For an understanding of what's going on in the current social sphere, No Logo should be required reading. Not that the book is perfect, but it contains a wonderful analysis of how the corporate sphere has expanded to fill virtually all areas of public space and dialog. One of the most surprising aspects in reading the book is the realization of how complicit we have all been in our own corporate takeover. In the early 90s, major companies (Nike being the paradigm, but for from the only example) shifted their focus from manufacturing to brands - from selling objects to selling "lifestyles." It might seem like a ridiculous concept, but even well-educated, critical people have fallen for it. I've never bought into the idea that Nike embodies the sports ethos, but I am one of the legions of computer geeks who have gotten into long, heated arguments about the merits of Microsoft vs. Apple. Apple's ads push the idea that what it sells is innovation and hipness - but Apple just sells electronic equipment. To believe otherwise is to have fallen for their marketing ploy hook, line, and sinker. Not a electronics nerd? Chances are, then, you've probably shopped at The Body Shoppe because of its family-eco atmosphere, or in some other way unknowingly bought into some company's lifestyle image.The first section of the book deals with the fallout from this switch in focus by the major multinationals, divided into three chapters. The first, "No Space", deals with how branding is encroaching on all aspects of life (most insidiously, education - if you want to convert minions to your brand, best to start them young). The second, "No Choice", talks about how the spread of branding restricts public dialog (brands are, after all, privately owned and subject to copyright/trademark, allowing the companies to control who says what about them - while at the same time expanding to control more of the media and public spaces). The third, "No Jobs", deals with how the switch from products to branding creates a logical divorce from manufacturing, and therefore from any need to support workers in an ethical fashion. Each one of these chapters is persuasively argued and incredibly well-researched. It is these chapters that make No Logo a must read, and the reason it gets five stars.It is in the final section, "No Logo", that Klein struggles a bit more. This chapter covers the rise of anti-corporate and anti-branding advertising in response to the encroachment of the multinational. While Klein makes a convincing argument that there are a growing number of activists joining the movement, she makes a few serious omissions. One error is an issue of methodology - many of the anti-branding activists act by appropriation: taking a brand and then twisting or subverting its meaning. This can be used to deliver a stinging indictment of the brand, and can be thought of as leveraging the brands power against itself. Yet what Klein and the other activists fail to consider is the possibility that ANY repetition of the brand, even one that is ostensibly critical, may in fact extend the brands power. I'm reminded of a recent NY Times op-ed (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/27/opi...), that posits that denouncing a message may reinforce it simply by repetition. Klein never considers the fact that brand appropriation may, in fact, be counterproductive.Klein's biggest flaw in "No Logo," however, is her refusal to acknowledge individual responsibility. In fact, in several parts of the book, she chastises activists for veering towards what she calls "consumer-watch finger-wagging." Yet a large part of the problem, as I pointed out at the beginning of this review, is that we have been 100% complicit in this takeover. Corporations can only sell us a lifestyle if we continue to buy it (and buy it and buy it and buy it). If we refuse to buy products made in sweatshops, refuse to succumb to corporate control of dialog, then the power of the multinational will wain - but doing so requires that we ALL take full responsibility for our purchases. Protests and activist design are great, but it's only real lifestyle changes that are going to free us from the power of the brand - a point Klein stops short of making.
Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek frequently uses as an explanatory topos the following reading of Einstein's theory of relativity: In the special theory of relativity (so the story goes) matter has the effect of curving the space around it, so the shortest distance between two points is not necessarily a straight line. However, with the shift to the general theory of relativity the story is reversed; the curvature of space is no longer the effect of matter's gravity, it is rather matter itself which is the side-effect of the curvature of space, the curvature of space is itself the primordial fact.Whether or not this is an accurate summary of Einstein's contribution to twentieth century physics, it is a useful schema for understanding the transformation Naomi Klein charts in No Logo. If, in early capitalism, the commodity itself is the primary material fact of economic existence, then it would seem that marketing and advertising are the concomitant warping of the ideological/cultural space that is the natural by-product of material commodities' vigorous efforts to get themselves sold on the open market. However, as we transition eras into late capitalism, a profound shift occurs, as branding itself becomes increasingly important. With the success of the mega-brands of the nineties (Nike, Starbucks, Microsoft, etc.) what is ultimately for sale is no longer mere commodities but the brand itself, and the physical products (shoes, coffee, software, etc.) that advertising used to serve become mere vehicles for selling the increasingly ubiquitous brands.This is the shift that Naomi Klein beautifully details in this book, with copious charts and graphs, endless footnotes and references, and engaging and readable writing. Klein is an impeccable researcher, and her marshaling of the data and statistics in the service of the story she has to tell are flawless. If anyone doubts that there still exist Dickensian nightmares of exploitation in the contemporary world of global capitalism (or if anyone has faith that the rising tide does indeed lift all boats) then this is the book you should read.My one caveat is that while Klein is a masterful journalist and a capable storyteller, she is at best (at least in this book) a mediocre theoretician. While her descriptive powers of documenting the current realities are formidable, her analysis of the possibilities of resistance and her prescriptions for future movements leave something to be desired. In particular, the last section of the book, devoted to an exploration of various forms of resistance movements and Klein's own unwavering optimism, seem, from the vantage point of a decade after the book was published, a tad bit naive and underwhelming. I mean, has the Reclaim the Streets movement really thrown a monkey-wrench into the forces of gentrification and homogenization reshaping the faces of North American cities (as Klein breathlessly anticipates in one chapter)? Fortunately, Klein has since published The Shock Doctrine, a far more sober accounting of the events and economic ideologies of the past decade.However, despite the dated feel of the final chapters, No Logo remains relevant for anyone trying to get a picture of contemporary economic realities. It offers a treasure trove of data and documentation that continues to serve as reliable ammunition for anyone wishing to take the wind out of the sails of today's counter-revolutionary apologists of capital that continue to be so much in vogue and dominate global policy making at the dawn of the twenty-first century.
