As a life-long Coke addict, I approached this book with considerable trepidation. The book details the author's investigations into the sometimes questionable business practices of Coca Cola Company.
Thomas's accusations can be summarized as:
In regards to the murders and other union-suppressing activities, when quizzed on these matters Coca Cola's official response would seem to be some variation on the claim that the company itself only manufactures and provides concentrate to the bottlers - the bottlers themselves are legally separate organizations, and Coca Cola can't dictate business practices to them. Thomas repeatedly slams this stance: he maintains that Coke dictates all manner of things to the bottlers, and could easily pressure them into doing well by their workers. Plus he maintains that if their label is on the bottle, they have a moral responsibility for everything that goes on in all stages of the production chain.
One question that kept occurring to me, and which Thomas never addresses, is an obvious one: if Coca Cola Company treats its workers so badly, why don't they leave? The answer would seem obvious: no matter how badly the company treats them, the alternative would be worse for them.
He does address a related matter when it comes to child workers: while it's all well and good for us rich privileged Westerners to say that children should not work the fields, what if the economic reality is such that, should the kids be prevented from working, they may go hungry as the parents could not work hard enough to bring in enough money by themselves? He offers no answer to his own question.
Thomas finds it galling that Coke regularly claims to be helping out the communities in poor countries in which it sets up shop. In Thomas's estimation, the arrival of a Coke bottling plant is usually bad for the locals. He also slams Coke for the weasel words in Coke's pronouncements on these important matters. For example on the subject of child labour Coke says that it is "part of a multi-stakeholder initiative working towards hiring social monitors to work with the co-ops to monitor against child labour."
Thomas's accusations are hard to judge, as he is clearly very partisan on the matter, and seems determined interpret events in the worst possible light. For example, when discussing the presence of Coke in Mexican healing rituals, he says, "Considering parts of these ceremonies go back hundreds of years, it begs the question of how did Coke muscle in on an ancient tradition?" - the (completely unproven) implication being that Coke deliberately inveigled its way into the rituals.
Thomas is a professional comedian, so his book is peppered with jokes and snappy one-liners. These of course provide a welcome relief from the grimness of his message, but sometimes I wonder if his desire to crack jokes is antithetical to his cause. My favourite of many sequences came when he was discussing a ritual taking place in a Mexican Catholic church:
"In a glass cabinet near the altar the prone figure of Christ is borne down from the cross by his followers. But Our Lord is not wearing the traditional loincloth. Our Lord is wearing a spangled powder blue glitter flower frock that comes up to just under his nipples, making Jesus look like a Thai transsexual fainting at a wedding."
Coca Cola is such an insanely profitable brand that I don't doubt that they could if they wanted to mandate (and enforce) basic standards of humanitarian and environmental behaviour on all of its suppliers and franchisees. The fact that they take advantage of workers and the environment in places where lax laws and enforcement allow them to is terrible, but also not a surprise. Most of these accusations can probably also be directed at every multi-national on the planet: is it not an obvious corollary of our capitalist bottom-line-is-what-counts system? It's very, very hard to work out whether, on balance, Coke does more harm than good in the poor countries it operates in. But Thomas certainly offers a solid case for the prosecution.
Belching Out The Devil is by Mark Thomas.
