đŸ Archived View for library.inu.red âș file âș workers-solidarity-movement-review-no-logo.gmi captured on 2023-01-29 at 14:54:49. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
âĄïž Next capture (2024-07-09)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Title: Review: NO LOGO Author: Workers Solidarity Movement Date: 2001 Language: en Topics: book review, Naomi Klein, Red & Black Revolution Source: Retrieved on 8th August 2021 from http://struggle.ws/rbr/rbr5/logo.html Notes: This article was originally published in Red & Black Revolution No. 5.
The publication of No Logo was perfectly, if unintentionally, timed.
Just as the N30 demonstrations in Seattle made headlines around the
world, No Logo arrived to explain some of the reasons for that movement.
So although Naomi Klein has made it clear that she is not an âofficialâ
spokesperson for the movement â that this movement has no official
spokespeople â at a time when observers (and even some participants)
wondered what was going on, No Logo provided some answers.
Klein starts by discussing how advertising and general business
practices have changed in the last twenty years. Essentially, companies
decided that they were no longer in the business of selling products,
because products are messy, they can be copied, or even improved on. But
if you are selling an idea, an experience, a set of associations, itâs
much harder for another company to compete with you. Sportswear is a
good example of a market where price, and even quality, isnât that
important â people choose between Nike and Adidas because of their ad
campaigns, not their shoes.
At the same time as companies started this emphasis on brands rather
than products, they started moving out of manufacturing. Owning a
factory was thought to tie a company down, because then you have the
constant expense of wages, as well as the money tied up in buildings and
equipment. Manufacturing still has to take place of course, if not by
you then by your suppliers, but then dealing with workers can be someone
elseâs problem, and you can concentrate on building your brand.
Now a lot of the actual manufacturing of clothes, computer parts, and
other industries has moved to the developing world. Unlike the west,
where workers expect a decent wage, and are organised enough to demand
it, in the free trade zones in China, Indonesia, the Philippines,
Mexico, and many more countries, factories can be run with little
outside interference. The description of these free trade zones, where
workers sometimes work up to 100 hours a week, in appalling conditions,
is the most interesting and useful part of the book. Workers there are
barely paid enough to live on, and often work compulsory (and sometimes
unpaid) overtime. Most of the workers in these factories are young
women, migrants from other provinces, because they are thought to be
easier to dominate, and less capable of organising themselves. Even when
workers start to unionise, they can be summarily fired, and large-scale
agitation faces the constant threat that the factory will be simply
packed up and moved to another zone. Solidarity with these workers, and
outrage at the conditions they live in, was one of the driving forces of
the Seattle and Prague protests.
Where No Logo fails is in its attempt to tie these different themes
together. Klein tries to argue that companies have to spend more money
on âbrandingâ, and this is why production is moving to sweatshops.
Companies canât afford to have factories and a brand, so they ditched
the factories. But its not just the big brands that are made in
sweatshops. Nike runners may be made in Indonesia, but so are the
own-brand runners in your supermarket. Gap shirts are made in
sweatshops, but so are the shirts in the department store. The
sweatshops arenât a result of branding, theyâre a product of the desire
of companies to cut costs. Some companies will then keep their prices
low, while others will spend a lot on advertising, but hope to make even
more by charging higher prices.
The sweatshops are, after all, nothing new. They existed in the west,
alongside hellish factories, and unsafe mines about a century ago[1],
and it wasnât because the Victorians had just discovered advertising.
Bosses always try to keep their costs down, because decent pay and safe
working conditions just eat into their profits. Conditions didnât
improve because the rich had a change of heart â every pay rise, every
reduction in the working week, every safety standard had to be fought
for. The same struggle is going on around the world today, and itâs a
fight against capitalism, not logos.
This is why No Logo is ultimately disappointing. When it tries to be
constructive, and suggest actions we can take, too much time is spent
talking about âsubvertingâ advertisements, or painting over billboards.
Ads may be annoying, and this kind of thing can be fun, but it doesnât
really accomplish anything. Consumer boycotts are explored, even while
their weaknesses are admitted. [2] So thereâs less room to explore ways
that we in the west can help sweatshop workers get organised, and how we
can help their struggles, which should be the objectives of any
campaign. No Logo is still an interesting book, and possibly a good
introduction for those who donât know much about the issues involved.
But as a political analysis, or a guide to action, itâs severely limited
by Kleinâs unwillingness to admit that the problem is not advertising,
but capitalism.
[1] There are some direct parallels â in China, textile workers are
frequently locked into their factories so the women will have no choice
but to work, and âoutside agitatorsâ canât get in. Because textiles are
highly flammable, there have been several fires at these factories, and
in some cases the factory has burned down with the workers still trapped
inside. Exactly the same thing â doors locked in a textile factory, for
the same reasons, with the same tragic results â happened in New York in
the early 20^(th) century, most notably the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist
factory fire.
[2] Boycotts may be effective when they have a single clear target, like
Shellâs actions in Nigeria, but they may just prompt a whitewash
campaign, and a series of apologies from the companies concerned, until
they think the spotlight has moved on to someone else. Since Nike has
been a focus of the anti-sweatshop campaign, Reebok can pose as the
ethical alternative, even though their work practices are exactly the
same.