"Conscious consumption" arises out of the tradition that gave us Margaret Thatcher's maxim, "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first."

Any attempt to change society by shopping very carefully is destined to fail, but it's worse than that.

3/

The Montgomery bus boycott was an *organized* project, put together by a powerful membership organization, the NAACP, that demanded far more of its members than merely shopping very carefully. The boycott was the *end stage* of an organized resistance, not a substitute for it.

4/

The problem with "conscious consumption" is that it comes out of the neoliberal tradition in which every political matter is supposedly determined by your individual actions, and not your actions as part of a union or other political institution that works as a bloc to overthrow the status quo.

5/

"Conscious consumption" arises out of the tradition that gave us Margaret Thatcher's maxim, "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first."

6/

Any attempt to change society by shopping very carefully is destined to fail, but it's worse than that. Because "shopping very carefully" never makes systemic change, its practitioners inevitably decide the reason they're not seeing the change they yearn for is that their allies *aren't shopping carefully enough*.

7/

This turns the careful shopper into a cop who polices other people's consumption, demanding that they stop eating some foodstuff or using Twitter or watching HBO Max. Squabbling over whether using a social media network makes you a Nazi generates far more heat than light - so much heat that it incinerates the solidarity you need to actually fight Nazis.

8/

Which is not an argument against boycotts! Boycotts work. If boycotts didn't work, then genocide apologists wouldn't be apoplectic over the BDS movement:

bdsmovement.net/

But a "boycott" isn't the same thing as "you and your social circle deciding that buying the wrong product makes you a Bad Person and then devoting your energies to scolding your allies for choosing Coke instead of Pepsi."

9/

BDS MOVEMENT

The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement works to end international support for Israel's oppression of Palestinians.

^{BDS Movement}

Boycotts are downstream of organizing; they are not a substitute for organizing. There is such a thing as society.

Now, all that said, I will confess: I sometimes do something that looks a lot like "shopping very carefully," and when I do, I derive enormous satisfaction from it (but I am always careful not to mistake my tiny victories for political action). But I get it, honestly, I do.

10/

Sometimes, "shopping very carefully" is a way to eke out a tiny, personal victory in the face of overwhelming odds against a wildly overmatched opponent. That feels very good.

One example would be patronizing my local repair shop (or fixing my stuff myself). The big structural barriers to repair are things like "parts pairing":

pluralistic.net/2024/05/24/rec…

And manufacturers who abuse trademark law to get CBP to seize refurbished parts at the border:

shacknews.com/article/108049/a…

11/

Apple repair critic Louis Rossmann takes on U.S. Customs 'counterfeit' battery seizure

Rossmann plans to fight the decision tooth and nail in a video he created outlining the situation.

^{Brittany Vincent (Shacknews)}

The repair problem *isn't* that your neighbors are "sheeple" who've had their minds warped by a "throwaway society." The problem is that technical and legal countermeasures have made repair so hard and unprofitable that getting your stuff fixed is more expensive and time-consuming than it needs to be.

That said: I love going to my local repair shop. I love fixing things on my own. It's great. It makes me feel great.

12/

I think you should do it because it may make you feel great, too, and it'd be nice for you to support your local fix-it place, but let's not pretend that we'll change society that way.

Here's another example: for the past couple years, I've been navigating a (thankfully *very* treatable) cancer diagnosis. The fact that my cancer is very treatable doesn't mean it's *easily* treated.

13/

America's shitty, for-profit healthcare system is terrible at the best of times, and nearly unnavigable when coping with a complex condition that crosses a lot of disciplinary lines and requires access to specialized, expensive equipment.

I'm asymptomatic, so the hardest part of having cancer - so far - is fighting the Kaiser bureaucracy to make sure my treatment goes off as planned:

pluralistic.net/2024/11/05/car…

14/

The fact that the different Kaiser departments drop so many balls when handing off care between them means that *I* have to juggle those balls for them. I make extensive use of organizational tactics like "suspense files," which are a kind of inverted to-do list, in that they let you manage *other people's* to-do lists, rather than your own:

pluralistic.net/2024/10/26/one…

15/

(In case you're wondering, the *best* part of having cancer is that Kaiser comps 100% of your parking! Free cancer parking!)

