Brand Hex
Life in Naomi Klein’s parallel universe.

By Kendra Okonski, researcher for the International Policy Network, London
August 11-12, 2001

No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies, by Naomi Klein (Picador USA, 521 pp., $13.60, Paperback)

aomi Klein, a critic of the global economy, is now on tour in New Zealand and Australia. On Sunday, July 16, the Canadian author of No Logo addressed a sold-out audience at the Atheneum Theater in Melbourne.

In recent months, Klein has become a rallying point for anti-corporate activists around the world. As her book notes, "world leaders can't have lunch together these days without someone organizing a counter-summit." Her stardom has fed off these high-profile riots: If you're an anti-globalization believer, No Logo is your bible.

Part autobiography, part political-economic critique, Klein's book professes to take on consumer culture by examining cultural and political reactions to "corporate globalization."

Klein describes how "the reign of logo terror" began for her when she was just a wee girl, with a classmate who was obsessed with clothing logos. Klein herself was seduced by a "deep longing for the seductions of [the] fake" and wanted to "disappear into [the] shiny, perfect, unreal objects" of the world of consumerism.

That longing was not, however, simply a child's understanding of the world. Rather, Klein suggests, it was part of a bigger scheme by global corporations to entice consumers, by manufacturing the desire to consume products with brand images.

In this weirdly deterministic construction of the world — one which gives far too much credit to the influence of corporate marketing on the average person — consumers do not simply purchase a pair of tennis shoes, a meal of meat and potatoes, or a cup of coffee. They buy such products because of a brand — Nike, McDonalds, Starbucks — which allows them to be part of something bigger than themselves, in what nearly amounts to a brand religion.

In this alleged corporate scheme, consumers are just victims, waiting for marketers "to dream up new concoctions for industrial-strength Raid." They — we — have bought into the imagined plastic world of Klein's youth. Luckily, we have No Logo to expose the corporate conspiracy.

In No Logo's parallel universe, the push for corporate brand identity is tied up with the liberalization of international trade over the past 20 years. This lured corporations to shut down their domestic operations (thereby eliminating job security for the workers of wealthy countries), moving their operations overseas to the pejoratively labeled "sweatshops."

To collect the obligatory anecdotes of oppression, Klein went to the Philippines to visit such factories, which are just another part of the corporations' scheme to profit from the workers' plight.

Yet Klein gives little air time to the real exploitation perpetrated by oppressive governments — or to the fact that utopian socialist schemes have left their peoples impoverished, illiterate, and poor. For that matter, Klein sees no difference between corporations and government: Corporations "have grown so big they have superseded government," and things are only getting worse as a result. In poor countries, she tells us, "the boss has just traded in his military uniform for an Italian suit and an Ericsson cell phone."

Klein alleges that everything in our culture and society — not just in the realm of consumer products — has been despoiled by corporate branding. "For the past decade," she says, "multinationals like Nike, Microsoft and Starbucks have sought to become the chief communicators of all that is good and cherished in our culture: art, sports, community, connection, equality." This amounts to a "war on public and individual space," where "virtually nothing has been left unbranded."

All of which has led to the recent backlash against corporations and international trade. Klein suggests that corporations brought it on themselves with the "corporate Achilles' heel" of brand images: "By attempting to enclose our shared culture in sanitized and controlled brand cocoons, these corporations have themselves created the surge of opposition described in No Logo."

Klein's book accordingly examines the global movement against globalization and trade. This discussion is important since they — and their protectionist allies, such as North American labor unions — now seek to create a global harmonization of labor and environment regulations. Driven by the belief that international trade is only good for corporations, they seek "mechanisms to make [corporations] answer to a broader public" — ostensibly, representation of civil-society organizations in such fora as the World Trade Organization. What could result are arbitrary restrictions on international trade, the effect of which will be to undermine everyone's economic freedom, and to slow the economic and technological progress needed to raise living standards in poor countries.

Consumers should be offended at the message of No Logo. International trade and economic integration improve our lives. We use brands — and yes, even logos — to make informed decisions about the products we use to fulfill our material needs. We would have far fewer choices in Klein's "no logo" world, and all products would be indistinguishable.

No Logo's premise is hardly unique. It simply confirms the prejudices of those who already oppose international trade, wealth and profit. It is far easier to attribute guilt — and cultural, societal, and worldly ills — to a handful of evil corporations, than it is to convince anyone that modern life itself could be the root of such evils. In fact, Klein's parallel reality — where corporations sell their products, and rule the world through subliminal messages (an idea long ago disproved by psychologists) — is already a staple of Hollywood movies. Take the recent Josie and the Pussycats. Evil corporate executives use a teenage rock band to dictate teenage consumer desires using subliminal messages. In the end, the corporate executives self-destruct. No Logo seeks the same corporate destruction.

But in doing so, Klein and the Hollywood fantasists are ignoring the reality — which is that lifestyles, working conditions, and material well-being are getting better for everyone, not worse. Free trade is good for everyone, not just for corporations. No one likes bullies, whether they're for logos or against them.

And you have to wonder, as someone asks on the No Logo web site: If her success continues, will Klein become a branded person herself?