Comments on: No Logo: Brands, Globalization and Resistance

By: Carrington Junior

Carrington Junior — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 09:52:00 +0000

Earth Welcome, i realize that you may be under the impression that you or stockholder’s in general maintain ownership of a company. i will not argue that a stockholder has a financial portion of ownership in a company nor will i go so far to say a stockholder has any real say in the workings under 7% ownership and even above that mark fear is the only real factor influencing their decisions. so all that aside, what dictates ownership, not in a fiscal aspect nor an emotional one but in the general essence of the word i believe we can agree that ownership is the byproduct of control. with that foundation lets build a picture, control of a company springs from its officers and trickles down through the branches where no one person has complete control but at the top there is in most cases someone who has say 60% control but for sake of your numerical based ideal, in no way does this person have less than 51% of the control. now lets go a step further where does this control come from, the investment in the business perhaps, or in a lot of cases its hereditary. despite the different areas the control of a company might come from, what it all boils down to is influence. had the CEO’s mother or father not had investment or influence in the company there child may not have taken over the family business, or better yet had society not done its worst to influence an ideal of capital gains being the judge of a person to lets say nudge a person to seek the easiest means of fulfilling a need based on societal influence. now i realize it may seem i have gone a bit astray from your statement “We own the corporations? No one can make me buy anything?” but it was all to prove this point, while a corporation may not directly influence you to purchase a product (even though we all know they try), they inadvertently influence you to influence yourself to purchase what they want you too…….. their product.

If you have any questions or a retort i encourage you to share.
Carrington Junior
$/@/!@

By: Marc Pavone

Marc Pavone — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 20:34:00 +0000

Unless you own enough stock in a business to be on the board, you don’t own a corporation. Also, it would be pretty easy to manipulate someone like you. All an advertiser has to do is appeal to your sense of opposition and individuality.

By: Dave Ace

Dave Ace — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 15:49:00 +0000

Billy (and the four people you clicked “like”.).. maybe checkout the two documentaries on here: THE CORPORATION… and STARSUCKERS… then get back to us on who owns us and whether they have the power to MAKE us buy anything. I think you’ll think twice next time. Enjoy!

By: Brad

Brad — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 09:27:00 +0000

HUH? We own the corporations? No one can make me buy anything? What planet do you live on?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 22:21:00 +0000

We can argue about how we have got here quoting the history and the stats we are all spoon fed one way or another but the fact remains this ethos requires winners and losers. It is time that humanity started thinking along different lines and we can only do this by being better informed and seeing that we have a choice, it is the removal of choice that is the problem. I ask, if followed through does your argument ultimately remove my right to have a choice or does it empower me to exercise my right to have a choice?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 21:56:00 +0000

It could be argued that globalization has been around for centuries in one form or another, it is just more pronounced now. You are right Leche but is it Globalization that is at fault or man’s greed, which has been around a lot longer than we could possibly go back? Globalization is an evolving process it is neither good nor is it evil, its effects which are a result of man’s greed which is evil. If we can collectively tackle the ‘increasing growth’ ethos then may be we can tackle true evil. Ultimately everything we do is based around more for me and my own, this is true for most of us barring a very few individuals and hence it is normality. The person that works in the marketing company, or the oil company or the bank or the factory etc, is following this same more for me ethos. When more for me becomes normal practice and those that practice this normality are concentrated in one place at the same time every day for at least a third of their day then we get a company following the same code of “normal” practice, now imagine that same company is setting up shop in Asia, US and EU and the respective governments and organizations lift all obstacles for trade and other codes of practice good or bad, the result is a TNC, I grant you that this is a little simplistic but the question is are those people working for the TNC evil or are they just ill informed? As members of the human race we have to remember that we are conscious organisms and more importantly we have a choice. Some of us just have to see this, some of us need to remember it, while some of us need to learn it others just don’t care and will follow what everyone else is doing but one thing is for sure we all need to learn more and more until we can’t learn any more and use this knowledge to empower ourselves and our own.

