Title: No Logo
Author: Naomi Klein
Genre: Current Issues/Society
Trigger Warnings: Death (mentions), sweatshop labor conditions, miscarriage (mention)
Back Cover:
As global corporations compete for the hearts and wallets of consumers who not only buy their products but willingly advertise them from head to toe—witness today’s schoolbooks, superstores, sporting arenas, and brand-name synergy—a new generation has begun to battle consumerism with its own best weapons. In this provocative, well-written study, a front-line report on that battle, we learn how the Nike swoosh has changed from an athletic status-symbol to a metaphor for sweatshop labor, how teenaged McDonald’s workers are risking their jobs to join the Teamsters, and how “culture jammers” utilize spray paint, computer-hacking acumen, and anti-propagandist wordplay to undercut the slogans and meanings of billboard ads (as in “Joe Chemo” for “Joe Camel”).
No Logo will challenge and enlighten students of sociology, economics, popular culture, international affairs, and marketing.
Review:
This book is broken into four sections: “No Space,” “No Choice,” “No Jobs,” and “No Logo.” Each section goes over a different aspect of the capitalism/consumerism/everything-is-branded phenomenon that this book is about.
“No Space” talks about brands’ invasion of the public sphere and how the idea of the “commons” has disappeared. We don’t have public squares to hang out in, we have shopping malls. Events are put on by corporate sponsors. Advertising pushes itself on us in public spaces. Brands have gone from selling products to selling a “brand image” and idea about themselves, and it’s hurting us as a society. It’s basically the reasons I left a marketing career, but with citations and examples.
“No Choice” talks about franchising, monopolies, and how Ronald Reagan’s destruction of anti-trust laws eliminated any meaningful personal choice when purchasing anything. This section was three chapters long and the least memorable for me.
“No Jobs” is about the outsourcing of production from the brands themselves to contractors overseas. It touches briefly on how Americans get screwed over when factory jobs leave, but mostly focuses on the atrocious sweatshop conditions of the overseas workers who make branded goods. A horrifying read, but not really new information for me. I have been aware of sweatshops and such for a while, though, so if you don’t know a lot about the inner workings of the garment industry, you might learn more than I did.
“No Logo” is about the “current” work being done to combat all the bad stuff mentioned in the prevous three chapters. I put “current” in quotes because the book came out in 2000 and all the work talked about are movements from the 90s. It was interesting to read about what was happening in the 90s, but considering that none of the horribleness mentioned in the first three sections has really changed, it’s not really relevant.
The book’s biggest drawback is that it’s two decades old. In the first three sections, there are only a few reminders of that – Borders being mentioned frequently despite closing in 2011, for example, or the conspicious lack of anything to do with Amazon – because nothing’s really changed since then. So you get to the last section, which promises to tell you what’s being done and what you can do, only to have it be a discussion of activism in the 90s.
There was one thing that stood out to me in that section: Naomi recounts meeting activists fighting against sweatshop conditions in Southeast Asia wearing Nike, Adidas, and products from other brands that are causing the conditions they’re fighting against. They didn’t even consider “consumer activism” and “voting with their dollar” – what they bought didn’t factor into their fight at all. As long as they were doing actual tangible actions, who cared what they bought or didn’t buy?
I really wish there was an updated version of No Logo. To the best of my knowledge, the most recent edition was published in 2011, although I don’t know if it’s been updated or it was just a 2011 reprint. We need a No Logo for the 2020s – with a section full of activism happening now and what we can do today to take action.
Bluejay Reads 