The Misconception: Both consumerism and capitalism are sustained by corporations and advertising.
The Truth: Both consumerism and capitalism are driven by competition among consumers for status.
Beatniks, hippies, punk rockers, grunge rats, metal heads, goth kids, hipsters – see a pattern forming here?
It goes back farther than these examples, the baton of counter culture – the mantle of anti…whatever the mainstream is doing – it gets passed from generation to generation.
Whether you lived through Freedom Summer or “Jem and the Holograms” – somewhere in your youth you started to realize who was in control, and you rebelled. You started to discover the paradigms of censorship and consumerism – and they repulsed you.
You needed to self actualize, to find your own way, and you sought out something real, something with meaning. You waved your hand at popular music, popular movies, and popular television. You dug deeper and disparaged all those mindless sheeple who gobbled up pop culture.
Yet, you still listened to music and bought shirts and went to see movies. Someone was appealing to you despite your dissent.
If you think you can buy your way to individuality, well, you are not so smart.
Since the 1940s, when capitalism and marketing married psychology and public relations, the market has been getting much better and more efficient at offering you something to purchase no matter your taste.
See the punk rocker up there? Yeah, he bought all of those clothes. Someone is making money off of his revolt.
That’s the strange paradox – everything is part of the system. There is no such thing as selling out, because there is no one to sell out to.
Every niche opened by rebellion against the mainstream is immediately filled by entrepreneurs who figure out how to make a buck off those who are trying to avoid what the majority of people are buying.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, there were many stabs at trying to thwart this through artistic gesture – “Fight Club,” “American Beauty,” “Fast Food Nation,” “The Corporation,” etc.
The creators of these works may have had the best intentions, but their work still became a product designed for profit. Their cries against consumption were consumed.
Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, Kurt Cobain, Andy Kaufman – they may have been solely concerned with creating art or illustrating academic principles, but once their output fell into the marketplace it found its audience, and that audience made them wealthy.
Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter, both philosophers, wrote a book about this in 2004 called “The Rebel Sell.” It’s available in the United States as “Nation of Rebels.”
The central theme of the book is you can’t rage against “the system,” or “the man” or “the culture” through rebellious consumption.
Here’s the conventional thinking most counter cultures are founded upon:
All the interconnected institutions in the marketplace need everyone to conform in order to sell the most products to the most people. The media through press releases, advertising, entertainment and so on works to bring everyone into homogeneity by altering desires.
To escape consumerism and conformity, you must turn your back and ignore the mainstream culture. The shackles will then fall away, the machines will grind to a halt, the filters will dissolve, and you will see the world for what it really is.
Finally, the illusory nature of existence will end and we will all, finally, be real.
The problem, say Heath and Potter, is “the system” doesn’t give a shit about conformity. In fact, it loves diversity and needs people like hipsters and music snobs so it can thrive.
For example, say there is this awesome band no one knows about except you and a few others. They don’t have a record contract or an album. They just go out there and play, and they are great.
You tell everyone about them as they build a decent fan base. They make an album which sells enough copies to allow them to quit their jobs. That album gets them more gigs and more fans. Soon, they have a huge fan base and get a record contract and get on the radio and play on “The Tonight Show.”
Now, they’ve sold out. So you hate them. You abandon the band and go looking for someone more authentic, and it all starts over again.
This is the pump by which artists rise from the depths into the mainstream. It never stops, and over time it gets faster and more efficient.
Unknown bands are a special sort of commodity. Living in a loft downtown, wearing clothes from the thrift store, watching the independent film no one has heard of – these provide a special social status which can’t be bought as easily as the things offered to the mainstream.
In the 1960s, it took months before someone figured out they could sell tie-dyed shirts and bell bottoms to anyone who wanted to rebel. In the 1990s, it took weeks to start selling flannel shirts and Doc Martens to people in the Deep South. Now, people are hired by corporations to go to bars and clubs and predict what the counter culture is into and have it on the shelves in the cool stores right as it becomes popular.
The counter-culture, the indie fans and the underground stars – they are the driving force behind capitalism. They are the engine.
This brings us to the point – competition among consumers is the turbine of capitalism.
Everyone who lives above the poverty line but isn’t wealthy pretty much has no choice but to work for a living doing something which rewards them with survival tokens.
