Introduction

In the first volume of Capital, Marx (1977, pp. 164–165) stated:

[t]he mysterious character of the commodity-form consists … simply in the fact that the commodity reflects the social characteristics of men’s own labour as objective characteristics of the products of labour themselves, as the socio-natural properties of these things. Hence it also reflects the social relation of the producers to the sum total of labour as a social relation between objects. Through this substitution, the products of labour become commodities, sensuous things which are at the same time supra-sensible or social … It is nothing but the definite social relation between men themselves which assumes here, for them, the fantastic form of a relation between things.

To illustrate this point, he used his well-known analogy of “fetishism,” alluding to religion, where “the products of the human brain appear as autonomous figures endowed with a life of their own, which enter into relations both with each other and with the human race” (p. 165). Marx claimed this mystification of life is as prominent in capitalist societies as it was in traditional societies. For Marx, the commodity form obscures or masks the social relations through which the commodity came to be. Commodity fetishism is said to naturalize capitalism by making it seem as if the latter is governed by “overwhelming natural laws” rather than something that can be radically altered. The importance of these insights for Marx and the development of Marxist theory is that the commodity form and relations rooted in commodity production transform people into things and grant social characteristics to commodities. The exiled Frankfurt School expanded upon Marx’s thesis, arguing that the commodity form not only masked, distorted, and reified capitalist social relations, but was further embraced by alienated workers to escape the dissatisfaction and unhappiness caused by their estranged existence (Marcuse 1964; Horkheimer and Adorno 1969; Lasch 1979).

Some scholars today argue that alternative markets and their “ethical” commoditiesFootnote 1 are dismantling the ideological structure of commodity fetishism. The concept of defetishization was introduced by Allen and Kovach (2000, pp. 225–227) to describe the way in which green food markets, specifically organics, can potentially combat Marx’s discovery of the “mysterious character of the commodity form.” Organic labeling is said to partially demystify or unmask the green consumer’s relationship with the production of food by providing information about the origins of the commodity and the conditions under which it was produced. In doing so, green consumers are said to have a less mystified relationship with food production that encourages critical thinking and strengthens civil society (though they are aware of the limits of market reforms). In short, the defetishization process challenges “people to think critically about the food system” (Allen et al. 2003, p. 72).

I explore the tensions and contradictions that arise from the premises of the defetishization thesis in particular and ethical consumerism in general. To do this, I first review the literature surrounding the defetishization thesis and ethical consumerism. Then, drawing on Marxian political economic and environmental sociological theory, I endeavor to conceptually re-embed micro-processes, such as alternative markets and ethical consumer behavior, in larger social systems. By understanding the barriers posed by structural forces we can better understand the potentials and limitations of ethical market behavior when embedded in a transnational system primarily concerned with maximizing profits and constantly expanding production and distribution. With Marxian macro-structural insights in mind, I make three general claims: (1) capitalism is inherently ecologically (and socially) harmful and “unsustainable”; (2) ethical commodities derived from alternative markets cannot fundamentally counteract the pervasiveness and scale of (1); and, because of (1) and (2), (3) ethical consumerism does not defetishize the commodity form, but acts as a new layer of commodity fetishism that masks the harms of capitalism by convincing society that the harms of capitalism can be rehabilitated with the commodity form itself. Or, ethical consumerism is better understood as a form of mystification in which commodities are granted supra-sensible powers that can supposedly create progressive change in the market system, thereby preserving capitalism rather than challenging it. In short, Allen and Kovach’s (2000) claim that alternative food systems unmask the production process is inverted. Following these explanatory and descriptive claims, I prescriptively argue large-scale and more traditional political tactics would be needed to “defetishize” the commodity form.

This paper makes two contributions to the literature concerning ethical consumerism and alternative food systems. First, it incorporates Marxian political economic and environmental sociological theory to conceptualize how macro-socioeconomic processes might limit market reforms and ethical consumptive behavior. This is helpful for theorizing how micro-processes, such as ethical consumption and alternative food systems, are structured by larger social systems. Second, it contributes to a growing body of literature that is critical of ethical consumption and problematizes the tendency to praise or romanticize it.

