International Socialists

Naomi Klein is a 31-year-old Canadian journalist who wrote a book called No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies. She became political at university, after hearing about an anti-feminist hate crime in which a man massacred fourteen women at the University of Montreal, because he failed to get a place in the engineering school there. According to Naomi: "It was a cataclysmic moment. It politicised us enormously. Of course, after that you call yourself a feminist."

 

Throughout her student years she was involved in politics largely on campus at the University of Toronto, and was influenced by identity politics, concerning herself largely with issues of the representation and visibility of particular groups (women, gays, Jews: whoever needed it, really), at times with a certain degree of confrontation. She dropped out and became an intern, and has since established a career as a journalist. She now contributes columns to a number of big newspapers in the US on the subject of anti-corporate activism.

 

Since the publication of No Logo, Klein has been identified as one of the "brightest stars" of the anti-capitalist movement, "giving voice to the movement almost before it existed." The book has been translated into nine languages, and has been a bestseller in Australia, Britain, America and Canada. The Times identified her as one of the most influential people in the world under the age of 35. No Logo was considered "too subversive" to be taken into Switzerland by British booksellers heading to a conference opposing the World Economic Forum in early February this year, a decision that was only reversed after a massive public outcry.

 

Its popularity can only have been enhanced by the way it has been embraced by popular culture. The band Radiohead were so inspired by the book that they adopted the slogan No Logo in their latest tour and banned corporate advertising from its British leg, and even debated about naming their third album (eventually titled Kid A) No Logo. Ed O'Brien, the guitarist, was quoted as saying that "No Logo certainly made me feel less alone. She was writing everything I was trying to make sense of in my head. It was very uplifting."

 

Frighteningly, from a tactical point of view, No Logo has been described as "the Das Kapital of the growing anti-corporate movement" - the movement's handbook, manual, even bible.

 

So, we have established that Klein considers herself and is considered a part of the anti-capitalist movement. This doesn't mean she has managed to accurately identify even some of the key conclusions that can be drawn from an examination of the movement. In fact, her analysis is highly problematic.

 

 

The basic argument in No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies

Klein's basic argument relies on the observation of the rise of the brand and what that means in the lives of ordinary people, particularly its target market of "young people." She argues this in a sequence of four sections: No Space, No Choice, No Jobs, and No Logo.

 

No Space refers to the way in which advertising is encroaching on our lives more and more, leaving less space brand-free. Marketing has emerged as an increasingly significant part of the firm's profit-making activities over time. Klein takes this a step further by arguing that at some point during the 1990s, the "image" or "branding" of the company and its activities surpassed the product itself in terms of importance from a profitability perspective.

 

In No Choice Klein outlines the way in which the corporation grows in size, through mergers and takeovers. The big brands effectively force out small businesses and take over as much physical space as possible, with "mergers" and "synergy" being the business buzzwords of the day. Although she doesn't state this directly, the tendency towards monopolistic market conditions means less choice for consumers. This, she argues, is essentially undemocratic, particularly when coupled with the level of influence giant corporations have over what she calls "culture," and the fact that with the branding of ideas comes the branding of politics.

 

No Jobs deals with the topic of the labour force, detailing the widely known practice in some of the more flexible industries of moving production to Third World countries to take advantage of lower labour costs, and the subsequent imposition of appalling working conditions, particularly by the bigger transnational corporations. Klein hammers this home by identifying elements of the casualisation of labour taking place in the advanced capitalist countries: for example, the practice of permanent temping by companies who want to get around having to provide job security and other "perks" normally given to permanent employees.

 

The last section of the book, No Logo, describes what has become known as the anti-capitalist movement, which according to Klein is provoked by the frustration of youth at having even their politics branded by the likes of The Body Shop and the Spice Girls. She argues that anti-corporate activism is on the rise precisely because branding has worked so well. Many of the largest companies have tried to capture the youth market by proclaiming that their products have some connection with ideals, usually in the form of ethical considerations or equality, setting the standard for their own behaviour quite high. A side effect of fostering a sense of righteousness in your target market is that when your branding is revealed to be inconsistent with your practice, your customers already have a seed of consciousness planted, which makes them more likely than before to have the capacity to turn against you. Given that the corporate presence is taking up more space than ever before, they are increasingly vulnerable to backlashes. Klein explains the anti-capitalist movement in these terms.

 

 

A critique of No Logo

Klein has not really said anything new. In the first section, "No Space," Klein identifies a tendency for the brand to have emerged over and above the actual product, backing it up by detailing the massive increase in marketing budgets in the United States. She rightly points out that the decline of manufacturing in the West has not been mirrored in the developing countries, because transnational corporations have taken to setting up production in countries with cheaper labour costs. All this is fine, of some value in terms of providing ammunition against the corporate PR.

 

Beyond that, it doesn't do anything else. The book describes some of the concrete symptoms of a new stage of the capitalist mode of production, but ignores the underlying logic of the system that produced them in the first place, precisely because the book lacks any kind of coherent theoretical perspective. In limiting the scope of her analysis to an examination of capitalism in its contemporary form, she ignores the historical evolution of a system founded on exploitation. Instead, Klein prefers to put everything down to changing "culture," manifested in a change in consciousness, including politics, as corporates adopt "values" ultimately as public relations exercises to enhance profitability.

 

The move to branding, the lack of space due to the expansion of the firm, and the casualisation of labour are not redundant observations. To Marxists, they were completely expected, as they can be explained with reference to the contradictions inherent in the capitalist system. While the book provides some descriptive depth, what Klein has to say comes as No Surprise. Her proposed solution is vague and lacking in any of the essential details: a backlash or rebellion on the part of the majority of the world's population who are being screwed over by the ruling class. The biggest crime Klein commits is missing the fundamentals of the method to fight back.

