Chapter Eight.
Corporate Censorship Barricading the Branded Village Every other week I pull something off the shelf that I don't think is of Wal-Mart quality.
-Teresa Stanton, manager of Wal-Mart's store in Cheraw, South Carolina, on the chain's practice of censoring magazines with provocative covers, in The Wall Street Journal The Wall Street Journal, October 22, 1997 In some instances, the assault on choice has moved beyond predatory retail and monopolistic synergy schemes and become what can only be described as straightforward censorship: the active elimination and suppression of material. Most of us would define censorship as a restriction of content imposed by governments or other state institutions, or instigated-particularly in North American societies-by pressure groups for political or religious reasons. It is rapidly becoming evident, however, that this definition is drastically outdated. Although there will always be a Jesse Helms and a Church Lady to ban a Marilyn Manson concert, these little dramas are fast becoming sideshows in the context of larger threats to free expression.
Corporate censorship has everything to do with the themes of the last two chapters: media and retail companies have inflated to such bloated proportions that simple decisions about what items to stock in a store or what kind of cultural product to commission-decisions quite properly left to the discretion of business owners and culture makers-now have enormous consequences: those who make these choices have the power to reengineer the cultural landscape. When magazines are pulled from Wal-Mart's shelves by store managers, when cover art is changed on CDs to make them Kmart-friendly, or when movies are refused by Blockbuster Video because they don't conform to the chain's "family entertainment" image, these private decisions send waves through the culture industries, affecting not just what is readily available at the local big box but what gets produced in the first place.
Both Wal-Mart and Blockbuster Video have their roots in the southern U.S. Christian heartland-Blockbuster in Texas, Wal-Mart in Arkansas. Both retailers believe that being "family" stores is at the core of their financial success, the very key to their mass appeal. The model (also adopted by Kmart), is to create a one-size-fits-all family-entertainment center, where Mom and Dad can rent the latest box-office hit and the new Garth Brooks release a few steps away from where Johnny can get Tomb Raider 2 Tomb Raider 2 and Melissa can co-angst with Alanis. and Melissa can co-angst with Alanis.
To protect this formula, Blockbuster, Wal-Mart, Kmart and all the large supermarket chains have a policy of refusing to carry any material that could threaten their image as a retail destination for the whole family. The one-stop-shopping recipe is simply too lucrative to risk. So magazines are rejected by Wal-Marts and supermarket chains-which together account for 55 percent of U.S. newsstand sales-for offenses ranging from too much skin on the cover girls, to articles on "His & Her Orgasms" or "Coming Out: Why I Had to Leave My Husband for Another Woman."1 Wal-Mart's and Kmart's policy is not to stock CDs with cover art or lyrics deemed overly sexual or touching too explicitly on topics that reliably scandalize the heartland: abortion, homosexuality and satanism. Meanwhile, Blockbuster Video, which controls 25 percent of the home-video market in the U.S., carries plenty of violent and sexually explicit movies but it draws the line at films that receive an NC-17 rating, a U.S. designation meaning that nobody under seventeen can see the film, even accompanied by an adult. Wal-Mart's and Kmart's policy is not to stock CDs with cover art or lyrics deemed overly sexual or touching too explicitly on topics that reliably scandalize the heartland: abortion, homosexuality and satanism. Meanwhile, Blockbuster Video, which controls 25 percent of the home-video market in the U.S., carries plenty of violent and sexually explicit movies but it draws the line at films that receive an NC-17 rating, a U.S. designation meaning that nobody under seventeen can see the film, even accompanied by an adult.
To hear the chains tell it, censoring art is simply one of several services they provide to their family-oriented customers, like smiling faces and low prices. "Our customers understand our music and video merchandising decisions are a common-sense attempt to provide the type of material they might want to purchase," says Dale Ingram, Wal-Mart director of corporate relations. Blockbuster's line is: "We respect the needs of families as well as individuals."2 Wal-Mart can afford to be particularly zealous since entertainment products represent only a fraction of its business anyway. No one hit record or movie has the power to make a dent in Wal-Mart's bottom line, a fact that makes the retailer unafraid to stand up to the entertainment industry's best-selling artists and defend its vision of a shopping environment where power tools and hip-hop albums are sold in adjoining aisles. The most well known of these cases involved the chain's refusal to carry Nirvana's second hit album, In Utero In Utero, even though the band's previous album had gone quadruple platinum, because it objected to the back-cover artwork portraying fetuses. "Country artists like Vince Gill and Garth Brooks are going to sell much better for Wal-Mart than Nirvana," Wal-Mart spokesperson Trey Baker blithely said at the time.3 Facing a projected loss of 10 percent (Wal-Mart's then share of U.S. music sales), Warner and Nirvana backed down and changed the artwork. They also changed the title of the song "Rape Me" to "Waif Me." Kmart Canada took a similar attitude to the Prodigy's 1997 release Facing a projected loss of 10 percent (Wal-Mart's then share of U.S. music sales), Warner and Nirvana backed down and changed the artwork. They also changed the title of the song "Rape Me" to "Waif Me." Kmart Canada took a similar attitude to the Prodigy's 1997 release Fat of the Land Fat of the Land, on the basis that the cover art and the lyrics in the songs "Smack My Bitch Up" and "Funky Shit" just wouldn't fit in at the Mart. "Our typical customer is a married working mother and we felt it was inappropriate for a family store," said manager Allen Letch.4 Like Nirvana, the British bad boys complied with their label's subsequent request and issued a cleaned-up version. Like Nirvana, the British bad boys complied with their label's subsequent request and issued a cleaned-up version.
Such censorship, in fact, has become so embedded in the production process that it is often treated as simply another stage of editing. Because of Blockbuster's policy, some major film studios have altogether stopped making films that will be rated NC-17. If a rare exception is made, the studios will cut two versions-one for the theaters, one sliced and diced for Blockbuster. What producer, after all, would be willing to forgo 25 percent of video earnings before their project is even out of the gate? As film director David Cronenberg told The New Yorker The New Yorker, "The assumption now seems to be that every movie should be watchable by a kid.... So the pressure on anyone who wants to make a grownup movie is enormous."5 Many magazines, including Cosmopolitan Cosmopolitan and and Vibe Vibe, have taken to showing advance copies of new issues to big boxes and supermarkets before they ship them out. Why risk having to deal with the returns if the issue is deemed too risque? "If you don't let them know in advance, they will delist the title and never carry it again," explains Dana Sacher, circulation director of Vibe Vibe. "This way, they don't carry one issue, but they might carry the next one."6 Since bands put out a record every couple of years-not one a month-they don't have the luxury of warning Wal-Mart about a potentially contentious cover and hoping for better luck on the next release. Like film producers, record labels are instead acting preemptively, issuing two versions of the same album-one for the big boxes, bleeped, airbrushed, even missing entire songs. But while that has been the strategy for multi-platinum-selling artists like the Prodigy and Nirvana, bands with less clout often lose the opportunity to record their songs the way they intended, preempting the objections of family-values retailers by issuing only pre-sanitized versions of their work.
In large part, the complacency surrounding the Wal-Mart and Blockbuster strain of censorship occurs because most people are apt to think of corporate decisions as non-ideological. Businesses make business decisions, we tell ourselves-even when the effects of those decisions are clearly political. And when retailers dominate the market to the extent that these chains do today, their actions can't help raising questions about the effect on civil liberties and public life. As Bob Merlis, a spokesperson for Warner Brothers Records explains, these private decisions can indeed have very public effects. "If you can't buy the record then we can't sell it," he says. "And there are some places where these mass merchandisers are the only game in town."7 So in much the same way that Wal-Mart has used its size to get cheaper prices out of suppliers, the chain is also using its heft to change the kind of art that its "suppliers" (i.e., record companies, publishers, magazine editors) provide. So in much the same way that Wal-Mart has used its size to get cheaper prices out of suppliers, the chain is also using its heft to change the kind of art that its "suppliers" (i.e., record companies, publishers, magazine editors) provide.
Censorship in Synergy While the instances of corporate censorship discussed so far have been a direct by-product of retail concentration, they represent only the most ham-fisted form of corporate censorship. More subtly-and perhaps more interestingly-the culture industry's wave of mergers is breeding its own blockages to free expression, a kind of censorship in synergy.
One of the reasons that producers are not standing up to puritanical retailers is that those retailers, distributors and producers are often owned, in whole or in part, by the same companies. Nowhere is this conflict of interest more in play than in the relationship between Paramount Films and Blockbuster Video. Paramount is hardly positioned to lead the charge against Blockbuster's conservative stocking policy, because if indeed such a policy is the most cost-effective way to draw the whole family into the video store, then who is Paramount to take money directly out of mutual owner Viacom's pockets? Similar conflicts arise in the aftermath of Disney's 1993 purchase of Miramax, the formerly independent film company. On the one hand, Miramax now has deep resources to throw behind commercially risky foreign films like Roberto Benigni's Life Is Beautiful Life Is Beautiful; on the other, when the company decides whether or not to carry a politically controversial and sexually explicit work like Larry Clarke's Kids Kids, it cannot avoid weighing how that decision will reflect on Disney and ABC's reputations as family programmers, with all the bowing to pressure groups that that entails.
Such potential conflicts become even more disturbing when the media holdings involved are not only producing entertainment but also news or current affairs. When newspapers, magazines, books and television stations are but one arm of a conglomerate bent on "absolute open communication" (as Sumner Redstone puts it), there is obvious potential for the conglomerate's myriad financial interests to influence the kind of journalism that is produced. Of course, newspaper publishers meddling in editorial content to further their own financial interests is as old a story as the small-town paper owner who uses the local Herald Herald or or Gazette Gazette to get his buddy elected mayor. But when the publisher is a conglomerate, its fingers are in many more pots at once. As multinational conglomerates build up their self-enclosed, self-promoting worlds, they create new and varied possibilities for conflict of interest and censorship. Such pressures range from pushing the magazine arm of the conglomerate to give a favorable review to a movie or sitcom produced by another arm of the conglomerate, to pushing an editor not to run a critical story that could hurt a merger in the works, to newspapers being asked to tiptoe around judicial or regulatory bodies that award television licenses and review anti-trust complaints. And what is emerging is that even tough-minded editors and producers who unquestioningly stand up to external calls for censorship-whether from vocal political lobbies, Wal-Mart managers or their own advertisers-are finding these intracorporate pressures much more difficult to resist. to get his buddy elected mayor. But when the publisher is a conglomerate, its fingers are in many more pots at once. As multinational conglomerates build up their self-enclosed, self-promoting worlds, they create new and varied possibilities for conflict of interest and censorship. Such pressures range from pushing the magazine arm of the conglomerate to give a favorable review to a movie or sitcom produced by another arm of the conglomerate, to pushing an editor not to run a critical story that could hurt a merger in the works, to newspapers being asked to tiptoe around judicial or regulatory bodies that award television licenses and review anti-trust complaints. And what is emerging is that even tough-minded editors and producers who unquestioningly stand up to external calls for censorship-whether from vocal political lobbies, Wal-Mart managers or their own advertisers-are finding these intracorporate pressures much more difficult to resist.