The rise of ethical consumerism

The planet is warming, biodiversity loss is rampant, freshwater sources are dwindling and tainted, and public health is at risk due to environmental pollutants. One of the largest efforts to stop the looming socio-ecological catastrophe(s) is shopping. In a study funded by the Co-operative Bank, Cowe and Williams (2000) have correctly recognized that “shoppers who care have increasingly been able to find something to fit their [ethical] principles” (p. 18). Indeed. Organic baby food, eco-friendly wood, energy efficient light bulbs, and recycled versions of nearly everything are available for “shoppers who care.” Ethical consumerism (Hilton 2003)Footnote 2 has grown steadily since the 1980s (Lang and Gabriel 2005). The fundamental premise of ethical consumption is that shopping for commodities from more humane, just, and environmentally friendly origins can create progressive social change and bring humans to a more sustainable relationship with the rest of the biosphere.

But where did the idea originate that one can create progressive social change through shopping? Consumption, especially consumption to meet survival needs (such as food), has traditionally been associated with the joy gained through attainment, desire fulfillment, and/or bodily incorporation (see, for instance, Sartre 1956), not an act conceptualized as (im)moral, save etiquette and custom,Footnote 3 or aligned with a political program, save consumer boycotts. Modern movements for progressive change traditionally focused on altering production through political means, not on altering consumption habits through marketplace choices. To use an analogy, older social movements wanted a larger piece of the pie (e.g., populist progressives, social democrats) or wanted to take the whole bakery (e.g., socialists, communists, anarchists). But when did buying pie with fairly traded ingredients at the organic bakery become a symbolically progressive act? A critical account of ethical consumerism must comprehend its historically contingent character.

Lang and Gabriel (2005) have presented a helpful history of activism revolving around consumption.Footnote 4 The mid-twentieth century “value for money” consumer phase was primarily concerned with the control of the price and quality of non-essential consumer goods. This type of consumer “activism” is still epitomized by the influential magazine, Consumer Reports (Johnston 2008). Naderism’s grassroots consumerism followed the thriftiness of the post-war period. Instead of hierarchical flows of information on how to get “more bang for your buck,” Naderism emphasized grassroots approaches to end the hazardous or potentially hazardous character of unregulated consumer goods. Consumers were expected to form groups to combat the anarchy of the market, demanding safer commodities and accountability from corporations. The current phase of consumer activism is ethical consumerism. Ethical consumerism arose out of environmentalism (Johnston 2008) and was quickly adopted by a range of movements concerned with corporate power, neoliberal economic globalization,Footnote 5 social justice, and human rights abuses. Ethical consumers have demanded a variety of ethical commodities, such as clothes not derived from sweatshops (Mandle 2000), fairly traded coffee, and organic and locally grown foods.

The basic premise of ethical consumerism is that you can “vote with your dollar” (Shaw et al. 2006) or “vote with your fork” (Imhoff 2010). That is, individual choices concerning what to buy and what not to buy in the marketplace can lead to progressive social changes and decrease environmental degradation by providing economic incentives or disincentives for producers. Voting via marketplace choices is considered by some to be a legitimate means of “political” participation (Dickinson and Hollander 1991; Schudson 2007; Shaw et al. 2006; Stolle et al. 2005; Stolle and Hooghe 2004). Others scholars take a more critical stance toward the notion of ethical consumerism. For instance, Johnston (2008) claims that the idea of consumer “activism” itself tacitly conflates the distinction between “consumer” and “citizen,” creating many ideological tensions and contradictions between self-interest and social responsibility. Further, Johnston argues that corporate entities such as Whole Foods Market have individualized social and ecological concerns, allowing political entities, such as the state, to dissociate itself from these affairs. Thompson and Coskuner-Balli (2007) argue community supported agriculture (CSA) programs provide members unpredictability, considered authentic and stimulating, which the convenience of McDonaldized, corporate food systems cannot, and thus, re-enchant disenchanted consumers. Further, CSA farms are rationalized and technologically sophisticated simulations of the pre-modern farms that are romanticized by CSA participants as bucolic sites of resistance to corporate farming. Ashley (1997) states that late capitalism allows depoliticized individuals the chance to form identities as political activists through marketplace choices. Similarly, Heartfield (2008) claims green consumerism is a way for more wealthy shoppers to purchase a green status and symbolically display that they are more discerning by differentiating themselves from mass consumers (cf. Guthman 2003; Johnston and Baumann 2007). As stated in the introduction, a key theoretical debate in critical and cautious accounts of ethical consumerism is whether or not alternative food systems serve as vehicles for a more honest and defetishized relationship with the production process.

