????我將這種賺錢之道稱之為“可口可樂資本主義”。整個20世紀，可口可樂都是這么做的。它讓其他人，不論是政府的自來水廠還是垂直整合的煉糖廠，都投入生產和分銷系統，共同完成“Real Thing（真家伙）”（來自可口可樂的廣告語）的生產。換言之，真正讓可口可樂成為一家偉大企業的，不是它做了什么，而是它沒有做什么。事實證明，可口可樂長袖善舞，擅于調動其他企業和當地政府，為其承擔產品的大部分生產和分銷成本。

????以城市再循環系統為例，這是一個由納稅人出資幫助軟飲料公司擴大生產力的公共資助計劃。20世紀八九十年代，可口可樂又一次不費吹灰之力，讓市政府和市民出資修建了精良的回收基礎設施，讓大批包裝材料可以非常便利地回到公司分銷商附近的當地回收中心。可口可樂公司不但沒有為其生產的垃圾支付任何費用，甚至還享受了一項政府補貼，這項補貼從長遠上幫助其不斷生產數量巨大的一次性飲料包裝（其中72%是PET塑料瓶，它們現在都躺在了美國的垃圾填埋場）。于是除了公共用水外，可口可樂公司動用了又一項公共資源，只不過這次不是水，而是包裝材料。

????用這種方法謀取暴利的不止可口可樂一家。像微軟（Microsoft）這類軟件公司，他們通過銷售辦公軟件獲取高額利潤，但是依靠的是其他企業生產的昂貴硬件，從而將微軟的編程變成消費品。在華爾街，你可以見到可口可樂資本主義的一個極端案例：股票經紀人從不管理任何生產或分銷基礎設施，而是通過商品在買家中的流通賺取交易費。

????簡而言之，可口可樂資本主義已經成為這個時代最賺錢的一類企業模式。這就是21世紀資本主義的回報。

????但是問題依然存在：這個系統能否惠及廣大民眾？可口可樂的發展史顯示，該企業對公共資源的需求極大，例如回收系統、補貼性城市用水、玉米補貼等等，可口可樂公司把這些投資變成商品，但是我們卻根本不清楚這是否利國利民（在一個肥胖人口超過總人口30%的國家，我們真的需要更多汽水么？）。

????雖然可口可樂開始推出更健康的飲品選擇，尤其是瓶裝水，但是對于明智的消費者來說，其價格并不合理。一加侖Dasani礦泉水售價超過4美元，而擰開水龍頭美國民眾就可以喝上等量的凈水，價格不過是幾厘。與其購買可口可樂瓶裝水，我們還不如把錢用在完善公共供水系統上。據美國環保署（EPA）估計，公共供水系統維修需要的費用超過5,000億美元。畢竟，正如可口可樂的發展史清楚展示的，無論普通市民還是可口可樂公司，都是靠公共水管存活的。（財富中文網）

????巴托?埃爾莫爾，阿拉巴馬大學（University of Alabama）歷史學教授，著有《大國民：可口可樂資本主義的形成》（Citizen Coke: The Making of Coca-Cola Capitalism）一書。

????譯者：南風

????審校：Patti

????I call this money-making approach Coca-Cola capitalism. Coke followed this path throughout the 20th century. It involved getting others, whether it was government-owned water works or vertically integrated sugar refineries, to invest in the production and distribution systems needed to turn the “Real Thing” into a real thing. What made Coke great, in other words, was not really what it did, but what it didn’t do. It proved incredibly adept at getting independent businesses and local governments to bear the majority of the costs of producing and distributing its products.

????Take municipal recycling systems. Here was a publicly financed program that helped soft drink companies expand their productive capacity on the taxpayer’s dime. Once again, Coke did little of the work, letting municipalities and private citizens invest in elaborate reclamation infrastructure in the 1980s and 1990s that conveniently brought copious quantities of packaging materials back to local centers near its corporate distributors. Rather than having to pay for the waste they produced, Coca-Cola received a kind of public subsidy that in the long run enabled them to continue to produce tremendous quantities of one-way, throwaway containers (72% of which, in the case of plastic PET containers, ends up in American landfills today). As it had with public water supplies, the company was simply tapping into another municipal stream, only this one contained packaging materials, not water.

????Coca-Cola has not been the only company to follow this path to big profits. Software firms, such as Microsoft MSFT -0.25% , have made tremendous revenues selling its Office suite, relying on other businesses to produce expensive hardware that can turn Microsoft’s code into consumable products. You can find an extreme version of Coca-Cola capitalism on Wall Street, where brokers do not manage any kind production or distribution infrastructure but instead make money off transaction fees as commodities flow from one buyer to another.

????In short, Coca-Cola KO 0.36% capitalism has become the model for some of the most profitable firms of our time. This is what 21st century capitalism rewards.

????But the question remains: does this system benefit the public at large? The history of Coca-Cola reveals that the firm demands a great deal of public resources—recycling systems, subsidized municipal water, corn subsidies, etc.—and it is not at all clear that Coke transforms these investments into goods that serve the interests of the nation (do we really need more sugar water in a country in which over 30% of the population is obese?).

????While Coca-Cola is shifting towards healthier drink options, especially bottled water, the price for providing this service should appear unconscionable to the informed consumer. Americans pay more than $4 for a gallon of Dasani water when they could easily enjoy the same quantity of clean water from their tap for a fraction of a cent. Perhaps our money could be better spent fixing public water systems—which currently need over $500 billion in repairs, according to the EPA—rather than purchasing Coke’s bottled water. After all, as Coke’s history makes clear, private citizens and Coca-Cola need public pipes to survive.

????Bartow Elmore is a professor of U.S. history at the University of Alabama and is the author of Citizen Coke: The Making of Coca-Cola Capitalism.