"Counterculture" and Capitalism

For an interesting read on the unity that exists between the counterculture and capitalism check out The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture and the Rise of Hip Consumerism(1). In the book Thomas Frank basically links up the importance of business in fueling the popularity of subcultures and countercultures for their own economic needs and the rise of the counterculture of the 1960s. It is in this decade that a focus on being a rebel, on being alternative and against the man became in vogue. Frank argues that the livelihood of the capitalist economy is dependent on this image and selling of being "counter to the mainstream". The counterculture, argues Frank, is a product of capital's need for valorization and of the individual's need to feel unique and cool.

Another book that focuses on the unity of the counterculture and capitalism, as sharing a similar entrepreneurial spirit that feeds the growth of capital, check out Nation of Rebels: Why Counterculture became Consumerculture (2). The authors basically argue that the counterculture has very similar orientations economically as that of capital and therefore they are easily mass marketed and popularized, because in reality, cultural opposition is not that hard to sell or profit off of. In fact cultural opposition is what has fueled the growth of capital in the last fifty years. Everyone wants to be hip, cool, an outsider, for they base consumption and subcultures along lines of status - of distinction. Being part of the counterculture is cool, it makes one superior to all those boring, workaholics who have no life - "the squares". The selling of a counterculture and people's own needs for individualty and coolness directly supports the capitalist econoimc system, the counterculture is not oppositional politically or economically in its current form, so argues the authors.

When someone speaks of countercultures I always try and look at that counterculture and determine what exactly are they counter to? Does it lie on a cultural, economic, political, ecological level, etc. How do their ideals or goals oppose those of the dominant cultural, economic, or political systems - and who are these dominant groups/systems? To what degree of change would the exisiting society have to go through to implement their demands? Who would fight against these changes and how hard - what tactics would they use to prevent this changes from happening? Based upon what I have seen in the U.S. oppositional economic, political and ecological ideals and models - which of course are tied up with cultures, are more counter-to the dominant power blocs than easily commodified lifestyles - skating boarding, hipsters, punk, hip/hop. Now there are certain groups within each of these just mentioned that may be truely oppositional, but by and large these groups are either tamed by the marketplace or not really threatening the existing power blocs, in my opinion.