> [!NOTE]+ Meta > Author:: [[Alessandro Gerosa]] > Reference:: Gerosa, A. (2024). _The Hipster Economy: Taste and authenticity in late modern capitalism_ [https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781800086067](https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781800086067) > Date:: 2024 > Tags:: #warp > WeftLinks:: [[Economic value of craft]] > Claim:: [[Claim - Craft offers fairer and more satisfying working conditions]] > [!SUMMARY] Summary > More people are embracing small-scale local handmade production as a more meaningful life than increasingly abstract managerial occupations. ### Highlights Some quotes from _The Hipster Economy_: > “Overall, the backbone of the neo-craft economy analysed in this chapter can be defined as a force for good: it sustains alternative production chains favouring other small producers, keeping local traditions alive; proposes alternative, more authentic and sustainable consumption practices; represents – in most cases – a more ethical alternative to mass-market industrial companies, known to cover their massive environmental and social negative externalities through cunning, deceitful ‘greenwashing’ marketing campaigns.” > “…for Morris, craft production was a way to elevate the alienated manual labour of the mass of proletarian workers into meaningful labour (through the addition of artistic value), in a step towards the overthrowing of capitalism and the accomplishment of a socialist society; the neo-craft economy imaginary instead points at reintroducing a deeper relationship with the material and manual dimension in the life of the middle class alienated by industrial society, in order to achieve a more meaningful, authentic life experience. > “The subversive potential of the hipster economy can only be considered jointly with wider societal movements.”