MNC's or State Ownership?

Tarzi and Fieldhouse both seem to agree (please correct me if I've misunderstood them) that Third World Countries (LDC's as Fieldhouse calls them) have the potential to exercise a great deal of authority and influence over the Multinational Corporations which they host. Whether or not, however, they are realistically able to marshall all of their influence to direct the activities of the MNC's varies from case to case and from country to country. They also seem to be convinced that the power of host countries over the affairs of MNC's is increasing over time. This has occured as they have acquired more expertise in the varying industries or fields and as ownership of MNC's has become more equally distributed across the globe. With this more equal distribution, host countries do not have to fear provoking retaliation (abandonment) as there are likely to be other nations looking to make investments in their own.

One area where LDC's have been able to exert a great deal of influence over MNC's is the Oil Industry. Tarzi points this out on p.157 when he refers to the transfer of oil production from private corporations to the OPEC member states. Is this a good or a bad thing? What I did not get a good sense of, from either article, is the international effect of state ownership and control of resources compared to those of private ownership and control. As I was looking for relevant information on this topic I found a Financial Times article which argues that such state ownership (particularly of oil production) is responsible for oil shortages and high prices. This makes sense, why wouldn't a country rich in oil want to invest some of its profits back into other areas of its economy than oil production alone. Is the world better off with more power in the hands of the MNC's and less in the hands of the state? More importantly, will this international pressure for OPEC nations to increase oil production ever convince them to adopt a course of action that runs counter to their own self-interest? The chips are definately stacked in favor of the host nations on this one.