From Gaza to the Global Fortune 500 list

In support of Palestine and the BDS (Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions Movement), Polish artist Igor Dobrowolski created a series of public street art posters calling for consumers to boycott certain products. These products include makeup companies such as Chanel and Lancome, fast food companies such as McDonalds, and a machinery-centered corporation known as Caterpillar, or CAT. This street art is placed at a bus station, where passengers from many walks of life will likely encounter it. In this specific poster, Dobrowolski depicts a Gazan citizen, grieving on the top of a pile of ruins of what used to be Gaza. Behind him, we continue to see the extent of the damage: buildings in ruins, materials scattered, people over the ruins. Yet the focal point in this piece is the grieving man, the horrific, emotional impact from the Israeli occupation. However, Dobrowolski adds a strong juxtaposition to the image, formatting this photograph as an advertisement for CAT: “Need illegal settlements? We’ve got you covered.” Referencing the destruction of Palestinian neighborhoods and cities to build illegal Israeli settlements, the piece becomes a powerful critique of corporate actions that value profit, regardless of political and moral repercussions. The bright colors of the American corporation logo–familiar to many Westerners–and the ironic corporate tone advertising aid for settlement contrasts the gray ruins of a grieving people. Is it worth it? The piece seems to implicitly ask. Further, the artist, in a caption in the corner of the piece, emphasizes the corporations’ involvement in Palestinian genocide and occupation was not casual, but intentional: “Caterpillar bulldozers have been used in the demolition of Palestinian homes. The D9 bulldozer was specifically designed for the IDF [Israeli Defense Forces].” In this way, Dobrowolski depicts how the destruction of Gaza is an intentional, calculated, and profitable motive for this corporation; the economic incentive is thus directly tied to an inhumane political agenda.

C. Wright Mills’ “The Power Elite” captures the strange intersections we see in this image; what does an American corporation have to do with occupation abroad? Additionally, who did the destruction, and how? Mills discusses a “[power elite who] are in positions to make decisions having major consequences,” elaborating that their decisions infiltrate into the feelings of citizens who are under them (4). Mills writes this influence is unavoidable, and importantly, seemingly without the consent of the general public: “They know that the bomb was dropped over Japan in the name of the United states of America, although they were at no time consulted about the matter” (5). These words become painfully evocative today; Mills emphasizes that the elite–composed of an economic, political, and military sphere–are the major institutions of society, notably as we see how decisions from one sphere undeniably influence the other. Mills is concerned about the intersection of these spheres, and how the economic, political, and military are inevitably entwined with each other (7). The result becomes decisions made only on the accord of the power elite, without the consultation of the public, and decisions that become rather impersonal, but support the norms and goals of these intersecting spheres (15). What attracts me from Mills’ depiction of the power elite is how decisions of institutional spheres reinforce each other, but to a script that subsides humanity and morality, regardless of the input of the public. With my post centering the Israeli occupation, the United States has been deeply involved in supporting the occupation at the expense of Palestinian lives and livelihood. It seemingly of importance that the American public is strongly for a ceasefire, but what seems most at stake is a militarist/imperialistic interest over the Middle East, the profit accumulated from corporations, and the use of democratizing political rhetoric to justify US intervention. These were not abstract decisions of coincidences, but the conscious decisions of an impersonal power elite who act without regard to morality or popular consensus.

This is the backdrop of what Dobrowolski is depicting in his work. This corporation–CAT–which at a surface level analysis, is a corporation who shouldn’t have any involvement with global political conflicts and occupations. I believe this is what many Americans believe: the interactions of the power elite are not readily apparent, until, as Mills states, society experiences a point of crisis (7). This image is a depiction of how the power elite becomes apparent: what a relatively uninformed audience would experience is a harsh juxtaposition between a familiar corporation, and destruction abroad. A Millsian analysis would illustrate that this should be expected with modern society. CAT’s profit from its aid in the IDF could only have occurred if it acted alongside a political agenda that justified the occupation (Zionism and imperialist interests proliferating among US politicians), and a militaristic reliance on corporations to provide war weaponry.

Important to note in this image is the purpose behind it: it’s not just an awareness piece, but Dobrowolski also asks the audience explicitly to boycott the brands; with CAT, Dobrowolski writes “Don’t buy Caterpillar clothes or machinery, don’t sell Caterpillar clothes or machinery, don’t work for Caterpillar.” This is also a piece stationed at a public stop; his audience here isn’t just a critique of the power elite, but a call for the public to enact in action. In conversation with Mills “The Power Elite,” what Dobrowolski proposes here may be at tension with how Mills depicts the conscious power elite in contrast to the relatively disempowered public. Mills describes and illustrates the power elite with active descriptions, such as them making the calculated though impersonal decisions, and the public as passive recipients of the actions of the power elite. To Mills, this is what categorizes power; Dobrowolski may offer different insight. Western audiences, especially looking at the U.S, see the workings and consequences of the power elite: Dobrowolski centers the inhumane consequences in his piece, with the main object of the piece being CAT over a grieving man. In other words, Dobrowolski’s work serves as a calling to understand the workings of the power elite, but to also have a humanizing element that the power elite does not have. This may be the unique power of general society: being able to think with morality and humanity, instead of the power elite’s calculated decisions without regard to inhumane consequences. The calls for boycott that Dobrowolski echoes adds the civil society as a sphere that can challenge the intersecting spheres of the power elite. This sphere, however, does have the potential to value morality over distant norms of a sphere; this is what boycott symbolizes: are we willing to be complicit in our micro-level interactions that inevitably would reinforce the economic, political, and military spheres? In this piece, the audience is just as important as the depiction of the power elite.




Mills, C. Wright. 1959. The Power Elite. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Dobrowolski, Igore. 2024. “My street art showing what real posters of corporations supporting Israel’s genocide should look like.” Instagram, April 16th.