Working as a telemarketer, for example, allows you to have food, clothing and shelter, but doesn’t put you directly in charge of creating, growing or killing those things you need for sustenance. Instead, you trade in tokens for those things. As a result, you have a lot of free time and some leftover tokens.
We don’t directly compete with each other for resources like we did for the millennia before mass production.
Before this setup, people were often defined by their work, by their output. The things they owned were usually things either they handmade, or were things other people made by hand. There was a weight, an infusion of soul, in everything a person owned, used and lived in.
Today, everyone is a consumer, and has to pick from the same selection of goods as everyone else, and because of this people now define their personalities on how good their taste is, or how clever, or how obscure, or how ironic their choices are.
As Christian Lander, author of “Stuff White People Like,” pointed out in an interview with NPR, you compete with your peers by one-upping them. You attain status by having better taste in movies and music, by owning more authentic furniture and clothing.
There are 100 million copies of every item or intellectual property you can own, so you reveal your unique character through how you consume.
Having a dissenting opinion on movies, music or clothes, or owning clever or obscure possessions is the way middle-class people fight each other for status. They can’t out-consume each other because they can’t afford it, but they can out-taste each other.
Since everything is mass-produced, and often for a mass audience, finding and consuming things which appeal to your desire for authenticity is what moves these items and artists and services up from the bottom to the top – where it can be mass consumed.
Hipsters, then, are the direct result of this cycle of indie, authentic, obscure, ironic, clever consumerism.
Which is ironic – but not like a trucker hat or Pabst Blue Ribbon. It is ironic in the sense the very act of trying to run counter to the culture is what creates the next wave of culture people will in turn attempt to counter.
“I think ‘sell out’ is yelled by those who, when they were selling, didn’t have anything that anyone wanted to buy.” – Patton Oswalt
Wait long enough, and what was once mainstream will fall into obscurity. When that happens, it will become valuable again to those looking for authenticity or irony or cleverness. The value, then, is not intrinsic. The thing itself doesn’t have as much value as the perception of how it was obtained, or why it is possessed, does.
Once enough people join in, like with trucker hats or slap bracelets, the status gained from owning the item or being a fan of the band is lost, and the search begins again.
You would compete like this no matter how society was constructed. Competition for status is built into the human experience at the biological level.
Poor people compete with resources. The middle class competes with selection. The wealthy compete with possessions.
If you live in a jungle and forage for food between spear-sharpening sessions, you compete for status with talent or prowess or…something.
If you get a paycheck, someone out there is buying what you are offering. You are selling – they are buying.
You sold out long ago in one way or another. The specifics of who you sell to and how much you make – those are only details.
Links:
Audio of a presentation given by Potter and Heath
Great Interview with Christian Lander
Fashion is just things that aren’t dumb yet, but will be.
The whole notion of fashion is dumb.
Youre the one with the birans here. Im watching for your posts.
I fail to see how making your own clothing out of rags and safety pins makes you a sell-out. Or one step further: f-in’ starting your own solar-powered commune / organic farm. I mean, sure, they’ve got to buy those solar panels from someone…but…that’s not what you’re talking about here.
You seem to be confusing the originals for the copy-cats. Copy-cats always miss the point.
I steal everything I own, all movies I watch, all music I listen to. The clothes I buy are from non-profits. I dumpsterdive all my food, and what I don’t dive for is given to me. The electricity and internet are free in the squat I’m in. So whom I pray you tell me is getting fucking rich from me????
@chinneths – How are you posting this comment?
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@Joe Blow
Seconded.
1. Fight Club was actually a box-office flop whenever it came out.
2. This article is only touching on the superficial acts of rebellion. It doesn’t even stop to consider that the idea of being a rebel is about philosophical ideas and not about wearing stupid-ass clothes for the sake of making yourself more of an outcast.
Some people reject the mainstream because they have problems with certain aspects of it, but not its popularity.
I’ve fallen in love with small time bands only to see them grow more popular and eventually get signed.
I didn’t pout and cry and call them sell outs, I clapped because something I liked got to reach more ears.
This article isn’t so smart.
Only stupid, superficial people care about selling out. The real rebels who actually back the ideals of the subculture will be glad to see their ideas and tastes take a hold of society.
More often than not, though, only their clothes do.
