The constant gardener
Naomi Klein
Marlo Edwards,
McMaster University
Naomi Klein is a Canadian journalist, media commentator, and most famously the author of
No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies (2000), a critique of the
corporate takeover of public space. Klein's youth (she was 30 when the book was published),
her clear and compelling prose, and the fact that the book was released shortly before the
World Trade Organization talks in Seattle all contributed to No
Logo becoming a key text in the antiglobalization debate. No
Logo interweaves personal stories about growing up in a "branded culture" with
trenchant exposés of the exploitative labour and marketing practices of large North
American companies including Gap, Nike, Microsoft, and Starbucks. Klein documents commodity
culture's canny transition from selling "products" to selling "brands"
— essentially a shift away from the trafficking in cultural goods and a move towards the
peddling of cultural identities. Klein's book also provided one of the first detailed
analyses of the methods and motives of the growing anti-corporate/antiglobalization
resistance movement — from culture jammers to computer hackers to public
protesters — that is set on dismantling the "to buy is to be" mantra of postmodern
capitalism. Klein is persuaded that the counter-messages exemplified by such creative civil
disobedience represent a first step en route to regaining the commons. Klein's text has been
criticized by proponents of globalization as well as by specialized scholars in the area for
having a simplistic view of world trade policies. And, like utopian social critics before
her, she has been taken to task for being vague about practical alternatives to consumer
capitalism. Nonetheless, Klein's vigour and her "coolness" as a documenter of the troubling
interweaving of culture and consumerism have indisputably brought the value of cultural
engagement, political dissent, and moral responsibility to popular attention.