What other issue has brought together environmentalists, consumer protection advocates, free marketeers, labor unions, antitrust organizations, and civil rights groups? Chapter 7 explains how that all came about in the direct sales movement. But while this “strange bedfellows” public interest group coalition should have appealed to both political parties, translating it into tangible political support has been much harder. Nothing has been more central to this challenge than the eccentric and increasingly divisive person of Elon Musk, whose budding bromance with Donald Trump may again shift the political story of direct sales in unpredictable ways in coming years.

The crisis of anthropogenic climate change is made worse by the hegemony of neoliberal, free-market economic orthodoxy. Almost everywhere the idea of “the market” reigns supreme, like an angry god demanding constant deference and tribute. The essential problem is this: Neoliberalism is hostile to the idea of economic planning and redistribution; it maintains that the market is largely self-regulating, but adapting to and mitigating the worst of climate change will require robust and active states.