I like to read postmodern philosophy because you learn models you can apply to you day-to-day life. I might not drink the koolaid, but it’s at least fun to be able to put various glasses on to look at things. It’s like how once you’ve learned just a bit about Freud, you can start ascribing all sorts of things to Oedipus Complexes. (Freud’s models go much deeper than this, but that’s another post.)

The Rebel Sell has nothing to do with ethics – it doesn’t make any positive statements. It’s very applied philosophy: it simply presents a model that explains the motivations of everyone in our society.

A long, long time ago, there were two kinds of people: those who measured their success on traditional scales like money, power, and family (“squares”); and those whose goal was to have an interesting life – measured in coolness (“hips”). The Rebel Sell says that members of both groups measure status relative to other members of their groups, and engage in similar behaviour to increase and demonstrate their status. The core of this behaviour is competitive consumption.

Squares consume things that are genuinely scarce, like land and truffles, and things that are artificially scarce, like limited-edition handbags. Hips mostly consume things that are artificially scarce: things can only, by definition, be cool if not everyone consumes them. Contemporary examples range from trendy neighbourhoods to obscure music to vestigial watches.

When these groups first arose, Hips were marginalized and called “counter-culture”, “rebels”, etc. Now everyone belongs to both groups, but the values of cool dominate our lives. To understand why you want the things you do, and how your desires are competitive and based on artificial scarcity, read the book.