ABSTRACT
This chapter guides to analyze the Cult Awareness Network (CAN) by presenting the theoretical elements, or building blocks of a social movement economy. These constitute the skeletal organizational logic of the chapter, to be followed by the flesh of concrete examples. The archetypal deviant organization has a criminogenic nature. Even if its singular mission is not to engage in rule-breaking, the background conditions of the group facilitate, encourage and permit deviant behavior. Social movement economies develop to address unmet needs. They originate in the inability of movements to draw on existing social control institutions for resources, hence the former must find ways to generate their own. Player-Mavericks were the clear entrepreneurs, mining the social movement economy with an eye to opportunities for personal enrichment. Operatives offered sociologically the most pivotal and intriguing role in the CAN's social movement economy. The CAN social movement economy was diverse and flexible.