The most publicized of the synergy-censorship cases occurred in September 1998 when ABC News killed a Disney-related story prepared by its award-winning investigative team of correspondent Brian Ross and producer Rhonda Schwartz. The story began as a broad investigation of allegations of lax security at theme parks and resorts, leading to the inadvertent hiring of sex offenders, including pedophiles, as park employees.
Because Disney was to be only one of several park owners under the microscope, Ross and Schwartz got the go-ahead on the story. After all, it wasn't the first time the team had faced the prospect of reporting on their parent company. In March 1998, ABC newsmagazine 20/20 20/20 had aired their story about widespread sweatshop labor in the U.S. territory of Saipan. Though it focused its criticism on Ralph Lauren and the Gap, the story did mention in passing that Disney was among the other American companies contracting to the offending factories. had aired their story about widespread sweatshop labor in the U.S. territory of Saipan. Though it focused its criticism on Ralph Lauren and the Gap, the story did mention in passing that Disney was among the other American companies contracting to the offending factories.
But reporting has a life of its own and as Ross and Schwartz progressed on the theme-park investigation, they found that Disney wasn't on the periphery, but was at the center of this story. When they handed in two drafts of what had turned into a sex-and-scandal expose of Disney World, David Westin, president of ABC News, rejected the drafts. "They didn't work," said network spokeswoman Eileen Murphy.8 Even though Disney denies the allegations of lax security, first made in the book Disney: Even though Disney denies the allegations of lax security, first made in the book Disney: The Mouse Betrayed The Mouse Betrayed, and even though CEO Michael Eisner is on record saying "I would prefer ABC not cover Disney,"9 ABC denies the story was killed because of pressure from its parent company. Murphy did say, however, that "we would generally not embark on an investigation that focused solely on Disney, for a whole variety of reasons, one of which is that whatever you come up with, positive or negative, will seem suspect." ABC denies the story was killed because of pressure from its parent company. Murphy did say, however, that "we would generally not embark on an investigation that focused solely on Disney, for a whole variety of reasons, one of which is that whatever you come up with, positive or negative, will seem suspect."10 The most vocal criticism of the affair came from Brill's Content Brill's Content, the media-watch magazine founded in 1998 by Steven Brill. The publication lambasted ABC executives and journalists for their silence in the face of censorship, accusing them of caving in to their own internalized "Mouse-Ke-Fear." In his previous incarnation as founder of the Court TV cable network and American Lawyer American Lawyer magazine, Steven Brill had some firsthand experience with censorship in synergy. After selling his miniature media empire to Time Warner in 1997, Brill claims that he faced pressure on several different stories that brushed up against the octopus-like tentacles of the Time Warner/Turner media empire. In a memo excerpted in magazine, Steven Brill had some firsthand experience with censorship in synergy. After selling his miniature media empire to Time Warner in 1997, Brill claims that he faced pressure on several different stories that brushed up against the octopus-like tentacles of the Time Warner/Turner media empire. In a memo excerpted in Vanity Fair Vanity Fair, Brill writes that company lawyers tried to suppress a report in American Lawyer American Lawyer about a Church of Scientology lawsuit against about a Church of Scientology lawsuit against Time Time magazine (owned by Time Warner) and asked Court TV to refrain from covering a trial involving Warner Music. He also claims to have received a request from Time Warner's chief financial officer, Richard Bressler, to "kill a story" about William Baer, the director of the Federal Trade Commission's Bureau of Competition-ironically, the very body charged with reviewing the Time Warner-Turner merger for any violation of anti-trust law." magazine (owned by Time Warner) and asked Court TV to refrain from covering a trial involving Warner Music. He also claims to have received a request from Time Warner's chief financial officer, Richard Bressler, to "kill a story" about William Baer, the director of the Federal Trade Commission's Bureau of Competition-ironically, the very body charged with reviewing the Time Warner-Turner merger for any violation of anti-trust law."11 Despite the alleged meddling, all the stories in question made it to print or to air, but Brill's experience still casts a shadow over the future of press freedom inside the merged giants. Individual crusading editors and producers have always carried the flag for journalists' right to do their job, but in the present climate, for every crusader there will be many more walking on eggs for fear of losing their job. And it's not surprising that some have begun to see trouble everywhere, second-guessing the wishes of top executives in ways more creative and paranoid than the executives may even dare to imagine themselves. This is the truly insidious nature of self-censorship: it does the gag work more efficiently than an army of bullying and meddling media moguls could ever hope to accomplish.
China Chill As we have seen in recent years, journalists, producers and editors are not only finding reason to walk carefully when dealing with judicial and regulatory bodies (not to mention theme parks), but-in the case of China-we have watched an entire country become a tiptoe zone. A wave of China-chill incidents has swept through the Western media and entertainment industries since Deng Xiaoping tentatively lifted the Communist Party monopoly on news and began slowly to open his country's borders to some censor-approved foreign media and entertainment.
Now the global culture industry faces the possibility that it is the West that may have to play by China's rules-outside as well as inside its borders. Those rules were neatly summed up in a 1992 article in The South China Morning Post The South China Morning Post: "Provided they do not break the law or go against party line, journalists and cultural personnel are guaranteed freedom from interference by commissars and censors."12 And with 100 million cable subscribers expected in China by the year 2000, several cultural empire builders have already begun exercising their freedom to agree with the Chinese government. And with 100 million cable subscribers expected in China by the year 2000, several cultural empire builders have already begun exercising their freedom to agree with the Chinese government.
An early incident involved Rupert Murdoch's notorious decision to drop the BBC's World Service news from the Asian version of Star TV. Chinese authorities had objected to a BBC broadcast on Mao Tse-tung, sending a clear warning about the types of reporting that will be welcome and profitable in China's wired world. More recently, HarperCollins Publishers (this book's publisher in the United Kingdom), also owned by Murdoch's News Corp, decided to drop East and West: China, Power, and the Future of Asia East and West: China, Power, and the Future of Asia, written by Hong Kong's last British governor, Chris Patten. At issue was the possibility that the views expressed by Patten-who had called for more democracy in Hong Kong and criticized human-rights abuses in China-would enrage the Chinese government upon which Murdoch's satellite ventures are dependent. In the storm of controversy that followed, more allegations of censorship for the sake of global synergy came out of the woodwork, including one by Jonathan Mirsky, former East Asia editor for the Murdoch-owned London Times Times. He claimed that the paper "has simply decided, because of Murdoch's interests, not to cover China in a serious way."13 Fears of retaliation from the Chinese are not without basis. Famous for punishing media organizations that don't toe the government line and rewarding those that do, the Chinese government banned the sale and ownership of private satellite dishes in October 1993: the dishes were picking up more than ten foreign stations, including CNN, BBC and MTV. Liu Xilian, vice minister for radio, film and television, would only say, "Some of the satellite programs are suitable and some are not suitable for the normal public."14 The Chinese government fired another salvo in December 1996 after learning of Disney's plans to release The Chinese government fired another salvo in December 1996 after learning of Disney's plans to release Kundun Kundun, a Martin Scorsese film about Tibet's Dalai Lama. "We are resolutely opposed to the making of this movie. It is intended to glorify the Dalai Lama, so it is an interference in China's internal affairs," stated Kong Min, an official at the Ministry of Radio, Film and Television.15 When the studio went ahead with the film anyway, Beijing instituted a ban on the release of all Disney films in China, a ban that stayed in place for two years. When the studio went ahead with the film anyway, Beijing instituted a ban on the release of all Disney films in China, a ban that stayed in place for two years.
Since China only lets in ten foreign films a year and puts controls on their distribution, the Kundun Kundun incident sent a chill through the film industry, which had several other China-related projects in the works, including MGM's incident sent a chill through the film industry, which had several other China-related projects in the works, including MGM's Red Corner Red Corner and Sony's and Sony's Seven Years in Tibet Seven Years in Tibet. To their credit, none of the studios pulled the plug on these films in progress, and in fact many in the film community rallied around Scorsese and Kundun Kundun. However, both MGM and Sony made official statements that attempted to depoliticize their China films, even if it meant contradicting their lead actors and directors. MGM went ahead with Red Corner, a movie about China's corrupt criminal justice system, starring Richard Gere, but while Gere maintained that the film is "a different angle of dealing with Tibet,"16 MGM's worldwide marketing president, Gerry Rich, told a different story: "We're not pursuing a political agenda. We're in the business of selling entertainment." MGM's worldwide marketing president, Gerry Rich, told a different story: "We're not pursuing a political agenda. We're in the business of selling entertainment." Seven Years in Tibet Seven Years in Tibet got a similar sell from Sony: "You don't want to convey that it's a movie about a political cause," a studio executive said. got a similar sell from Sony: "You don't want to convey that it's a movie about a political cause," a studio executive said.17 Disney, meanwhile, finally managed to get the Chinese government to lift the ban on its films with the release of a Disney, meanwhile, finally managed to get the Chinese government to lift the ban on its films with the release of a Mulan Mulan, feel-good animated tale based on a 1,300-year-old legend from the Sui Dynasty. The South China Morning Post The South China Morning Post described the depiction of Chinese heroism and patriotism as an "olive branch" and "the most China-friendly movie Hollywood has made in years." It also served its purpose: described the depiction of Chinese heroism and patriotism as an "olive branch" and "the most China-friendly movie Hollywood has made in years." It also served its purpose: Mulan Mulan flopped at the box office but it opened the door to discussions between Disney and Beijing for a planned $2 billion Disney theme park in Hong Kong. flopped at the box office but it opened the door to discussions between Disney and Beijing for a planned $2 billion Disney theme park in Hong Kong.
The medium will change from a mass-produced and mass-consumed commodity to an endless feast of niches and specialties.... A new age of individualism is coming and it will bring an eruption of culture unprecedented in human history.-George Gilder, Life After Television Life After Television, 1990 If anything, the Western lust for access to the Chinese entertainment market has only become more intense in recent years, despite worsening relationships between the U.S. and Chinese governments over such issues as access to China's securities and telecommunications industries, more revelations of espionage and, most disastrous of all, the accidental bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade during the Kosovo war. The reason, in part, is that in the past, the desire to enter China was based on projected earnings, but in 1998, those projections became a reality. James Cameron's Titanic Titanic broke all the records for foreign releases and earned $40 million at the box office in China, even in the midst of an economic downturn. broke all the records for foreign releases and earned $40 million at the box office in China, even in the midst of an economic downturn.
