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A review by heathward
The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture, and the Rise of Hip Consumerism by Thomas Frank
4.0
Five Key Points:
1. Management and business (capitalism) in the 1960s underwent a counterculture revolution just as dramatic as that found in the streets: "Postwar American capitalism was hardly the unchanging and soulless machine imagined by countercultural leaders; it was as dynamic a force in its own way as the revolutionary youth movements of the period, undertaking dramatic transformations." (6)
2. Book examines 'co-option' of counterculture by business, seeking to go beyond traditional vilification of it: "This book is... an analysis of the forces and logic that make rebel youth cultures so attractive to corporate decision-makers." (7)
3. A radical section of American businessmen saw the counterculture as a kindred spirit in their own attempts to revitalise society: "Many in American business... imagined the counterculture not as an enemy to be undermined or a threat to consumer culture, but as a hopeful sign, a symbolic ally in their struggles against the mountains of dead-weight procedure and hierarchy." (9)
4. The capillaries of countercultural thought in business stretch into the 1950s, with a turn against hierarchy and towards creativity gradually becoming more popular: "Even in the most complacent management literature of the fifties one finds harbingers of dissent and upheaval." (21)
5. Consumerism was able to remain such a powerful part of American society through its ability to allow individuals to show dissent- including dissent towards consumerism! "No longer would Americans buy to fit in or impress the Joneses, but to demonstrate that they were wise to the game , to express their revulsion with the artifice and conformity of consumerism."
1. Management and business (capitalism) in the 1960s underwent a counterculture revolution just as dramatic as that found in the streets: "Postwar American capitalism was hardly the unchanging and soulless machine imagined by countercultural leaders; it was as dynamic a force in its own way as the revolutionary youth movements of the period, undertaking dramatic transformations." (6)
2. Book examines 'co-option' of counterculture by business, seeking to go beyond traditional vilification of it: "This book is... an analysis of the forces and logic that make rebel youth cultures so attractive to corporate decision-makers." (7)
3. A radical section of American businessmen saw the counterculture as a kindred spirit in their own attempts to revitalise society: "Many in American business... imagined the counterculture not as an enemy to be undermined or a threat to consumer culture, but as a hopeful sign, a symbolic ally in their struggles against the mountains of dead-weight procedure and hierarchy." (9)
4. The capillaries of countercultural thought in business stretch into the 1950s, with a turn against hierarchy and towards creativity gradually becoming more popular: "Even in the most complacent management literature of the fifties one finds harbingers of dissent and upheaval." (21)
5. Consumerism was able to remain such a powerful part of American society through its ability to allow individuals to show dissent- including dissent towards consumerism! "No longer would Americans buy to fit in or impress the Joneses, but to demonstrate that they were wise to the game , to express their revulsion with the artifice and conformity of consumerism."