For Allen and Kovach (2000), organic labeling is a “partial” means to defetishize or unmask the commodity form. Through “shedding light on production methods, businesses can reduce or eliminate the alienation between consumption and production that conceals natural–social relations in the production process, thereby weakening commodity fetishism” (p. 226). To be sure, Allen and Kovach are suspicious of market reformism and the limits of capitalism in solving ecological problems. Indeed, their piece is primarily concerned with such limitations as the reduction of organic standards due to profit interests. Further, they acknowledge that the positive outcomes of defetishization are only “partial” and theorizing a market solution to commodity fetishism is rather “ironic” (p. 226). Nonetheless, Allen and Kovach (2000) maintain that green markets and the increased information about production origins can lead to a “more powerful civil society” (p. 229). Indeed, Allen and Wilson (2008) argue the process of defetishization can “open up” alternatives to neoliberalism (p. 538). Although critical of green consumerism, Pepper (1996, p. 90) summed up this position well by stating green consumers have helped thwart reification by “encouraging us to look beneath the appearance of commodities as mere depersonalized things.” Perhaps the most innovative aspect of Allen and Kovach’s (2000) thesis is that the reification of relations between society and nature is also taken into account, rather than just human social relations.Footnote 6 They justify this inclusion because masking relations between the environment and society is common in modern agriculture and “our relations with nature are also a form of social relations. This is true not only if one believes that our relations with other species are social, but also because the environment is often a medium through which people exert power over one another” (i.e., social systems, including power relations, are embedded in larger ecological systems) (Allen and Kovach 2000, p. 226).

The expansion of the defetishization thesis has primarily taken place, both explicitly and implicitly, in fair trade literature. Fairly traded commodities such as coffee are said to reveal the material relations of production by linking consumers to producers through more equitable, informative, and sustainable markets (Elson 1988, 2002). Some scholars share this view but are more nuanced in their optimism (Goodman 2004; Hudson and Hudson 2003; Lyon 2006). For example, Hudson and Hudson (2003) claim fair trade has potential for breaking down the mask of the commodity form but fair trade’s potential is limited due to competition between fair trade labels, its marginal status, and the nature of commodity production itself. Fridell (2007) has flatly rejected any hopes of defetishization, claiming that purchasing fair trade products is a means for depoliticized, anxious individuals to validate their identities as caring people; a symbolic yet petty act. Akin to fair trade literature, Alkon and McCullen (2011) have executed a farmers’ market study with the defetishization thesis in mind. In their study of farmers’ markets in California, they found that although immigrants are largely responsible for the labor that supplies farmers’ markets with food, many shoppers had romantic visions of a small farm run by white family farmers; the face of the typical farmers’ market vendor.

I contribute to this conversation by providing a more structural, macrosociological view of ethical consumerism in light of the defetishization thesis by drawing on Marxian theory. Of course, the predictive hypotheses presented below can only be validated or refuted empirically. However, the deductive arguments shed a unique light on ethical consumerism and alternative food systems. The aim is to better understand their limitations and potentials.