Now, I also make sure to note each of Kaiser's failures and I raise grievances and California health ombudsman complaints for each one - not because I'm angry and want an apology, but because I'm a well-organized, native English-speaking cancer patient with no symptoms, which means that I can do the advocacy that other people can't, and help them.

16/

(I also track these complaints with suspense files, calendar entries, etc, to make sure that they're followed through.)

Partly, I'm able to do this because I'm very organized. I'm not organized because I worship at the cult of "personal productivity"; I'm definitely Jenny Odell-pilled on that score:

memex.craphound.com/2019/04/09…

17/

(I also track these complaints with suspense files, calendar entries, etc, to make sure that they're followed through.)

Partly, I'm able to do this because I'm very organized. I'm not organized because I worship at the cult of "personal productivity"; I'm definitely Jenny Odell-pilled on that score:

memex.craphound.com/2019/04/09…

18/

I'm organized because I pursue The Way of Jim Munroe's "Time Management for Anarchists" ("once I learned how to make my own structure, I was able to kick my expensive boss habit and work on my own"):

jimmunroe.net/comics/pamphlets…

Having invested a lot of energy into being organized, I now get *massive* discounts on dealing with other people's shit.

19/

Time Management for Anarchists

I did a seminar at Canzine, a zine fair in Toronto. It focused on the paradoxical notion that if you want to live without bosses, you have to be self-disciplined. I attribute my productivity to bei…

^{Jim Munroe}

Remember: giant corporations and other remorseless bureaucracies throw up roadblocks assuming that you will be a "rational economic actor." The airline assumes that if it costs you 15 hours to collect on the $50 voucher you're entitled to, you will just let them steal $50 from you. But once you get organized enough, you can cut that 15-hour investment down to a 15-minute one. I will trade 15 minutes of dealing with an airline's bullshit for $50 of that airline's money.

20/

(Why yes, Air Canada did fuck me over on Jan 3 and get me home at 5AM the next day, instead of 730PM the night before; and yes, they did deny my compensation claim; and yes, I have filed an appeal with the Canada Transport Agency; why do you ask?)

21/

One of my favorite podcasts is "An Arm and a Leg," which divides itself between deep dive structural analyses into how corrupt and ghastly American medical billing is, and enumerations of sweet hacks that ninja bill-fighters have come up with to slice through the billing labyrinth your insurer and hospital trap you in and cut straight to the bullseye:

armandalegshow.com/

22/

An Arm and A Leg • Why health care costs so much and what to do

Want to fight the awful cost of health care — like outrageous medical bills, health insurance denials, shady debt collectors? Check out our reporting.

^{An Arm and A Leg}

For example, the latest episode tells the story of Jared Walker, who figured out that hospitals were stealing billions of dollars every year from the poorest people in America, who were all entitled to have their medical bill canceled. He founded Dollarfor, a nonprofit that helps patients get their medical debt canceled:

armandalegshow.com/episode/our…

23/

Our favorite project of 2025 levels up — and you can help • An Arm And a Leg

Our listeners have been teaming up on an incredible project – kicked off earlier this year by a med student named Thomas Sanford.  The idea: create a list

^{An Arm and A Leg}

Dollarfor now has an automated tool that guides you through a survey and then generates and files the completed, hospital-specific paperwork needed to get your medical debt canceled (they've made versions of this for every hospital in America!):

dollarfor.org/

(If you're a health worker, here's a printable guide with QR codes that you can clip to your lanyard and show to patients while you deliver care):

drive.google.com/file/d/14cfwK…

24/

Get Relief from Hospital Bills – Dollar For

You may not have to pay that bill. Most hospitals offer bill forgiveness based on income. We help you apply for debt relief — for free.

^{Dollar For}

Now, the real problem here isn't that hospitals steal billions from charity cases: it's that America has a garbage for-profit healthcare system that kills and bankrupts people at scale. Dollarfor is amazing, but it's not going to fix that problem.

