ANYONE who has visited New York recently could be forgiven for thinking that the locals now worship a new Holy Trinity . . . Coke, Budweiser and McDonald's.
Certainly, it is hard to think of more pervasive symbols of American mass culture.
The power of such corporations is enormous and when one of them embarks on a court action then woe betide the opponents . . . except that it doesn't always turn out as expected!
Maurice Smith, Business Editor of BBC Scotland, reviews an account of the McLibel Action brought by McDonald's against two environmental campaigners in London, one of the most bizarre and fascinating court cases of recent times.
What on earth persuaded the mighty High Street burger chain McDonald's to launch a libel action against two impoverished and obscure environmental campaigners from South London?
McDonald's with world-wide sales of $30bn, was reacting - more accurately, over-reacting - to a leaflet distributed outside some of its London stores called What's Wrong with McDonald's?
At first glance the leaflet was quite typical of its genre. It castigated the firm for its labour practices, the nutritional value of its food, and the effect of its purchasing power on those tens of thousands of chickens and cattle slaughtered in the name of McNuggets and the ubiquitous Big Mac.
What followed became the longest-running farce to have hit London for years. For 313 days Dave Morris and Helen Steel, the activists involved, slugged it out against all the legal might McDonald's could muster. The corporation, in a claim which would have been thrown out probably before it could begin in its native United States, alleged that it had been libelled.
The stage was set for a marathon trial whose arguments were to encapsulate the growing tensions between global corporate ambition and local issue-based activism.
McDonald's was a Pyrrhic victory. The corporation, which had pressed successfully for the case to be heard without a jury, was awarded #60,000: half of its original claim.
The judge rejected a counter-claim by Morris and Steel that they had been libelled by McDonald's, which had distributed retaliatory leaflets prior to the trial.
McDonald's costs are estimated at a staggering #10m. The intriguing question is why a company whose advertising and brand promotion spend out-strips the annual budgets of many small nations, should risk a trial.
The McLibel Trial* covered all this and much more: the deforestation of the Amazon basin to make way for cattle breeding; how many chickens are actually stunned before slaughter; the encouragement of children to pester parents to let them eat fast food.
So McDonald's ''won''. But the judge, Mr Justice Bell, did conclude that the offending leaflet was not all wrong. He agreed that the treatment of the chickens was cruel, that McDonald's advertising exploited children, and that certain employment practices - like sending staff home unpaid if business was slow - were unfair.
John Vidal has done a superb job of distilling the court-room marathon to its salient points, a challenge in itself.
He strays on to more dangerous ground in a two-chapter polemic about corporate colonialism, exploitation of the Third World, and the explosion in issue-based campaigning.
Much of it is powerful, but this ''black and white'' approach to capitalism may deter business readers who detect shades of grey within public debate. They should persevere, as the book serves a powerful warning to corporate ambition.
The strategic response for any business cannot be to force court action which pitches it in the role of corporate bully, and subjects its practices to such embarrassing public scrutiny.
* McLibel: Burger Culture on Trial by John Vidal published by Pan, #5.99.
Business Book of the Week is compiled and edited by
Stuart Paul of the
University of Paisley.
TOP TEN BUSINESS BOOKS
1 Seven Habits of Highly Effective People - Stephen R Covey.
2 Leading Change - John Kotter.
3 Scenarios - Kees van der Heijden.
4 The Balanced Scorecard - Robert Caplan.
5 Against the Odds - James Dyson.
6 The Dilbert Principle - Scott Adams.
7 The Assertiveness Pocketbook - Max Eggert.
8 The Fifth Discipline - Peter Senge.
9 Ask the Headhunter - Nick Crocolilos.
10 The Commanding Heights Daniel Yergin.
Data supplied by John Smith & Son Bookshops
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