Political and Legal System Prospect for Global Business: Study on

Monsanto Company

Dorinna Gibson anak Girik

[email protected]
UiTM Kampus Samarahan

INTRODUCTION

Under global perspective, businesses has grown rapidly for the past fews
years. This providing vast channel for economical growth of a country. Not only
the enomy or businesse that can change but also the political and legal system
of a country. The Political and legal system plays important in shaped the
country charcateristic. The objective of this study is to examine how poltical
system influence global business also how the legal system regulate the global
businesses. At the same time, to look in depth into Mosanto Company how the
political and legal system affecting Mosanto Company businesses.

POLITICAL SYSTEM

Political system would definately differ according to a country or nation. A

global company should adjusted accordingly before start up a business
worldwide. As mentioned earlier, political system is a system referred to a
system of goverment in a country greatly influences how peoples manage and
conduct business. Political systems vary greatly between nationstates across
the world. The issue with understanding how to conduct international
management extends beyond general knowledge of the governmental
practices to the specifics of the legal and regulatory frameworks in place.
Underlying the actions of a government is the ideology informing the beliefs,
values, behavior, and culture of the nation and its political system. A political
system can be evaluated along two dimensions. The first dimension focuses
on the rights of citizens under governments ranging from fully democratic to

totalitarian. The other dimension measures whether the focus of the political
system is on individuals or the broader collective. Individualism refer to that
people should be free to pursue economic and political endeavors without
constraint. In other words, goverment interest shall not dependant solely
influence individual behavior. Working in a group requires less energy per
person to achieve the same goal, but an individual will workas hard as he or
she has to in order to survive in a competitive environment. Simply following
the status quo will stunt progress, while competing will increase creativity and
progress. The groundwork for this ideology was founded long ago.
Philosophers such as David Hume (1711–1776), Adam Smith (1723–1790),
and even Aristotle (384–322 BC) contributed to these principles. While
philosophers created the foundation for this belief system long ago, it can be
witnessed playing out through modern practice. Eastern Europe, the former
Soviet Union, areas of Latin America, Great Britain, and Sweden all have
moved toward the idea that the betterment of society is related to the level of
freedom individuals have in pursuing economic goals, along with general
individual freedoms and self-expression without governmental constraint.
Global leaders must remain alert as to how political changes may impact their
business, as a continuous struggle for a achievement in government power
often affects leaders in office.

There are three major political system in which refering to different set of
goverment.

Totalitarianism

Totalitarianism refers to a political system in which there is only one

representative party which exhibits control over every facet of political and
human life. Power is often maintained by suppression of opposition, which can
be violent. Media censorship, political repression, and denial of rights and civil
liberties are dominant ideals. If there is opposition to government, the
response is imprisonment or even worse tactics, often torture. This may be
used as a form of rehabilitation or simply a warning to others who may
question the government. Since only one party within each entity exists, there
are many forms of totalitarian government. The most common is communist
totalitarianism. Most dictatorships under the communist party disintegrated by
1989, but as noted above, aspects and degrees of this form of government are
still found in Cuba, North Korea, Laos, Vietnam, and China.

Socialnism

Socialism directly refers to a society in which there is government ownership of

institutions but profit is not the ultimate goal. In addition to historically
communist states such as China, North Korea, and Cuba, socialism has been
practiced to varying degrees in recent years in a more moderate form
democratic socialism by Great Britain’s Labour Party, Germany’s Social
Democrats, as well as in France, Spain, and Greece. Modern socialism draws
on the philosophies of Karl Marx (1818–1883), Friedrich Engels (1820–1895),
and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870–1924). Marx believed that governments should
own businesses because in a capitalistic society only a few would benefit, and
it would probably be at the expense of others in the form of not paying wages
due to laborers. He advocated a classless society where everything was
essentially communal. Socialism is a broad political movement and forms of it
are unstable. In modern times it branched off into two extremes: communism
and social democracy.

Democracy

Democracy with its European roots and strong presence in Northern and
Western Europe, refers to the system in which the government is controlled by
the citizens either directly or through elections. Essentially, every citizen
should be involved in decision-making processes. The representative
government ensures individual freedom since anyone who is eligible may have
a voice in the choices made. A democratic society cannot exist without at least
a two-party system. Once elected, the representative is held accountable to
the electorate for his or her actions, and this ultimately limits governmental
power. Individual freedoms, such as freedom of expression and assembly, are
secured. Further protections of citizens include impartial public service, such
as a police force and court systems which also serve the government and, in
turn, the electorate, though they are not directly affiliated with any political
party. Finally, while representatives may be re-elected, the number of terms is
often limited, and the elected representative may be voted out during the next
election if he or she does not sufficiently adhere to the goals of the majority
ruling. As mentioned above, a social democracy combines a socialist ideology
with a democratic political system, a situation that has characterized many
modern European states as well as some in Latin America and other regions.

Legal System

Legal system are made to regulate the global business operation. There are
four major law as stated below:

1. Religious law. For example Islamic law is law derived from interpretation of
the Qur’an and the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad. It is found in
most Islamic countries in the Middle East and Central Asia.

2. Mixed law. This law that opreation together of two or three types of law.

3. Common law. This comes from English law, and it is the foundation of the
legal system in the United States, Canada, England, Australia, New
Zealand, and other nations.

