Marketing the Revolution
The New Anti-Capitalism and the Attack Upon Corporate Brands
Michael Mosbacher

Peter Rossi

The highly visible and often violent anti-Capitalism protests in London, Genoa and Seattle, have attracted increasing levels of news coverage in recent years. The campaigners' criticism of large corporations has been prompted and sustained to some extent by best-selling books by Naomi Klein, George Monbiot and Noreena Hertz amongst others.

Marketing the Revolution attempts to provide an answer to the protestations of Klein et al and to the extent that it matches their level of argument, it succeeds.

The book begins with a short and accurate overview of the (re)emergence of the anti-Capitalism movement, before moving on to more specifically examine the anti-brand phenomenon. This strand of the anti-Capitalism movement attempts, in echoes of past sinistral radicals, to construct a dichotomised view of the world, where the oppressed (the campaigners and they hope, us) battle bravely against the oppressive might of the corporations. By disseminating the idea that brands are separate to society, the campaigners attempt to 'sell' their anti-Capitalism message, ironically in much the same way that brands attempt to sell their products through advertising. The campaigners are particularly fond of attacking progressive corporations, such as Nike, that seek to portray a responsible and caring attitude through social accountability charters, often created in response to pressure from NGOs. These charters allow campaigners to pick holes in a corporation and further damage its reputation (p28). Ironically, this confrontation becomes a battle of brands, with the campaigners creating an 'anti' brand that feeds off the targeted brand (p30).

The campaigners' world view of 'them' and 'us' is, however, undermined by an examination of their funding: '[t]he fact is that radical, indubitably undomesticated, anti-corporate activist groups...are the recipients of intentional funding by some brands...' (p37). For example, Ted Turner's foundation gave $50,000 to the Ruckus Society, which holds activist training camps. It is ironic that some brands are actually pushing the campaign movement forward, particularly those which are socially progressive, in the hope of vicariously tarnishing the reputation of competing brands. Furthermore, the savings of tens of millions of people are entrusted to pension funds which invest in large corporations. Also, and perhaps fatally for the campaigners' simplistic world view, corporations are the product of aggregate individual free choice, not arbitrarily imposed from above. They therefore are not distinct from society, but are an inextricable part.

The anti-corporation movement is divided into three distinct, but not mutually exclusive groups: those that want to change a specific corporate policy, those who are reconciled to using the market and those who want to close down a specific industry. An example of the first type was the pressure for Unocal, an American oil company, to pull out of Burma and Afghanistan, countries with poor human rights records (p48). However, in an example of the potentially pernicious consequences of these campaigns, the gap in the market left by their withdrawal is often filled by companies with at best unknown social charters, who may not have a similarly high level of corporate responsibility. The more well established NGOs such as Greenpeace International fall into the second category, by virtue of their more 'realistic' approach, and a desire to affect change from within, although they may still have direct action sub-divisions. It is these organisations that are most likely to be quoted in the media or consulted by lobbying groups (p56). The latter group is illustrated by the attempt to close down Huntingdon Life Sciences, although less extreme campaigns exist along similar lines.

In the last two chapters, arguably the most powerful of the book, Mosbacher highlights more of the fallacies of the campaigns and gives evidence of the benefits of economic freedom in the developing world. Brands grew to their present size and ubiquity because they provided an instant source of information on the reputation of their product and hence facilitated repeat custom, a point Naomi Klein acknowledges (p61). Ironically, brands are not only used by the campaigners themselves, but also to promote acceptable goods, such as Fair Trade coffee. There seems then to be very little intellectual room left for the protestors, and the only remaining justification of their campaigns is that they are a means by which they attempt to 'sell' their dichotomised world view, because this is the only place in which they find any validity. However, the remaining claims of the anti-Capitalists are refuted in the final chapter, when truths such as 'globalisation does not make people poorer' and 'does not necessarily increase inequalities' are backed up by persuasive statistics. For example, globalising countries are richer (p72) and pay in foreign owned 'sweatshops' is on average twice that in domestically owned workplaces (p73).

Mosbacher provides a timely and successful dismissal of the anti-Capitalist movement, particularly the anti-Brand movement. However, even though there are comprehensive logical arguments and statistical proof, this work will probably not dissuade the campaigners from revelling in their own idiocy come Johannesburg or May Day 2003. There is a real need for a restatement of the true ideals of Capitalism, as stated by Bastiat or Rand for example, of which Mosbacher provides only a glimpse, because there is a danger they will be irrevocably damaged in the public domain by the anti-Capitalist movement. It is this complete ignorance of true Capitalism in society that has allowed the campaigners to gain a foothold and argue for less, not more development. Therefore, whilst this book is more than a match for the simplicity of Klein et al., it does not provide the necessary foundation in Capitalism which would render all anti-Capitalist campaigns impotent.