G205 – Week 12 - The Corporation and Capitalism

Naomi Klein, No Logo

Bose and Lyons, Klein, and The Corporation discussion
continued…

• What role do corporations play in your life?

• What kind of person is the corporation, according to the
filmmakers and writers?
• Do you agree/disagree?
Review
Write down your name on a piece of paper that you will turn in.

• What are the privileges of corporate personhood (there are four)?

Review, Privileges of Corporate
Personhood

• Corporations are distinct legal entities, which exist separate from

shareholders as shareholders have limited liability.

• Corporations can engage in civil litigation.

• Corporations can own property (called “islanding” in transnational

real estate interactions, Bose and Lyons).

• Corporations are immortal. The corporation is a natural person,

but not an embodied person.
Chapter 16

NAOMI KLEIN, NO LOGO: NO SPACE, NO

CHOICE, NO JOBS
Review of de Certeau (Klein, 1st page)
Strategies of Producers
Dominant Class or Elite
(1) The "proper" is a triumph of place over
time.
(2) It is also a mastery of places through
sight. The division of space makes
possible a panoptic practice proceeding
from a place whence the eye can
transform foreign forces into objects
that can be observed and measured, and
thus control and "include" them within
its scope of vision. To be able to see (far
into the distance) is also to be able to
predict, to run ahead of time by reading
a space.
(3) The power of knowledge is the ability to
transform the uncertainties of history
into readable spaces.
Tactics of Users of Products
Minoritized position, but the majority of
people
• procedures that gain validity in
relation to the pertinence they
lend to time--to the
circumstances which the precise
instant of an intervention
transforms into a favorable
situation, to the rapidity of the
movements that change the
organization of a space, to the
relations among successive
moments in an action, to the
possible intersections of durations
and heterogeneous rhythms, etc.
(38)
No Logo, Discussion Questions
• How is the McDonald’s case study differ from the Nike and Shell
cases?
• What is it about the contemporary marketing logic of the big
brands that eliminates consumer choice?
• What other kinds of choice does the enactment of this logic
eliminate?
• How do identity, ideas, ideals, and lifestyle play into today’s
corporate marketing strategies? And how does this represent a
shift from the past?
• What is a brand? Is there a difference between logos and brands?
• Why do you feel some people like to buy brand-name rather than
generic products?
• Do you ever buy products based on their brand? Why?
• Do you ever choose not to buy a product because of its brand
name? Why?
No Logo, Discussion Questions
• Klein talks about how the traditional relationship between
products and brands has been turned upside down. She says
there has been a shift from companies seeing their primary
role as producing products and branding them with a
corporate identity, to producing brands first. What does she
mean by this? What examples does she use? Can you think of
examples of your own behavior?
• How has the Internet benefitted activists?
• How has the Internet changed Corporate behavior?
“Controversial” Nike Ad
Nike Ad
• Nike vice president Charles Denson denied the ad could be
construed as advocating violence towards women . . . "We
have a history of making controversial ads, and we certainly
have succeeded in that," he said, adding that Ms Hamilton had
enjoyed filming the commercial.
• -BBC News
McDonald’s Leaflet in the Libel
Case
• http://
www.mcspotlight.org/campaigns/translations/trans_uk.html
More examples of the privileges of Corporate
Personhood
• In 2008 South Korea, via Daewoo Logistics, bought up half the
arable land of Madagascar, or 1.3 million hectares, thereby
outsourcing a Korean geography too cramped to feed its native
population. It did so to the great displeasure of Madagascans, 70
percent of whom live below the poverty line.

• “With $50 billion, you could buy the Amazon,” declared Swedish-
born billionaire Johan Eliasch, at that time environmental
consultant to UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown . . . Similarly, on
northern Argentina this time: “A hectare of land is worth barely
more than a hamburger!”

• (Madonna was last week’s example.)

What kind of citizens are corporations?
• Has the past two weeks of reading modified how you think
about citizenship? Why or Why not?
• Rethinking Peiss….Consumer citizenship……????

Returning to a previous question about Subjectivity or

Selfhood/Citizenship
• How are subjectivity and citizenship intrinsic to each
other (not separable)?
• How do we understand economics as a gendering or
gendered process?
• Are corporate bodies gendered?
Rethinking Consumer Citizenship
Consumer
What is a consumer? –noun
• 1. a person or thing that consumes.
• 2. Economics . a person or organization that
uses a commodity or service.
• 3. Ecology . an organism, usually an animal, that
feeds on plants or other animals.
To consume: –verb (used with object)
• 1. to destroy or expend by use; use up.
• 2. to eat or drink up; devour.
• 3. to destroy, as by decomposition or burning:
Fire consumed the forest.
• 4. to spend (money, time, etc.) wastefully.
• 5. to absorb; engross: consumed with curiosity.
• –verb (used without object)
• 6. to undergo destruction; waste away.
• 7. to use or use up consumer goods.
Citizenship/Citizen
Citizenship
• a native or naturalized member of a state or other
political community
• the status of a citizen with rights and duties
conduct as a citizen; "award for good citizenship"
Citizen
• A person that is a legally recognized as a member
of a state, with associated rights and obligations;
• A member of a state that is not a monarchy; used
as antonym to subject;
• A person that is a legally recognized resident of a
city or town; A resident of any particular place to
which the subject; a native or naturalized
member of a state or other political community
 Adbusters and
CultureJamming
• What does it say about democracy
and the political power of the
people if corporations have such
immense power to transform even
the most threatening challenges to
their supremacy into a marketing
pitch for their brand?
• http://www.adbusters.org/spoofads

Marathon
Marathon Gas Gas Station,
Station, corner
corner of
of
Country
Country Club
Club and
and S.
S. Walnut,
Walnut, April
April 2,
2,
2011,
2011, photo
photo byby COTW
COTW
http://www.marathon.com/
http://www.marathon.com/
How
How isis Marathon
Marathon branding
branding their
their
corporation
corporation as as globally
globally conscious
conscious
global
global oil
oil corporation?
corporation?