China chill is significant above all in what it tells us about the priorities and power wielded today by the multinationals. Financial self-interest in business is nothing new, nor is it in itself destructive. What is new is the reach and scope of these megacorporations' financial self-interest, and the potential global consequences, in both international and local terms. These consequences will be felt not in boisterous celebrity standoffs between such players as Rupert Murdoch, Michael Eisner, Martin Scorsese and Chris Patten, all of whom have the resources and clout to advance their positions regardless of minor setbacks. Disney and News Corp are moving swiftly ahead in China, yet Tibet remains a cause celebre among movie stars and musicians, while Patten's book, after quickly finding another publisher, certainly sold more copies as a result of the controversy. Rather, the lasting effects, once again, will be in the self-censorship that the media conglomerates are now in a position to seed down through the ranks of their organizations. If news reporters, editors and producers have to take into account their moguls' expansionist agendas when reporting on foreign affairs, why stop at China? Wouldn't coverage of the Indonesian government's genocide in East Timor raise concerns for any multinational doing, or hoping to do, business in populous Indonesia? What if a conglomerate has deals in the works in Nigeria, Colombia or Sudan? This is a long way from the rhetoric following the fall of the Berlin Wall, when the media moguls claimed that their cultural products would carry the torch of freedom to authoritarian regimes. Not only does that mission appear to have been swiftly abandoned in favor of economic self-interest, but it seems that it may be the torch of authoritarianism that is being carried by those most determined to go global.
Copyright Bullies After NATO's 1999 air strikes provoked Serbian "rock rallies" where teens in Chicago Bulls caps defiantly burned the American flag, few would be naive enough to reassert the tired old refrain that MTV and McDonald's are bringing peace and democracy to the world. What was crystallized in those moments when pop culture bridged the wartime divide, however, was that even if there exists no other cultural, political or linguistic common ground, Western media have made good on the promise of introducing the first truly global lexicon of imagery, music and icons. If we agree on nothing else, virtually everyone knows that Michael Jordan is the best basketball player that ever lived.
That may seem a minor achievement compared with the grand "global village" pronouncements made after the collapse of Communism, but it is an accomplishment sufficiently vast to have revolutionized both the making of art and the practicing of politics. Verbal or visual references to sitcoms, movie characters, advertising slogans and corporate logos have become the most effective tool we have to communicate across cultures-an easy and instant "click." The depth of this form of social branding came into sharp focus in March 1999 when a scandal erupted over a popular textbook used in American public schools. The Grade 6 math text was riddled with mentions and photographs of well-known brand-name products: Nike shoes, McDonald's, Gatorade. In one instance, a word problem taught students to calculate diameters by measuring an Oreo cookie. Predictably, parents' groups were furious over this milestone in the commercialization of education; here was a textbook, it seemed, with paid advertorial. But McGraw-Hill, the book's publisher, insisted that the critics had it all wrong. "You're trying to get into what people are familiar with, so they can see, hey, mathematics is in the world out there," Patricia S. Wilson, one of the book's authors, explained. The brand-name references weren't paid advertisements, she said, but an attempt to speak to students with their own references and in their own language-to speak to them, in other words, in brands.18 Nobody is more acutely aware of how enmeshed language and brands have become than the brand managers themselves. Cutting-edge trends in marketing theory encourage companies not to think of their brands as a series of attributes but to look at the psychosocial role they play in pop culture and in consumers' lives. Cultural anthropologist Grant McCracken teaches corporations that to understand their own brands they have to set them free. Products like Kraft Dinner, McCracken argues, take on a life of their own when they leave the store-they become pop-culture icons, vehicles for family bonding, and creatively consumed expressions of individuality.19 The most recent chapter in this school of brand theory comes from Harvard professor Susan Fournier, whose paper, "The Consumer and the Brand: An Understanding within the Framework of Personal Relationships," encourages marketers to use a human-relationship model in conceptualizing the brand's place in society: is it a wife through an arranged marriage? A best friend or a mistress? Do customers "cheat" on their brand or are they loyal? Is the relationship a "casual friendship" or a "master/slave engagement"? As Fournier writes, "this connection is driven not by the image the brand 'contains' in the culture, but by the deep and significant psychological and socio-cultural meanings the consumer bestows on the brand in the process of meaning creation." The most recent chapter in this school of brand theory comes from Harvard professor Susan Fournier, whose paper, "The Consumer and the Brand: An Understanding within the Framework of Personal Relationships," encourages marketers to use a human-relationship model in conceptualizing the brand's place in society: is it a wife through an arranged marriage? A best friend or a mistress? Do customers "cheat" on their brand or are they loyal? Is the relationship a "casual friendship" or a "master/slave engagement"? As Fournier writes, "this connection is driven not by the image the brand 'contains' in the culture, but by the deep and significant psychological and socio-cultural meanings the consumer bestows on the brand in the process of meaning creation."20 So here we are, for better or for worse, having meaningful committed relationships with our toothpaste and co-dependencies on our conditioner. We have almost two centuries' worth of brand-name history under our collective belt, coalescing to create a sort of global pop-cultural Morse code. But there is just one catch: while we may all have the code implanted in our brains, we're not really allowed to use it. In the name of protecting the brand from dilution, artists and activists who try to engage with the brand as equal partners in their "relationships" are routinely dragged into court for violating trademark, copyright, libel or "brand disparagement" laws-easily abused statutes that form an airtight protective seal around the brand, allowing it to brand us, but prohibiting us from so much as scuffing it.
Much of this comes back to synergy. The definition of trademark in U.S. law is "any word, name, symbol, or device, or combination thereof, used...to identify and distinguish goods from those manufactured or sold by others." Many alleged violators of copyright are not trying to sell a comparable good or pass themselves off as the real thing. As branding becomes more expansionist, however, a competitor is anyone doing anything remotely related, because anything remotely related has the potential to be a spin-off at some point in the synergistic future.
And so, when we try to communicate with each other by using the language of brands and logos, we run the very real risk of getting sued. In the U.S., copyright and trademark laws-strengthened by Ronald Reagan in the same piece of 1983 legislation that loosened anti-trust law-are being invoked in ways that have far more to do with brand control than market competition. Of course there are many uses of these laws that are absolutely crucial if artists are to have a hope of making a living, particularly with the growing ease of digital and electronic distribution. Artists need to be protected from outright thievery of their work by competitors and from its use for commercial profit without permission. I do know a few anti-copyright radicals who walk around in "All Copyright Is Theft" and "Information Wants to Be Free" T-shirts, though it seems to me that those positions are more provocative than practical. But what they do serve to highlight, if only rhetorically, is the climate of cultural and linguistic privatization being advanced through outright copyright and trademark harassment.
Copyright and trademark harassment is a massive and growing industry, and though its effects are too sweeping to fully document, here are a few random examples. Dairy Queen bakers won't squirt Bart Simpson onto frozen birthday cakes for fear of a lawsuit from Fox; in 1991, Disney forced a group of New Zealand parents in a remote country town to remove their amateur renditions of Pluto and Donald Duck from a playground mural; and Barney has been breaking up children's birthday parties across the U.S., claiming that any parent caught dressed in a purple dinosaur suit is violating its trademark. The Lyons Group, which owns the Barney character, "has sent 1,000 letters to shop owners" renting or selling the offending costumes. "They can have a dinosaur costume. It's when it's a purple dinosaur that it's illegal, and it doesn't matter what shade of purple, either," says Susan Eisner Furman, Lyons' spokesperson.21 McDonald's, meanwhile, continues busily to harass small shopkeepers and restaurateurs of Scottish descent for that nationality's uncompetitive predisposition toward the Mc prefix on its surnames. The company sued the McAllan's sausage stand in Denmark; the Scottish-themed sandwich shop McMunchies in Buckinghamshire; went after Elizabeth McCaughey's McCoffee shop in the San Francisco Bay Area; and waged a twenty-six-year battle against a man named Ronald McDonald whose McDonald's Family Restaurant in a tiny town in Illinois had been around since 1956.
These types of cases may seem trivial, but the same aggressive ownership rules apply to artists and cultural producers who are attempting to comment on our shared branded world. Increasingly, musicians are sued not only for sampling, but for attempting to sing about a patented common dream. That's what happened to the San Francisco "audio-collage" band Negativland when it called one of its albums U2 U2, and sampled out-takes from Casey Kasem's American Top 40 American Top 40 radio show. It happened, also, to Toronto avant-garde musician John Oswald when he used his "plunderphonics" method to remix Michael Jackson's song "Bad" on a 1989 album that he distributed free. Negativland was sued successfully by U2's label, Island Records, and Jackson's label, CBS Records, sued Oswald for copyright violation. As part of the settlement Oswald had to hand over all the CDs to be destroyed. radio show. It happened, also, to Toronto avant-garde musician John Oswald when he used his "plunderphonics" method to remix Michael Jackson's song "Bad" on a 1989 album that he distributed free. Negativland was sued successfully by U2's label, Island Records, and Jackson's label, CBS Records, sued Oswald for copyright violation. As part of the settlement Oswald had to hand over all the CDs to be destroyed.
Artists will always make art by reconfiguring our shared cultural languages and references, but as those shared experiences shift from firsthand to mediated, and the most powerful political forces in our society are as likely to be multinational corporations as politicians, a new set of issues emerges that once again raises serious questions about out-of-date definitions of freedom of expression in a branded culture. In this context, telling video artists that they can't use old car commercials, or musicians that they can't sample or distort lyrics, is like banning the guitar or telling a painter he can't use red. The underlying message is that culture is something that happens to you. You buy it at the Virgin Megastore or Toys 'R' Us and rent it at Blockbuster Video. It is not something in which you participate, or to which you have the right to respond.
The rules of this one-way dialogue went unchallenged for a long time, mostly because until the eighties, copyright and trademark cases were largely between corporate competitors suing each other for infringing on their market share. Artists like REM, the Clash, Dire Straits and k.d. lang were free to sing about such trademarked products as Orange Crush, Cadillacs, MTV and Chatelaine Chatelaine magazine, respectively. Moreover, the average consumer didn't have the means to cut and click into mass-produced culture and incorporate it into something new of their own-a zine, a High-8 video or an electronic recording. It wasn't until scanners, cheap photocopiers, digital editing machines and computer programs like Photoshop appeared on the market as fairly inexpensive consumer goods that copyright and trademark law became a concern for independent culture-makers assembling their own basement publications, Web sites and recordings. "I think that culture has always cyclically reiterated itself.... Technology makes it possible to have access to and easily manipulate and store information from distant places and times," says audio pirate Steev Hise. "People will do what they can do." magazine, respectively. Moreover, the average consumer didn't have the means to cut and click into mass-produced culture and incorporate it into something new of their own-a zine, a High-8 video or an electronic recording. It wasn't until scanners, cheap photocopiers, digital editing machines and computer programs like Photoshop appeared on the market as fairly inexpensive consumer goods that copyright and trademark law became a concern for independent culture-makers assembling their own basement publications, Web sites and recordings. "I think that culture has always cyclically reiterated itself.... Technology makes it possible to have access to and easily manipulate and store information from distant places and times," says audio pirate Steev Hise. "People will do what they can do."22 Doing what he could do is what produced John Oswald's plunderphonics method. As Oswald explains, it grew out of the fact that he had access to technology that enabled him to listen to records at different speeds. "I was doing a kind of manipulative listening in fairly complex ways, and as my interactive listening habits grew more complex, I began to think of ways to preserve them for other people to hear."23 What most bothers Oswald and other artists like him is not that their work is illegal-it's that it is illegal only for some artists. When Beck, a major-label artist, makes an album parked with hundreds of samples, Warner Music clears the rights to each and every piece of the audio collage and the work is lauded for capturing the media-saturated, multi-referenced sounds of our age. But when independent artists do the same thing, trying to cut and paste together art from their branded lives and make good on some of the info-age hype about DIY culture, it's criminalized-defined as theft, not art. This was the point made by the musicians on the 1998 Deconstructing Beck Deconstructing Beck underground CD, produced entirely by electronically recontextualizing Beck's already recontextualized sounds. Their point was simple: if Beck could do it, why shouldn't they? Right on cue, Beck's label sent out threatening lawyers' letters that quieted down abruptly when the musicians made it clear that they were gunning for a media fight. Their point, however, had been made: the prevailing formula for copyright and trademark enforcement is a turf war over who is going to get to make art with the new technologies. And it seems that if you're not on the team of a company large enough to control a significant part of the playing field, and can't afford your very own team of lawyers, you don't get to play. underground CD, produced entirely by electronically recontextualizing Beck's already recontextualized sounds. Their point was simple: if Beck could do it, why shouldn't they? Right on cue, Beck's label sent out threatening lawyers' letters that quieted down abruptly when the musicians made it clear that they were gunning for a media fight. Their point, however, had been made: the prevailing formula for copyright and trademark enforcement is a turf war over who is going to get to make art with the new technologies. And it seems that if you're not on the team of a company large enough to control a significant part of the playing field, and can't afford your very own team of lawyers, you don't get to play.
