Starbucks is one of those companies that fascinate me. On one hand, I can’t help to feel very comfortable every time I’m at any of their locations. In part, because that means I’m away, travelling -there are no Starbucks stores in Argentina. But, also because this coffee scene set, their flavors, smells and colors extend to all of its surroundings. Even the ritual of drinking coffee from the plastic cups has its charm. And it wins over even those of us who come from hypercaffeinated cities, such as Buenos Aires.

On the other hand, Starbucks is one of those typical posfordist economy companies. Anchored in the service market, a large amount of resources are destined to branding, which forces them to minimize production costs. Low salaries, minimum social benefits, poor payments for the coffee harvested by Central American peasants, they all fall into the ugly recount. Not for nothing, Naomi Klein dedicates Starbucks a good number of pages in her famous No Logo. The company achieved an image of tranquility and harmony, aimed mainly at liberal professionals, and despite this they used the Wal-Mart policy of “wasteland”. How to concile a policy so linked to the exploitation of human resources with the bucolic image of a company so devoted to the adoration of coffee?

The truth is, that the first time I sat to read No Logo, I did it in a Starbucks location inside a Barnes and Noble store, in Denver. What at first sight seems a true irony, only hides something rather obvious in these times: in an era marked by the aboundance of information and the utilitary resignification of values and identities, even criticism can become another merchandise, which limits its posibilities of achieving changes. Even with a book with such an intriguing hypothesis as No Logo: the triumph of marketing and its huge budgets only can be accomplished to the cost of the slavery and exploitation of hundreds of millions of workers. Much of this can be found in the same No Logo: a book that criticizes brands, but at the same it positions itself as one of them, and exploits the identification of a phrase with a whole movement against the marketing of public spaces.