Good Morning Friends,



To pick up where we left off. It is important to note that when we speak of "branding," we are also talking about a different means of production that seems to go along with it. Again, Naomi Klein wrote:



"For some companies a plant closure is still a straightforward decision to move the same facility to a cheaper locale. But for others - particularly those with strong brand identities like Levi Strauss and Hanes - layoffs are only the most visible manifestation of a much more fundamental shift: one that is less about where to produce than how. Unlike the factories that hop from one place to another, these factories will never rematerialize. Mid-flight, they morph into something else entirely: "orders" to be placed with a contractor, who may well turn over those orders to as many as subcontractors, who - particularly in the garmet sector - may in turn pass a portion of the subcontracts on to a network of home workers who will complete the jobs in basements and living rooms (1)."



For some companies, the "sweatshop" model of "racing to the bottom," is just fine, thank you very much. But for other companies, perhaps, who have more of a public relations concern, but most definitely those with strong brand identities, this "entrepreneurial" system (as they, said corporations, no doubt would describe it) is preferred. This approach would certainly serve some ideological functions.



Such companies can say that they either have never had anything to do with, or have moved away from the sweatshop model - as information about its exploitativeness has been put forward.



They can advance the dubious claim that they are, in fact, doing a good thing for the poor people of the developing world, you know, by fostering "entrepreneurialism." One wonders how this intersects with the practice of certain globe-trotting venture capitalists, I guess you'd call them, who offer "micro-loans" to communities in the developing world. One wonders if the two practices, the "morphing" plant and micro-loans, compliment and sustain and even justify each other.

We'll go to another post and look at something else.

wingedcentaur