Support |
On 2004-08-07, at 17.33, Richard Zvonar wrote: > At 4:37 PM +0200 8/7/04, Per Boysen wrote: >> How about starting a separate "Starbucks list"? Here in Europe we >> only hear about "Starbuck" on Loopers-Delight. Not exactly essential >> reading ;-) > > Starbucks itself may not have reached Sweden yet, but the underlying > question that initiated this discussion has to do with corporate > citizenship. There is a growing trend of "gigantism" exemplified by > businesses such as Walmart and Starbucks, that is tending toward > global domination of their respective market niches (in the case of > Walmart, more than a "niche"). One result of this trend is the > homogenation of culture, something of potential concern to all. > > Your implication that Starbucks is limited to the United States is not > entirely accurate; the company has been in Europe and Asia for several > years (2000 stores as of 2002). Considering that Sweden leads the > world in per capita coffee consumption (1097 cups/year according to a > 2002 study by Nescafé) you should probably start to see local > Starbucks "real soon now." > > But the larger question is "How do you feel about this sort of > economic/cultural imperialism?" > -- Thank you for an informative post. Fighting economic/cultural imperialism is always a good thing IMHO. As is supporting any original outlet, like we use to do on this list. Kindly Per