Whew! I finally finished this dense and comprehensive look at how our lives have been reduced to corporate sponsorship (this message brought to you by Nike! Enhance your intellect, strive, go further, Nike.). Naomi Klein leaves no angle unexamined, no critique left unexplored. From the way that branding has affected our daily lives (utter ubiquity and overkill) to the way that it has effected our jobs, (loss of manufacturing jobs... jobs moving overseas to contract laborers) to the way those laborers are mistreated and exploited (sweatshops) to the fact that everyone is doing it, not just "name brands", to the eventual backlash and counter movement this book covers a lot of ground in 458 pages. Although some of this information is a little dated (the bulk of it was written in 1998) the movement against corporate hegemony still persists. Hopefully the current economic shakeup will partially reset the standard mold of business as usual, only time will tell. A good companion read to Shock Doctrine if you really want to dive down the Rabbit Hole

Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek frequently uses as an explanatory topos the following reading of Einstein's theory of relativity: In the special theory of relativity (so the story goes) matter has the effect of curving the space around it, so the shortest distance between two points is not necessarily a straight line. However, with the shift to the general theory of relativity the story is reversed; the curvature of space is no longer the effect of matter's gravity, it is rather matter itself which is the side-effect of the curvature of space, the curvature of space is itself the primordial fact.

Whether or not this is an accurate summary of Einstein's contribution to twentieth century physics, it is a useful schema for understanding the transformation Naomi Klein charts in No Logo. If, in early capitalism, the commodity itself is the primary material fact of economic existence, then it would seem that marketing and advertising are the concomitant warping of the ideological/cultural space that is the natural by-product of material commodities' vigorous efforts to get themselves sold on the open market. However, as we transition eras into late capitalism, a profound shift occurs, as branding itself becomes increasingly important. With the success of the mega-brands of the nineties (Nike, Starbucks, Microsoft, etc.) what is ultimately for sale is no longer mere commodities but the brand itself, and the physical products (shoes, coffee, software, etc.) that advertising used to serve become mere vehicles for selling the increasingly ubiquitous brands.

This is the shift that Naomi Klein beautifully details in this book, with copious charts and graphs, endless footnotes and references, and engaging and readable writing. Klein is an impeccable researcher, and her marshaling of the data and statistics in the service of the story she has to tell are flawless. If anyone doubts that there still exist Dickensian nightmares of exploitation in the contemporary world of global capitalism (or if anyone has faith that the rising tide does indeed lift all boats) then this is the book you should read.

My one caveat is that while Klein is a masterful journalist and a capable storyteller, she is at best (at least in this book) a mediocre theoretician. While her descriptive powers of documenting the current realities are formidable, her analysis of the possibilities of resistance and her prescriptions for future movements leave something to be desired. In particular, the last section of the book, devoted to an exploration of various forms of resistance movements and Klein's own unwavering optimism, seem, from the vantage point of a decade after the book was published, a tad bit naive and underwhelming. I mean, has the Reclaim the Streets movement really thrown a monkey-wrench into the forces of gentrification and homogenization reshaping the faces of North American cities (as Klein breathlessly anticipates in one chapter)? Fortunately, Klein has since published The Shock Doctrine, a far more sober accounting of the events and economic ideologies of the past decade.

However, despite the dated feel of the final chapters, No Logo remains relevant for anyone trying to get a picture of contemporary economic realities. It offers a treasure trove of data and documentation that continues to serve as reliable ammunition for anyone wishing to take the wind out of the sails of today's counter-revolutionary apologists of capital that continue to be so much in vogue and dominate global policy making at the dawn of the twenty-first century.

Twenty three years since this book was published and sadly progress has been limited with sweat shops, greenwashing and brands still manipulating us. There also exists social media which brands use to their advantage.

Named and shamed in the book were the usual suspects McDonalds, Shell, Nike, Starbucks, Microsoft, Chevron and the list goes on. New culprits not existing at scale then are not mentioned such as Amazon and Apple.

There is now a new code. Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing refers to a set of standards for a company’s behavior used by socially conscious investors to screen potential investments. However, there are several systems with all having weak monitoring and even weaker penalties. Although it is progress.

I am glad I finally read this book although dated the examples of Cavite in the Philippines, Honduras, Indonesia and other countries are still relevant. Sadly little progress has been made.

Ok ok ok, I know the hype surrounding this book. Your dreddy activist friend keeps recommending this to you. That dirty hippy that is a total vagabond is doing the same.

Well, what sold me on this book was an image taken from a busy street with all of the logo's removed using Photoshop. Striking.

