Financial reform rarely mobilizes activists because finance resists easy understanding

Evidence

Resisting capitalism is another option; rather than using state power against capitalism, it aims to neutralize capitalism’s harms through grassroots organization of activist, social, and labor movements that utilize protests, boycotts, strikes, blockades, unions, solidarity, and other tactics. Many admirable attempts at media reform could be categorized this way, such as unions like IATSE, WGA, and UMAW; organizations like GLAAD, NAACP, FAIR, and MediaJustice; and recent activist campaigns such as #MeToo, #OscarsSoWhite, and #JusticeAtSpotify. Apart from the global phenomenon of Occupy Wall Street in 2011, financial reform does not usually receive the same amount of outcry and agitation. In part, this is because it is difficult to even understand, let alone target and transform finance into a digestible, actionable political issue. — Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media, 465

Categorization

• SEED: A possible essay angle: why do audiences rage about cultural representation (#OscarsSoWhite) but not about the financialization driving the derivative output they then protest?