Occupy is getting its own debit card. The Occupy Money Cooperative, which emerged from a group who met at Zucotti Park a couple years ago, plans to provide the “unbanked, underbanked, and even just angry-banked” with access to the cashless economy. It claims to be “a better and more affordable product,” allowing its users a little “protest with every purchase.”

Yet the Occupy Money Cooperative may ultimately be undermining its own values, fostering illusions that workers can, in fact, buy into a better world. “Buying in” in this instance comes with a series of economic and ideological presuppositions, ultimately redefining the citizen (who may protest in the streets) as a consumer (who may “shop for a better world”).

It isn’t new to say that capitalism excels at co-opting dissent, making it yet another niche commodity for sale among the countless others. While the Occupy Money Cooperative — a member-run cooperative — should be applauded for attempting to challenge corporate banking, it’s in practice just one more pre-paid debit card, posing no real threat to Wall Street. In fact, the Cooperative needs to raise $900,000.00 just to launch the card ($895,000.00 more to go — apologies to the underbanked and unbanked, donations are only accepted through Visa, Mastercard, Discover, or American Express).