This is the lesson, it would seem, of Mattel's copyright suit against the Danish pop band Aqua and its label MCA. Mattel charged that the band's hit song "Barbie Girl"-which contains lyrics like "Kiss me here, touch there, hanky panky"-wrongfully sexualizes its wholesome blonde. Mattel went to court in September 1997 charging Aqua with trademark infringement and unfair competition. The toy manufacturer asked for damages and for the album to be removed from stores and destroyed. Aqua won the dispute but not because its case was any stronger than Negativland's or John Oswald's (it might have been weaker) but rather because, unlike these independent musicians, Aqua had behind it MCA's team of lawyers, willing to fight tooth and nail to make sure the hit single was allowed to stay on the charts and the shelves. It was, like Jordan versus Nike, a battle of the brands.
Although the music itself is pure cotton candy, the Aqua case is worth considering because it pushed the envelope on copyright bullying, introducing the idea that musicians must now be wary not only of direct sampling but of so much as mentioning any trademarked products. It also highlighted the uncomfortable tension between the expansive logic of branding-the corporate desire for full cultural integration-and the petty logic of these legal crusades. Who if not Barbie is as much cultural symbol as product? Barbie, after all, is the archetypal space invader, a cultural imperialist in pink. She is the one who paints entire towns fuchsia to celebrate "Barbie Month." She is the Zen mistress who for the past four decades has insisted on being everything to young girls-doctor, bimbo, teenager, career girl, Unicef ambassador....
The people at Mattel weren't interested in talking about Barbie the cultural icon when they launched the Aqua suit, however. "This is a business issue, not a freedom of speech issue," a Mattel spokesperson told Billboard Billboard. "This is a $2 billion company, and we don't want it messed around with, and situations like this gradually lead to brand erosion."24 Barbie is a for-profit enterprise, it's true. And brands such as Barbie, Aspirin, Kleenex, Coca-Cola and Hoover have always walked a fine line between wanting to be ubiqu tous but not wanting to become so closely associated with a product category that the brand name itself becomes generic-as easily invoked to sell a competing brand as their own. Barbie is a for-profit enterprise, it's true. And brands such as Barbie, Aspirin, Kleenex, Coca-Cola and Hoover have always walked a fine line between wanting to be ubiqu tous but not wanting to become so closely associated with a product category that the brand name itself becomes generic-as easily invoked to sell a competing brand as their own.
But while this fight against erosion seems reasonable in the context of brands competing with each other, it's a different matter when looked at through the lens of aggressive lifestyle branding-and from that perspective, a re-examination of the public's right to respond to these "private" images seems urgently required. Mattel, for instance, has reaped huge profits by encouraging young girls to build elaborate dream lives around their doll, but it still wants that relationship to be a monologue. The toy company, which boasts of having "as many as 100 different [trademark] investigations going on at any time throughout the world,"25 is almost comically aggressive in protecting this formula. Among other feats, its lawyers have shut down a riot girl zine called is almost comically aggressive in protecting this formula. Among other feats, its lawyers have shut down a riot girl zine called Hey There, Barbie Girl! Hey There, Barbie Girl! and successfully blocked the distribution of Todd Haynes's documentary and successfully blocked the distribution of Todd Haynes's documentary Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, a reenactment of the life of the anorexic pop star using Barbies as puppets (legal pressure also came from Carpenter's family).
It seems fitting that Aqua member Sren Rasted says he got the idea for the song "Barbie Girl" after visiting "an art-museum exhibition for kids on Barbie."26 In an effort to have its star doll inaugurated as a cultural artifact, Mattel has in recent years been mounting traveling exhibits of old Barbies, which claim to tell the history of America through "America's favorite doll." Some of these shows are put on directly by Mattel, others by private collectors working closely with the company, a relationship that ensures that unpleasant chapters in Barbie's history-the feminist backlash against the doll, say, or Barbie the cigarette model-are mysteriously absent. There is no question that Barbie, like a handful of other classic brands, is an icon and artifact in addition to being a children's toy. But Mattel-and Coca-Cola, Disney, Levi's and the other brands that have launched similar self-curatorial projects-wants to be treated as an important pop-culture artifact at the same time as it seeks to maintain complete proprietary control over its historical and cultural legacy. It's a process that ultimately gags cultural criticism, using copyright and trademark laws as effective tools to silence all unwanted attention. The editors of In an effort to have its star doll inaugurated as a cultural artifact, Mattel has in recent years been mounting traveling exhibits of old Barbies, which claim to tell the history of America through "America's favorite doll." Some of these shows are put on directly by Mattel, others by private collectors working closely with the company, a relationship that ensures that unpleasant chapters in Barbie's history-the feminist backlash against the doll, say, or Barbie the cigarette model-are mysteriously absent. There is no question that Barbie, like a handful of other classic brands, is an icon and artifact in addition to being a children's toy. But Mattel-and Coca-Cola, Disney, Levi's and the other brands that have launched similar self-curatorial projects-wants to be treated as an important pop-culture artifact at the same time as it seeks to maintain complete proprietary control over its historical and cultural legacy. It's a process that ultimately gags cultural criticism, using copyright and trademark laws as effective tools to silence all unwanted attention. The editors of Miller's Miller's, a magazine for Barbie collectors, are convinced that Mattel targeted them with a copyright suit because, unlike the uncritical collectors mounting Barbie art shows, the publication criticized Mattel's high prices and ran old photographs of Barbie posing with packs of Virginia Slims cigarettes. Mattel is by no means unique in its employment of this strategy. Kmart, for instance, shut down the Kmart Sucks Web site mounted by a disgruntled employee, not by using libel or defamation law, which would have required that the chain prove the allegations were false, but by suing for unauthorized use of its trademark K.
When copyright or trademark law can't be invoked to prevent an unwanted brand portrayal, many corporations do rely on libel and defamation law to keep their practices from being debated in the public realm. The high-profile "McLibel" case in Britain, in which the fast-food chain sued two environmentalists for libel, was one such attempt. (The issue will be discussed in detail in Chapter 16.) Regardless of which legal tactic they choose, the impossibly contradictory message sent out by the producers of these iconic products is the same: we want our brands to be the air you breathe in-but don't dare exhale.
The more corporations like Mattel and McDonald's succeed in their goal of building self-enclosed branded worlds, the more culturally asphyxiating that demand may become. Copyright and trademark laws are perfectly justifiable if the brand in question is just a brand, but increasingly that's like saying that Wal-Mart is just a store. The brand in question may well represent a corporation with a budget larger than that of many countries, and a logo that is among the world's most transcendent symbols, one that has aggressively sought to replace the role played by art and media. When we lack the ability to talk back to entities that are culturally and politically powerful, the very foundations of free speech and democratic society are called into question.
Privatizing the Town Square There is an unavoidable parallel between the privatization of language and cultural discourse occurring through copyright and trademark bullying, and the privatization of public space taking place through the proliferation of superstores, theme-park malls and branded villages like Celebration, Florida. Just as privately owned words and images are being adopted as a de facto international shorthand, so too are private branded enclaves becoming de facto town squares-once again, with troubling implications for civil liberties.
The conflation of shopping and entertainment found at the superstores and theme-park malls has created a vast gray area of pseudo-public private space. Politicians, police, social workers and even religious leaders all recognize that malls have become the modern town square. But unlike the old town squares, which were and still are sites for community discussion, protests and political rallies, the only type of speech that is welcome here is marketing and other consumer patter. Peaceful protestors are routinely thrown out by mall security guards for interfering with shopping, and even picket lines are illegal inside these enclosures. The town-square concept has recently been picked up by the superstores, many of which now claim that they too are providing public space. "Essentially, we want people to use the store as a meeting place. A place where people can get their fix of pop culture and hang out for a while. It's not just a place to shop, it's a place to be," said Christos Garkinos, vice president of marketing for the Virgin Entertainment Group, on the occasion of the opening of Vancouver's 40,000-square-foot Virgin Megastore.27 The building in which Virgin set up shop previously housed the public library, an apt metaphor for the way brand expansion is altering the way we congregate, not just as shoppers but as citizens. Barnes & Noble describes its superstores as "a center for cultural events and gatherings," and some of these stores, particularly in the United States, do play the part well, housing everything from pop concerts to poetry readings.28 Book superstores, with their plush chairs, faux fireplaces, book clubs and coffee bars, have slowly come to replace libraries and university lecture halls as locales of choice for author readings on the book-tour circuit. But, as with the ban on protests in malls, a different set of rules applies in these quasi-public spaces. For example, when promoting his book, Book superstores, with their plush chairs, faux fireplaces, book clubs and coffee bars, have slowly come to replace libraries and university lecture halls as locales of choice for author readings on the book-tour circuit. But, as with the ban on protests in malls, a different set of rules applies in these quasi-public spaces. For example, when promoting his book, Downsize This! Downsize This!, filmmaker Michael Moore was confronted with a picket line outside a Philadelphia outlet of Borders bookstore, where he was scheduled to read. He told the store he wouldn't go in unless the striking employees were allowed inside and given some time at the microphone. The manager complied, but Moore's future Borders readings were canceled. "I couldn't believe I was being censored in a bookstore," Moore wrote of the incident.29 As good as the superstores are at dressing up like town halls, no one mimics public space like America Online, the virtual community of chat rooms, message boards and discussion groups where there are no customers-only netizens. But AOL subscribers have, in the past two years, learned some harsh lessons about their virtual community and the limits on the rights of its citizens. AOL, though part of the publicly owned Internet, is a sort of privatized mini-Net inside the larger Web. The company collects the toll on the way in and, like mall security guards, it can set the rules while customers are inside its domain. That was the message that echoed through the virtual commons when AOL's so-called Community Action Team began deleting messages from discussion groups deemed harassing, profane, embarrassing or just "unwanted." In addition to screening messages, the team also has the right to forbid virtual sparring partners from ever trading messages again and to suspend or expel repeat offenders from the service and from access to their own E-mail accounts. Some lists-like a particularly heated one on Irish politics-have been shut down for extended "cooling-off" periods.
