The Coca-Cola Paradigm

A Corporate Paradigm

A Shenzhen English rag recently reported (in the 2010-02-03 issue available online) that several consumers were made ill by contaminated products.  In the blurb ‘Coca-Cola investigates mercury poisoning cases’ it states  that the sugar-drink giant believes that mercury found in the product may have been intentionally added by a third party after the canning process.  I was shocked to read this, but these findings should be no surprise.

This report deserves more than a blotter under the fold.  There is a lot more going on here, a lot more at stake than a simple case of negligence on the part of Coca-Cola, or Chinese bottling plants, or Chinese regulatory commissions, or even foul play by invisible actors and should be seen as a glaring red warning light, like the idiot-light blinking in the console under the steering wheel that tells us our engine needs care and maintenance.  Something isn’t  right under the hood.  Something isn’t right in the corporate paradigm.

There are several problems here beyond human error, corporate error, the lack of will in the Chinese government, or malice.   We should be asking a lot more questions of companies like Coca-Cola, and holding them accountable; after all, it’s their product and their responsibility to govern plants under their name whether in America, Europe, or Asia.  We need to be more aware of the roles multinational companies play in our lives, in economics, in politics, and dissemination of information available to the public.  Some of these multi-national companies wield buying power greater than many nations combined.  That makes them almost as powerful as governments, and sometimes as powerful or more powerful.  For instance, they can conscript private security firms, and borrow police to quell dissent and public outrage and even hire private mercantile armies like Blackwater to facilitate market penetration.  The problem is we have very few ways to hold them accountable.

Moreover, everyone is aware, for example that in China, there are many–no, countless– incidents of food, drink, and product contamination.  Take for example, the melamine milk scandal, incidents of opium and road-salt being used as seasoning, or lead in toys which exacerbate trade rows, which are less about politics, free trade. fair trade, trade deficits, and balance and more about  business and community ethics, trust, integrity, and health.  Consumer trust has diminished all over the world, not just over products emanating from China but over International products like Coke and Pepsi.  I drink a lot of Pepsi.  One reason is I love carbonated drinks, but I also choose Pepsi over Coke because Coca-cola has an appalling record of business-ethics.  But lately, I’ve been drinking Pepsi bought in local shops here in China, on many occasions and over an extended period of time, which seems to be contaminated with fungal bacteria—it has that taste that one gets at a bar from unclean lines, when bacteria and residue builds up in the rubber hose.  This isn’t healthy.  And it suggests there is a problem on some level in the canning process at Chinese distributors which leads me to believe that similar problems exist at Coca-Cola plants in China, so when Coke claims its manufacturing procedures fulfill the country’s [China] food regulations I do not feel any comfort from that statement.

Why?  I think we know why.

Perhaps, the country’s food regulations are not strict enough, local workers and authorities are not careful enough, or negligent in their regulatory practices, or maybe multinational companies are not truly concerned about public-health.  Concerning safe, clean, and edible products China certainly has some issues to work-out, but I think people need to be more aware of the Coke corporate paradigm as well.

The Coke corporate paradigm?  Appalling business-ethics?

[The following facts and figures, and some of the rhetoric is borrowed from Green Party Literature www.greenparty.org ]

Americans have had a century old love affair with a sugar laden, caffeine laced carbonated drink called Coke, and now China is being mesmerized by the wave.  While it took the Universe 15 billion years to produce the human race, the Coca-Cola Company has penetrated every continent on the globe in less than a century.  Coke is a model for all multinational corporate domination.  Coke uses clout to bully governments.  It is one of the largest Foreign Direct Investors in India, ranking with GM, Ford, and Hugh electronics.  It pressured the Indian government to allow it to sell 49% of its Indian companies to local shareholders while keeping 100% of voting rights.  Coca-Cola controls bottlers via presence on local boards and by its financial power, but keeps its stakes at less than 50% to protect the mother company from debts and liabilities, such as mercury contamination.