 

 

A question of method in the anti-capitalist movement, or How do we make sure we win?

Klein rests all her arguments on her own hypothesis that there is a limit to how much people will take, hence, the movement has emerged as the almost definitive response. The problem with this hypothesis is that there is nothing magical about the 90s or about the brand that makes the time ripe for a buildup of resistance like the anti-capitalist movement: rather, the brand's rise reflects one more stage in the development of capitalism. The book lacks this fundamental grounding in historical context which would highlight the fact that it is not the first time people have gathered in large numbers to tell the ruling class what they think of them.

 

Klein proposes no alternative to the status quo. She remains "optimistic about the potential" of the movement, but this is because she has no expectation for any particular outcome. When questioned about what she predicts from the movement, she manages to dodge the question with a "let's wait and see" approach: we could be moving towards either a "global 'New Deal'" or "something" way more radical than that. Inevitably, though, it seems that this lack of an historically grounded critique of capitalism to properly inform the movement will cause her to default to reformism. Improve labour laws, and win the culture jamming war, and everyone will live happily ever after.

 

So what is the movement then, exactly? Diversity which should be celebrated? Klein argues it is the early stages of a reinvention of Left politics, the beginning of an analysis of global capitalism. As an amalgam of environmentalists, socialists, trade unionists, anarchists and other activists, it has been criticised because of its lack of coherency. And while there is a shared belief that the disparate problems with which they are wrestling all derive from an agenda that is concentrating power and wealth into fewer and fewer hands, Klein refuses to define the movement, because its diversity could reinvent itself, indeed, synergise like its targets: "Before they sign on to anyone's 10-point plan, they deserve the chance to see if, out of the movement's chaotic, decentralised, multi-headed webs, something new, something entirely its own, can emerge."

 

But while the movement is diverse, two points need to be emphasised. Firstly, organisation is central to building momentum and ensuring the movement isn't quashed by the counterattack of the ruling class. Secondly, while the various campaigners within the movement might place different emphasis on different aspects of a proposed alternative, it is vital that the movement maintains a collective consciousness of the broader, shared objective. We are all fighting against so obvious an enemy - the wider phenomenon of capitalism, with the profit motive as its sole driving force over and above the majority of the world's population and the environment.

 

Who should the movement's targets be? Klein is again a little confused on this issue. She rightly points out that it's not just a case of bad governments granting power to the IMF, the WTO and corporations in the first place, but she misses the point. She argues they are easy targets and "metaphors for the global economy going awry." This is problematic: firstly, it treats the state as neutrally acting at the whim of big business, with no other mediating factors, which is highly simplistic; and secondly, it places too much emphasis on treating the symptoms rather than the cause: it is not a case of the global economy going awry, but the capitalist economy forging on to its own disastrous conclusions in the way it always has.

 

Despite her earlier enthusiasm about the movement's scope and militancy, Klein has argued more recently against mass actions as the means for achieving its objectives. When she spoke at a meeting during Adelaide's Festival of Ideas in mid-July, she went so far as to say it was a good thing that the World Trade Organisation had shifted its meeting to the repressive state of Qatar, because it provided a "much-needed incentive for activists to forget about big protests and organise their local primary schools instead." Working with the local community is therefore seen as a substitute for trying to establish links with the international working class.

 

Firstly, Klein's fairly elitist attitude towards mass actions (which she refers to as "McProtests") is at odds with the basic idea of democracy. One of the most illuminating aspects of watching footage of Seattle or any of the other mass actions is that you get to see a snippet of what the majority of the world's population feels. People don't gather en masse like they have done again and again for any other reason than because they are angry and have a point to make. Apart from stopping work and seizing control of the means of production, it is the most effective way for the mass of people to make their voices heard above the din of the whinging business elite. As they said at Seattle - "this is what democracy looks like, this is what democracy feels like!"

 

Even with the best of intentions, it is fundamentally undemocratic to dictate to the movement how they should be fighting their battles. Secondly and even more importantly, the celebration of diversity can lead very quickly to distraction from the shared goal of the movement, by sending its various elements off in different directions and undermining its strength and unity, hence the ruling class maxim "divide and conquer." Thirdly, the reality is that mass actions are inspirational, both because they are effective, and because they demonstrate the capacity of the world's oppressed to fight back. You don't have to be in the middle of an action to feel the euphoria either - you can get it even from watching the highly misleading version in the mainstream media.

 

 

The question of boycotting or "consumer responsibility":

consumption versus production

Klein's consumption habits are the subject of much scrutiny. Does she buy Nike sportswear? Does she never nip into Starbucks for a flat white? Is her wardrobe certifiably sweatshop-free? She responds to these questions defensively, arguing that it isn't about where you shop. It would be unfair to put such pressure on people when it won't make a great deal of difference anyway: "This is not a consumer issue; it's a political issue. There is a way for us to respond as citizens that is not simply as consumers... The movement is really not about being purer-than-thou and producing a recipe for being an ethical consumer."

 

Largely, this makes sense. Boycotts and "responsible consumption" don't make the problems of global capitalism go away. On the other hand, Klein doesn't follow this through to its next logical conclusion that culture jamming and adbusting (the practice of beating branding at its own game by presenting alternative media representation, via parodying advertising and hijacking billboards) aren't going to be successful for the same reasons. While they raise awareness, it ignores the process of production - where the real power lies.

 

While Klein is right to get excited about the revival of consciousness the anti-capitalist movement exhibits, so are the rest of us. And while none of us really know where the anti-capitalist movement will take us, an historically and theoretically grounded perspective at least lets us begin to imagine where we want to make it go, and how to get it there.