The company's rationale is strikingly similar to Wal-Mart's shelving policy (and Blockbuster's video rental policy). Katherine Boursecnik, AOL's vice president for network programming, told The New York Times The New York Times, "We are a service that prides ourselves on having a wide-ranging appeal to a wide range of individuals. But at the same time we're also a family service."30 While few contest that on-line discussion is a breeding ground for all sorts of antisocial behavior (from chronic overposting to sexual harassment), the sheer power that the company has to regulate the tone and content of online discourse has raised the specter of the "AOL Thought Police." While few contest that on-line discussion is a breeding ground for all sorts of antisocial behavior (from chronic overposting to sexual harassment), the sheer power that the company has to regulate the tone and content of online discourse has raised the specter of the "AOL Thought Police."31 The issue, as with Wal-Mart, is AOL's commanding market share: in mid-1999 it had 15 million subscribers-43 percent of the U.S. Internet service market. Its closest competitor, Microsoft, had only 6.4 percent. The issue, as with Wal-Mart, is AOL's commanding market share: in mid-1999 it had 15 million subscribers-43 percent of the U.S. Internet service market. Its closest competitor, Microsoft, had only 6.4 percent.32 Complicating matters further, Internet discussion is a hybrid medium, falling somewhere between making a personal telephone call and watching cable television. So while its subscribers may view AOL as a phone company, with no more right to intercept their communications than AT&T has to disconnect unsavory phone discussions, the company has another view entirely. "Virtual community" babble aside, AOL is, above all, a branded media empire over which it exercises as much control as Disney does over the fence colors in Celebration, Florida.
It seems that no matter how successfully the private sphere emulates or even enhances the look and feel of public space, the restrictive tendencies of privatization have a way of peeking through. And the same applies not only to corporate-owned space, like AOL or Virgin Megastores, but even to publicly owned space that is sponsored or branded. That point was graphically made in Toronto in 1997 when antitobacco activists were forcibly removed from the open-air du Maurier Downtown Jazz Festival, just as student protestors had been removed from the du Maurier Tennis Open on their campus. The irony was that the festival happened to be taking place in the city's actual town square-Nathan Phillips Square, just in front of Toronto City Hall. The protestors learned that while the square may be as public a space as one can find, it becomes, during jazz festival week, the property of the tobacco sponsor. No critical material was permitted on the premises.
When any space is bought, even if only temporarily, it changes to fit its sponsors. And the more previously public spaces are sold to corporations or branded by them, the more we as citizens are forced to play by corporate rules to access our own culture. Does this mean that free speech is dead? Of course not, but it does call to mind Noam Chomsky's view that "freedom without opportunity is a devil's gift."33 In a context of media and marketing overload, meaningful opportunities to express our freedom-at levels loud enough to break through the barrage of commercial sound effects and disturb the corporate landlords-are disappearing fast around us. Yes, dissenting voices have their Web pages, zines, posters, picket signs and independent newspapers, as well as plenty of cracks in the corporate armor to exploit-and as we will see in Part IV, they are exploiting them as never before. But when corporate speech is increasingly expressed in multiplatform synergy and in ever more extraordinary displays of branded "meaning," popular speech comes to look like the tiny independent retailer next to the superstore. As consumer advocate Ralph Nader puts it: "There is a decibel-level quality to the exercise of our first amendment rights." In a context of media and marketing overload, meaningful opportunities to express our freedom-at levels loud enough to break through the barrage of commercial sound effects and disturb the corporate landlords-are disappearing fast around us. Yes, dissenting voices have their Web pages, zines, posters, picket signs and independent newspapers, as well as plenty of cracks in the corporate armor to exploit-and as we will see in Part IV, they are exploiting them as never before. But when corporate speech is increasingly expressed in multiplatform synergy and in ever more extraordinary displays of branded "meaning," popular speech comes to look like the tiny independent retailer next to the superstore. As consumer advocate Ralph Nader puts it: "There is a decibel-level quality to the exercise of our first amendment rights."34 Perhaps the most disturbing manifestation of corporate censorship takes place when the space that is sold is not a place but a person. As we have seen, the high-stakes sponsorship agreements in the sports world first exerted their influence by deciding what logo athletes wore and what teams they played on. Now that control has expanded to what political views they may hold publicly. Daring political stands like Muhammad Ali's opposition to the Vietnam War have long since been replaced by the soft-drink radicalism of NBA cross-dresser Dennis Rodman, as sponsors push their athletes to be little more than billboards with attitude. As Michael Jordan once commented, "Republicans buy sneakers too."
Canadian sprinter Donovan Bailey learned that lesson the hard way. Days before he won the Olympic race that would make him the fastest man alive, Bailey came under attack for telling Sports Illustrated Sports Illustrated that Canadian society "is as blatantly racist as the United States." Adidas, horrified that its branded property would risk alienating so many white sneaker buyers with such an unpopular opinion, rushed in to shut Bailey up. Adidas vice president Doug Hayes told that Canadian society "is as blatantly racist as the United States." Adidas, horrified that its branded property would risk alienating so many white sneaker buyers with such an unpopular opinion, rushed in to shut Bailey up. Adidas vice president Doug Hayes told The Globe and Mail The Globe and Mail that the comments "have nothing to do with Donovan the athlete or the Donovan we know" that the comments "have nothing to do with Donovan the athlete or the Donovan we know"35-seemingly attributing the views to a fictional alter-athlete who had possessed Bailey temporarily.
A similar case of branding censorship involved British soccer star Robbie Fowler. After the twenty-one-year-old scored the second goal against the Norwegian team Brann Bergen in March 1997, Fowler turned to the crowd, pulled up his official jersey, and revealed a red political T-shirt: "500 Liverpool dockers sacked since 1995," the shirt said. The dockers have been on strike for years, fighting hundreds of layoffs and the shift to contract work. Fowler, a Liverpool boy himself, decided to publicize the cause when the world was watching. Ingenuously he commented: "I thought it would be just a simple statement."36 He was, of course, mistaken. The Liverpool Football Club, which collects the toll on the branded messages that appear on the players' official jerseys, raced in to stem any copycat actions. "We will be pointing out to all our players that comments on matters outside football are not acceptable on the field of play," the club said in a hastily issued statement.37 And just to make extra sure that the only message on the athletes' shirts would be from Umbro or Adidas, the European football governing body UEFA followed up by slapping Fowler with a fine of 2,000 Swiss francs. And just to make extra sure that the only message on the athletes' shirts would be from Umbro or Adidas, the European football governing body UEFA followed up by slapping Fowler with a fine of 2,000 Swiss francs.
There was yet another twist in this branded tale. The shirt Fowler revealed didn't bear just any political slogan, it was also an ad bust: in a not-so-subtle subversion of a ubiquitous brand, the letters "c" and "k" in the word "dockers" had been enlarged and designed to look like Calvin Klein's logo: do CK CKers. When photographs of the T-shirt were splashed all over British newspapers, the designer threatened to sue for trademark violation.
When piled on together, such examples give a picture of corporate space as a fascist state where we all salute the logo and have little opportunity for criticism because our newspapers, television stations, Internet servers, streets and retail spaces are all controlled by multinational corporate interests. And considering the speed with which these trends are developing, we clearly have good reason for alarm. But a word of caution: we may be able to see a not-so-brave new world on the horizon, but that doesn't mean we are already living in Huxley's nightmare.
In drawing up octopus-like charts of corporate ownership structures and quoting CEOs on their dreams of world domination, we may easily lose sight of the fact that censorship is not nearly as absolute as many a newly converted Noam Chomsky acolyte might like to believe. Instead of an airtight formula, it is a steady trend, clearly intensified by synergy and the mounting stakes of brand-name protection, but riddled with exceptions. It's true, for example, that Viacom is coating the world in bubble gum through its Blockbuster and MTV holdings, but Viacom-owned Simon & Schuster has published some of the best critiques of unregulated economic globalization: Richard J. Barnet and John Cavanagh's Global Dreams Global Dreams and William Greider's and William Greider's One World, Ready or Not One World, Ready or Not, among others. NBC and Fox did, however briefly, run Michael Moore's series TV Nation TV Nation, which gleefully went after advertisers and even targeted NBC's parent company, General Electric. And while Disney's purchase of Miramax inspired dark foreboding about the future of independent film, it was Miramax that distributed Moore's anticorporate documentary The Big One The Big One-a film based on his similarly critical book, published by Random House, now owned by Bertelsmann. As, I hope, the book you are holding helps to prove, there is clearly still room for corporate critiques within the media giants.
In a sense, the shift that is taking place is at once less totalitarian and more dangerous. We haven't lost the possibility for non-synergistic art, and serious critical work has a greater potential to reach wide audiences at this time than ever before in the history of art and culture. But we are losing the spaces in which the noncorporate-minded can flourish-those spaces are there, but they are shrinking as the captains of the culture industry become more enraptured by the dream of global cross-promotions. Much of this is a matter of simple economics: there are limited numbers of movies, books, magazine articles and programming hours that can be economically produced, published, broadcast, etc., and the window for the ones that don't fit into the reigning corporate strategy narrows with every merger and consolidation.
There is a chance, however, that the current mania for synergy will collapse under the weight of its unfulfilled promises. Already, Blockbuster has become a dead weight around Viacom's debt-ridden neck. The stock-market analysts blame "the quality of products coming through its stores"38-and it probably doesn't help that the chain has had to devote entire wings of its stores to showcasing some thirty-four copies of Kevin Kline's unwatchable In & Out In & Out (or some other Paramount flop) because the folks at Viacom were determined to make back some of the millions they lost in theaters. And after its "eatertainment" outlets hemorrhaged money for two years, Planet Hollywood announced in August 1999 that it would file for bankruptcy protection. Another synergy scheme that looked foolproof on paper was the 1998 release of (or some other Paramount flop) because the folks at Viacom were determined to make back some of the millions they lost in theaters. And after its "eatertainment" outlets hemorrhaged money for two years, Planet Hollywood announced in August 1999 that it would file for bankruptcy protection. Another synergy scheme that looked foolproof on paper was the 1998 release of Godzilla Godzilla. Sony thought it had its blockbuster status sewn up: it had a Madison Square Garden premiere, a made-for-Toys 'R' Us star, a $60 million marketing budget orchestrating a year-long "teaser" campaign, and a heavy-handed legal team cracking down on all unwanted publicity on the Internet. Most important, thanks to Sony's newly consolidated movie theater holdings, the movie played on more screens than any film ever before: on launch day, 20 percent of all U.S. movie theater screens were playing Godzilla Godzilla. Yet none of this could compensate for the simple fact that nearly everyone who saw Godzilla Godzilla warned their friends to stay away, and they did, in droves. warned their friends to stay away, and they did, in droves.39 Even branding evangelist Tom Peters acknowledges that there is such a thing as too much brand, and impossible though it is to predict when we will reach that point, when we pass it, it will be unmistakable. "How much is enough?" asks Peters. "Nobody knows for sure. It's pure art. Leverage is good. Too much leverage is bad."40 MTV founder Tom Freston, the man who made marketing history by turning a television station into a brand, admitted in June 1998 that "you can beat a brand to death." MTV founder Tom Freston, the man who made marketing history by turning a television station into a brand, admitted in June 1998 that "you can beat a brand to death."41 Indeed, by early 1998, Wall Street was declaring the unthinkable: Nike had outswooshed itself; its ubiquity had ceased to be a branding success story and had become a liability. "Nike's biggest challenge is itself. They need to come up with another identity that they can still say, 'This is Nike,' but it's something beyond the swoosh," Josie Esquivel, a stock analyst with Morgan Stanley told The New York Times The New York Times.42 Nike has attempted to respond to this challenge, as we shall see. But if such a backlash is possible against a single brand, then perhaps it's conceivable that a similar phenomenon can apply equally to the act of branding as a whole: that after a certain amount of branding mania is stamped on a culture, those of us who have been branded-by Nike, Wal-Mart, Hilfiger, Microsoft, Disney, Starbucks, et al et al.-will begin to turn not just against these specific logos, but also against the control that corporate power as a whole exerts over our spaces and choices. Maybe there is a moment when the idea of branding reaches a saturation point and the backlash is directed not at a product that suddenly finds itself on the wrong side of a fad but at the multinationals behind the brands.