Ethical consumerism as a third layer of commodity fetishism

Capitalism is a mode of production that reproduces itself through intensification, geographical expansion, and, of course, the expropriation of surplus value. It must get bigger to maintain its structures or it will suffer severe, recurring economic crises (and, as Marx knew, growth too can bring about crises). Despite the radical structural transformations that have taken place in capitalism since Marx’s time, his “general formula” for capital (money–commodities–more money) still holds true as much as it did in 1867 (Marx 1977; see Mészáros 1995).Footnote 7 This equation must continuously take place on an ever-increasing and ever-expanding scale if capitalism is to survive. Many scholars have argued that the inherent expansionary mechanisms of capitalism make hope for a “sustainable capitalism” unlikely. This general view is epitomized by Schnaiberg’s (1980) “treadmill of production” (ToP) theory, which argues that in a profit-maximizing socioeconomic system, production must continually expand, creating a production cycle that necessarily increases inputs (natural resource extraction) and outputs (pollution) (for similar theses see O’Connor 1998 and Foster 1999). In relation to consumption, ToP theorists argue the following: (1) production is at the root of environmental degradation (Schnaiberg 1980), (2) consumers have little control over happenings in production regimes (Gould et al. 2004), (3) producers are actually much more likely to influence what consumers want via advertising than consumers making independent choices (Schnaiberg 1980; cf. Weber 1978), and (4) consumer choice for green and ethical commodities have little to no effect on how the ToP operates at large (Gould et al. 2004) (cf. excellent discussion in Foster et al. 2010). Thus, to be ecologically sustainable, capitalism would need to (1) slow economic growth so it does not overstep natural limits and (2) plan production to meet the basic needs of human beings and the rest of the biosphere. Bookchin (1980) accurately described the problem with the former necessity: “[o]ne might more easily persuade a green plant to desist from photosynthesis than to ask the bourgeois economy to desist from capital accumulation” (p. 66). Simply, capitalism is growth-dependent and exists to expand and accumulate capital and, empirically, environmental degradation increases as economies grow (for a good review, see York et al. 2010). The latter necessity (i.e., planned production concerned with meeting needs rather than increasing private gain) would require a radically different conception of what human labor ought to be utilized for—a conception free from profit motive and rooted in substantive rather than instrumental reason. Both necessities fall outside what capitalism “is.” As O’Connor (1998, p. 235) put it, “a systematic answer to the question, ‘Is an ecologically sustainable capitalism possible?’ is, ‘Not unless and until capital changes its face in ways that would make it unrecognizable to bankers, money managers, venture capitalists, and CEOs looking at themselves in the mirror today.’”

Markets, including alternative markets, do not exist independently of the social formation they are part of (in this case, capitalism), nor are they exempt from the basic processes of capitalism and market pressures. As any small-scale or sustainable farmer will tell you, they are forced to compete with highly mechanized, large-scale, and specialized agricultural operations supported by government policies, making it difficult to remain financially viable—a reality in agreement with many essential Marxist assumptions (Altieri 1998). In capitalist societies, agriculture at large exists to increase profits, not to produce food, plain and simple: “[capitalism] is not interested in rice at all but only in its prices” (Bloch 1986, p. 666). This type of “commodity thinking” is what most alternative food systems are working against, of course, but one can reasonably hypothesize that such projects will remain marginal and will not significantly alter the environmental harms of economic growth if forced to operate in a growth-dependent economy against larger, more competitive economic units. In fact, other scholars have shown that the ethical intentions of alternative markets are sometimes displaced in favor of profit-maximization (see Guthman 2004; Alkon 2008). Even if a collection of alternative food systems could stay true to their goal of social and ecological sustainability while securing ways to remain financially viable, it seems unlikely that such projects could replace large, industrial, and intensive agricultural units—which are well-documented as being ecologically unsound (for example, see Food and Agriculture Organization Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations 2006; c.f. Union of Concerned Scientists 2012)—in a substantial way under the constraints of capital. Again, this is an empirical question that will hopefully be “falsified” in the future, but it is difficult to see how this could take place when measured against the imperatives of profit-maximization, reductions of production costs, competition against larger operations, etc.

Thus far I have argued (1) capitalist social formations (including their agricultural systems) are growth-dependent and unsustainable and (2) it is difficult to envision how alternative food systems that supply ethical commodities could supplant how agriculture is done at large under the constraints of capital. From this basic, near-classical Marxist perspective, the notion of ethical or green consumerism begins to appear mystifying and ideological—or, more accurately, fetishistic.Footnote 8 To recap, Marx argued that the commodity, a product made explicitly to be sold for a profit on the market, is abstractly related to as an independent object possessing its own autonomous value or powers—hence the animism analogy—when, in reality, the value of commodities is rooted in capitalist social relations. To be sure, the commodity really does have value, as an abstract embodiment of exchange value and use value, but this value exists due to human interests and practice, not by nature. Marx’s conceptualization of commodity fetishism was concerned with the reification of social relations through the processes of commodity production. He claimed that market society created an epistemological inversion where persons were perceived as things (reification) and things—specifically, commodities—were perceived as personified objects with values and powers free of a human basis (fetishism) (Marx 1981). This critique of ideology was leveled at classical economists, such as SmithFootnote 9 and Ricardo:

[t]he crude materialism of the economists who regard as the natural properties of things what are social relations of production among people, and qualities which things obtain because they are subsumed under these relations, is at the same time just as crude an idealism, even fetishism, since it imputes social relations to things as inherent characteristics, and thus mystifies them (Marx 1973, p. 687).

