A Failed Occupation?    The Misconceptions about Occupy Wall Street and the Historical Impact of Capitalism on Anti-Neoliberal Movements

A Failed Occupation?  

The Misconceptions about Occupy Wall Street and the Historical Impact

of Capitalism on Anti-Neoliberal Movements

I hereby state that this thesis is my own work except where indicated otherwise with proper use of quotes and references.  

            [2423995] LAX999M20 2 August 2015

MA Thesis: American Studies Supervisor: Dr. M. Messmer

Table of Contents

Introduction: “Occupying the World” p. 3

The Meteoric Rise and Fall of Occupy Wall Street

Chapter I: “The Misconstruction of a Failure” p. 13

Occupy Wall Street’s Tactical Link to Latin America and the Misconceptions About the Reasons for the Movement’s Failure

Chapter II: “Enforcing Capitalism p. 26

How a Nation’s History Can Determine the Success of Anti-Neoliberal Movements

Chapter III: “Building on the Remnants of an Occupation” p. 42

The Lasting Effects of Occupy Wall Street and the Future of Anti-Neoliberalism in the United States

Conclusion p. 55

Capturing the Zeitgeist

Introduction

Occupying the World:

The Meteoric Rise and Fall Of Occupy Wall Street

It is hard to believe that when the Canadian anti-consumerist magazine Adbusters asked if its readers were “ready for a Tahrir moment” on July 13 2011 (“#Occupywallstreet”), they could have imagined that this call to occupy the Wall Street district in New York City would spark a global movement that would grasp the world’s attention for the next several months. Encouraged by the uprisings in the Middle East, the Adbusters organizers were “inspired by the fact that a few people using Facebook and Twitter can put out calls and suddenly get huge numbers of people to get out into the streets and start venting their anger” (Elliot). By using the Twitter hashtag #occupywallstreet and encouraging people to “flood into lower Manhattan, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street” (“#Occupywallstreet”), they attempted to mirror the tactics of the Middle Eastern uprisings by mobilizing a large group of protesters and peacefully occupying a public place until their demands were met. The call to occupy by Adbusters served as the perfect way to unite numerous smaller protest movements that were already making waves in New York City while at the same time motivating a lot of people from the outside as well. So, even though Adbusters was not really active in Occupy Wall Street (OWS) after the original call to action, they did provide the movement with “a name, assignment, and a due date – along with a nudge to model itself on the Egyptian and Spanish encampments” (Baumgarthuber 21).

the effects of capitalism and budget cuts in their local communities. In the summer of 2011, the mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, proposed multiple budget cuts that directly affected the local communities. In order to draw attention to their cause, a few dozen NYABC members “occupied the corner of Broadway and Park, near City Hall” (Baumgarthuber 18). The corner they occupied was dubbed “Bloombergville.” This situation continued for three weeks, until the Bloomberg administration announced that the proposed cuts would be altered, upon which the occupiers disbanded. In addition to this being a victory for the protestors on its own, it also served as the blueprint for how the OWS movement would develop its strategy only a few months later. In many ways, “Bloombergville” was a smaller test-version of OWS.

life on the national agenda, influencing reporting, public perception and language itself” (Chomsky 7).

Over the course of less than a month, OWS had been able to focus the nation’s attention on what was happening in Zucotti Park. This led to numerous marches through New York City, with the march on the Brooklyn Bridge on October 1st 2011 being one of the largest. On that day “more than seven hundred marchers were arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge” (Gitlin 61), which led to even more media attention, and

now three weeks in, the media recast the movement first as innocent victims, then as ordinary citizens, and overall as a widespread and growing bloc of apparently sensible normal-looking people who raised reasonable alarms, made sensible proposals, and enjoyed popular support. (Gitlin 61)

The actions by the police to break up the protests, like the march on the Brooklyn Bridge, led to more media focussing on police brutality to stop the peaceful protests from happening. Todd Gitlin explains how the nonviolent response to police brutality led to a situation in which protesters “continued to win the battle of theatrics” (Gitlin 65) and managed to gather sympathy for their cause. Eventually, the sympathy and affiliation with the original OWS protestors carried over and inspired many affiliate movements. Since the format and terminology of OWS were fairly easy to replicate, it led to a huge number of copycat movements throughout the rest of the country and the world. At this point in time, it appeared that the OWS movement had hit a nerve in American society, and the country seemed to be on the brink of a revolutionary change in its approach to capitalism and its political system.

