This economic colonialism wears the mask of technological advancement. Third World countries have been given the idea that to advance in technology they must take Western commercial culture along with it - that without potato chips from the West they cannot get or perhaps will not be able to use computer chips! Any criticism of this new commercial exploitation is portrayed as anti-technology or anti-science. And of course the multinational corporations, like the previous colonial and missionary forces, do help the people who side with them and can reward them with a better income, better housing, or better schooling for their children, endowing their company with a progressive appearance.

Yet global economics does level the playing field somewhat and is not as geographically biased as military colonialism. Asians can become successful in the economic field and can learn to use it to promote their own cultures, if they retain any respect for them, building temples in their own countries or in the West where they have immigrated for economic reasons. In this regard multinational business is potentially more nationally neutral than the older colonialism, though it remains wedded to materialism and destructive of spiritual values. It is even possible that in time the West will lose economic control of the world, but the Asians who take it over may still be shaped by Western commercial values and not their own traditions unless they work hard to preserve these.

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