The Rebel Sell: How The Counter Culture Became Consumer Culture

"...a compelling read, proposing ways for us serfs to combat the brandlords..."
--Focus

It is hard to ignore the growing tide of resistance to the corporate-dominated world. But do vocal opponents of the status quo offer us a real political alternative?

Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter shatter the central myth of radical political, economic and cultural thinking. The idea of a counterculture - that is, a world outside of the consumer dominated one that encompasses us - pervades everything from the anti-globalisation movement to feminism and environmentalism. And the idea that mocking the system, or trying to 'jam' it so it will collapse, they argue, is not only counterproductive but has helped to create the very consumer society that radicals oppose. Heath and Potter offer a startlingly clear picture of what a concern for social justice might look like without the confusion of the countercultural obsession with being different.