I have the highest regard for Naomi Klein, for the research she does for her books and for bringing up serious issues and covering them from multiple perspectives in cohesive and a matter of fact way, which makes you trust what she’s writing, while keeping the tone from reaching a state of tediousness.
In No Logo Klein tackles something huge. Brands and consumerism as whole, the way commercialism surrounds us everywhere from education to public spaces. She writes about history, the different consequences and the resistance those consequences have evoked. And the examples used to make her point feel more than comprehensive.
Unfortunately No Logo doesn’t give a very current view on the topic (being written in 2000), but it inspires me to learn more on my own. I'm curious to know how the the resistance culture has developed - and how I can be a part of it. Anticonsumerism is an integral part of environmental movemements that I'm involved in, but the 'No Logo campaigns' I wasn't familiar with.
If you haven’t yet woken up to how unjust our consumerist culture is for us, other people and the environment, this book will open your eyes.

L'importanza della consapevolezza

Quando facciamo la spesa al supermercato, quando andiamo a cena fuori, quando ci vestiamo, quando facciamo il pieno, quando andiamo in vacanza, quando vestiamo i nostri figli o li mandiamo all'università o quando insegniamo loro i valori importanti.

Sempre, in tutta la nostra vita e la nostra società, modalità di sfruttamento del lavoro e delle risorse naturali che non accetteremmo mai consapevolmente sono dietro alle nostre scelte. E allora la consapevolezza dei meccanismi del mercato globale, dei suoi protagonisti e dei loro metodi ci può aiutare a scegliere e forse, grazie a queste scelte, a cambiare un pochino il trend inumano nel quale ci siamo infilati.

'No logo', per quanto un poco datato, ci aiuta in questo processo di formazione delle scelte consapevoli, nella conoscenza dei meccanismi inaccettabili che governano il mercato mondiale e che quotidianamente offuscano le nostre capacità di analisi e critica. E ci indica metodi e storie di riscatto personali e collettive.

Insomma, un libro importante per chi vuole provare a mantenere gli occhi e la mente aperti. Si potrebbe anche far finta di nulla, ma io non ci riesco.

No Logo talks about the ubiquity of brands, their oppressive marketing tactics, their theft of consumer choice, and their focus on kids to ensure their perpetuity. Naomi Klein does show that there is hope for her cause with the numerous protests that happen yearly outside flagship stores, the grass-roots campaigns that seek to rid their schools of corporate sponsorships, the cultural and adjammers who routinely deface popular billboards using the company’s own content as inspiration. I would have enjoyed an updated version of this book because it often suffers from sounding like a time capsule (the internet is only mentioned in passing), but other than that I very much enjoyed Klein’s polemic on the irresponsible practices of overblown companies.

I respect Klein so much. Full disclosure: I didn't make it through the entire book - so dense and intense. Also mine wasn't a newer edition with updated afterwards and all and it's somewhat dated - a lot has happened since 2000. That said, she completely predicted the economic crash to come. The stuff about advertising and politically correct culture really spoke to me - I'm not far from her in age - when she was in college in the 90s, I was in high school, so I could really relate to her descriptions of marketing at that time and "identity politics."

I first read No Logo a couple of years ago when I was a teenager getting into all sorts of political activism. I remember crying profusely many times, screaming at anyone who would listen about the atrocities that I had read about and how horrible and unfair everything is. Re-reading No Logo several years later at the age of 24 isn't much different (though I like to think I've toughened up on the crying, and replaced it with anger and an even stronger dislike for corporations and authority). Although much of its content is now 'technically out-of-date', has the world really changed that much, if at all? The problems and social issues that this book detailed are still here in 2011: sweatshops, economic processing zones, poverty in the first and third worlds, the big guy screwing over lots and lots and lots of little guys, consumerism gone mad, corrupt governments who happily turn blind eyes in exchange for wads of cash etc, which is why I think No Logo still holds up and is relevant today. It still serves as a good introduction to anyone interested in how the world really works. Hopefully it will still inspire readers to read further about the issues discussed and perhaps get involved in ways to make some changes. "Another world is possible".

This is my bible. Why? Well, we live in an age when every experience, from driving down the street, to listening to music or surfing the internet, all result in one inevitable conclusion- commercial bombardment. This book illustrates how before advertising, people actually cared which shoe lasted longest or looked best. Now, people are more concerned with branding. The modern corporation devotes enormous time and money to figuring out how to sell cool to the youth of America. And Naomi Klein, evenhandedly, describes both the problem and those who resist. It's incredibly fast, as it's filled with interesting anecdotes about products we've come to love.

A compelling and worthy book. Klein sets out the ways in which corporations and globalisation have changed our world, and this not always for the better.

She outlines how companies such as Nike are hollowed out entities, merely a brand and a marketing machine selling dreams of sporting superstardom and ghetto cool to teen wannabes. In these companies production is offshored via subcontractors and well paying jobs in the US and Europe have become minimum wage jobs in the third world. Labour relations and environmental standards are far below western norms in these offshore production facilities. Klein points out the riches that this creates for the leaders of such companies, which contrasts sharply with the grinding poverty suffered by the factory workers in faraway lands.

Klein shows how some people are resisting the bombardment of constant marketing, subverting brands and their marketing messages, and highlighting abuse of labour in distant factories. This activism is creating better awareness of what is happening behind the corporate facade, and is forcing change on the companies. There are some detailed case studies of these campaigns which illustrate how a focused action can bring about small changes. There is also a section on some spectacular own goals as the corporates have tried and failed to squash dissenting messages about their brand - the McLibel case being the most well known (In the UK at least)

The book reminds me of one that had a profound effect on me many years ago, The Hidden Persuaders by Vance Packard, which explained how marketing and advertising influences all that we do. In fact Hidden Persuaders is name checked in this book.

