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I may disagree, but this is a fun and valuable book Oct 25, 2001 (181 of 195 found this helpful)
WHile I worried that this was a simple ideological diatribe, I was very happily surprized at the intelligence and substance of Klein's book. It is a tough, well-reasoned manifesto for the anti-consumerism left of "Gen X." If you are wondering what was driving many of those protesters at the WTO and other summit meetings - most notoriously Seattle in late 1999 - then this book is the best place I know. It is part cultural critique, part economics and social policy, and partly a call to arms. Reading it has helped me to make sense of so much that I thought was simple, nihilistic anarchism. I was humbled to learn that there is far far more behind the movement than I had granted it.
In a nutshell, Klein argues that the "superbrands" - the huge corporations such as Disney and Nike - are progressively taking over virtually all "public spaces," including school curricula, neighborhoods, and all-encompassing infotainment malls like Virgin Megastores. THey are doing this in an attempt enter our minds as consumers in the most intimate ways, which Klein and others find unbearably intrusive. Moreover, she argues, as they subcontract overseas, the superbrands are leaving first-world workers behind while they exploit those in the developing world under horible conditions. It all adds up, she asserts, into a kind of emerging global worker solidarity that is developing new means (via internet exposes, protest campaigns, etc.) to push the superbrands to adopt more just policies and practices.
What was so amazing and useful for me, as a business writer looking at the same issues, is that Klein so often hones in on the underside of what I think are good and effective business practices: the development of brand values, globalisation of the production/value chain to lower prices, and the like. Often I may disagree with her take on things, but she makes too many insightful points to dismiss her and those whom she speaks for. I came to genuinely respect her as a thinker and writer.
Nonetheless, there were numerous omissions, some of which I must point out. First, while condemning exploitive labor practices in third-world sweat shops (which I do not deny exist), Klein fails to explore what the available alternatives are for these workers. Well, I went to Pakistan to examine one of the cases she addresses - children soccerball sewers - and I can say that their alternatives were all too often brick kilns or leather tanneries, both of which were far more dangerous and beyond the reach of international activists because the superbrands have nothing to do with them. Second, Klein tended to dismiss the efforts of MNCs out of hand, as weak sops designed more for PR purposes than to effect change. This is true for some groups, but again, while in Vietnam, I witnessed what I regarded as real social progress that came from the actions of a superbrand: upon hearing the demands and suggestions of a worker-safety inspector paid by adidas, Taiwanese sewing-machine manufacturers were approaching him for detailed design specifications to enhance their safety (driver-belt covers to protect against hand and hair injuries) and he had lots more ideas. However modest, that is real and concrete progress in my opinion.
Moreover, I believe that many of Klein's assertions are inaccurate or unproven. Is there really a mass movement growing out there? Is the clever defacing of huge advertisement boards really impacting pubic consciousness? Does everyone perceive the thrust of the brands as intrusive and poisonous? Is the World Trade Organization set up in a way that works in favor of the first world and against the third world? These are complex and very difficult questions. Finally, as a passionate activist, Klein rhetoric can get a bit overheated. At one point she says that IBM "otherwise impaled itself"; at another that Milton Friedman is a "architect of the global corporate takeover." What do these things mean? I may regard Friedman
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No Balance Sep 20, 2000 (88 of 132 found this helpful)
Abandon all hope ye who enter here. Naomi Klein is one skilled writer and you can only thank some higher being that she has used her intellectual wit and analytical persistence to combat multi-million dollar companies as opposed to verbally carpet-bombing innocent bystanders such as uncovering journalists like herself. Just like her compadre in anti-corporate crusading, Michael Moore, Klein saves little ammo, let alone love, trust or respect, for anything ending in "Inc." and operating in anything closely resembling services or other low skilled labour areas. "These companies are our enemies" is a central message of this book and one that is continuously ground into the reader in various shapes, lest we not forget it. In terms of execution, No Logo leaves little to wish for. Well-written, footnoted and well-researched within the area of focus, the book takes us through the areas of society which have been permeated by the greedy ghouls of money-grubbing behemoths over the last decades. No stone is left unturned; education, the service sector, manufacturing, media, and one cannot help but wonder what the text will do to the paranoid reader since basically anything but breathing may be "giving in" to the evil mongers. If you are the accusatory type, and let's face it, most of us enjoy a good fights, especially one that is all about kicking the butt of the rich and scoring a few points for the ordinary, unknowing everyman of Americana, No Logo will not disappoint. That is also where the book runs into trouble. It is guilty of exactly the same phenomenon that most anti-establishment groups suffer from today: myopia and anger for anger's sake.
If you have an ambition to uncover and analyse something in order to defend a certain point of view (like Klein does in No Logo), it is always wise to respect and understand the opposite side. This is precisely the problem that most groups and accusatory voices in the media run into. It is one thing to present an argument and back it up with complimentary viewpoints and facts. It is quite another to present a standpoint and then analyse whatever happens to pass by this "analytical" lens, from this dogmatic perspective. Klein is on a mission to castrate the evil empires that are Nike, Microsoft, McDonald's and so on. But in doing this, she becomes highly one-dimensional, a fact that runs the risk of boring many readers in the long run. And that's when the serious trouble starts, since getting the message out is what No Logo is all about. If you want to see cruel intentions whenever you look out the window, you are sure to find it in everything and everyone. The problem then is that what was once factual (fact: there are some people out there that really are out to hurt and steal) now becomes subjective, and subjective viewpoints are always so much less interesting to listen to, let alone read. The one-sided perspective also evaporates any chance for the other side to score a single point, and as we all know, good dramatization just like good journalism needs a battle where both the protagonists (in this case the poor, innocent consumers and labourers) and the antagonists (McEvil Corp. et al) score points.
