Matthew Yglesias is one of my favorite bloggers, a sharp wit, and a dyed-in-the-wool progressive. He has a great post (via Tyler Cowen) about how our notions of corporate nationality (i.e., Apple is an essentially American company, even though very little of its product is manufactured in America) don’t jive with the global, interdependent reality of capitalism. He points out:

“…not only do Toyota and Honda manufacture cars in the United States, but these are publicly traded firms. Americans can–and do–own shares in both firms, and could own more if we wanted to. Conversely, an “American” company like Apple actually does very little production in the United States. Nestle is “Swiss” but it’s a giant multinational corporation and Switzerland is a small country so the vast majority of its operations are elsewhere.”

“Corporate nationality, in other words, doesn’t matter. But it seems as if it actually does. And for somewhat mysterious reasons.”