There is some evidence that this process is already under way. As we will see in Part IV, "No Logo," communities around the world, and at various generational levels, are no longer being blinded by the brands' shiny promises of newness and of endless selection. Instead of swinging open their doors, they are organizing at community levels to block the arrival of big-box retailers; they are participating in street-level campaigns against Nike's Third World labor practices and Shell Oil's human-rights record. They are launching movements, like Britain's Reclaim the Streets, to regain some fleeting public control over public space; and they are supporting anti-trust actions against companies such as Microsoft. Given the relative suddenness of the backlash, this wave of anticorporate hostility is understandably taking its targets by surprise. "A few months ago, everyone I met seemed to think that working for Microsoft was a pretty cool thing to do. Now, strangers treat us like we work for Philip Morris," wrote Slate Slate columnist Jacob Weisberg. The bewildered sentiment is shared by multinational employees across many sectors. "I don't know how we are offending people," said Starbucks regional marketing director Donna Peterson in May 1999. "But sometimes it seems we are." columnist Jacob Weisberg. The bewildered sentiment is shared by multinational employees across many sectors. "I don't know how we are offending people," said Starbucks regional marketing director Donna Peterson in May 1999. "But sometimes it seems we are."43 And Royal Dutch/Shell head Mark Moody-Stuart told And Royal Dutch/Shell head Mark Moody-Stuart told Fortune Fortune magazine, "Previously, if you went to your golf club or church and said, 'I work for Shell,' you'd get a warm glow. In some parts of the world that changed a bit." And (as we will see in the examination of the Shell boycott in Chapter 16), that in itself is a bit of an understatement. magazine, "Previously, if you went to your golf club or church and said, 'I work for Shell,' you'd get a warm glow. In some parts of the world that changed a bit." And (as we will see in the examination of the Shell boycott in Chapter 16), that in itself is a bit of an understatement.
Mounting disillusionment in the face of the forces described here in "No Space" and "No Choice" is not, however, sufficiently widespread or deep to spark a genuine backlash against the power of the brands. In all likelihood, resentment at invasive advertising, the corporate takeover of public space, and monopolistic business practices would have festered as little more than run-of-the-mill cynicism had many of the same companies gobbling up both space and choice not decided simultaneously to bankroll their innovative branding forays by slashing jobs. It is this essential economic, human concern that has been a major force in contributing to the rise in anticorporate activism: No Good Jobs.
No Jobs
Chapter Nine.
The Discarded Factory Degraded Production in the Age of the Superbrand Our strategic plan in North America is to focus intensely on brand management, marketing and product design as a means to meet the casual clothing wants and needs of consumers. Shifting a significant portion of our manufacturing from the U.S. and Canadian markets to contractors throughout the world will give the company greater flexibility to allocate resources and capital to its brands. These steps are crucial if we are to remain competitive.
-John Ermatinger, president of Levi Strauss Americas division, explains the company's decision to shut down twenty-two plants and lay off 13,000 North American workers between November 1997 and February 1999 Many brand-name multinationals, as we have seen, are in the process of transcending the need to identify with their earthbound products. They dream instead about their brands' deep inner meanings-the way they capture the spirit of individuality, athleticism, wilderness or community. In this context of strut over stuff, marketing departments charged with the managing of brand identities have begun to see their work as something that occurs not in conjunction with factory production but in direct competition with it. "Products are made in the factory," says Walter Landor, president of the Landor branding agency, "but brands are made in the mind."1 Peter Schweitzer, president of the advertising giant J. Walter Thompson, reiterates the same thought: "The difference between products and brands is fundamental. A product is something that is made in a factory; a brand is something that is bought by a customer." Peter Schweitzer, president of the advertising giant J. Walter Thompson, reiterates the same thought: "The difference between products and brands is fundamental. A product is something that is made in a factory; a brand is something that is bought by a customer."2 Savvy ad agencies have all moved away from the idea that they are flogging a product made by someone else, and have come to think of themselves instead as brand factories, hammering out what is of true value: the idea, the lifestyle, the attitude. Brand builders are the new primary producers in our so-called knowledge economy. Savvy ad agencies have all moved away from the idea that they are flogging a product made by someone else, and have come to think of themselves instead as brand factories, hammering out what is of true value: the idea, the lifestyle, the attitude. Brand builders are the new primary producers in our so-called knowledge economy.
This novel idea has done more than bring us cutting-edge ad campaigns, ecclesiastic superstores and utopian corporate campuses. It is changing the very face of global employment. After establishing the "soul" of their corporations, the superbrand companies have gone on to rid themselves of their cumbersome bodies, and there is nothing that seems more cumbersome, more loathsomely corporeal, than the factories that produce their products. The reason for this shift is simple: building a superbrand is an extraordinarily costly project, needing constant managing, tending and replenishing. Most of all, superbrands need lots of space on which to stamp their logos. For a business to be cost-effective, however, there is a finite amount of money it can spend on all of its expenses-materials, manufacturing, overhead and and branding-before retail prices on its products shoot up too high. After the multimillion-dollar sponsorships have been signed, and the cool hunters and marketing mavens have received their checks, there may not be all that much money left over. So it becomes, as always, a matter of priorities; but those priorities are changing. As Hector Liang, former chairman of United Biscuits, has explained: "Machines wear out. Cars rust. People die. But what lives on are the brands." branding-before retail prices on its products shoot up too high. After the multimillion-dollar sponsorships have been signed, and the cool hunters and marketing mavens have received their checks, there may not be all that much money left over. So it becomes, as always, a matter of priorities; but those priorities are changing. As Hector Liang, former chairman of United Biscuits, has explained: "Machines wear out. Cars rust. People die. But what lives on are the brands."3 According to this logic, corporations should not expend their finite resources on factories that will demand physical upkeep, on machines that will corrode or on employees who will certainly age and die. Instead, they should concentrate those resources in the virtual brick and mortar used to build their brands; that is, on sponsorships, packaging, expansion and advertising. They should also spend them on synergies: on buying up distribution and retail channels to get their brands to the people.
This slow but decisive shift in corporate priorities has left yesterday's nonvirtual producers-the factory workers and craftspeople-in a precarious position. The lavish spending in the 1990s on marketing, mergers and brand extensions has been matched by a never-before-seen resistance to investing in production facilities and labor. Companies that were traditionally satisfied with a 100 percent markup between the cost of factory production and the retail price have been scouring the globe for factories that can make their products so inexpensively that the markup is closer to 400 percent.4 And as a 1997 UN report notes, even in countries where wages were already low, labor costs are getting a shrinking slice of corporate budgets. "In four developing countries out of five, the share of wages in manufacturing value-added today is considerably below what it was in the 1970s and early 1980s." And as a 1997 UN report notes, even in countries where wages were already low, labor costs are getting a shrinking slice of corporate budgets. "In four developing countries out of five, the share of wages in manufacturing value-added today is considerably below what it was in the 1970s and early 1980s."5 The timing of these trends reflects not only branding's status as the perceived economic cure-all, but also a corresponding devaluation of the production process and of producers in general. Branding, in other words, has been hogging all the "value-added." The timing of these trends reflects not only branding's status as the perceived economic cure-all, but also a corresponding devaluation of the production process and of producers in general. Branding, in other words, has been hogging all the "value-added."
When the actual manufacturing process is so devalued, it stands to reason that the people doing the work of production are likely to be treated like detritus-the stuff left behind. The idea has a certain symmetry: ever since mass production created the need for branding in the first place, its role has slowly been expanding in importance until, more than a century and a half after the Industrial Revolution, it occurred to these companies that maybe branding could replace production entirely. As tennis pro Andre Agassi said in a 1992 Canon camera commercial, "Image is everything."
Agassi may have been pitching for Canon at the time but he is first and foremost a member of Team Nike, the company that pioneered the business philosophy of no-limits spending on branding, coupled with a near-total divestment of the contract workers that make its shoes in tucked-away factories. As Phil Knight has said, "There is no value in making things any more. The value is added by careful research, by innovation and by marketing."6 For Phil Knight, production is not the building block of his branded empire, but is instead a tedious, marginal chore. For Phil Knight, production is not the building block of his branded empire, but is instead a tedious, marginal chore.
Which is why many companies now bypass production completely. Instead of making the products themselves, in their own factories, they "source" them, much as corporations in the natural-resource industries source uranium, copper or logs. They close existing factories, shifting to contracted-out, mostly offshore, manufacturing. And as the old jobs fly offshore, something else is flying away with them: the old-fashioned idea that a manufacturer is responsible for its own workforce. Disney spokesman Ken Green gave an indication of the depth of this shift when he became publicly frustrated that his company was being taken to task for the desperate conditions in a Haitian factory that produces Disney clothes. "We don't employ anyone in Haiti," he said, referring to the fact that the factory is owned by a contractor. "With the newsprint you use, do you have any idea of the labour conditions involved to produce it?" Green demanded of Cathy Majtenyi of the Catholic Register Catholic Register.7 From El Paso to Beijing, San Francisco to Jakarta, Munich to Tijuana, the global brands are sloughing the responsibility of production onto their contractors; they just tell them to make the damn thing, and make it cheap, so there's lots of money left over for branding. Make it really really cheap. cheap.