Thought provoking if somewhat polemic - at times the passionate need to make a particular point undermined the message. It was strange too to read a book about big corporations that does not mention Google, Amazon or Facebook and has only fleeting reference to Apple. The book was written in 2000, before the tech behemoths came of age.

I am not sure what message to take from this book. On the one hand it confirms my long held suspicion of mega brands, but their ubiquity and the similarity in their method is depressing.

This book's divided into four sections—No Space, No Choice, No Jobs, and No Logo. The first three are cool, they talk about, respectively, how corporations in the 90s took over all our space with their logos, how we have no choice but to buy their products since they buy all the other smaller companies and it's crazy hard to find indie stores anymore, and how there aren't any good jobs since corporations like Nike outsource everything to Burma. These first three sections are really good. Everyone knows corporations are evil and this book tells you about it. The final section, No Logo, however, which takes up about 40% of the book's entire length, is about how some people, "culture jammers" or "adbusters" or whatever, are starting to fight back, and spray-paint ads to say funny stuff like "Think Stupid" instead of "Think Different," or, you know, protesting or whatever. WHO CARES. Why are corporations still doing evil stuff, then? No one wants to read 200 pages about a bunch of people running around pasting up posters and organizing rallies. At least I don't. But I did. So I say, read the first three sections of this book, because they're really good, esp. the first two, and skip the last one. Radiohead likes this book so it can't be that bad but then again they love Douglas Adams too.

Out of the anti imperialist authors of the 00s, this is my favourite book for articulating the movements cause. More approachable than Chomsky, less rhetorical than Roy and more thorough than Moore. I especially got a lot out of the insights to economic processing zones or EPZs and the fallacy that low taxation to encourage multinationals isn't the recipe for domestic growth. The western fetish for brand loyalty is also explored and the methods to which the MNCs go to indoctrinate the new empowered consumerist youth.

i love naomi klein soooooo much i wish she was real

العبوديه الحديثه
رأسمالية الكوارث
بلاشعار
ناعومي كلاين

“No Space”

“No Choice”

“No Jobs”

“No Logo”.
مصطلح العولمة وفوائده القادمة على البشرية، وكانوا يخبروننا بأن ربط الناس حول العالم ببعضهم البعض تجاريا عن طريق اتفاقيات التجارة والتسويق الإلكتروني سوف يمنح فرصة للفقراء والمحرومين في الدول النامية للتعلم والعمل وكسب المال، وأن شخصا يعيش في إندونيسيا مثلا سيتمكن من التمتع بوجبة ماكدونالدز واقتناء حذاء ماركة Nike واستخدام هاتف آبل تماما كأي شخص يعيش في أمريكا وكندا، لكن الحقيقة – كما تقول نعومي – هو أن فكرة القرية العالمية الصغيرة كانت فكرة تروجها الشركات الغربية لت��د موطئ قدم لها في الدول الفقيرة يكون بمثابة سوق لاستهلاك منتجاتها.
العلامات التجارية هي مجرد غطاء لصور مؤسفة من الاستغلال، العمال المساكين الذين يعملون لساعات طويلة وفي ظروف عمل مجحفة في إندونيسيا وفيتنام والفلبين هم القاعدة الذين يمنحون الماركات العالمية بريقها ويعاظمون أرباح ملاك شركاتها، وتؤكد نعومي بأن الفجوة الهائلة بين تكلفة المواد الخام وقيمة المنتج في السوق ليس لها أي تفسير سوى الجشع، ذلك الجشع الذي يمكن قراءته من التكاليف الهائلة لسياسات التسويق التجاري واستراتيجيات الترويج للاستهلاك.
https://www.trtarabi.com/issues/%D8%B...

"عبودية التكنولوجيا".. تعرّف الجحيم الذي يتعرّض له عمّال مصانع "أبل"
تتعمّد مجموعة "أبل" الأمريكية اختيار مناطق فقيرة لتدشين مصانعها، بسبب العمالة الرخيصة، ويواجه عملاق التكنولوجيا انتقادات بحق ظروف العمل المميتة الّتي يواجهها العمّال بمصانعه، وما تلاه من حالات تسمّم وتظاهرات وموجات انتحار للعاملين بها.
تُتَّهم "أبل" بتجنُّب تدشين مصانعها بدول متقدّمة نظراً إلى قواعد الأمن والسلامة الصارمة بتلك الدول (AFP)

تتعرّض مجموعة "أبل" الأمريكية، الّتي تتّخذ من دول جنوب شرق آسيا مقرّاً لعديد من مصانعها، لانتقادات واسعة من مجموعات حقوقية حول حقوق عمّالها وظروف العمل المميتة الّتي يواجهونها، مقابل رواتب زهيدة لا تتناسب أبداً مع أرباح عملاقة التكنولوجيا الأمريكية، الّتي تُصنَّف وفق كثير من الإحصاءات الأعلى عالمياً بين مثيلاتها

My rating for this book is closer to 4.5 stars than 4 stars.

"We become collectively convinced not that corporations are hitching a ride on our cultural and communal activities, but that creativity and congregation would be impossible without their generosity."

"The abandonment of the radical economic foundations of the women's and civil-rights movements by the conflation of causes that came to be called political correctness successfully trained a generation of activists in the politics of image, not action."

"Freedom without opportunity is a devil's gift." - Noam Chomsky

"David Green, senior vice president of marketing, expressed his opinion that Coca-Cola is nutritious because it is 'providing water, and I think that is part of a balanced diet.'" The mind truly boggles.

RB: Dad, Francoise