The myopic view also raises another interesting question. This book is basically a statement on cultural and commercial imperialism. Well, what else is more imperialistic than imposing foreign viewpoints in a society where they have no natural place? Indeed, it is highly problematic that companies like Nike do business in foreign countries and adopt the general business practices of that region. But is just as troublesome when occidental do-gooders come to redeem these places and save them from whatever undemocratic principles they've been slaves to. Who are westerners to acts as global policemen and impose rules to spare our sensitive media-groomed souls from having to see things like child-labour? Who are we to declare incapacity of
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An important book, make your teenagers read it, too! Mar 8, 2001 (62 of 70 found this helpful)
With a 16 year old son in our house, I've not only been fighting the "brand name bullies" outside our home but the teenaged one INSIDE our home as well. So it was a no-brainer for me to buy and read this book. I won't say it was an easy read. But the information contained within it was worth the time spent. More importantly, I left the book lying in a spot where my son was sure to see it and was gratified when he picked it up and read parts of it. Now he has loosened his rigid stance on having only the "coolest" clothes with the "best" logos on them and started to realize that his individuality was being manipulated to some degree by advertisers. He's started talking to his friend about the book too. Having said that, I don't want ANYONE to think this book doesn't have its flaws. There is repetition of some subjects that have already been discussed ad nauseum in the media already - advertising in the public schools via educational channels and other subjects. But there is also plenty of new information and Klein makes her case with solid, clear arguments.
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Inspiring! Handbook for the new anti-globalization movement May 8, 2000 (46 of 52 found this helpful)
Naomi Klein has written a well-researched, comprehensive overview of the New World Order, dominated by brands like Nike, Starbucks and McDonalds. Backed by detailed statistics as well as onsite reporting, she captures the essence of the pervasive brand-building pushed globally by the transnationals, including the very real human and environmental costs. What I really appreciated was her extensive coverage of the growing resistance to the "brand bullies" in so many different forms. I read most of this while in Washington DC recently protesting the IMF and World Bank (A16). As a long-time activist as well as historian, I strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in educating themselves about globalization-related issues.
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I bought the guilt Dec 6, 2000 (42 of 50 found this helpful)
I know a few people who have made it all the way through Naomi Klein's "No Logo" now. Not just dipping into it. Not just reading the cool stuff about political activism. I know people who strapped on the grappling hooks and traversed the book the whole way through, from one side to the other.
You might think I'm making a big deal about getting the whole way through. It's just "No Logo" is one of those books. Like Don DeLillo's "Underworld". A book you feel you should read that you constantly put off. Well. I conquered Don DeLillo (it's worth it, it's worth it, the book is truly truly great), I won't let Naomi Klein beat me.
I started reading it alongside another book, a novel - figuring that the novel would offer light relief from the - weight of Naomi Klein's book. Only I ignored Naomi and read the novel instead. When I finished the novel and looked at "No Logo" (I was stuck on page 60, just before the photo of Richard Branson), I felt guilty and decided to devote myself to the cause: this wouldn't beat me, I would finish it and see what I could see.
Part of it was that I felt like a failure. That's what "No Logo" does. If you're not a political activist, if you're not campaigning to have sweatshops outlawed, if you haven't defaced a billboard or a website, if you want things - if you like things - (and by things, I mean everything from movies through to shoes), you will feel like a failure. You are not putting your time to the best possible use.
Which isn't to say "No Logo" is a bad book. By no means. "No Logo" is a great book. An important book (but, oh, how those words make your heart sink, right?). Naomi Klein is like a political God, an all-seeing eye. She knows everything. Such-and-such did such-and-such (which proved a failure because). Retrospect allows her to correct and revise. She is advancing a cause built on what happens next. Could be that what happens next is a damp squib. Nobody knows. Could be that what happens next changes everything.
You read "No Logo" and you want the world she wants. At the same time, you live in the world and you owe money and you have to pay bills and clothe your children and it's a hard thing to do. Political decisions are fine for those who are not daily chastised by the limits of what they can cope with. You are not an extreme. You are not living in an export processing zone. You work. You make money. Not enough money, but not 6 cents a day. Liberal guilt, liberal guilt, liberal guilt. You feel you are making excuses at the same time you think, no, I'm just living a life like a hundred million other people. What a terrible thing that is.
I'm a bad person. "No Logo" does not make me want to run out and change the world. Although it does help me understand those that have the privilege to run out and change the world, and applaud them (in a way). Part of me thinks that those free enough to campaign - people who don't have to work, or worry about debts, or wonder about what they are going to do next and can worry about what others are going to do next - haven't lived the life I've lived. And part of me thinks that I'm a bad person.
If you asked me, I'd say read "No Logo". For a whole host of reasons. If you asked me, I'd say attend the next reclaim the streets march. I'd say don't shop anywhere that treats you like money fodder. I'd say think and do whatever little you can, because whatever little is something. I'd say don't sneer at anyone. I'd say treat everybody with respect because not everybody knows what you know and not everybody has the freedom to make up their own mind.
If you asked me, I'd say read "No Logo".