The people of this movement worked mostly outside the sphere of the establishment and the commercial record labels and institutions, although the most economically viable acts would later be picked up by major companies.
In many ways, this movement was in opposition to the current situation, to politics, society and music. They were looking for freedom, and the different paths leading there; one was through politics via anarchism, socialism or communism, towards a new society beyond traditional values and monetary power; another was spiritual, through artistic expression, psychology and psychedelic drugs.