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"The market controls everything, but the market has no heart"

Mustermann | 25.08.2001 09:38

"The Body Shop is now really a dysfunctional coffin" "You will not see another Genoa. You will not see another Seattle because its a waste of time"

Body Shop has lost its soul, says Roddick
By Ed Cropley

Click to enlarge photo

EDINBURGH (Reuters) - Body Shop founder Anita Roddick says the ethical cosmetics chain has lost its soul since floating on the stock market and has no place as a cog in the international financial system she despises.


"The Body Shop is now really a dysfunctional coffin," Roddick told the Edinburgh International Book Festival, adding that the company had lost its political edge.


"I wanted every shop to challenge the World Trade Organisation (WTO), to ask every Member of Parliament, and they won't do that," she said.


Speaking on Friday, Roddick also questioned Bodyshop's future as a publicly quoted company, saying relentless drive to maximise profits for investors was killing the 25-year-old company's spirit.


"Did it (flotation) work? Yes it did. It gave us money to build manufacturing plants. Does it work now? I don't think so," she said.


There had already been two attempts to the take the company she founded in her kitchen private again, Roddick said,
where it could avoid the harsh light of investor scrutiny and pressure of market forces.


"The market controls everything, but the market has no heart," she said.


Giving a lecture to promote her book, "Business as Unusual", Roddick also came under a scathing attack from a former employee in the audience who said she had been callously laid off in contravention of Body Shop's own employee-friendly practices.


But Roddick said that since handing over the reins to the new chief executive, Patrick Gournay, she had no say in the day-to-day running of the company which was once touted as the model of an ethical business.


"I can't interfere, I'm not allowed to interfere," she said.


GENOA, SEATTLE "A WASTE OF TIME"


A tireless environmental campaigner, who joined anti-capitalist groups protesting at the 1999 Seattle WTO meeting, Roddick said demonstrations aimed only at governments like those at the recent G8 summit in Genoa were ultimately pointless.


"You will not see another Genoa. You will not see another Seattle because its a waste of time," said Roddick, who says she is getting ever more radical as she gets older and wants to take the fight straight to the boardroom.


"The protests are going nowhere. We should be directly pointing the finger at businesses, not even bothering with the governments," she said.


"You've got to direct it at the companies. The only thing they really fear is consumer revolt," Roddick said.

Mustermann
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Comments

Hide the following 4 comments

still protest

25.08.2001 10:57

good points but must still protest against governments. genoa and seattle repeats may achieve little but we have to keep them on their toes.

tommy60


...

25.08.2001 12:18

I think she may just being a little negative cos she sold here soul to Satan and he won't give it back. I think if nothing else we are seeing heightened awareness of the issues. Like it or not Genoa kind of backfired as a means of discrediting the anti-globisation movement(s) it seems to have sparked a lot of debate that would never have happened.

Protest is always accomplishes at least one thing: stating openly that not everyone is in agreement!

Without that we have NO voice and NO public awareness.

:-)

Mustermann
mail e-mail: spam@spam.spam


Yeah we've really got to keep protesting!

25.08.2001 22:46

When you think about it, the level of (relatively) intelligent debate in the Guardian and the Independent and on ITN and the BBC is incredible. Who would have thought that the mainstream press would have started to take us so (relatively seriously).

Governments are at least starting to sit up and take notice (if not act).

Banks are shitting themselves.

The IMF is now calling its SAPs (poverty reduction programmes) which is as dishonest as fuck in a very Orwelian way but at least it means they're taking notice.

The protests on their own aren't going to save the world but they ARE bloody important.

We are DRAWING a phenomenal amount of attention to the subject.

Having chased the WTO away to Qatar and the G8 to the Rocky Mountains, there will no doubt be some people who will condemn us as being antidemocratic but there must also surely be a hell of a lot of people who react by thinking hmm what's wrong with these organisations to attract so much anger, they sure seem to be upsetting these people.

Rob


What!

26.08.2001 01:03

Say what! Of course she doesn't want any more protests! She has made a fortune out of the con of ethical business ( a condradiction in terms!) She is as much part of the exploitation system as much as any other business. When she gives her millions to the Zapitista we can trust her. And even then I would have my suspicion as to what the con was!
Of course we need to fight the board rooms but there is no division between them and governments. The are different wings of the bosses system. Hand back the money Roderick! How is a school kid earning minimum wage (if lucky)helping the third world!

Sandy
mail e-mail: dvgil@hotmail.com