Exporting the Nike Model Nike, which began as an import/export scheme of made-in-Japan running shoes and does not own any of its factories, has become a prototype for the product-free brand. Inspired by the swoosh's staggering success, many more traditionally run companies ("vertically integrated," as the phrase goes) are busy imitating Nike's model, not only copying the company's marketing approach, as we saw in "No Space," but also its on-the-cheap outsourced production structure. In the mid-nineties, for instance, the Vans running-shoe company pulled up stakes in the old-fashioned realm of manufacturing and converted to the Nike way. In a prospectus for an initial public stock offering, the company lays out how it "recently repositioned itself from a domestic manufacturer to a market-driven company" by sponsoring hundreds of athletes as well as high-profile extreme sporting events such as the Vans Warped Tour. The company's "expenditure of significant funds to create consumer demand" was financed by closing an existing factory in California and contracting production in South Korea to "third party manufacturers."8 Adidas followed a similar trajectory, turning over its operation in 1993 to Robert Louis-Dreyfus, formerly a chief executive at advertising giant Saatchi & Saatchi. Announcing that he wanted to capture the heart of the "global teenager," Louis-Dreyfus promptly shut down the company-owned factories in Germany, and moved to contracting-out in Asia.9 Freed from the chains of production, the company had newfound time and money to create a Nike-style brand image. "We closed down everything," Adidas spokesperson Peter Csanadi says proudly. "We only kept one small factory which is our global technology centre and makes about 1 percent of total output." Freed from the chains of production, the company had newfound time and money to create a Nike-style brand image. "We closed down everything," Adidas spokesperson Peter Csanadi says proudly. "We only kept one small factory which is our global technology centre and makes about 1 percent of total output."10 (see (see Table 9.1 Table 9.1) Though they don't draw the headlines they once did, more factory closures are announced in North America and Europe each week-45,000 U.S. apparel workers lost their jobs in 1997 alone.11 That sector's job-flight patterns have been equally dramatic around the globe. (see That sector's job-flight patterns have been equally dramatic around the globe. (see Table 9.2 Table 9.2) Though plant closures themselves have barely slowed down since the darkest days of the late-eighties/early-nineties recession, there has been a marked shift in the reason given for these "reorganizations." Mass layoffs were previously presented as an unfortunate necessity, tied to disappointing company performance. Today they are simply savvy shifts in corporate strategy, a "strategic redirection," to use the Vans term. More and more, these layoffs are announced in conjunction with pledges to increase revenue through advertising spending, with executives vowing to refocus on the needs of their brands, as opposed to the needs of their workers.
Consider the case of Sara Lee Corp., an old-style conglomerate that encompasses not only its frozen-food namesake but also such "unintegrated" brands as Hanes underwear, Wonderbra, Coach leather goods, Champion sports apparel, Kiwi shoe polish and Ball Park Franks. Despite the fact that Sara Lee enjoyed solid growth, healthy profits, good stock return and no debt, by the mid-nineties Wall Street had become disenchanted with the company and was undervaluing its stock. Its profits had risen 10 percent in the 199697 fiscal year, hitting $1 billion, but Wall Street, as we have seen, is guided by spiritual goals as well as economic ones.12 And Sara Lee, driven by the corporeal stuff of real-world products, as opposed to the sleek ideas of brand identity, was simply out of economic fashion. "Lumpy-object purveyors," as Tom Peters might say. And Sara Lee, driven by the corporeal stuff of real-world products, as opposed to the sleek ideas of brand identity, was simply out of economic fashion. "Lumpy-object purveyors," as Tom Peters might say.13 To correct the situation, in September 1997 the company announced a $1.6 billion restructuring plan to get out of the "stuff" business by purging its manufacturing base. Thirteen of its factories, beginning with yarn and textile plants, would be sold to contractors who would become Sara Lee's suppliers. The company would be able to dip into the money saved to double its ad spending. "It's passe for us to be as vertically integrated as we were," explained Sara Lee CEO John H. Bryan.14 Wall Street and the business press loved the new marketing-driven Sara Lee, rewarding the company with a 15 percent jump in stock price and flattering profiles of its bold and imaginative CEO. "Bryan's shift away from manufacturing to focus on brand marketing recognizes that the future belongs to companies-like Coca-Cola Co.-that own little but sell much," enthused one article in Wall Street and the business press loved the new marketing-driven Sara Lee, rewarding the company with a 15 percent jump in stock price and flattering profiles of its bold and imaginative CEO. "Bryan's shift away from manufacturing to focus on brand marketing recognizes that the future belongs to companies-like Coca-Cola Co.-that own little but sell much," enthused one article in Business Week Business Week.15 Even more telling was the analogy chosen by Even more telling was the analogy chosen by Crain's Chicago Business Crain's Chicago Business: "Sara Lee's goal is to become more like Oregon-based Nike Inc., which outsources its manufacturing and focuses primarily on product development and brand management."16 In November 1997, Levi Strauss announced a similarly motivated shake-up. Company revenue had dropped between 1996 and 1997, from $7.1 billion to $6.8 billion. But a 4 percent dip hardly seems to explain the company's decision to shut eleven plants. The closures resulted in 6,395 workers being laid off, one-third of its already downsized North American workforce. In this process, the company shut down three of its four factories in El Paso, Texas, a city where Levi's was the single largest private employer. Still unsatisfied with the results, the following year Levi's announced another round of closures in Europe and North America. Eleven more of its North American factories would be shut down and the total toll of laid-off workers rose to 16,310 in only two years.17 John Ermatinger, president of Levi's Americas division, had a familiar explanation. "Our strategic plan in North America is to focus intensely on brand management, marketing and product design as a means to meet the casual clothing wants and needs of consumers," he said.18 Levi's chairman, Robert Haas, who on the same day received an award from the UN for making life better for his employees, told Levi's chairman, Robert Haas, who on the same day received an award from the UN for making life better for his employees, told The Wall Street Journal The Wall Street Journal that the closures reflected not just "overcapacity" but also "our own desire to refocus marketing, to inject more quality and distinctiveness into the brand." that the closures reflected not just "overcapacity" but also "our own desire to refocus marketing, to inject more quality and distinctiveness into the brand."19 In 1997, this quality and distinctiveness came in the form of a particularly funky international ad campaign rumored to have cost $90 million, Levi's most expensive campaign ever, and more than the company spent advertising the brand in all of 1996. In 1997, this quality and distinctiveness came in the form of a particularly funky international ad campaign rumored to have cost $90 million, Levi's most expensive campaign ever, and more than the company spent advertising the brand in all of 1996.
"This Is Not a Job-Flight Story"
In explaining the plant closures as a decision to turn Levi's into "a marketing company," Robert Haas was careful to tell the press that the jobs that were eliminated were not "leaving," they were just sort of evaporating. "This is not a job-flight story," he said after the first round of layoffs. The statement is technically true. Seeing Levi's as a job-flight story would miss the more fundamental-and more damaging-shift that the closures represent. As far as the company is concerned, those 16,310 jobs are off the payrolls for good, replaced, according to Ermatinger, by "contractors throughout the world." Those contractors will perform the same tasks as the old Levi's-owned factories-but the workers inside will never be employed by Levi Strauss.
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 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 ten subcontractors, who-particularly in the garment 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. Sure enough, only five months after the first round of plant closures was announced, Levi's made another public statement: it would resume manufacturing in China. The company had pulled out of China in 1993, citing concerns about human-rights violations. Now it has returned, not to build its own factories, but to place orders with three contractors that the company vows to closely monitor for violations of labor law.20 This shift in attitude toward production is so profound that where a previous era of consumer goods corporations displayed their logos on the facades of their factories, many of today's brand-based multinationals now maintain that the location of their production operations is a "trade secret," to be guarded at all costs. When asked by human-rights groups in April 1999 to disclose the names and addresses of its contract factories, Peggy Carter, a vice president at Champion clothing, replied: "We have no interest in our competition learning where we are located and taking advantage of what has taken us years to build."21 Increasingly, brand-name multinationals-Levi's, Nike, Champion, Wal-Mart, Reebok, the Gap, IBM and General Motors-insist that they are just like any one of us: bargain hunters in search of the best deal in the global mall. They are very picky customers, with specific instructions about made-to-order design, materials, delivery dates and, most important, the need for rock-bottom prices. But what they are not not interested in is the burdensome logistics of how those prices fall so low; building factories, buying machinery and budgeting for labor have all been lobbed squarely into somebody else's court. interested in is the burdensome logistics of how those prices fall so low; building factories, buying machinery and budgeting for labor have all been lobbed squarely into somebody else's court.
And the real job-flight story is that a growing number of the most high-profile and profitable corporations in the world are fleeing the jobs business altogether.
The Unbearable Lightness of Cavite: Inside the Free-Trade Zones Despite the conceptual brilliance of the "brands, not products" strategy, production has a pesky way of never quite being transcended entirely: somebody somebody has to get down and dirty and make the products the global brands will hang their meaning on. And that's where the free-trade zones come in. In Indonesia, China, Mexico, Vietnam, the Philippines and elsewhere, export processing zones (as these areas are also called) are emerging as leading producers of garments, toys, shoes, electronics, machinery, even cars. has to get down and dirty and make the products the global brands will hang their meaning on. And that's where the free-trade zones come in. In Indonesia, China, Mexico, Vietnam, the Philippines and elsewhere, export processing zones (as these areas are also called) are emerging as leading producers of garments, toys, shoes, electronics, machinery, even cars.
If Nike Town and the other superstores are the glittering new gateways to the branded dreamworlds, then the Cavite Export Processing Zone, located ninety miles south of Manila in the town of Rosario, is the branding broom closet. After a month visiting similar industrial areas in Indonesia, I arrived in Rosario in early September 1997, at the tail end of monsoon season and the beginning of the Asian economic storm. I'd come to spend a week in Cavite because it is the largest free-trade zone in the Philippines, a 682-acre walled-in industrial area housing 207 factories that produce goods strictly for the export market. Rosario's population of 60,000 all seemed to be on the move; the town's busy, sweltering streets were packed with army jeeps converted into minibuses and with motorcycle taxis with precarious sidecars, its sidewalks lined with stalls selling fried rice, Coke and soap. Most of this commercial activity serves the 50,000 workers who rush through Rosario on their way to and from work in the zone, whose gated entrance is located smack in the middle of town.
Inside the gates, factory workers assemble the finished products of our branded world: Nike running shoes, Gap pajamas, IBM computer screens, Old Navy jeans. But despite the presence of such illustrious multinationals, Cavite-and the exploding number of export processing zones like it throughout the developing world-could well be the only places left on earth where the superbrands actually keep a low profile. Indeed, they are positively self-effacing. Their names and logos aren't splashed on the facades of the factories in the industrial zone. And here, competing labels aren't segregated each in its own superstore; they are often produced side by side in the same factories, glued by the very same workers, stitched and soldered on the very same machines. It was in Cavite that I finally found a piece of unswooshed space, and I found it, oddly enough, in a Nike shoe factory.
I was only permitted one visit inside the zone's gates to interview officials-individual factories, I was told, are off limits to anyone but potential importers or exporters. But a few days later, with the help of an eighteen-year-old worker who had been laid off from his job in an electronics factory, I managed to sneak back to get the unofficial tour. In the rows of virtually identical giant shed-like structures, one factory stood out: the name on the white rectangular building said "Philips," but through its surrounding fence I could see mountains of Nike shoes piled high. It seems that in Cavite, production has been banished to our age's most worthless status: its factories are unbrandable, unswooshworthy; producers are the industrial untouchables. Is this what Phil Knight meant, I wondered, when he said his company wasn't about the sneakers?