By: Leche Kukkia

Leche Kukkia — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 06:10:00 +0000

This is probably one of the most ignorant things I’ve read in a long time. I don’t even know where to begin but how about the fact that the world today is very very very different from 50 – 125 years ago. Countries developing their economies now do so under completely different circumstances, one example: they were basically force to adopt structural adjustment programs (look it up) which meant taking on a lot of debt. The economy wasn’t as globalized; now the U.S. can artificially lower the cost of its products (such as corn) through subsidies to compete with corn produced in, for example, Mexico. Seriously though I don’t even know where to start with the answer. Here’s a suggested reading list: ‘Globalization and Its Discontents’ by Joseph Stiglitz, ‘The Moral Economy of the Peasant’ by James C. Scott (a classic), ‘The Open Veins of Latin America’ by Eduardo Galeano… there are a million more. Globalization makes the playing field uneven. And let’s not even get into how companies in, for example the U.S., can externalize their negative ‘costs’ or side effects of mining (/logging, oil production, whatever) but doing so in countries with corrupt governments who don’t regulate them and barely extract any profit out of these socially and environmentally damaging activities through taxes. If you think corporations don’t have power, then you would be kidding yourself. Out of the top 100 economies in the world, half of them are corporations.

By: Katie Taylor

Katie Taylor — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 23:41:00 +0000

She fails to say exactly why branding (or globalization…? Not sure what “evil” she is targeting here) is a bad thing. Globalization is not causing kids to sit inside instead of riding their bikes around. (about :20 in)You are just making that up!
I agree with having fair trade but don’t blame advertising for ruining the quality of our products. This is just so pessimistic. If you want to change the quality of products, buy fair trade and the demand from those corporations will go up. (Yes fair trade sellers ARE corporations too! Which was described as evil in this documentary!) I could go on and on about this if I wanted to but my point is that good advertising won’t bombard you with their messages. Instead of thinking of it as an evil thing, just have fun with it and loosen up! I work in advertising and trust me, we are just trying to have fun with our jobs!

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By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 03 May 2011 10:20:00 +0000

Seems like they’ve got your brain already.

By: luce

luce — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 04:17:01 +0000

does anyone else think it’s really sad that googleads has some “fair trade” website ad when you come to this movie? it’s kind of like fair trade and things like that are even commodities these days. What do we do Naomi Klein?

By: Bets Mcgee

Bets Mcgee — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 17:02:39 +0000

Thank you some much for putting this up here, read the book years ago. Kind of depressing how little the world changes, Would it be possible to get one of newer doco’s, the Shock Doctrine on TDF at some stage?

By: Polar Jo McKay

Polar Jo McKay — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 01:21:03 +0000

Very well done. (I don;t see many multi-nationals running scared just yet; the malls aren’t empty, wal marts parking lot is still full) – but maybe they are starting to get nervous? Locally, our farmer’s markets are growing by a third every year, and small businesses are just beginning to provide local and meaningful services again. (Do you remember a time when your appliances & electronics had 15 – 25 year warranties and there were repair people around – so you actually expected goods to last a while and got them repaired instead of thrown away? Heck I know people who have never re-sewn a button or a seam). So there are jobs again for people who are re-thinking what kind of communities we want to live in. The changes might look slow, but I know, a point once reached is a change revolution, and we are reaching that place… I’ll share this with my friends & family, thanks so much :)

By: Marcin

Marcin — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 18:38:18 +0000

It seems that only profession of hermit deep inside the wild forest would save us from corporate world.

By: Mat

Mat — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 00:13:52 +0000

To all of those wondering how it started, there is a documentary here describing it in detail: The Century of the Self. It´s about how Freud´s nephew utilized his theories in marketing, making people desire things they don´t really need.

Highly recommended for people who want a deeper understanding of all this mess.

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-century-of-the-self/