Rise of Indian Steel Entrepreneur: Irony and Role Reversal

The rise of Mittal Steel is full of irony.

The world's biggest steel company, built and controlled by an entrepreneur from India, has just agreed to acquire the biggest steel maker in Europe. Mittal Steel already controls some of the biggest names in U.S. steel history, including Bethlehem Steel and others.

For many years, western nations used military and financial strength to extract wealth from Asian countries. Now, the intellectual and financial acumen of Asia, in the person of Lakshmi Mittal, is coming to the fore.

One American historian has already sounded the alarm about foreign control of a vital industry like steel. Writer Mark Reutter authored a book called Making Steel, which is a look at the famous Sparrows Point steel factory in Baltimore (now owned by a Mittal). In an interview last year with American Metal Market, Reutter said, " I am worried about Mittal. Foreign ownership (of U.S. steel mills) is a real problem. I have heard a lot of complaints from people within Mittal Steel about how the company is doing business. I am concerned about (the United States) losing control of its industry. There should have been some debate about that."

There probably wasn't a lot of debate when the British East India Company undercut the Indian cotton industry, when the Dutch East India Company monopolized the spice trade in Indonesia, or when British planters took over the rubber industry in Malaysia.

Mittal has followed in the footsteps of other industrial tycoons, like Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller and Henry Frick. America's industrial titans polished their reputations by building museums, universities and endowing charities. Mittal has agreed to fund a museum about the steel industry to be located in a Cleveland shopping mall.

Finally, Mittal Steel Co.'s name harkens back to the era of 19th-century industrial tycoons, who named companies after themselves-Ford, Goodyear, Carnegie, Frick. The modern business world favors less personalized names-Microsoft, Verizon, Google.