25/

I don't know Walker, but I bet if you asked him, he'd agree with this, and say something like, "Yes, and I'm helping people not have their lives destroyed by this garbage system, which is good unto itself; and also, it might give them the free time and wherewithal to participate in movements to overthrow the garbage system."

I really dote on the fact that Dollarfor has literally built a different version of their tool for *every single hospital in the country*.

26/

It's a perfect example of how turning yourself into a highly organized adversary can overcome the time-based economics our enemies rely on to keep their garbage systems intact.

Whenever I think of this stuff, I flash on two pop-culture references that made a deep impression on me.

27/

The first comes from 1985's *Real Genius*, Val Kilmer's best ever movie (fight me!). *Real Genius* is set in a fictionalized version of Caltech in which young prodigies slowly discover that their scumbag prof has tricked them into working on a weapons contract for the DoD.

This being fictional-Caltech, there are all these scenes in which very smart people do weird and amazing things.

28/

At one point, we learn that there's a former child prodigy living in the basement under the dorms, a guy named Lazlo Hollyfeld who became a hermit after discovering that he, too, had been duped into working on a baby-killer project. We get these tantalizing glimpses of Lazlo in his subterranean redoubt, where he has built some kind of giant Rube Goldberg machine that is engaged in a mysterious mechanical process that involves manipulating cards of some sort.

29/

At the film's denouement (spoiler alert for a 40 year old movie), we discover what he was doing:

> Lazlo: These are entries into the Frito-Lay Sweepstakes. "No purchase necessary, enter as often as you want" - so I am.

> Chris: That's great! How many times?

> Lazlo: Well, this batch makes it one million six hundred and fifty thousand. I should win thirty-two point six percent of the prizes, including the car.

30/

> Chris: That kind of takes the fun out of it, doesn't it?

> Lazlo: They set up the rules, and lately I've come to realize that I have certain materialistic needs.

youtube.com/watch?v=I6kBfBXZBd…

Then there's a scene from the otherwise tepid (fight me!) *Batman Returns* (1992) in which we encounter the Penguin in *his* subterranean redoubt, brandishing pages full of kompromat that have been laboriously taped together:

31/

Real Genius | Frito-Lay Sweepstakes | Jon Gries as Lazlo | 1985

Hilarious Jon Gries scene as Lazlo Hollyfeld in the 1985 cult classic Real Genius.Yes, Jon also played Uncle Rico in Napoleon Dynamite (2004) and The White L...

^YouTube

> The Penguin: What about the documents that prove you own half the firetraps in Gotham City?

> Maximillian 'Max' Shreck: If there were such documents - and that's not an admission - I would have seen to it they were shredded.

> The Penguin: Ah, good idea! [pulls out a sheaf of documents]

> The Penguin: A lot of tape and a little patience make all the difference.

imdb.com/title/tt0103776/quote…

32/

Both Lazlo and the Penguin are defeating the time-based security assumptions of their adversaries. Frito Lay treats filling in 1.65m sweepstakes entries as the same thing as filling in *infinity* entries; Max Schrek treats the time needed to piece together shredded paper as infinite.

33/

Rounding a very large number up to infinity isn't entirely irrational, but once you get organized enough, you just might be able to find time - or a system - to bring that very big number down to an entirely tractable value.

Yes, this is a species of "careful shopping" but my point isn't to say that shopping carefully is useless - rather, that it's a drastic error to mistake this useful (and surprisingly satisfying) *tactic* for a *strategy* that will truly alter the system.

34/

I'm coming to Colorado! Catch me in #Denver TONIGHT (Jan 22) at The Tattered Cover:

eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow…

And in #ColoradoSprings THIS WEEKEND (Jan 23-25), where I'm the Guest of Honor at COSine:

firstfridayfandom.org/cosine/

Then I'll be in #Ottawa on WEDS (Jan 28) at Perfect Books:

instagram.com/p/DS2nGiHiNUh/

And in #Toronto with Tim Wu on Jan 30:

nowtoronto.com/event/cory-doct…

eof/

Cory Doctorow and Tim Wu: Enshittification and Extraction

Back by popular demand, Tim Wu (The Age of Extraction) returns to Hot Docs Cinema for a further exploration of the failed promise of the...

^{NOW Toronto}