(Note_I’m not really fluent in english, so I might do ridiculous mistakes in my messages. I’m sorry in advance)
I don’t think the author was talking about the rebels with the ideas who wants to change the society for the good of their community. But the ones who want to identifies with the ideas because it’s « cool and authentic ». Which could explain why the article is superficial : we are talking about « superficial people »
( I put «» because I don’t really like saying that people are superficial – I don’t feel I have the authority to call them like that :/). But that’s just how I read the article. If we want to talk about the real rebellion this isn’t a good reference. I think. Wooh I kind of want to grab an history book right know ahah.
I slightly change my point: we are talking about superficials actions. Not people. I don’t think people are superficials. But there actions and thoughts can be. « Hate the game not the player » I guess ?
HOWEVER, before I leave here sounding like a rude asshole: I must say that I’ve enjoyed many of your other articles, and I’m aware that you’re a journalist and not a scientist.
Too much Greed will fuck the world
today is like pissing in the wind
if some twat wants more stuff, someone else has to pay
@chinneths
You sound like a worthless piece of shit leech who doesn’t contribute a damn thing to anybody. Go crawl back into your hole until you figure out something of value to do with yourself.
Hm..what does that make someone who strives to consume our society’s leftovers. Just because most of us our somewhat involved in the system, doesn’t mean that we should just give up on consuming less. I also think this article oversimplifies class differences as many middle class over consume without high value on taste and any rich are very into taste. Also if a product is more ethical because the consumer demands it that is changing the machine for the better and a very powerful thing.
Article largely rings true, but Iggy Pop selling insurance still feels like the ultimate in selling out.
I´d think, that selling out would probably only apply to hippies, and punk rockers. And the real, ¨hard to the bone¨, punks and hippies buy their clothes/stuff from thrift shops, or make them themselves, or buy from other punks/hippies, who buy materials from other hippies/punks. Selling out would mean breaking this chain, and profiting someone outside of the subculture and probably rich/aiming to be rich.
To paraphrase Peter Schiff, that’s Capitalism, whether or not someone purchased those clothes from the Goodwill, a thrift shop, or whatever, someone still had to make those clothes, and they made those clothes with a profit motive in mind.
A great article for stimulating thought and debate, done with many truthful and good points, however, in much the same vein as those who “will defend their ego no matter how slight the insult” this article struggles all along to justify its main theme and doesn’t really come through.
The rejection of consumerism is there and exists. Whether the expression of that sentiment is later hijacked by the “entrepreneur” or the crowd is moot. The original sentiment is genuine and cannot be subverted.
Is an ascetic that buys a loincloth a sellout? That would be silly.
competition is not built into us at a biological level, its taught. i liked the rest of the article though. except that bit.
This article is a fairly sub-academic, psuedo-intelligencia article. It’s preaching to hipsters who line their shelves with Chomsky but have never heard of Gramsci. It reads like it’s supposed to be an all-knowing exposé of counter culture, pissing on the bonfires of the left wing. It starts with the grand exclamation that “both consumerism and capitalism are sustained by corporations and advertising” is a falsity. And how does it prove this misconception? By meandering through fairly standard coffee shop arguments about buying t-shirts with logos and selling out.
I realise that the audience here may feel like they’re well read and intelligent because they they watch Jon Stewart, and prefer British comedy to American stuff, but the fact is the article in no way reveals anything to counter that first ‘misconception’. A wee bit of biology at the end, a rash generalisation about human nature, and you’ve apparently sealed the deal.
But really, the fact that you’ve taken the time to write an article on capitalism, but you can’t even think or provide examples beyond the limited field of bands selling out, shows how unresearched this is in the whole scheme of things.
I don’t mean to be an arse, and I really don’t mean to be so condescending. And the debate here might prove fruitful. But when you’re dealing with something as large as captalism and human nature, a hipster article ridiculing hipsters really shouldn’t over think its importance.
The fact is, we all live in a society shaped by the corporations. But the corporations are shaped by us. Deal with it. But these acts of rebellion and counter-culture, and any argument involving these, don’t deal with the real issue.
