Abstract

Although not all and certainly not in equal measure, designers feel responsibility for the negative externalities of market capitalism and are rightly distressed over their complicity in material acquisitiveness, brand colonialism, unethical labor practices and unbridled resource exploitation, fretting over their inability to adequately respond to the central question of how to tame the ‘savage market’. This essay will argue that design can find more complete answers to this question when designers acknowledge market capitalism’s near imperviousness to transformative attempts however worthy, admit that reform actions unilaterally undertaken from within its ranks lack the capacity to fully achieve their intended goals, and seek support outside the confines of the discipline.