The scale of power exercised by multinational corporations (MNCs) today places the production of the “obedient subject” at the very heart of global labor politics. On a global level, multinational companies dominate flows of foreign direct investment and serve as the primary drivers of cross-border trade. Corporate giants such as Walmart, Amazon, Apple, Shell, and Microsoft operate networks of production, distribution, and services that span nearly every corner of the world, accumulating capital at a scale that exceeds the fiscal capacity of many developing states. Walmart operates thousands of stores across multiple countries with millions of employees and annual revenues amounting to hundreds of billions of US dollars. Amazon records revenues exceeding half a trillion dollars while employing millions of workers across global logistics, warehousing, and digital services. Apple generates tens of billions in net profit each year with exceptionally high profit margins, while Shell controls hundreds of billions of dollars in overseas assets within the energy and extractive sectors. This concentration demonstrates that capital accumulation is not only centralized but also deeply transnational and structurally integrated.
This reality reveals that the standards of professionalism, productivity ethos, and performance metrics established by MNCs are no longer local in nature. They have become global references framing how millions of workers understand their own value, identity, and legitimacy. Corporate expansion does not simply widen markets; it standardizes ways of working, serving, and interpreting success, from shopping malls in North America to customer service centers in Southeast Asia.
Within Foucault’s framework, such power does not primarily operate through direct coercion but through discipline and normalization. It produces individuals trained to be compliant, efficient, and permanently ready for evaluation. In the everyday spaces of MNCs, this mechanism functions through performance targets, productivity indicators, routine assessments, and reward systems presented as objective and rational. Gradually, individuals learn to measure themselves through numbers, charts, and performance reports, until obedience to corporate standards becomes the rational benchmark of personal dignity and self-worth.
The concept of governmentality explains how individuals are guided to manage themselves according to corporate rationality. Amid the expansion of MNCs that employ tens of millions directly and far more indirectly through global supply chains, workers feel they possess autonomy in choosing career paths and developing their potential. Yet all such choices remain confined within a single axis: productivity and competitiveness. The subject is not merely controlled but actively participates in pursuing standards that originate beyond the self, yet appear internalized as personal will.
Richard Sennett demonstrates that flexible labor arrangements, short-term projects, and continuous demands for adaptability erode continuity of self and personal character. Workers are expected to remain perpetually adaptable, to shift roles, and to tolerate insecurity in accordance with corporate restructuring and expansion strategies. Under such conditions, obedience becomes a survival strategy: individuals cling to corporate standards as anchors of identity, because only there do they find a sense of relative stability.
Luc Boltanski and Ève Chiapello argue that contemporary capitalism has absorbed the language of freedom, creativity, and autonomy to reinforce its legitimacy. Workers are encouraged to perceive themselves as innovative partners with personal agency, even though this freedom remains tightly embedded within rigid frames of performance evaluation. Motivational discourse, self-development narratives, and the imperative to “become the best version of yourself” function to refine obedience and deepen loyalty to corporate structures.
On a structural level, Leslie Sklair identifies the emergence of a transnational capitalist class operating through these corporate giants as a dominant force in the global economy. Susan Strange further argues that large corporations do not merely play within market rules but actively shape those rules, positioning themselves alongside — or even beyond — the authority of nation-states in determining the architecture of the global economy. Saskia Sassen highlights how global cities function as command centers where decisions on investment and restructuring are made, cascading downward into the lives of workers at the most peripheral levels.
At the everyday level, the subject transforms obedience into virtue. Working longer is interpreted as dedication, constant availability as commitment, and the suppression of personal needs as professionalism. This culture coexists with rising corporate profits and shareholder capital accumulation, while workers remain trapped in insecurity and escalating performance pressures. Obedience is no longer perceived as submission but as maturity and professional success.
A deeper problem emerges when the subject loses the capacity to imagine alternatives. The competitive world of work is perceived as the only legitimate reality. Critique is labeled unprofessional, refusal interpreted as incompetence. MNCs thus do not merely regulate labor processes; they shape how individuals understand life, success, and self-worth within a corporate-dominated world.
The obedient subject produced by MNCs remains rooted in the working class yet appears in a form distinct from the classical figure conscious of structural exploitation. The worker still inhabits an unequal labor relationship and depends on wages, but no longer interprets this condition as a collective injustice demanding resistance. Instead, it is perceived as an arena for personal proof, where resilience, loyalty, and adaptability must be demonstrated in order to remain “worthy.” In this configuration, the working class does not lose its oppressor but loses the language to name oppression as a power relation worthy of challenge. It continues to operate within a logic of competition, treating fellow workers as rivals rather than allies, and turns obedience into the only acceptable strategy for survival within a system structured by MNCs themselves.
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