Potter was co-author (with Joseph Heath) of The Rebel Sell, in which they argued that the hip counter-culture rejection of competitive mass consumer culture is

Potter was co-author (with Joseph Heath) of The Rebel Sell, in which they argued that the hip counter-culture rejection of competitive mass consumer culture is itself a primary driver of that culture, setting up fashion and lifestyle as positional goods and enforcing a fast turnover of consumer products in a futile collective attempt to stay ahead of the curve. I'm a pretty left-wing liberal, and for me Rebel Sell was a powerful antidote to the sometimes-ridiculous conceits and dogmas of the left - including the belief that mainstream culture is phony (think The Matrix or, more recently, Wall-E), the sheeple are all brainwashed, and the best thing the Hipster Elect can do for them is to try and wake them up.