The real issue is the inherent inequality that the capitalist sytem bestows upon society. A “free market” creates a free society apparently; however only if at first we were all equal. But through thousands of years, elites have asserted social dominance on the population, from the pharoes to the industrialists, and the neo-liberal capitalist elite is just the latest incarnation of this social dominance. You can’t say that capitalism doesn’t shape society just because we all want a bigger iMac or a whiter fixed gear bike. Capitalism has shaped our society way beyond that.
Corporations look for the bottom line. Profit. That’s how the system works – it’s written into every liberal economic textbook. A stable economy makes a happy population. A stable economy is driven by a free market. A free market leads to corporations. Corporations need us to buy things for us to be happy.
Your grudge is with the paradox of anti-capitalists consuming. But there’s no choice. We live in a capitalist system.
Which is also kind of your point. I realise this. But it’s not a fucking revalation, it’s the truth, so stop patting yourself on the back about how clever you are in front of your trendy audience and maybe have a go at some real academic work.
Also, what I have done here is assert my social status in an attempt to compete with all the beardy intellectualising going on here. YOU WERE RIGHT.
This article is haunting, in a way.
I think that the idea expressed by these two sentences: “That’s the strange paradox – everything is part of the system. There is no such thing as selling out, because there is no one to sell out to,” has been responsible for more suicides than bullying or anything could even imagine.
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You entirely miss the point of not selling out, which isn’t to not contribute to capitalism at all, but to avoid contributing to large corporations. Most counter-cultures tend to avoid the mainstream shops, which is why “counter-cultures” which shop at hottopic or any branded store are, in internet terms, “doin it wrong”.
Punks, metalheads and goths, the three areas I’ve had most experience with and which I could say more about than other counter-cultures, all tend to buy clothes either from independent stores, directly funding individual store owners, or from gigs, giving money to the bands (also record labels obviously, but better than buying a band t-shirt from a high street store, giving money to a corporate shop AND a corporate record label).
I don’t see many counter-culture members claiming they are trying to avoid being a part of the capitalist system, except maybe hippies and the more deluded end of the hipster spectrum. But funding independent stores and trying to move the flow of money away from mega-corporations is a valid and worthy cause.
That’s why you end up with the crap arguments within sub-cultures about “authentic” members of sub-cultures. When the corporations pick up on a culture and start branding clothes to sell to them, some people buy from them and thus the older members of the culture who bought independently and have a purpose behind their purchasing hate them because they’ve lost the ‘meaning’. This ends up in some rather long-winded and bollocks arguments, but I can see where the rage comes from when a culture gets diluted by people copying the style but not picking up the substance.
That’s also why hipster is a failed counter-culture. It’s all style and no substance.
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All criticisms aside, good point.
I think you’re overgeneralising a bit. Not everyone who’s into independent music or lesser-known bands necessarily is a hipster looking for status, it’s possible that’s just how they prefer to spend their time. Everyone is unique to a large extent and will be into different things from others, everyone to some extent thinks they have ‘weird’, i.e. not mainstream hobbies, some people are ashamed by this, some people revel in and play it up, while others just enjoy it without particularly caring either way.
Check out Tool’s song ‘Hooker with a penis’.
“Someone is making money off of his revolt.”
So be mindful of who you’re paying. Economic rebellion is the ultimate rebellion in a society based on money.
Bill Hicks, he has the answers… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDW_Hj2K0wo
Wait, he’s dead. No more dick jokes.
Great article =)
I just wanted to add an idea. Recently, I became very amazed by the Amish people… minus their religion. I find the home grown food, handmade clothes and closeness to family and nature so ‘romantic’… I find it amazing how they have rid themselves of technology and ‘products’. Of course, the rigid rules must be hell but it shows that life away from modern society is possible.
‘ “the system” doesn’t give a shit about conformity’
Never has the phrase “breath of fresh air” felt more apt.
This article, while thought provoking, seems, to me, to fail to make an important distinction. Unfortunately, much like the word “free” in English having two separate meanings and many English speakers not bothering to think about the differences between them, requiring the free software movement to coin the phrase, “free as in speech or free as in beer?”, the term “sell out” or “selling out” can refer to two different but somewhat similar concepts. One concept that selling out refers to is the one discussed in the article, which is concerned with not being too commercial. The other concept of selling out is one that is concerned with artistic integrity. While it’s true that to some people, anything that achieves too much market success is labeled by them as sold out, others are more concerned if a content producer has sacrificed artistic integrity in order to achieve whatever level of market success he/she/they are currently enjoying. Any discussion where the topic of selling out is as central to the theme as it is in this article, but fails to adequately address the two competing concepts of selling out seems, in my opinion, to be missing a key component.