What do You think about No Logo (2002)?
Having read it about a year after it was first released, I felt as though my eyes had been suddenly opened to a rather horrible reality about how globalized (a.k.a. transnational) capitalism was concentrating wealth in the hands of a powerful few and exploiting a poor majority for their labour. To read it now would surely reveal dated views of the economic and cultural world in which we find ourselves. I would also have to admit that by about page 378 I was finding the tone a bit shrill. In spite of these areas of concern, I think that Klein might have been one of the earliest authors to tackle some of these issues. Even if some critics feel as though Klein and others like her aren't successfully proposing alternatives to a sort of free market where only the biggest corporate dogs eat and everyone else waits for scraps, the book does accomplish one important task: convincing the reader to rethink the consequences of their buying habits. As a consumer I very often have a choice of what I buy and perhaps more importantly, what I don't buy. I may not always be able to find an option to a shirt made in a Bangladeshi sweatshop firetrap, but at least I am aware enough to seek options.
—Jeff
This will be my first book on goodreads.com, officially. The most "Adult" book I have read, alongside Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, in my twenties. I have the biggest crush on Naomi Klein. For anyone interested in the negative effects of corporations on third-world companies I would also recommend reading The Corporation (or just watch the documentary, which includes interviews with both Naomi Klein and Howard Zinn. I recommend watching the documentary since it includes a bonus dvd apart from the documentary of prominent figures talking specifically about certain issues. You also get to SEE Naomi Klein, ha ha). It brings to the reader's attention the phenomenon of Branding, like Starbucks, Starbucks, Starbucks!!! for example, the word itself being etched into the psyche of the collective unconscious, as a form of corporate advertising.
—Raymund
Reading this book more than ten years after it came out is hard. It's difficult to realize how momentous it was at the time. It's hard to understand that this book is one of the cultural underpinnings of the anti-sweatshop movement, the WTO protests, Occupy Wall Street. The cynicism about brands that Klein documents is so pervasive now it's hard to remember how much people just loved brands blindly and completely at one point. THis book completely changed things. Having read several Klein articles in recent years - as well as the revised forward to the ten year edition - you can see that Klein has moved away from using the concept of brands as a fulcrum for her intellectual arguments against certain aspects of globalization, corporatism, etc. But not completely - Brands are still the most visible component of a company, and, thus, serve as a mechanism to attack them. That is still useful. In some ways, though, the brand approach to anti-globalism seems a bit dated. Many of the sinister examples Klein listed didn't pan out, and some of the companies are hardly massive brand juggernauts these days, just a little over ten years later. I almost laughed out loud about the panic Klein bestows on Celebration, Florida. I had just visited last summer and it was nothing like she described. This, of course, is because of the fall of one of the villains of the brand portion of the book - Michael Eisner. However, in reading many economists' work on brand and advertising, Klein has come up more than once, and indeed, her concept of Brand disconnects the concept of Brand from its original economic form. This can have some profound ramifications, and many modern academic economists have explored it further. Concretely, a brand no longer symbolizes a specific origin or quality, in fact it could signal just the opposite. It's a weird thought. Finally, having worked in advertising for 15 years, I can say that Klein definitely intentionally or not distorts the motivations of many of the creatives she lists. I know because there are a few places in the book where she references campaigns I worked on, and we were thinking nothing of the sort of plots and schemes she attributed to us. Whether in the end that matters may be immaterial - the effect is the same - but the book does read substantially more like it's all a big single plot than, in my experience, any of it really is.
—Rick
