Protest Inc
Subtitle: the corporatization of activism
By: Peter Dauvergne and Genevieve LeBaron
Contributors: LeBaron, Genevieve
Publisher: Polity
Published: 2014
Place of publication: Cambridge, UK
Language: eng
Number of pages: 206
ISBN-13: 9780745669496; 9780745669489
Subjects: Protest movements; Social aspects; Corporations; Economic aspects; Social change; Social movements
Description: Mass protests have raged since the global financial crisis of 2008. Across the world students and workers and environmentalists are taking to the streets. Discontent is seething even in the wealthiest countries, as the world saw with Occupy Wall Street in 2011. Protest Inc. tells a disturbingly different story of global activism. As millions of grassroots activists rally against capitalism, activism more broadly is increasingly mirroring business management and echoing calls for market-based solutions. The past decade has seen nongovernmental organizations partner with oil companies like ExxonMobil, discount retailers like Walmart, fast-food chains like McDonald's, and brand manufacturers like Nike and Coca-Cola. NGOs are courting billionaire philanthropists, branding causes, and turning to consumers as wellsprings of reform... Political and socioeconomic changes are enhancing the power of business to corporatize activism, including a worldwide crackdown on dissent, a strengthening of consumerism, a privatization of daily life, and a shifting of activism into business-style institutions...--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 157-192) and index.
Table of contents: title: Where are the radicals?; title: Seeing like a corporation; title: Securitizing dissent; title: Privatizing social life; title: Institutionalizing activism; title: A corporatized world order.