It's called The Rebel Sell: Why the Culture Can’t Be Jammed, by Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter. So it turns out that the book ain't published here until February 05, and then under a slightly amended title (How the Counter Culture Became Consumer)… but it seems like it might echo and challenge those books and thinkers that have followed in the Anita Roddick/ Naomi Klein vein.
The general principle is that even the simple act of seeking a countercultural alternative to mass-produced items (eg white sliced versus organic, hand-made bread) turns into an exclusive endeavour that is both expensive and elitist despite trying to get you back to a “more simple life”. People who say they are fed up with mass consumerism and seek alternatives are engaging in a myth – the authors argue that there is no difference between “mainstream” and “alternative” culture. In fact, counterculture is not a threat to the system, it is the system. They seem to be saying that buying organic food, using non-cash barter systems, living an outdoor life, repairing things rather than buying new, and so on, are all ways to prop up another business (be that DIY stores, booksellers, specialist food retailers, etc), and continue to engage in the consumer cultural reality. One conclusion of theirs seems to be that “if living like the Amish is the only way to avoid consumerism, then it really forces us to wonder what is wrong with consumerism in the first place?”
The link here is to an article that they published as a precursor to the book being published: http://www.thismagazine.ca/issues/2002/11/rebelsell.php
And if you want to pre-order the book in the UK (and keep adding to the consumer culture by buying a book on how we can’t subvert it from a major online retailer…):
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1841126543/qid%3D1097487599/202-8290148-4756630
Hey Laura HD and others,
Andrew Potter here -- one of the co-authors of The Rebel Sell. You're right -- the National Post is a lot like the Torygraph; both were once owned by Lord Black, and the Post reprints a lot of Telegraph material.
But, if you want to find out more about what we're on about in the book, go to www.rebelsell.org
There's a Q&A there that should make it clear that the book isn't right-wing pro-consumerism propaganda.
Cheers to England
ap
By 
, at 3:13 PM BST
Hey Andrew, nice to have you on board! Just to make clear that I wasn't trying to add the book into the same category as the Torygraph and the consumerism that so many of us struggle with and yet can't help buying into... In fact, I will almost certainly buy copy of the book myself when it comes out over here, unless you want to send one to me for "reviewing" purposes...
;-))
By 
LauraHD, at 7:58 AM BST
I read the article. And please can I borrow your copy of the book when you buy it?!
I think it is easy for living ethically to just become another form of consumerism, because we are living in a society with a neo-liberal ideology - consumption is the basis for economic growth, which is the prized goal for a healthy society. I think there has to be a better way, where success is defined by more than how much money you make and how much you own. Give me seven years and I'll write a new theory... We need to change the structural basis of society. I like the idea of changing tax on advertising but I would go further and ban it altogether (I haven't quite worked out if this is feasible yet!) - at least the 'lifestyle branding' form of advertising. Cars do not make you sexy, you can just go places faster. Having cool trainers actually isn't going to make anyone like you. And wearing Lynx will not make you more attractive - only plastic surgery can help you now...
By Sarah, at 10:08 AM BST
Hey guys,
Andrew Potter again. I should probably get an account on this so I don't have to post anonymously. LauraHD, I'd love to send you a review copy, but my publicist has finally put her foot down on my requests for copies for friends, er, "reviewers".
But you can always order it off amazon.ca, of course. There's no reason why they wouldn't deliver a copy to the UK.
As for Sarah's point about advertising, I agree. I think lifestyle advertising to adolescents should be illegal. Sweden has a such a law; the US tried to pass one in the 1970s but it didn't go through.
Cheers,
ap
By , at 3:06 PM BST
Hello,
I am about halfway through this book and it really is fantastic. However, I have a couple of qualms about the theory the authors are espousing and since one of them seems to be reading this blog, I thought they might respond.
In a nutshell, I think that their view that the lack of happiness in material society is the result of "competitive consumerism" is clearly correct. If everyone is competing for distinctiveness by becoming a surfer or a yoga instructor or an extreme mountain biker, then once everyone is buying surfboards or yoga mats it's no longer distinctive, and the cycle begins anew.
However, I disagree with their position that this type of competitive consumerism is somehow a rational decision. In fact I would contend that it is, for the most part, an unconscious decision due to other factors such as the weight of expectations of family and society coupled with massive advertising, coupled with the desire to define ourselves in some acceptable but prestigous way. I certainly don't think that it is "the system's" fault; I think it is our "fault" for not being totally conscious of what is going on. If it was all so obvious they wouldn't have to write a book about it!
I'll give you an example of where their theory falls down: early in the book, they talk about 2 doctors who are buying cars. They suggest that one doctor decides that "patients will be suspicous of a doctor who doesn't drive a BMW" so he goes out and trades in his Honda. This forces other doctors to go out and buy Jaguars. Now, in my experience, no one really knows what kind of car their doctor drives. And it's got nothing to do with getting new patients (name me a doctor in Canada who has that problem!). It's all got to do with expectation and self-definition, all of which are "unconscious" decisions.
