An Interesting Read

No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies by Naomi Klein was at times enlightening, frustrating and memory stirring. The book examines the changes in marketing and employment between the 70s and late 90s in big multinational companies of the Western world. It was published in late 1999, so much of the information is outdated, however, it is laid out well enough that I can see in some ways why society is the way it is today. The book is divided into 4 sections:
No Space, No Choice, No Jobs and No Logo that lay out where branding came from, where it has taken us and where we are going as Western society (Western Europe and Canada are included in much of the discussion, but the focus is on the USA).

No Space: Starting with a brief history of advertising in the early 1900s through the late 1990s, it is possible to see why there are very few spaces left today where companies do not display their logos. People even walk around advertising for companies and they have paid for the privilege to wear the logo. With corporate sponsorship that requires recognition with a logo, most community events and even places like parks are now 'marked' territory.

I don't know enough of my own history to really have an opinion on this. It seems to me that as long as there have been cities, there have been advertisements. Sure, the ads have changed over time, and with the invention of the television those ads are pumped into people's homes with much more intensity than they have been in the past, but when you have people who are dependent on others purchasing their goods (businessmen), you will have advertising of one sort or another. Whether it is the young orphan paid to stand on the street and call in customers that you can hear from your small apartment, or signs pasted on brick walls, ads have been around a long time. The guilds in the Middle Ages even had rules that reflected multiple producers of goods who had to advertise to compete with each other. I am willing to go so far as to say the targeting of children on TV, in schools and in community events has changed things by taking a particularly susceptible group and convincing them that materialism is a good thing and that they must "buy, buy, buy" to be happy. Ms Klein does not point this out specifically, but, as usual, I came to a different conclusion than was intended.


No Choice: here is where the book got a bit meatier. The business plan for companies like Wal-Mart, Starbucks, Borders, etc is laid out. The way these companies compete is by going into an area with the goal of "saturation" - running their competitors out of business so they are the only option. Another part of "saturation" is "synergy" where the big companies merge to become a super-company that then has even more control.

However I look at it, I can't help but think of the old Trusts from back in Theodore Roosevelt's day. My public school education left me a bit spotty on the specifics of the old Trusts (maybe it is time to work on US history with the kids this year :) ), but I believe the issue was large companies owning so much that small businesses could not compete. Not knowing all that much about economics beyond the basics, it is hard to have a well-reasoned opinion. I agree with Ms. Klein (Morgan Spurlock of Supersize Me fame brought it up too) that it is sad to see shopping centers with the same stores that all look the same in every major city across the country. The unique culture that used to exist in the different regions across the US, has become a homogenization of identical temples to the various gods of shopping. I am guilty of going to Starbuck's and enjoying it, but I don't think it is because of the brand posted outside the store. If there were other coffee shops that met the need Starbuck's meets I would probably shop there. However, there is something nice about knowing what to expect when going to one of the big box stores like Wal-mart, so I guess I am a bit of a hypocrite. I suppose ultimately the issue is not with a popular store becoming international or even pushing it's competitors out of business, but more with the way they do it as well as the danger of large companies merging until they are so powerful that they control our lives in an Orwellian way (working through the government as they become powerful enough). I agree with Theodore Roosevelt's statement that the government should be more powerful than any company or trust, but there has to be a balance. I don't want a government more powerful than the companies as they are now, so I guess "busting up the trusts" is the only option at this point. I am not firmly attached to this point of view, but it makes sense in my uneducated opinion.


No Jobs: here the focus moves seamlessly from the business plan of large companies to the way they run competitors out of business - lower prices. The mega-chains are able to have such low prices by buying in bulk at a discount, outsourcing manufacturing to the lowest bidder and by paying their employees as little as they can get away with.

