Another form of Anti-globalization:

Bad Mood Rising: The Anticorporate Activism
By: Naomi Klein

Based on new organizations and publications that have been founded for the sole purpose of “outing” corporations that are benefiting from repressive government policies around the globe (325).

“A lot of activists are attaching themselves leech-like onto the sides of the bodies corporate”.

“The Year of the Sweatshop” during 1995-96, North Americans could not turn on their televisions without hearing shameful stories about the exploitive labour practices behind most mass-marketed labels on the bradescape (327).

Not only the superbrands and their celebrity endorsers who felt the sting of the Year of the Sweatshop – clothing stores chains, big-box retailers and department stores also found themselves being held responsible for the conditions under which toys and fashions on their racks were being produced (329).

“The Year of the Brand Attacks” followed the Year of the Sweatshop and shows no sign of receding. It takes a fairly straightforward approach between the buyer and the seller. But the more successful brand are, the more vulnerable these companies become: if brands are intimately entangled in out culture and identities, when they do wrong, their crimes are not dismissed as merely misdemeanours many who rely on their brands feel guilty and complicit in their wrongs.

So why is that activists choose to focus on big name corporations?

“Because we have more influence on a brand name than we do with our own governments...Activists always target the people who have the power...so if the power moves from government to industry to transnational corporations, so the swivel will move onto these people” (342/43).

Activists attack money-making corporations for their exploitation, greed and deception, however, it should be considered that even though under capitalism, it is the corporations that hold the power, the government should be at the forefront of punishment. At the end of the day, the government makes the rules, set the standards and should hold responsibility. It seems even more today, the government has flown under the radar.