Manufacturing is concentrated and isolated inside the zone as if it were toxic waste: pure, 100 percent production at low, low prices. Cavite, like the rest of the zones that compete with it, presents itself as the buy-in-bulk Price Club for multinationals on the lookout for bargains-grab a really big shopping cart. Inside, it's obvious that the row of factories, each with its own gate and guard, has been carefully planned to squeeze the maximum amount of production out of this swath of land. Windowless workshops made of cheap plastic and aluminum siding are crammed in next to each other, only feet apart. Racks of time cards bake in the sun, making sure the maximum amount of work is extracted from each worker, the maximum number of working hours extracted from each day. The streets in the zone are eerily empty, and open doors-the ventilation system for most factories-reveal lines of young women hunched in silence over clamoring machines.
In other parts of the world, workers live inside the economic zones, but not in Cavite: this is a place of pure work. All the bustle and color of Rosario abruptly stops at the gates, where workers must show their ID cards to armed guards in order to get inside. Visitors are rarely permitted in the zone and little or no internal commerce takes place on its orderly streets, not even candy and drink vending. Buses and taxicabs must drop their speed and silence their horns when they get into the zone-a marked change from the boisterous streets of Rosario. If all of this makes Cavite feel as if it's in a different country, that's because, in a way, it is. The zone is a tax-free economy, sealed off from the local government of both town and province-a miniature military state inside a democracy.
As a concept, free-trade zones are as old as commerce itself, and were all the more relevant in ancient times when the transportation of goods required multiple holdovers and rest stops. Pre-Roman Empire city-states, including Tyre, Carthage and Utica, encouraged trade by declaring themselves "free cities," where goods in transit could be stored without tax, and merchants would be protected from harm. These tax-free areas developed further economic significance during colonial times, when entire cities-including Hong Kong, Singapore and Gibraltar-were designated as "free ports" from which the loot of colonialism could be safely shipped back to England, Europe or America with low import tariffs.22 Today, the globe is dotted with variations on these tax-free pockets, from duty-free shops in airports and the free banking zones of the Cayman Islands to bonded warehouses and ports where goods in transit are held, sorted and packaged. Today, the globe is dotted with variations on these tax-free pockets, from duty-free shops in airports and the free banking zones of the Cayman Islands to bonded warehouses and ports where goods in transit are held, sorted and packaged.
Though it has plenty in common with these other tax havens, the export processing zone is really in a class of its own. Less holding tank than sovereign territory, the EPZ is an area where goods don't just pass through but are actually manufactured, an area, furthermore, where there are no import and export duties, and often no income or property taxes either. The idea that EPZs could help Third World economies first gained currency in 1964 when the United Nations Economic and Social Council adopted a resolution endorsing the zones as a means of promoting trade with developing nations. The idea didn't really get off the ground, however, until the early eighties, when India introduced a five-year tax break for companies manufacturing in its low-wage zones.
Since then, the free-trade-zone industry has exploded. There are fifty-two economic zones in the Philippines alone, employing 459,000 people-that's up from only 23,000 zone workers in 1986 and 229,000 as recently as 1994. The largest zone economy is China, where by conservative estimates there are 18 million people in 124 export processing zones.23 In total, the International Labor Organization says that there are at least 850 EPZs in the world, but that number is likely much closer to 1,000, spread through seventy countries and employing roughly 27 million workers. In total, the International Labor Organization says that there are at least 850 EPZs in the world, but that number is likely much closer to 1,000, spread through seventy countries and employing roughly 27 million workers.24 The World Trade Organization estimates that between $200 and $250 billion worth of trade flows through the zones. The World Trade Organization estimates that between $200 and $250 billion worth of trade flows through the zones.25 The number of individual factories housed inside these industrial parks is also expanding. In fact, the free-trade factories along the U.S. Mexico border-in Spanish, The number of individual factories housed inside these industrial parks is also expanding. In fact, the free-trade factories along the U.S. Mexico border-in Spanish, maquiladoras maquiladoras (from (from maquillar maquillar, "to make up, or assemble")-are probably the only structures that proliferate as quickly as Wal-Mart outlets: there were 789 maquiladoras in 1985. In 1995, there were 2,747. By 1997, there were 3,508 employing about 900,000 workers.26 Regardless of where the EPZs are located, the workers' stories have a certain mesmerizing sameness: the workday is long-fourteen hours in Sri Lanka, twelve hours in Indonesia, sixteen in Southern China, twelve in the Philippines. The vast majority of the workers are women, always young, always working for contractors or subcontractors from Korea, Taiwan or Hong Kong. The contractors are usually filling orders for companies based in the U.S., Britain, Japan, Germany or Canada. The management is military-style, the supervisors often abusive, the wages below subsistence and the work low-skill and tedious. As an economic model, today's export processing zones have more in common with fast-food franchises than sustainable developments, so removed are they from the countries that host them. These pockets of pure industry hide behind a cloak of transience: the contracts come and go with little notice; the workers are predominantly migrants, far from home and with little connection to the city or province where zones are located; the work itself is short-term, often not renewed.
As I walk along the blank streets of Cavite, I can feel the threatening impermanence, the underlying instability of the zone. The shed-like factories are connected so tenuously to the surrounding country, to the adjacent town, to the very earth they are perched upon, that it feels as if the jobs that flew here from the North could fly away again just as quickly. The factories are cheaply constructed and tossed together on land that is rented, not owned. When I climb up the water tower on the edge of the zone and look down at the hundreds of factories, it seems as if the whole cardboard complex could lift up and blow away, like Dorothy's house in The Wizard of Oz The Wizard of Oz. No wonder the EPZ factories in Guatemala are called "swallows."
Fear pervades the zones. The governments are afraid of losing their foreign factories; the factories are afraid of losing their brand-name buyers; and the workers are afraid of losing their unstable jobs. These are factories built not on land but on air.
"It Should Have Been a Different Rosario"
The air the export processing zones are built upon is the promise of industrialization. The theory behind EPZs is that they will attract foreign investors, who, if all goes well, will decide to stay in the country, and the zones' segregated assembly lines will turn into lasting development: technology transfers and domestic industries. To lure the swallows into this clever trap, the governments of poor countries offer tax breaks, lax regulations and the services of a military willing and able to crush labor unrest. To sweeten the pot further, they put their own people on the auction block, falling over each other to offer up the lowest minimum wage, allowing workers to be paid less than the real cost of living.
In Cavite, the economic zone is designed as a fantasyland for foreign investors. Golf courses, executive clubs and private schools have been built on the outskirts of Rosario to ease the discomforts of Third World life. Rent for factories is dirt cheap: 11 pesos per square foot-less than a cent. For the first five years of their stay, corporations are treated to an all-expenses-paid "tax holiday" during which they pay no income tax and no property tax. It's a good deal, no doubt, but it's nothing compared to Sri Lanka, where EPZ investors stay for ten years before having to pay any tax.27 The phrase "tax holiday" is oddly fitting. For the investors, free-trade zones are a sort of corporate Club Med, where the hotel pays for everything and the guests live free, and where integration with the local culture and economy is kept to a bare minimum. As one International Labor Organization report puts it, the EPZ "is to the inexperienced foreign investor what the package holiday is to the cautious tourist." Zero-risk globalization. Companies just ship in the pieces of cloth or computer parts-free of import tax-and the cheap, non-union workforce assembles it for them. Then the finished garments or electronics are shipped back out, with no export tax.
The rationale goes something like this: of course of course companies must pay taxes and strictly abide by national laws, but just in this one case, on this one specific piece of land, for just a little while, an exception will be made-for the cause of future prosperity. The EPZs, therefore, exist within a kind of legal and economic set of brackets, apart from the rest of their countries-the Cavite zone, for example, is under the sole jurisdiction of the Philippines' federal Department of Trade and Industry; the local police and municipal government have no right even to cross the threshold. The layers of blockades serve a dual purpose: to keep the hordes away from the costly goods being manufactured inside the zone, but also, and perhaps more important, to shield the country from what is going on inside the zone. companies must pay taxes and strictly abide by national laws, but just in this one case, on this one specific piece of land, for just a little while, an exception will be made-for the cause of future prosperity. The EPZs, therefore, exist within a kind of legal and economic set of brackets, apart from the rest of their countries-the Cavite zone, for example, is under the sole jurisdiction of the Philippines' federal Department of Trade and Industry; the local police and municipal government have no right even to cross the threshold. The layers of blockades serve a dual purpose: to keep the hordes away from the costly goods being manufactured inside the zone, but also, and perhaps more important, to shield the country from what is going on inside the zone.
Because such sweet deals have been laid out to entice the swallows, the barriers around the zone serve to reinforce the idea that what is happening inside is only temporary, or is not really happening at all. This collective denial is particularly important in Communist countries where zones house the most Wild West forms of capitalism this side of Moscow: this is definitely definitely not really happening, not really happening, certainly certainly not here where the government in power maintains that capital is the devil and workers reign supreme. In her book not here where the government in power maintains that capital is the devil and workers reign supreme. In her book Losing Control? Losing Control?, Saskia Sassen writes that the zones are a part of a process of carving up nations so that "an actual piece of land becomes denationalized...."28 Never mind that the boundaries of these only-temporary, not-really-happening, denationalized spaces keep expanding to engulf more and more of their actual nations. Twenty-seven million people worldwide are now living and working in brackets, and the brackets, instead of being slowly removed, just keep getting wider. Never mind that the boundaries of these only-temporary, not-really-happening, denationalized spaces keep expanding to engulf more and more of their actual nations. Twenty-seven million people worldwide are now living and working in brackets, and the brackets, instead of being slowly removed, just keep getting wider.
It is one of the zones' many cruel ironies that every incentive the governments throw in to attract the multinationals only reinforces the sense that the companies are economic tourists rather than long-term investors. It's a classic vicious cycle: in an attempt to alleviate poverty, the governments offer more and more incentives; but then the EPZs must be cordoned off like leper colonies, and the more they are cordoned off, the more the factories appear to exist in a world entirely separate from the host country, and outside the zone the poverty only grows more desperate. In Cavite, the zone is a kind of futuristic industrial suburbia where everything is ordered; the workers are uniformed, the grass manicured, the factories regimented. There are cute signs all around the grounds instructing workers to "Keep Our Zone Clean" and "Promote Peace and Progress of the Philippines." But walk out of the gate and the bubble bursts. Aside from the swarms of workers at the start and end of shifts, you'd never know that the town of Rosario is home to more than two hundred factories. The roads are a mess, running water is scarce and garbage is overflowing.
Many of the workers live in shantytowns on the outskirts of town and in neighboring villages. Others, particularly the youngest workers, live in the dormitories, a hodgepodge of concrete bunkers separated from the zone enclave by only a thick wall. The structure is actually a converted farm, and some rooms, the workers tell me, are really pigpens with roofs slapped on them.