming a new dimension of the public regulations of business. Until recent years, this regulation was concerned with such matters as healthy working conditions for employees, safe and reliable products, and enforcing competition. The disclosure of political payment abroad has led federal agencies to increase still further their role as arbiters of business behavior.

The American credo is one of faith in institutional pluralism and of mistrust of large size and concentrated power, political or economic. The growth of giant institutions has always been viewed with apprehension, even though it has been for the most part the natural product of rising populations and income, and of technological changes that created economies of larger scale.

Foreign oil companies suffered major expropriations of their property during the postwar period, usually without payment of full compensation to the private owners. These episodes—the most significant were in Algeria, Ceylon, Cuba, Egypt , Iran, Libya, and Peru—followed by many years the first major oil industry expropriation by the Bolshevik government of Russia in 1918 and a second major expropriation of foreign oil properties by the Mexican government in 1938. All illustrated the great latent power of governments over the international oil companies and the reality of the political risks inherent in the industry.