4. Civil or code law. This law is derived from Roman law and is found in the
non-Islamic and nonsocialist countries such as France, some countries in
Latin America, and even Louisiana in the United States.

Relationship Between Economic and Political freedom

Figure 1 shows that between 2007 and 2017 the percentage of countries rated
by the Freedom House as “Free” and “Partly Free” decreased, while the
percentage of “Non Free” countries increased. Correspondingly, between
2003 and 2017 the population in countries ranked as democracies by the BTI
increased from 4.0 billion to 4.2 billion, while in countries ranked as
autocracies the number climbed from 2.3 billion to 3.3 billion (Bertelsmann,
2018). The list of countries that recorded substantial deterioration in political
rights and civil liberties since 2007 includes, among others, Azerbaijan,
Bahrain, Burundi, Central African Republic, Congo (Brazzaville), Dominican
Republic, Ethiopia, Gabon, Honduras, Hungary, Mali, Mauritania, Mexico,
Nicaragua, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkey, Venezuela, and Yemen (Abramowitz,
2018). This negative trend affected not only emerging-market and developing
countries with a short historical record of political freedom and democracy, but
also some developed countries considered as stable democracies that
suffered from the wave of political populism. For example, scores for the US
deteriorated in both HFFIW and BTI surveys.

Genetically Modified Organism

Genetic modification (GM) is the area of biotechnology which concerns itself

with the manipulation of the genetic material in living organisms, enabling them
to perform specific functions. The earliest concept of modification for
domestication and consumption of plants dates back 10,000 years where
human ancestors practiced selective breeding and artificial selection the
Darwinian-coined terms broadly referring to selection of parent organisms
having desirable traits (eg: hardier stems) and breeding them for propagating
their traits. The most dramatic alteration of plant genetics using these methods
occurred through artificial selection of corn from a weedy grass possessing tiny
ears and few kernels (teosinte; earliest recorded growth: central Balsas river
valley, southern Mexico 6300 years ago) to the current cultivars of edible corn
and maize plants (Doebley et al., 2016,). The developments leading to modern
genetic modification took place in 1946 where scientists first discovered that
genetic material was transferable between different species. This was followed
by DNA double helical structure discovery and conception of the central
dogma the transcription of DNA to RNA and subsequent translation into
proteins by Watson and Crick in 1954. Consequently, a series of breakthrough
experiments by Boyer and Cohen in 1973, which involved “cutting and pasting”
DNA between different species using restriction endonucleases and DNA
ligase (Rangel, 2016) successfully engineered the world's first GM organism.
In agriculture, the first GM plants antibiotic resistant tobacco and petunia were
successfully created in 1983 by three independent research groups.
Nevertheless, advancements in GM crops have raised significant questions of
their safety and efficacy. The GM seed industry has been plagued with
problems related to human health and insect resistance which have seriously
undermined their beneficial effects. Moreover, poor science communication by
seed companies, a significant lack of safety studies and current mistrust
regarding GMOs have only compounded problems.

Monsanto Company

The Monsanto Company was an American agrochemical and agricultural

biotechnology corporation that existed from 1901 until 2018 when it was
acquired by Bayer as part of its crop science division. It was headquartered in
Creve Coeur, Missouri. Monsanto has been involved in several high-profile
lawsuits, as both plaintiff and defendant. It has been defendant in a number of
lawsuits over health and environmental issues related to its products.
Monsanto has also made frequent use of the courts to defend its patents,
particularly in the area of agricultural biotechnology, as have other companies
in the field, such as Dupont Pioneer and Syngenta

Monsanto had encountered quit a number on legal action that prohibit its
product to be either plant, process or sell in a certain country. For example,
Zambia had choosen to ban GM food to their country. The goverment of
Zambia itself rejected 35,000 ton of food aid just because it possibly contain
GM food. Another example is Serbia where they have a total ban over GM
food. The ban approach were take to reduce the risk of legal system where the
goverment of the country want to protect their own intellectual property and
their citizen. There is one consequences happen when the goverment of the
country fail to follow the rule of law. Weakness in rule of law will cause the
goverment to lose their power over controlling their need or essential to their
country. Rather, the would be controlled by giant company via corruption and
bribery.

Previously, Monsanto nearly win in all of its law suit showing that the are one of
the most powefull company in GMO field. However under case Dewayne
Johnson, a 46-year-old former groundskeeper, has won a huge victory in the
landmark, with the jury determining that Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller
caused his cancer and that the corporation failed to warn him of the health
hazards from exposure. The jury further found that Monsanto acted with malice
or oppression. The case ought Mosanto to paid him $289 million in damages.

Lesson learn and Recommendation

Most importantly as a home country the goverment should be stiff upon the law
implemented. It need to be ensure that the law is seen by all citizen, fairly
enforced and being respected and understand by all citixen. Because as
mention earlier, when law is weak the economic and business will affected. In
Monsanto point of view, they would need comprehensive research to make
their product is safe to everyone. As prevention are always be good then cure.

As a recommendation, a political and legal system should develop a

comprehensive a system to a target contries or comapany. Besides, the rule
and laws afterwards need to strictly adherence to the ethical stand.

Conclusion

In conclusion, influence that political and legal system will determined the
economic businesses of a nation or a company. The more openess or freedom
the system the more economic will grow. However, to what extend the
business can grow would greatly dependant to the product itself. here, the
legal system will take place again to regulate and control accordingly to the
nations needs and respect.
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