Marx argued the reification of social relations and fetishization of commodities naturalized the processes of capitalism. The exiled Frankfurt School expanded upon Marx’s insights and, following Lukács (1971), argued that commodity fetishism had penetrated all of social life and was a central influence in the formation of ideology.Footnote 10 Specifically for the early critical theorists, the commodity form became an agent of working class co-optation and pacification, a view summarized well by Marcuse (1964, p. 9):

[t]he people recognize themselves in their commodities; they find their soul in their automobile, hi-fi set, split-level home, kitchen equipment. The very mechanism which ties the individual to his society has changed, and social control is anchored in the new needs which it has produced.

This “second” layerFootnote 11 of commodity fetishism reproduced and strengthened Marx’s epistemological inversion by simultaneously naturalizing capitalism and making alienated workers “happy” via mass consumption.

Today, not only are commodities “endowed with a life of their own,” as Marx (1977, p. 165) identified, and used as a medium of co-optation, as the Frankfurt School identified, but they are now further granted mystical powers to create significant progressive changes in the market system itself. This is what is meant by a “third” layer of commodity fetishism. Commodity fetishism still naturalizes capitalism, as it always has—indeed, shopping to create a better world presupposes that one conceives capitalism as a given, absolute entity, favorable, or, at the very least, exceptionally malleable—but now the very same mechanisms that cause capitalism’s discontents are marketed as their own remedy, thereby making radical, structural change unappealing and seemingly preventable. No matter how enchanting and virtuous, commodity fetishism indeed remains “inseparable from the production of commodities” (Marx 1977, p. 165, emphasis added). Allen and Kovach (2000) seem to be aware of the limits of market reforms and outcomes of ethical consumption outlined above. As stated, the majority of their article outlines how organic standards degrade with market pressures. Yet they argue that even if material conditions are not progressively altered by alternative markets, “[p]erhaps the greatest potential of the organics market [and, one can assume, other alternative markets] lies less in some objective ‘truth’ of ecological sustainability, and more in its potential to demystify the commodity form of food” (Allen and Kovach 2000, p. 225). My chief thesis is that this demystification Allen and Kovach speak of is deeply mystifying. Not only is it problematic to believe consuming commodities will mitigate global warming, environmental degradation, farm animal suffering, sweatshop labor, etc., but by purporting sustainability, humanitarianism, and other noble goals, alternative markets and their commodities simultaneously negate radical alternatives in favor of market-based reforms. Two authors have articulated this essential point better than I can. Roff (2007) states that “[the project of defetishization] continues to assume that changing how we choose to fill our supermarket carts is what matters, not the supermarket itself” (p. 512). Similarly, Guthman (2007) argues “food politics has become a progenitor of a neoliberal anti-politics that devolves regulatory responsibility to consumers via their dietary choices” (p. 264).Footnote 12 In short, those ethically shopping at farmers’ markets, co-ops, vegetarian restaurants, in organic grocery store aisles, etc. must reflect on the transnational and systematic structures that cause socio-ecological problems—regardless of the quality, authenticity, or policies of the specific alternative marketplace in question.

Žižek’s (2004, 2008) analysis of today’s synthesis of carnality and self-restraint is similar to what is meant by a third layer of commodity fetishism. In relation to consumerism, shoppers no longer have to feel guilty about being the unreflective mass consumer who is unconcerned with the fate of the world (i.e., Marcuse’s 1-D man). They can now continue shopping while saving the world.Footnote 13 The ideological landscape can be seen behind the purchase of an ethical cup of coffee:

When, confronted with the starving child, we are told: “For the price of a couple of cappuccinos, you can continue in your ignorant and pleasurable life, not only not feeling any guilt, but even feeling good for having participated in the struggle against suffering!” (Žižek 2010, p. 117)