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What struck me here is how neatly it explains something I’ve wondered about (confirmation bias to the rescue?) Namely, when I was a kid, nobody who thought of himself as any kind of outcast or weirdo teenager would have been buying clothing at a mall. Today, the kids in the most outlandish getups seem to be shopping at Hot Topic or similar places.
If I read you right, it’s not really a change in attitude, it’s that in the intervening 20 years or so, chains like Hot Topic have figured out better ways to stay out in front of the hipsters . . . and today’s kids grew up with that, so they expect that level of service and don’t stop to think that they’re not exactly conforming by payng $39.99 for a belt made of cardboard with pot-metal studs.
When I was a kid, it was “grunge” . . . and c’est la vie said the old folks, it goes to show you never can tell, because the coolest outcasts (closest thing we had to hipsters) were shopping at the thrift store right alongside the elderly folks who’d been doing it since the Great Depression . . . and never stopping to think that we weren’t really rebelling by doing what our grandparents took for granted.
I think you’re assuming a lot in this article and you’re looking at the issue in a very narrow spectrum. What this article should have been about is the depressing statement it makes about the human condition; that we are so committed so serving our egos that we’d rather authenticate our selves with obscure faggot nonsense than something of value. I like Warren Zevon. Today, an appreciation of Warren Zevon’s catalogue would fall into the category of esoteric and obscure. I don’t play his music and bask in the glory of my obscurity. That would be retarded. Instead, I play his albums for my friends and acquaintances, so that it might bring them some joy as well. What I’m trying to say is that this ‘one hand secretly washes the other’ shit about the counter culture and consumerism shows that, not only do most people live in-authenticely, but more importantly a benevolent disposition has been made extinct by a distorted perception of how one authenticates ones self. FYI: you don’t buy shit, you do shit. You offer up something to the rest of us whether it be through what you create or what you maintain. I haven’t read the rest of these posts so this could all be overlap for all i know, but honestly you can tongue my butthole. Who fucking cares if someone is making money off our revolt. Though some of its participants are a little myopic in scope of reality, our rebellion still means something. Branding all of its participants ‘sellouts’ is fucking vulgarity
. LIKE WOO FUCKIN WOO DAVID MCRANEY
Interesting article, and make’s some good clear points. However I think there are some over-generalizations here. I think the author has failed to allow for the fact that within the 3 “consumer classes” there are are many “sub-classes” or sub-groups. The “Artist” , as a “type” of individual for instance, one single artists vision can influence a culture, as could say, a “Philosopher” . There are individuals in any class that have certain gifts and are influenced by things outside of “the system” – these gifted individuals have always been with us. The statement “capitalism and consumerism are driven by competition among consumers for status” is misleading, it assumes that all consumers are concerned with status. An artist has to eat, so he/she purchases food and clothing, however without concern for how it effects his/her status. Said artist might create a work and let someone else take credit for it, that work could be of importance or not, in any case the artist has, in their own way, defied “the system”. If I bake muffins and give some to my neighbor free of charge – I’ve defied the system. It all stems from the individual’s way of thinking. If we think status is important then we are slaves to the system.
The Misconception: Both consumerism and capitalism are sustained by corporations and advertising.
The Truth: Both consumerism and capitalism are driven by competition among consumers for status.
just going back and reading earlier posts, notice some similar entries to my own.