Later in the book, the authors give a list of brand-name products that they have purchased in order to be cool: things like Ray-Ban sunglasses and Mini-Coopers. I find this puzzling: are they suggesting that they themselves made a conscious decision to waste all this money on self-definition. Isn't it that trying to be "cool" is basically an unconscious decision based on these underlying factors.
At another point in the book, they talk about how children have become such massive consumers of fashion. They suggest that children have "started to embrace the logic of consumerism at an increasingly young age". My question is why? Isn't this exactly what I mean: don't children learn this behaviour and doesn't it become automatic ("unconscious")to them and isn't that fantastic for the corporations marketing product.
Later in the same section the authors write: "It would be better for all concerned if no one wore the latest Nikes to school but the temptation to engage in one-upmanship and the desire not to fall behind are just too great". Words like "desire" and "temptation" are from the language of the unconscious.
I think they do themselves a disservice by not recognizing this and not accepting that from the point of view of a corporation marketing products, this sort of unconscious competitive decision making is fantastic.
I think there is a general societal problem of not recognizing our "unconsciousness" with regard to competitive consumerism. While we are all obsessing about BMW's and surfboards and yoga mats, we are not really focusing on the important issues and in a sense we are still locked in a cycle of apathy.
I think that their critique of the left makes perfect sense in that the left's desire to destroy the system is throwing the baby out with the bath water. But it doesn't really address the question of why so many people are unhappy.
By , at 6:56 PM BST
This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
By Bengo, at 1:29 AM GMT
First a response to the last reviewer. I don't think the authors meant that people are trying consciously to engage in "races to the bottom." People are doing what people always do. They chase after trends in an attempt to gain status, be it the class status of Victorian times or the very opposite cool of Punk God. Things would definitely be more fair and equal if we could all just agree to abolish status, but biology's against us on this one, and I'm not sure I'd want to live in that world.
What they mean to say is that it is by no means a fault of "the system" that we act this way. The most important sentence of the entire book, in my mind was that scarcity is not a material phenomenon, but a social one. While advertisers do exploit our desire to be in posession of position, they do not cause this desire. So railing against "the media" for turning out generations of fad chasers and exclusive counterculture cliques is like as railing against casinos for creating gamblers. If casinos didn't exist compulsive self-destructive people would find some other way.
Secondly, its really refreshing to see the authors of this book taking such an interest in responses to their work. I just finished it an hour ago, the one with the new afterword, and was pleased to see my very questions adressed and explained. This summer I was biking through Ontario teachig 6-12 year olds the virtues of Organics, Local trade, Do it Yourself, and thinking outside the system. All the while a little bug was crawling under my skin that there was no future in all this. Amidst the apocalyptic visions of my biking buds, I felt a little like the main character of brave new world. That didn't seem right though, that's what I was fighting against, right? This book really helped focus some vague sentiments I had been developing for a while, and for that I thank you.
By Bengo, at 1:58 AM GMT
hey all
i read this book a couple of months ago and thought it to be thought provoking. i was thankful for the lack of jargon associated with many books authored by intellectuals.
the main point of contention for me is that the authors seem to confuse 'left' for liberal. people that are in the constant search for unchartered waters of cool are not necessarily progressive, most are what i like to call members of the 'chic resistence', meaning there is fashion (look and attitude) but no attempt at understanding the consequences of western society and absolutely no interest in the sacrifices necessary in engendering a more just civilization. fair trade is cool right now. looking subversive is cool right now. you can buy this stuff at any relevant shop. but this doesn't mean anything real.
By , at 5:58 PM GMT
Jon Lumer from Montreal here. This is my first blog posting ever. Pretty excited about it. As a long-time adbusters subscriber and fan I thoroughly enjoyed reading The Rebel Sell. Andrew and Joseph really helped me further understand my own infatuation with subcultures and countercultures throughout my adolescence and even as I experience my early twenties. Many of my choices have indeed been attempts both to define and (perhaps more accurately)differentiate myself. The authors are right to suggest piecemeal reform as the most effective path to positive change. It just happens so impreceptibly slowly that some of us wonder whether it all adds up to too little too late. If apathy doesn't set in then at least despair does. A magazine like adbusters or a revolutionary ideology or even a good conspiracy theory can feel like a breath of fresh air. I'll keep my subscription to adbusters because I find many of their criticisms of society apt even if workable solutions to the problems they identify are rare. I need to know someone out there is even more worried about spiralling consumption and the fate of the planet than I am. As a publication it offers much more than The Rebel Sell was able to portray, just as alternative medicine is not something that can be written off as completely worthless, even if there is much to be lamented about the doors it opens for would-be con artists. Still, thank goodness for clear-headed thinkers like Andrew and Joseph. I also applaud them for being so involved in the post-publication discussion. I hope they are as far-sighted as they appear to me. We need to get them out of the universities and into Parliament.
By jon lumer, at 3:56 PM GMT