Introduction: The Origins of Our Future -- Visible Hands -- The Nation-Market-State -- A Law Unto Themselves -- Hands-On -- Values in Motion -- Cash Flows -- A Capital Idea -- To the Power of One -- In Rockefeller We Trust -- What Challenge? -- Sale of the Century -- The Force of the Market -- Adtopia -- Drinking the Label -- I'd Like to Buy the World -- Out of Control -- Look! No Hands! -- Time Conquers Space -- Second Nature -- The Company Needs You -- I'll Never Go Thirsty Again -- Bitter Sweet -- Sweet Reason -- Juggernaut -- Afterword: Killing Time.

The Essence of Capitalism is a timely account of globalization, the consumer culture, and the historical roots of our contemporary dilemmas. By tracking the 130-year history of Coca-Cola (and a number of other large American or transnational corporations), this book details all that is best, worst and most powerful about global capitalism. The book covers topics such as the creation of the idea of a corporation to having the status of person, how the money market works in the flow of capital, the effect of marketing and advertising on consumer tastes, and how free trade really becomes oligopoly. By presenting a frightening set of examples, McQueen even joins the debate over what constitutes human nature when he demonstrates how corporations are creating a second nature by altering our needs, whether through the saturation of food with sweeteners or through genetic manipulation.