I have taken it upon myself to further tackle Mr.McRaney’s opening assertion. Firstly – the very opening statement is categorically false, which may be intentional I am guessing – it plays on “popular sensibility” or perhaps – the less gifted in the area of what is “hip” or what it means to be a “hipster”. We are really being drawn into kind of an extravagant “upgrading” of a kind of Pied Piper of Hamelin story. Corporations and advertising DO indeed sustain consumerism and capitalism, therefore calling that idea a misconception is a redundant statement. It may be a misconception to say, teenagers, – I think the author would have done this article a little justice including that these fads and trends that are exploited by corporations are in majority products of or aimed at youth culture. We learn how the system works as we grow into adulthood and make choices based upon our knowledge or aptitude.the machine feeds off of ideas of youth, no big surprise. Competitive attitudes are often imposed upon those of us living in a capitalist society, these attitudes are nurtured by “capitalist ideology”- this ideology needs the individual to participate in order to survive. Those who defend and support capitalist ideology know that system is jeopardized when people question this initial competitiveness and look at other options that better suit their collective class interests. As for the term “sell-out” – i do see where there is confusion about what that actually means, i think it’s how we look at it. I’m sure many artists or “hipsters” have “sold out”, I’m not sure what the surprise is there. I have’nt heard anything by The Doors used in advertising, I like to think they are’nt “sell-outs” :)
correction : should read “may be considered a misconception OF not TO , teenagers” – I’m trying to say that teenagers are in majority the ones who fall into the category of those who fall for the “rebel sale” hooks.
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Hmmm… where to start…
You’re main point is about “selling out.” That it doesn’t actually mean anything- that it’s all relative- right? Let’s focus on music. You talk about music that’s popular now- that it is rebelled against- and the stuff that rebels against it becomes popular later- only to be rebelled against in return. Again, all relative.
The problem is, you are only concerned about what is popular. Yes, what’s popular is arbitrary. Rebelling against it just because it is popular is also arbitrary. Liking things simply because they are unknown is as foolish as liking things because they are popular. What’s missing here?… Ah, yes. Truth! Your article disregards the possibility that a piece of artwork can be deep and meaningful while another can be slimy and superficial. The belief that all is relative makes this possibility an impossibility.
So back to “selling out.” You don’t seem to be clear on what it is, so I’ll tell you. Selling out is abandoning the truth in your work to make money or become more popular. Being popular is not selling out. Some musicians are sellouts before they even sell a single album. Some remain true even after going multi-platinum.
The belief that everything is relative is one of the prevailing beliefs of our modern society. People love words like “subjective.” Using it allows one to be impervious to scrutiny, because everything is “subjective.” The belief effectively makes all arguments irrelevant. Making arguments like this, that are (quoting Nicholas Rescher from ‘The Oxford Companion to Philosophy’) “reflective of an insufficient commitment to the pursuit of truth” is called “pseudophilosophy.”
So when you say that everyone is in fact a sellout, it fails to have meaning because it is (implicitly) based on the notion that all is subjective and therefore nothing can have intrinsic meaning. Including this article (paradox ahoy). It may say something true about what drives popular culture, but beyond that fails. You say nothing about selling out, much less about music, and “human nature?” Gimme a f****** break.
I’m curious to find out what blog platform you happen to be utilizing? I’m experiencing some small security issues with my latest website and I’d like to find something more risk-free. Do you have any solutions?
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I don’t get it man, what if it isn’t about “rejecting the mainstream” or “rebellion” but simply finding yourself? If ya wanna be a punk, be a freaking punk, and I’d say they know damn well that some bozo in a suit is getting rich off of it and they don’t really care either, they just wanna be whoever they define “themselves” as. You’re taking something as simple as buying clothes, listening to music and watching movies and blowing it up into big unrealistic ideas that supposedly say something about the consumerist society we live in, but really, WE ALREADY KNOW THAT so stop raining on the parade and let whoever be whoever.
If I happen to drift into the mainstream, so be it, but I shall neither pursue it nor avoid it, I’m just living the life I’m living, listening to the tunes I dig, paying to see the movies I think are worth paying for and being happy about it.
He is addressing the underlying reason that someone would want to define themselves as ‘punk’ or any other form of counter culture. The very nature of “finding yourself” in this way is nothing but grasping for reasons of why you are unique and special compared to the herd which you are just a part of in a more convoluted way.
I understand that, I’m just saying that those people don’t care if they are part of a crowd in a “more convoluted way”, and why should they have to care if it makes them happy?
I loved this article, much like I have loved everything I’ve read so far on this site.
