No Logo

In this chapter, Klein examines the development of anticorporate activism in two local spheres: (1) schools and (2) state and municipal governments. These organizations not only represent large numbers of consumers, but also have significant purchasing power that can concretely affect corporate profits (400).

Klein begins by describing her participation in a “Sweatshop Fashion Show” at a Catholic high school in Pickering, Ontario (397-400). A student asks whether wearing the school uniform, which was made in Indonesia, constitutes support for sweatshops in a manner analogous to buying better-known brands like Nike or Adidas. This is one example, Klein argues, of rising awareness about the implications of corporate partnerships in schools and universities throughout North America. Others include a campaign against Pepsi for its business dealings with the military dictatorship in Burma/Myanmar (402-04), opposition to Nike endorsements of athletic departments (405-06), and demands that the $2.5 billion industry of branded university merchandise adopt ethical production practices abroad (407-09).  

Klein further argues that local administrations often exhibit a stronger desire to resist corporate financing and sponsorship than national governments (410-11). Klein refers to this as “local foreign policy” (411). For instance, Klein notes the passing of the Massachusetts Burma Law in June 1996, which made “it far more difficult for companies doing business with the dictator-run country to land a government contract in the state” (412). Similarly, the city of Berkeley, California, adopted boycotts against companies dealing with Burma/Myanmar, Nigeria, and Tibet (413).

Though some corporations have altered their labor and environmental policies in response to these initiatives, others have fought back (413-18). Unocal and Mobil, both of which have investments in Burma/Myanmar and Nigeria, formed a lobby group called USA*Engage to contest the legality of bills such as the Massachusetts Burma Law. Arguing that a state government cannot engage in foreign policy, which is the purview of the federal government, USA*Engage had the Massachusetts policy thrown out for being unconstitutional.

Even legally sanctioned forms of opposition, such as the City of Vancouver’s decision not to grant a contract to Royal Dutch/Shell because of its treatment of the Ogoni people in Nigeria, has its limits: the city instead gave the contract to Shell’s competitor, Chevron, which boasts an equally dubious record in Nigeria (417-19). This point serves as a transition to the final chapter of No Logo, in which Klein considers the shortcomings of brand-based activism and politics.    

In this chapter, Klein turns to some of the inherent limitations of the model of brand-based activism that she has outlined throughout Part 4“”.

Brands, Klein writes, are simply “the celebrity face of global capitalism” (421). In other words, major corporations like Nike, Starbucks, and Walmart are just the most obvious manifestation of a deeply embedded economic system that facilitates free trade, outsourcing, and human and environmental exploitation. By focusing on opposing certain brands, activists and organizers run the risk of failing to confront the true origins of the issues. As Klein notes, campaigns against Nike have facilitated sales growth for its competitor, Adidas, which uses similarly unjust labor practices in the developing world.

Moreover, there are many “unbranded commodities” that escape the public and political attention given to more visible corporations (424). Examples include energy utilities and logging companies. Regarding the latter, Klein discusses a successful “secondary boycott” against a Japanese company, Daishowa Marubeni, that was logging and mining on land claimed by the Lubicon tribe in northern Canada (425-27). While activists could not direct public outrage against a little-known foreign paper conglomerate, they pressured Daishowa’s better-known clients, such as the clothing company Roots, to take their business elsewhere. The initiative hurt Daishowa’s profits, and the company eventually agreed to cease operations on Lubicon territory.

Despite such effective circumnavigations of the boundaries of branded resistance, Klein wonders whether “brand-based activism is the ultimate achievement of branding” (428). After all, why should demands for better labor and environmental practices need to be mediated through multinational companies rather than through governments or trade unions? Is this not a capitulation to the power of the corporation?

Klein argues that companies have proven highly adept at co-opting the momentum of 1990s anticorporate activism. The key example here is the rise of “corporate codes of conduct” (430). For example, if Shell faces consumer pressure over its affairs in Nigeria, it promises to never engage in similar operations again, offering to always abide by its self-imposed code of conduct, titled Principles and Profits, in the future (430-31). The problem with this approach is of course that oversight for these corporate pledges often falls to the businesses in question (435-37). In effect, Klein argues, such professions of good corporate citizenship function as a new form of marketing campaign, in which companies attempt to advertise their commitment to the very ethical business practices that they once contravened.    

Klein begins her Conclusion by returning to the Workers’ Assistance Center (WAC) operating near the Cavite Export Processing Zone in Rosario, Philippines (439-41). Based on conversations with WAC labor organizers, she emphasizes the importance of self-determination for Cavite workers in confronting their version of the challenges of globalization. “The most significant way to resolve those problems,” says one activist, “lies with the workers themselves, inside the factory” (440).

Following this vignette, Klein articulates her parting impression of responses to “a global economic system gone awry” (441). She mentions two important developments that exemplify a growing agenda “that embraces globalization but seeks to wrest it from the grasp of the multinationals” (445).

The first initiative is the series of teach-ins held by the International Forum of Globalization, which began in 1995 (442-43). According to Klein, the success of this event shows the energy and sophistication behind contemporary anticorporate struggles. The high participation of young people and the new possibilities of online communication leave Klein optimistic about the future.

The second initiative, the second Global Street Party, held in June 1999, looks back to Chapter 13. With the G8 leaders meeting in Cologne, Germany, Reclaim the Streets and several other organizations led a coordinated demonstration around the world, involving everyone from garment workers in Bangladesh to observers of a ceremony in Nigeria to honor the late Ken Saro-Wiwa (444-46).

For Klein, it has never been easier for people to educate themselves about the realities of our global economic system and to reach out to others to try to effect change. The buildings blocks of resistance are in place.

Klein opens her Afterword to No Logo, written about two years after its initial publication, by counterposing two events that happened after the book went to press.

The first is the World Trade Organization protest that took place in November 1999 in Seattle. According to Klein, many of the key themes of No Logo instantly became points of discussion for a wider audience. She writes, “[E]ver since Seattle exploded onto the world stage,” “I have been swept up in the unstoppable momentum of the globalization battles” (448).

However, Klein says that a second incident changed the tenor of the anticorporate movement: the attacks of September 11, 2001, in the United States. “To engage in political dissent in this climate,” she recalls, “was cast as unpatriotic” (448). After 9/11, the world split into two camps: the terrorists and “us.” Opposition to the reigning economic system in the United States and the rest of the West was tantamount to pro-terrorist sympathies. Clare Short, the British Secretary of State for International Development, said as much: the demands of “protesters [. . .] turned out to be very similar to those of Osama bin Laden’s network” (457).

Despite this reaction fueled by post-9/11 anxieties, Klein argues that recognition of the importance of “people before profit” has grown (450). Increasingly, proponents of this view have turned away from acts of “symbolic dissent”—say, trashing a Starbucks or a McDonald’s—to the project of building new economic and political systems (453).

An inspiring example of this shift is the Zapatista movement in Chiapas, Mexico, that began in 1994 (454-56). By cultivating a diffuse, pluralistic version of direct democracy opposed to the centralization of the nation-state, Zapatistas provide an alternative model of political power that eschews the dominant narrative of “chosen men, evil empires, master plans, and great battles” (457). Perhaps, Klein concludes, this is the kind of movement that is best positioned to carry forward the task of No Logo.