خرید و دانلود نسخه کامل کتاب Trading Spaces: The Colonial Marketplace and the Foundations of American Capitalism – Original PDF

, inspired by campaigns highlighting the tax-dodging habits of large global corporations, Londoner Steve Pottinger decided to take direct action. He found out that his coffee shop of choice, British chain Caffé Nero, was not paying any corporation tax, so he returned his loyalty card with an ex- planatory letter, which he posted on Facebook. He pointed out that if he was going to be loyal to Caffé Nero, the owners needed to give back to the society where they traded. “Until such time as you start showing the same loyalty to the common good that you expect your customers to give to your business,” Pottinger signed off, “I’ll be buying my coffee elsewhere.” The Facebook post soon garnered sustained attention, and Caffé Nero was forced to defend itself, excusing its actions on the grounds that it was not engaging in the notorious practice of transfer pricing that Starbucks and Amazon used to avoid tax.1 Pottinger’s protest is, of course, part of a much larger movement that opposes globalized markets. Our era of “turbocapitalism,” its participants argue, has sponsored the emergence of a global megarich elite who trade free from national regulatory regimes to maximize their wealth and impov- erish ordinary workers. These protests, like Pottinger’s words, reveal a cen- tral characteristic of markets past and present. When markets dramatically increase their reach, aspects of exchange begin to move beyond the horizon of individual consumers and their customary frame of reference. In doing so, they break through the parameters defined by government and society for their operation. As a consumer, Pottinger felt cheated by a company that had abandoned its national obligations. Caffé Nero was able to do this, he thought, because a borderless market had permitted complex compan structures that made an international elite richer while depriving ordinary British coffee drinkers of basic rights such as properly funded health care. Pottinger had bought into the idea that, as markets become ever more trans- national, they elude effective regulation and, if left unchecked, take on a rampant capitalist character.