The anatomy of tragedy: Starbucks as a politics of displacement
Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal
ISSN: 0951-3574
Article publication date: 2 May 2022
Issue publication date: 10 January 2023
Abstract
Purpose
This paper examines the 2012–2013 Starbucks tax crisis in the United Kingdom (UK) as an anatomy of tragedy. The tragedy in relation to Starbucks is the displacement of an opportunity to examine the relationship between financial capital and national capitalisms. The paper illustrates how the crisis displaced opportunities for substantive critique concerning financial capital, national capitalisms, multinationals, taxation and society.
Design/methodology/approach
As a critical, discursive intervention, the paper examines how rhetoric was employed in 157 media articles published in six UK newspapers and on two news portals (both in print and online). The paper employs rhetorical redescription to the document archive, presenting the finding and analysis as a play in the style of an Aristotelian tragedy.
Findings
Analysis of the Starbucks approach to transfer pricing identifies misunderstandings of accounting, taxation transfer pricing, and ‘‘resolution” and how the media's construction of Starbucks as immoral, anti-British, potentially illegal operated to confuse the politics. The effect of these misunderstandings and confusion was to take attention away from a politics concerning financial capital valorisation and national capitalisms (jurisdictions raising tax revenue for government spending and social services).
Originality/value
First, the paper explores the politics of displacement to illustrate the metonymic concealment of the primary identity of the political. Second, Aristotelian tragedy is employed to study and present methods of displacement. Third, the empirics are depicted in a dramatic format to illustrate how rhetorical interventions by the media and actors displaced the political focus away from financial capital and national capitalisms.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the editorial support from AAAJ, from Professor Parker and Rainbow Shum and the insightful comments and feedback of the reviewers. The authors would also like to thank Rasa Bytautaite who collected the data that founded the article and Marion Tauschek for contributions to the development of the theoretical contribution of the paper and in acting as a sounding board around the play content and design. We appreciate both of you for your assistance.
Citation
Carter, D.B., Warren, R. and Steinhoff, A. (2023), "The anatomy of tragedy: Starbucks as a politics of displacement", Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 36 No. 1, pp. 146-176. https://doi.org/10.1108/AAAJ-08-2015-2169
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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