By Naomi Klein

1. The basic and irreversible function of an industrial economy is the making of things; that the more things it makes, the bigger will be the income. (3)
2. By the eighties, a new kind of corporation began to rival the all-American manufacturers for market share. These pioneers made bold claims that producing goods was only an incidental part of their operations, and that thanks to recent victories in liberalisation and labour-law reform, they were able to have their products made for them by contractors, many of them overseas. What these companies produced primarily were not things, they said, but images of their brands. Their real work lay not in manufacturing but marketing. (4)
3. This formula, needless to say, has proved enormously profitable, and its success has companies competing in a race towards weightlessness: whoever owns the least, has the fewest employees on payroll and produces the most powerful images, as opposed to products, wins the race. (4)