Amanda Ciafone. Counter-Cola

Through the in-depth study of a single organization, the Coca-Cola Company, Amanda Ciafone uncovers and explains some fundamental dynamics in the evolution of capitalism in the last hundred years. Less in the business of producing drinks than in the one of orchestrating the franchising of bottling production across the world, the Coca-Cola Company exemplifies, writes Ciafone, key characteristics that we have learned to identify with contemporary global capitalism, such as the commodification of culture, the financialization of the portfolio of activities, and the commercialization of knowledge. “The Company made stuff while staying out of the business of making stuff” (5), writes Ciafone before setting to explain how it did that in the following three hundred pages of Counter-Cola: A Multinational History of the Global Corporation. More ominously, the company has been a trendsetter in outsourcing production; securing tax havens for its profits; locking national and regional bottlers in restrictive...

Advertising · Business · Capitalism · Coca cola · Cola (plant) · Commercialization · Commodification · Corporation · Economics · Financialization · Management · Market economy · Multinational corporation · Outsourcing · Political science · Subsidiary · Finance · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · Law · Marketing