Cause-marketing brands replace political response with individualized consumption

Evidence

Another, related, reason is that Product Red promises to eliminates politics as such. If the invisible hand of the credit card user can ameliorate the problem of Aids in Africa, there is no need for a political response at all — what John Hayes of American Express calls “conscientious commerce” will be sufficient. In this way, Product Red goes beyond using a Masaai tribesman to advertise American Express, and uses him to sell neoliberal ideology itself. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1465

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the Frankfurt School’s culture-industry argument that engineered consumption returns subjects to resigned drudgery, and ‘conspicuous compassion’ more broadly. — connects to: Consumption-based charity substitutes for and eliminates collective political response — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1465; Cause-branding collapses the gap between exploitation and atonement into the act of consumption itself — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1462; Consumption practices have replaced political conviction as ideology — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 853 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Consumption-based charity substitutes for and eliminates collective political response #corroborates (0.97) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1465
• Cause-marketing inoculates itself from criticism by pairing profit with charity #expands (0.90) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1463
• Cause-branding collapses the gap between exploitation and atonement into the act of consumption itself #complicates (0.85) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1462
• Consumption practices have replaced political conviction as ideology #corroborates (0.72) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 853