The Coke Machine - Michael Blanding [2]
It’s a shocking allegation to level at the company that has presented through its advertising one of the most compelling visions of international peace and harmony the world has ever seen. And yet it’s not the only charge that has been leveled in recent years against the Coca-Cola Company, which stands accused of decimating water supplies of villagers in India and Mexico, busting up unions in Turkey and Guatemala, making kids fat throughout the United States and Europe, and hoodwinking consumers into swallowing glorified tap water marketed under its bottled water brand Dasani.
Perhaps it’s not too much of a surprise to find the Coca-Cola Company on the stand for these injustices. In this era of cynicism, it’s standard practice to believe corporations from Halliburton to ExxonMobil capable of every form of evil, trained by the profit drive of capitalism to turn a blind eye to the worst consequences of their actions. The Coca-Cola Company, however, represents a special case—at once the quintessential example of a giant American multinational corporation and a beloved pop culture symbol that has spent billions of dollars to present an image of wholesomeness and harmony that has made it cherished by millions of people around the world. Finding the Coca-Cola Company accused of murder is like finding out Santa Claus is accused of being a pedophile.
So how is it that a company that, in its own words, “exists to refresh and benefit everyone it touches” now stands accused of drought, disease, exploitation, and murder? To truly understand that contradiction, it’s necessary to go back to Coca-Cola’s origins as a cocaine-laced “nerve tonic” in the turn-of-the-century American South. It’s there that the seeds of its inexorable drive to growth were planted, along with the decisions that have allowed it to disavow responsibility for its bottlers around the globe. That’s the essence of Coca-Cola—what one of its legendary executives once called “the essence of capitalism.”
Step, now, inside the Coke Machine.
Part One
“ALL THAT AMERICA STANDS FOR”
Coca-Cola represents the sublimated essence of all that America stands for, a decent thing, honestly made.
-NEWSPAPER EDITOR WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE, 1938
ONE
A Brief History of Coke
In Atlanta, Coke gets in your face. The drink is everywhere, from the Coca-Cola memorabilia store in the airport entry hall to the announcements on the subway train for Coca-Cola headquarters. All around the city, Coke’s leading executives have lent their names to the city’s major landmarks: Pemberton Park, the Candler Building, the Woodruff Arts Center, and the Goizueta Business School at Emory University to name just a few. But few authentic landmarks remain from the drink’s history. The home of its inventor and the pharmacy where it was first served have both disappeared.
Those faithful seeking out the origins of Coca-Cola are directed instead to the World of Coca-Cola, a massive homage to the beverage in the center of the city that remains virtually the only place in the world where the public can come face-to-face with the history of its favorite soft drink. And come they do. One million visitors crossed under the thirty-foot Coke bottle hanging over its entrance in the year after it relocated here from a smaller space across town in 2007. Visitors still must call ahead to reserve a time for a tour, paying $15 for the privilege.
What they get when they do, of course, is an image of Coke completely mediated