The ethical commodity provides a place for the ethical consumers to displace their concern for the social and environmental harms. However, such thinking reinforces consumer society’s belief that commodities have an independent, “supra-sensible” form (Marx 1977, p. 165). The push for an ethical capitalism, or what Žižek (1999, p. 12) called “capitalism with a human face,” has created a kinder, greener, gentler, and more righteous layer of commodity fetishism that mystifies the structure, logic, and relations of capitalism more than Marx or the early Frankfurt School anticipated. If ethical consumerism were to defetishize the commodity form, the object would remain and be perceived as an “ordinary, sensuous thing” (Marx 1977, p. 163). However, the opposite is true. Locally grown broccoli, grass-fed beef, and organic tomatoes are given mystical powers that transform reality via their purchase and consumption. Thus, far from negating Marx’s animistic insights, ethical consumerism perfects them. If Freud (1918) were alive to update Totem and Taboo, he might claim today’s ethical consumers, like his savages and neurotics, are constantly “producing new rules of morality and continued restrictions, in expiation for misdeeds committed, or as precautions against misdeeds to be committed” (p. 205). Ethical consumerism is a return of magical thinking par excellence.Footnote 14

Brief prescriptive statement

Although a critique of an ideological structure, this is not a critique of the ethical consumers themselves or alternative food system participants, as they are rightfully concerned. A more sustainable production and distribution of sustenance, organic food production, creating smaller distances between production and consumption, and a move toward plant-based diets are all necessary for a future, sustainable society. Many of these necessities exist in germ as alternative food systems. This, I think, is the greatest feat of alternative food systems: they have shown alternatives exist. However, small-scale alternative food projects, creation of niche markets, and the adjustment of some individual consumptive habits are certainly not enough to create an ecologically sustainable and socially just food system. For sustainable food production to free itself from alternative status and to become the norm, a total restructuring of our current social formation may be needed due to the constraints of capitalism outlined above. Unfortunately, speculations concerning what such a society would look like or how it might be formed are difficult to depict if we are to circumvent utopianism. Magdoff and Foster (2011) have outlined some of the necessary elements of a sustainable society, such as combining direct democracy and planned production to meet human and ecological needs.Footnote 15 Direct deliberation forces once purely instrumental subsystems, such as profit-maximizing agricultural systems, to confront more substantive forms of reason and be structured to meet collective, substantive ends. One could reasonably assume that, for agriculture, direct democratic control of food production and distribution would mean that food would be produced to meet human and ecological needs, not for the purposes of increasing private wealth. However, these speculations presuppose that agricultural units are not privately owned and operated. Because those in power have rarely given up their power voluntarily, mass participation in more traditional political tactics would be necessary to attain a social formation capable of democratically planned production. By this I simply mean that environmentally and socially concerned individuals would need to organize to take power over political systems to create structural changes as the roots of our dire socio-ecological problems are structural in nature. To be sincere and straightforward: I claim capitalism is the barrier to attaining a sustainable food system—just imagine what alternative food projects would be capable of without the tyranny of “cost-effectiveness” and market competition—and it is unlikely that it can be resisted through its own mechanisms (i.e., market reforms and shopping).

I would suspect the critical reply to this prescriptive statement would be something similar to, “A qualitatively different society sounds good in theory, but, for now, is it not better to do something rather than nothing?” Without question, progressive reforms should be thoroughly explored, pursued, and implemented. However, at a normative level, this eager pragmatism that often finds expression in marketplace choices is precisely what this essay has attempted to problematize. “Doing something,” such as buying organic cabbage, may function as a deceptive, recuperative, and ineffective stand-in for the necessary: the radical restructuring of society. From this perspective, “defetishization” can take place once commodity fetishism is no longer needed for society to carry on. That is, after generalized commodity production ends.

Conclusions

By drawing from and updating theoretical insights from Marxian political economy and environmental sociology we can better understand the peculiarities, potentials, and limits of ethical consumerism. The defetishization thesis claims alternative markets can lead to a more honest, less mystified relationship with food production and, in turn, can strengthen civil society. I argue that instead of defetishizing commodities, ethical consumerism constitutes a “third” layer of commodity fetishism—a distortion of reality which reifies and reproduces the fundamental processes of capitalism by making the commodity form the solution to its own mystifications. Very real socio-ecological problems with very real possibilities of dire crises are placed upon the backs of isolated, market-dependent individuals to solve through the only means they know: consumption. With the decay of traditional political tactics—what would and potentially still could be the path to a more socially and environmentally sound future—individuals are forced to utilize the same unjust system to solve its own injustice. This is not simply a “structure versus agency” quandary, but a predicament of a social formation that offers its agents the means to reproduce its own structure while simultaneously feeling as though they are toppling it.