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Thomas C. Frank is editor of the Chicago literary magazine the Baffler. He is also the author of The Conquest of Cool (University of Chicago Press).
Liberation marketing takes the old mass-culture critique — consumerism as conformity — fully into account, acknowledges it, addresses it, and solves it. Liberation marketing imagines consumers breaking free from the old order, tearing loose from the shackles with which capitalism has bound us, escaping the routine of bureaucracy and hierarchy, getting in touch with our true selves, and, finally, finding authenticity, that holiest of consumer grails.
March 1999Has something we published moved you? Fired you up? Did we miss the mark? We’d love to hear about it.
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