We constantly regulate, curb, and monitor the activities of corporations in our country. We know that the drive for profit needs to be regulated. Corporations, if left to their own devices, would serve the interests of a small elite, while ignoring the needs of the less powerful. And this is exactly what happens in the so-called developing countries, ruled by dictatorships. Multinationals relocate to these places precisely because they can operate untrammeled by the democratic concern for the public good.
Liberals make a distinction between good and bad capitalism.
And they recognize that the version of capitalism practiced in Asia was most definitely bad. However, they do not want to admit that the free market may not be good in itself. Therefore, they blame the nations instead. The implication seems to be that Indonesia was somehow too backward or illiterate to know what to do with foreign investment. The truth is that the corporations were too busy lining their own pockets and those of a corrupt elite to care what was being done with the wealth.