And Coke depletes massive amounts of groundwater in poor countries.  Villagers in Plachimada and Mehdiganj India charge Coke with draining personal wells, drying up ponds, and destroying livelihoods.  The bottling plant in Mehdiganj, India drains hundreds of thousands of liters daily, lowering the groundwater level by 40 feet.  Additionally, Coca-Cola pollutes water resources in Mexico, Ghana and India.  The plant near Benares, India outraged citizens by disposing its waste into fields and mango groves.  Over 20 acres were destroyed and stagnant water created a mosquito epidemic.  These impoverished people have no clout in which to fight back, or affect their own lives, and Coke takes advantage of their powerlessness.  But speaking of epidemics…

Obesity is perhaps the number one health problem in the U.S.  Millions of health care dollars are spent on Diabetes Mellitus every year.  This looks like it might be a growing problem in China as well.  Coca-Cola leads the junk food industry in manipulating people into eating unhealthy refined-sugar products.  Over consumption of sugar is associated with obesity, diabetes and tooth decay.  A 12oz. can of Coke contains 39g of sugar (about 9 teaspoons).  And a 12oz. Can of Diet Coke has 46.5mg of caffeine.  Caffeine is addictive.  Caffeine plus sugar is particularly habit forming.  Caffeine acts on the central nervous system and can make children hyperactive.  Why am I so concerned?  Everybody loves the occasional sweet treat, right?

Because the insidious Coca-Cola Company has used its colossal wealth to manipulate, buy, and inveigle its way into the mainstream diet.  The Coca-Cola Company is a driving force in persuading school boards in the West to compromise children’s health by bringing soft drink vending machines into schools.  The same vending machines placed to prey on school children pollute government buildings, private workplaces and union halls.  Let a treat be a treat.  It shouldn’t be so convenient.  There should, at least, be a healthy alternative beside the Coke machine.  But Coke routinely shoulders out the competition in these public arenas, like a bully on the playground.  I know the dining-halls and canteens on the University campus I work at here in Nanchang, China, Nanchang University, is plastered  with Coca-Cola signs, and Pepsi is not available (except in small privately-owned shops).

In addition to toxic discharges, groundwater theft, and health-issues, Coke has a reputation for racial discrimination and persecution of workers who raise safety issues. The Colombian union SINALTRAINAL has sued Coca-Cola in the US, saying local bottlers hired death squads to kill union organizers.  SINALTRAINAL charges that in March 2004, administrators in Cucuta and Cartagena trapped workers in bottling plants to pressure them to renounce contracts (similar incidents have occurred in China at other US manufacturing plants).  The factory workers died.

And Coke buys sugar from at least four plantations that use child labor.  In El Salvador, thousands of children as young as eight use machetes and sharp knives up to nine hours a day to harvest sugar cane.

Every time we buy Coke or Coke products we support this kind of callous and destructive behavior.  Every can of Coke you buy is a Yes Vote for environmental pollution, waste, violations of human health, dignity, rights, and the persecution of workers.  One way we can hold multinational corporations accountable for their unethical actions is by not buying their products.  If we continue to buy these products we say, essentially, we don’t care about these issues, about our brothers and sisters, our lonely planet, and so un-ethical companies like Coca-Cola have no incentive to change—they continue to destroy livelihoods with your blessing.

A world boycott of Coca-Cola was started July 22, 2003 to protest the killing of SINALTRAINAL union members in Coca-Cola bottling plants in Columbia.  Many institutions for a greener, more harmonious world have joined this boycott.  Say no to Coke—Don’t bring Coke in here. Only when a multinational company that practices unethical behavior demonstrates commitment to harmony should we lift any bans on their products.  That is what we must do with Coke.  As consumers, united, we have great strength.  Don’t  ignore this blinking idiot-light.  Remember that ‘Where there is a will, there is a way.’

What can you do?

Don’t drink Coke.  Persuade friends, neighbors, and co-workers to boycott Coke.  If you belong to a school, local business, VFW, a Union Hall, a church, private or public institution, work with it to cancel the contract.  Buy Pepsi.  Buy local or organic soft-drinks.  Buy some local fruit and juice it.  Buy a thermos or canteen and carry your home-grown home-made juice to school and work.  Ask your college or university to cancel Coke contracts.  End Coke’s rule.

Joshua Bigley

Nanchang, Jiangxi China

View the following link to read:

an Extract from What Kind of God: A Survey of the Current Safety of China’s Food (Reportage Literature, 2004)

part I:

http://www.chinadialogue.net/article…fears-part-one-

http://www.forumsforums.com/3_9/showthread.php?t=12765

Part II:

http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/379

Below is the blurb in Shenzhen Daily