By Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter

Culture jammers are not the first to try to break the system through consumer revolt. Countercultural rebels have been playing the same game for over forty years, and it obviously doesn't work. With the hippies, nothing symbolized their rejection of the "consumerism" of American society more than love beads, Birkenstocks and the VW Beetle. Yet during the '80s, the same generation that had "tuned in, turned on and dropped out" presided over the most significant resurgence of conspicuous consumption in American history. The hippies became yuppies. And nothing symbolized the yuppie worldview more than the SUV-the vehicle that one commentator aptly described as "a gated community on wheels." So how does one get from a VW Beetle to a Ford Explorer? It turns out to be not so difficult.

The crucial point is that (contrary to rumor) the hippies did not sell out. Hippie ideology and yuppie ideology are one and the same. There simply never was any tension between the countercultural ideas that informed the '60s rebellion and the ideological requirements of the capitalist system. While there is no doubt that a cultural conflict developed between the members of the counterculture and the defenders of the older American Protestant establishment, there never was any tension between the values of the counterculture and the functional requirements of the capitalist economic system. The counterculture was, from its very inception, intensely entrepreneurial. It reflected, as does Adbusters, the most authentic spirit of capitalism.

Hippies bought VW Beetles for one primary reason-to show that they rejected mass society. The big three Detroit automakers had been the target of withering social criticism for well over a decade, accused of promoting "planned obsolescence" in their vehicles. They were chastised above all for changing their models and designs so that consumers would be forced to buy a new car every few years in order to keep up with the Joneses. The tail fin was held up by many as an object of special scorn-as both embodiment and symbol of the wastefulness of American consumer culture. Against this backdrop, Volkswagen entered the U.S. consumer market with a very simple pitch: Wanna show people that you're not just a cog in the machine? Buy our car!

When the boomers started having children, the old VW obviously was no longer sufficient. Yet there was no question of buying a wood-paneled station wagon, the kind that their parents used to drive. They may have had kids, but they were still rebels at heart. And no vehicle appealed to this desire for rebel chic more perfectly than the SUV. Off-road capability was the major selling point-even the Grateful Dead sang the praises of four-wheel drive. "The system" tells you that you have to drive in a straight line, down some "road" that The Man has built for you. The rebel can't be tied down like that; he yearns for freedom. He needs to be able to veer off at any time and start following his own road.

What a perfect vehicle! To anyone who passes by, it says, "I'm not one of those losers with kids, living in the suburbs. My life is an adventure." It tells them that you're not a square, not a cog in the machine.

If the boomers were obsessed with cars, Generation Xers seem to have had a special preoccupation with shoes. Shoes were an essential element of the punk aesthetic from the beginning, from army boots and Converse sneakers to Doc Martens and Blundstones. And instead of the big three automakers to play the villain, there were the shoe companies: first and foremost, Nike. For antiglobalization demonstrators, Nike came to symbolize everything that was wrong with the emerging capitalist world order.

Yet this animus toward Nike did create occasional moments of embarrassment. During the famous Seattle riots of 1999, the downtown Niketown was trashed by protestors, but videotape recorded at the scene showed several protestors kicking in the front window wearing Nike shoes. It occurred to many people that if you think Nike is the root of all evil, you really shouldn't be wearing their shoes. Yet if thousands of young people refuse to wear Nike, that creates an obvious market for "alternative" footwear. Vans and Airwalk were both able to leverage some of the rebel chic associated with skateboarding into millions of dollars of sneaker sales. It's the same story all over again, and Adbusters is just trying to get a piece of the action.