So much sobering information about such a deluded and crazy world.
the guy called joe blow actually asked what if?????? he doesnt care about others opinions
I have read the Rebel Sell and aside from a few criticisms, particularly something never raised in the book about how one gets the idea to distinguish oneself with products, I thoroughly enjoyed it. There is one problem with this article that stands out though it does not undermine the central thesis. The idea that humans spent most of their time competing for resources if patently false. In the long era of feudalism, to take one more “recent” example, most people didn’t compete for resources at all. They were serfs working the land, and distribution was usually handled by the church or some other authority. Even as some serfs became free, while retaining their lands, they began to farm the land in common until “enclosed” upon by the powers that were. If we go back to hunter-gatherer society(also known as “primitive communism”) we also see that while clans and tribes might compete for resources, there was no competition between the members of a group; this would kill any chance for survival. And what of small producers producing commodities in the pre-capitalist era? Well things like guilds limited competition in the market.
So that idea fails when we look at human history. However, the article still manages to make the case against the idea that capitalism needs conformity to survive. Getting back to the one major complaint I had about The Rebel Sell, it is this: If we grant that consumers attempt to distinguish themselves by buying certain products and rejecting others, where do they get this idea that buying these products will distinguish them? Advertising can’t “make” us want these products, but it certainly can shape the way we think about them so that we decide we can create an identity around what we buy or don’t buy. We have to consider how the free market works here- if advertising didn’t have such profound effects on consumer behavior, businesses wouldn’t be spending so much money on marketing.
Incidentally the book also has a failing in its understanding of Marxism, which is shines through in this article though the connection with Marx is not mentioned. This is the idea of the “false consciousness”, which many including at least one of the Rebel Sell authors has fallen for. Opponents of Marx believe that ideology, or “a false consciousness”(a term that Marx never used) is an ad hoc hypothesis used to explain why Communism never caught on in certain countries. To be sure, a major reason why Communist revolution didn’t break out in many countries is simply that it was suppressed violently by authorities far more competent than the backward Tsar of Russia. But the closest thing Marx ever wrote about a “false consciousness” is his words on “commodity fetishism”, which does not in fact posit the idea that the ruling class creates some kind of illusory world of commodities so as to trick the working class. Commodity fetishism, whereby commodities acquire traits and attributes that are seen as inherent in themselves, is not some kind of consciously created conspiracy planned by the ruling elite. It is a natural outgrowth of a capitalist system whereby production is socialized and the market relations stretch over the whole globe. He was saying that, for example, when we buy some product we see ourselves in relation to the product rather than in relation to the producers, contrasted to say, pre-capitalist society where we personally know who produced a given commodity. Marx wrote about these distortions of reality which, as illusory as they may be, are very significant and have real impact. For a comparison, think about how early sailors were able to use the sun to aid in navigation even though they believed in a geocentric universe(or perhaps never considered the concept of a universe at all). You can navigate via the sun’s movements whether you are aware of which rotates around which or not.
That is a metaphor for commodity fetishism and certain illusions that a capitalist system creates, for all its citizens, not just workers. Just because something is a distortion of reality, doesn’t mean it can’t have real impact in the world.
Thank you for posting that :)
Did it ever occur to you guys that the reason it seems we’re “selling out” is because every time anyone tries to do anything different that is not based on money, individuals or companies who want to make money jump on it and do everything they can think of to take advantage of the situation? Sometimes people aren’t selling out, others are taking advantage of the situation. Try to be counter-culture and those who want to profit will exploit that.
Yes, sometimes it’s like the music group that gained recognition and fame, but sometimes it isn’t at all…
Also, some people don’t WANT to compete with others, even though the drive is there… There is a difference between an impulse and following that impulse… For instance, I don’t WANT to compete for work, food or shelter… It means that what I gain another has lost… If gain employment for instance, that means others don’t get hired. It means they suffer. But our society is set up to compete… what choices do I have when society demands competition. Its everywhere! I don’t want others to suffer as a result of the way I or we as a group (society) live, but others don’t seem to want to improve things?
The ability to think of others beyond ourselves and how what we do affects others, directly or indirectly, (Empathy and Compassion) seems to be unimportant in todays society maybe I’m wrong, I don’t know.
I hope we can evolve past the more negative aspects of ourselves… the built-in impulses that cause so much damage to others and the world around us… Our species is still young, maybe we can figure it out eventually…
The people who start a particular trend may be sincere about it, but the point is it gets “co-opted” because it was usually never really subversive in the first place. If it’s a trend based on a style of music or clothes, anyone can potentially buy those clothes or that type of music. So this means that rebellion needs to take forms other than those which can be packaged and sold. It needs to be rooted in a material analysis of one’s situation.
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