No Logo Critique

Naomi Klein’s No Logo states that corporations have been championing globalization using the reasons that globalization allows U.S. consumers to benefit from cheaper products produced abroad, while developing nations benefit from the economic growth stimulated by foreign investments. The generally accepted belief is that governmental policies should be established in favor of the corporations to facilitate the trickling down of corporate profits to the end consumers and workers abroad. Klein, however, contends that globalization rarely benefit the workers in the developing countries.

Corporations seek out countries with cheap labor forces to lower their production costs. Consequently, they will engage in practices, such as banning labor unions and selecting a passive labor force, which frequently consists of young women, to ensure their policies on low wages are met with little or no resistance. Ultimately, in order to attract investments of multinational corporations, governments in third world nations must compete against each other to exploit their own labor force to supply the cheapest products. Furthermore, instead of sharing the profits with the workers, corporations spend most of the money saved from the labors on advertising and celebrity spokespeople.

There is no unanimous voice on the subject of globalization from the business community. It is undeniable that unjust labor practices do exist abroad. One notable anti-globalization proponent is economist E.F. Schumacher, who spoke vehemently against the nascent practice of globalization and belief in mass production in his book Small is Beautiful in 1973.
Schumacher claims that mass production through specialization of labor actually do more harm to the poverty-stricken countries. He argues that the specialization of labor was developed to benefit nations with small populations, whose growth was restricted by the shortage of labor, and is therefore incompatible with developing countries