Here was where I was hooked on this book. I don't agree with everything she had to say, and some of the studies seemed skewed to me; for example in one study the self-employed were combined with unemployed, temp and part time workers to show how 'few' people have full-time work (Maybe it was growing up in a self-employed family, but it just doesn't seem right to imply that you don't have a "full-time" job if you are self-employed. I have seen how much harder you have to work and how much more you work when you are self employed. The study should have separated self-employed from part time + temporary workers.) However, overall I was very interested in the information conveyed in this part of the book. Manufacturing esp of clothing has always been a job for the poor who will work for little. Going back as far as industrialism has been around that has been the case. It doesn't make it right, but that is part of the industrial beast. For a brief period unions made it so that workers had decent wages, work hours, benefits and job security, but the companies found ways to work around that limitation by outsourcing. Whether outsourcing is a reasonable step to take or not, I found it fascinating that the USA as of 1997 had 30 million people in the workforce in manufacturing with almost another 25 million in retail. I have heard predictions as high as 75% of jobs being in retail within the next 25 years (though I believe the retail trend will turn long before reaching that point). Yet retail is considered a sector of young people and part time employees who are just "moving through" and are therefore paid minimum wage. It is almost fitting that the more people buy, the less money they have to spend on things (hence shopping for the lowest price) and the less they earn. I do come from the point of view that materialism is bad and that our Western society worships shopping (the things can be discarded or are easily forgotten or traded in for something new, but the shopping is 'fun', 'fulfilling', 'quality family-time', etc). My solution to the issue is to shop as little as possible and to rely on 2nd hand things as well as swaps (curriculum, clothing, etc) to avoid the temples.


No Logo: Ms Klein wraps up her 446 page book with her predictions for the future. She praised groups like Critical Mass and Reclaim the Streets as well as those who deface billboards as "taking back..the streets". Interestingly enough she comments that government or international laws and control over wage and safety issues are not the way to go, for which I applaud her. I agree with her that part of the solution is for workers to organize and create their own union-like groups that will ensure decent work conditions and wages - whether they are in the Western world or a Third World country, people have to stand up for themselves in order for it to last. Another big thing she promotes is boycotting, and while I believe it has been effective in the past and may even be effective in certain circumstances today, by the time you cut out all the companies with offensive habits or ethics, there isn't much left. While my summary is only a portion of what was talked about in the book, this quote wraps up the book neatly:

"By attempting to enclose our shared culture in sanitized and controlled brand cocoons, these corporations have themselves created the surge of opposition described in this book. By thirstily absorbing social critiques and political movements as sources of brand "meaning," they have radicalized that opposition still further. By abandoning their traditional role as direct, secure employers to pursue their branding dreams, they have lost the loyalty that once protected them from citizen rage. And by pounding the message of self-sufficiency into a generation of workers, they have inadvertently empowered their critics to express that rage without fear."

I have to say assuming No Logo is correct, the losses experienced in the job market combined with the growing division between rich and poor (as well as the "synergy" tendency to swap CEOs instead of offering employees upward mobility) has led in many ways to where we are today with a Socialist president who is trying to change America into a Socialist country as fast as he can. Before all the glamour that dazzled a majority of Americans to vote Socialist (in all fairness many of them didn't realize they were voting Socialist because the ticket said Democrat), people were worried about their jobs and their homes and assumed it was the mega-companies (and by extension 'their' party, the Republicans) who were "The Man" trying to keep them down. What they are starting to realize now is that those mega-companies have had a hold on the entire government for a long time and that Democrat or Republican doesn't make a difference and that Socialism is slapping "The Man" down with the government taking-over as much as it can which is making things even harder for the everyday citizen (thanks to skyrocketing unemployment and inflation). I can only hope that people will collectively wake up and that things will get better before there is no country left to defend.

Since I like to read a variety of books on seemingly unrelated topics, I can put the pieces together that Ms Klein skipped over because she chose to focus on one topic. There is no one cause of all our woes (though it would be so easy if there was!). The changes in our world through the industrial revolution that created employers overseeing many employees combined with the changes in our government over the last 100-150 years combined with the flight to the suburbs that led to the dissolution of extended family in favor of the nuclear family combined with No-Fault divorce which led in many ways to mothers in the workforce (which drove wages down even more than illegal immigration) and further eroded the family unit until it has become almost a joke to most people. Add on top of all that an increased dependency upon public education not only as educators, but as babysitters (just watch what happens when teachers go on strike if you have any doubt about the role parents see public education in) which gives educators the control to shape children as they see fit, then add anti-family television programming into the mix for the few hours a day that children and parents happen to be home together and it is no wonder that an entire generation (or 2 depending on how you divide things) has grown up to not care about others. They don't care about their spouses, their children nor their employees. The bottom line is the important thing and they have to take care of themselves first, everyone else is out to tear them down. I know this is a pessimistic over-simplification of what is really going on (and yes, most people do not fit this cookie-cutter description), but I hope that it illustrates the complexity of any societal issue. You cannot blame one thing, no matter how inclusive it feels on all of society's ills.