And the book is long, interesting and at times redundant. Naomi Klein is hot, first of all, but mainly she's right. Advertising ruined the planet. Basically. We could argue that human desire and the weakness of popular opinion is the culprit, but advertising exploited those weaknesses, and replaced them with pollution, child labor, illegal labor and DMZ bullshit, globalization, and all of the things we were warned about happening by Orwell, PKD, Huxley, and movies like Alphaville, 1984 and Brazil.

It's not exactly like any of those things, but it could be...right? Klein is a muckraker that is very biased. But she has to be. Extreme situations call for extreme measures, and her suggestion is to not conform to consumerism. George Washington and Jesus were non-conformists, too.

No logo (2000)

Un libro con alla base un lavoro impressionante di documentazione e il concetto "marchi, non prodotti". Lievi difetti i dieci anni trascorsi dalla pubblicazione e il fatto che sia incentrato soprattutto sulla realtà americana.
Valore aggiunto: mi ha fatto conoscere i fotografi Margaret Bourke-White, Walker Evans e Dorothea Lange.

an important body of work that remains relevant even in current times.

Reading this book for the first time, almost 20 years since its publication, it's striking to see how much has changed in the world - and how much has not changed, or simply withered into irrelevance.
Many important issues and interesting points are raised by the author, and for that it makes good reading. Although I differ in many places from her outlook on life, I enjoy hearing an opposing or new argument made well. And there are some real nuggets here.
That having been said, this was a very disappointing read on many counts. The text contains factual inaccuracies and is flabby (it could comfortably have been reduced to a half or even a quarter without losing anything); the author seems unable to decide whether this is a manifesto or a piece of investigative, vox pop, journalism; the moral framework seems set in a bubble where the world originated in 1950s Canada, and that this should be a starting point for global benchmarking; axiomatic points are poorly stated or assumed and conclusions veer off in unjustified directions; the text is rich in quote from local heros about specific local issues, but makes sweeping and unjustified statements about actions at national or corporate level; the author frequently gives the impression this is all just one big hippy rave, getting distracted by trendiness and avoiding consequences or even feeling any obligation to sketch out a viable alternative to the system she appears to condemn; and so on.
I suspect the original is better written; there are several indications that some of the above failings may be due at least in part to the quality of the German translation which I read.
Nonetheless, a 20-years-on rehash might not be a bad idea.

Maybe only a 4.5 and I'm factoring out that it is really a bit overly long.

It's hard to summarize it really. The book is a huge 'mood board' of different corporate practices to get in the customer's mind and it doesn't seem to end, ever. Whereas many defenders of capitalism might be ok with a few practices criticized, you'd have to go pretty far to find it ok when schools get branded or how corporate responsibility texts are engineered to avoid actual change or how workers are treated in sweat shops, domestic or e.g. in South-East Asia. It's really daunting because there is so much going on and one company is worse than the other. I found that Klein made a good compromise in her narrative between people that feel "overwhelmed" and strive for more revolutionary action and want to overthrow the system vs. people that might be a bit optimistic and want to change the system from within or by good consumer choice. I was happy to see that she didn't dismiss the former camp even though she ended on sort of a positive note, "we can do this if we, the people, just consume correctly and force corporations to do such and such" (not exactly that but it felt a bit like it). The funny thing is that it was written in 2000, where the biggest chunk of advertising was still ahead of us, which is crazy. Her more optimistic outlook feels really not vindicated looking back the last 20 years and I'd be curious to read a foreword of a 2020 edition of the book. Branding has gone an order of magnitude more nuclear since then and it's not clear where we go from here. This warrants, from my point of view, more the revolutionary camp mentioned earlier. But even from there, it's hard to stake out a way how to exit this nightmare of ever more corporate control. Soon we will start privatizing nations and water rights and climate or maybe even judicial systems and it's not clear how the small consumer can change anything. "If we just all worked together" is statistically 1/N less likely than a company which is essentially a single agent. The least revolutionary yet still effective way would be to vote laws into existence to ban all sorts of colonial sweatshopery for instance such that we have sane defaults and not every single citizen has to own the burden of the world alone. But as we know, corporations are usually one or two steps ahead of any democracy, so I'm not sure.

Certainly worth the read for me. It delivers a huge arsenal of concrete bad practices to keep in mind when discussing leftist thought.

post-hippy slacker attempts to make virtue out of necessity.

Some good points are made although I found it somewhat tiresome, corporate evils and all that, without any productive or realistic alternatives. It lacked depth or an investigation into the more human components. It's reminiscent of "Fast Food Nation," although this book did come before. Sut Jhally is pretty interesting in his presentation of the same topic, "Advertising and the End of the World," although he's prone to histrionics and glosses over individual complicity in consumerism. Michael Jackson said it best, "I'm Starting With The Man In
The Mirror, Hoo!"

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.

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.