Commodify Your Dissent with VISA

Commodify your dissent for real with the Occupy prepaid debit card, a new financial product still in the planning stages. “To make the card widely accepted,” reports ABC News, “the [Occupy Money] Cooperative has forged a relationship with VISA.” With their fists raised in the air, dear reader, with their fists raised in the air.

VISA, who is partnering with the “cooperative company,” will no doubt be pretty happy about the whole thing, since a social justice-themed fee structure turns out to look kind of like a regular old non-social-justice-themed fee structure. I particularly like the two-dollar fee charged each time the customer speaks to a customer service representative.

“The audience for the card would include members of Occupy Wall Street plus anyone disenfranchised from the current banking system, including people who cannot have a checking account because of their past financial history,” ABC News explains. The prepaid debit card for the financially marginalized: not a product the world is waiting for.

Occupy, being loosely defined in its goals and its membership—a movement, not an organization—has long been a theme waiting for its marketing opportunities, despite the apparent withering of the brand. Not much is being occupied by Occupy, anymore, but it still looks good on a T-shirt. Or splashed across a debit card, with a low $1.95 fee for cash withdrawals, because fight the power.

As the seminal 1967 book infamously stated, the poor pay more, and a transition from a big corporation’s prepaid debit card to a social movement’s corporate-supported prepaid debit card won’t turn off the darker realities of the socioeconomic bottom. Maybe it’s time for Occupy payday loans, Occupy check-cashing storefronts, and Occupy pawn shops.

The OMC can keep their VISA prepaid credit card. I’ll stick with my credit union.