After the collapse of the Soviet bloc, capitalism was acknowledged to be the only way of organising a successful economy - at least for a brief time. But by the end of the 1990s, capitalism found itself surrounded by a host of increasingly voluble new critics. At least these critics appear to be doing something new. Many of their campaigns do not, at least initially, attack capitalism as a system or general idea, or offer a thought-out better way of organising the economy. They focus on cases of abuse, cases which result, allegedly from the actions of particular global corporations; the abuse of the environment, the treatment and low pay of workers in the 'South', child labour, the exploitation of women, the degradation of cultures and the imposition of lifestyles through brands. Particular victims are always more sympathetic than abstract ideas and the new critics' use of them has been very successful.

So, how seriously should these new critics of capitalism be treated? In this study, Michael Mosbacher analyses their contentions in depth and finds that a good number of the new critics are doing little that is new. Even their emphasis on individual alleged abuses is, at least in part, not a new end but a new means to galvanize support for the hatred of capitalism. It's the old hatred with new PR.

Mr Mosbacher is particularly interested in their hostility to and use of brands. The new critics make the following contentions:

They claim to dislike the way brands work but it is brands that have given their own campaigns a new lease of life. In order to attack brands, the critics piggy-back their own anti-capitalist message on to the brands' renown and gain a fresh audience for their views.

They do this while claiming that they, the opponents of the corporations, are denied access to the mainstream media and are made voiceless. This is palpably false. Anti-corporate tracts - such as Naomi Klein's No Logo, George Monbiot's The Captive State, and the works of Noam Chomsky - have become bestsellers for mainstream publishers. Hollywood films parrot the anti-corporate message. Anti-branding has entered mass public consciousness in record time. Anti-corporate campaigns even receive funding from media moguls such as Ted Turner.

They claim the corporations allegedly taking over the world are constantly becoming larger. In fact the largest 500 corporations' share of US assets fell by 20 per cent, and their share of all those employed by nearly one third in just over ten years.

They present the world as divided into two opposed, permanently hostile and exclusive parts: consumer-worker victims and their valiant campaigners; and large employer-producer exploiters and their apologists. Yet these corporations have only become what they are today due to the enthusiastic custom of millions of individual consumers. The ownership of these corporations, far from becoming ever more concentrated, has in fact become extremely broad. At the end of 2000, nearly 18 per cent of all UK shares were owned by pension funds and insurance companies owned 21 per cent. This represents the collective savings of millions of ordinary people. Ever more people benefit from the profits of large companies.

Furthermore many of the most vehement anti-corporate campaigners rely on financial support from the corporate and corporate-created wealth they despise, from the likes of Doug Tompkins, the founder of Esprit and The North Face clothing brands, with his Foundation for Deep Ecology, to The Body Shop Foundation, and The Ben & Jerry Foundation.

They argue that globalisation is making the lot of the poor in the South worse. Yet, in general the position of the poor is improving in those countries that are becoming more integrated into the global economy, such as Vietnam and China. Whereas in those countries not becoming more integrated into the world economy, those that are not globalising, such as Zimbabwe and much of the rest of Africa, the position of the poor is static, or worsening.

They imply, by their recitation of particular abuses and attacks upon particular brands that they are concerned with the specific abuses. Yet they often target corporations which are among the most 'ethical' in their policies especially if they have high brand recognition which might give their own anti-capitalism that brand's audience. The leading advocate and chronicler of anti-branding, Naomi Klein, puts it thus: 'For years, we in the movement have fed off our opponents' symbols - their brands, their office towers, their photo-opportunity summits. We have used them as rallying cries, as focal points, as popular education tools. But these symbols were never the real target: they were the levers, the handles.'

What is new about the new critics are their tactics, their use of individual cases and of the media. And even these like so many of their resources are not that original; they came from the working of modern corporate PR. It's the same old hatreds with much better marketing. Take away the heartstring 'abuse' cases and the second-hand PR and what is left is little more than a crude and entirely negative hatred of capitalism.

There is no thoughtful analysis of the system they so loathe, no awareness of how they themselves are part of it, no carefully considered alternative for the betterment of the world. Corporations obviously have to take the new critics seriously insofar as their own public relations are concerned, but Mr Mosbacher finds no reason at all why they or anyone else should take the new critics intellectually seriously.

Social Affairs Unit publications express the views of their authors not those of the Social Affairs Unit, its Trustees, Advisers or officers. However, I can commend this study as a thoughtful contribution to an important public debate.

Digby Anderson, London, 2002