coverage of OWS grew, Zucotti Park also drew more people. Yet while it had started as the place for protestors to meet and to discuss plans, the park quickly devolved into a dangerous spot to be at during the last weeks. More homeless people came to the park, which led to an increase in drug use and the harassment of women. There were instances of “predatory men harass[ing] women. There were heavy drugs. In reaction there were also a lot of histrionics, rumors of violence. There were dealers. There was a gun or two. Somebody would have died” (Gitlin 79). Mayor Bloomberg also recognized these problems, and on November 15th he stated: “From the early beginning, I have said that the city has two principle goals: guaranteeing public health and safety, and guaranteeing the protesters’ First Amendment rights. But when those goals clash, the health and safety of the public and our first responders must be the priority” (Rushe). Using the health and safety issues as the main reason, Mayor Bloomberg gave the order to evict the park in the early morning of November 15th. Hundreds of police officers in riot gear stormed into Zucotti Park, and around five o’clock in the morning “for the first time in nearly two months, Zucotti Park was empty” (Baumgarthuber 249).

Even though OWS continued to hold protest marches and meetings after the eviction, the movement began to fade from the public’s eye after November 15th. When one reads the retrospectives on OWS after the eviction, there seems to be a general consensus about the reasons why OWS has failed. Criticism came from all sides of the political spectrum. In his article “To the Precinct Station,” Thomas Frank criticized OWS’s lack of a clear message and demands. He stated:

residual groups here and there populated by the usual activist types, OWS has today pretty much fizzled out. (Frank)

The lack of concrete demands is one of the most frequently voiced critiques in relation to why the movement lost its momentum, suggesting that when there is no actual list of revolutionary demands, the movement has no proper focus. Thomas Frank notices that “camping, the cooking, the general-assembling, the filling of public places: that’s what Occupy was all about. Beyond that there seems to be no agenda to transmit to the world” (Frank).

Another central criticism that is often mentioned to explain the failure of OWS is the movement’s use of direct democracy. There was no leader in charge of OWS, and every voice was equally important. This was demonstrated, for example, in the General Assemblies in Zucotti Park. Detractors of the movement implied that Occupy stumbled over its own good intentions, by sticking to its insistence on direct democracy. The horizontal structure slowed down the decision making process and made it hard to make difficult decisions when necessary. With a clear leader in charge and a developed power structure, OWS could have had someone to make decisions about the movement’s agenda.

OWS’s persistent determination to remain out of the political realm received criticism as well. US Representative King of New York argued:

They are angry people who are losers, who are on the outside screaming. If they want to get involved, go inside the system and get involved with concrete proposals. How do they achieve anything by living in dirt for two months? (“Representative”)

This suggests that if OWS had had a recognizable leader who could have presented a clear set of revolutionary goals that they had tried to achieve by using the American political system, OWS would have been more successful.

In this dissertation, I intend to disagree with this analysis. In my view, the failure of OWS cannot simply be ascribed to the reasons stated above, and to prove this, I will compare OWS to two Latin-American revolutionary anti-capitalist movements. These movements, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (Zapatistas or EZLN) in Mexico, and the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), do not only share a similar anti-capitalist ideology but they have also been using largely the same tactics and organizational structure that OWS employed. This includes direct forms of democracy, the (deliberate) lack of a preconceived revolutionary agenda, and the refusal to engage within the existing political system, all of which are features that OWS has been criticized for in the US.

History has taught us that even in outstanding cases where tyranny or dictatorships were overthrown by revolutionary liberating forces, disillusionment sooner or later follows when we witness that the basic principles of justice and freedom, which led to the struggle, begin to decay. It is as if there were some dominating traits inherent to power itself, which gradually end up in a repetition, resemblance, or reproduction of the rigid, arbitrary governments which were overthrown. (Khasnabish 93)

This refusal to replicate existing power structures leads into the third similarity between the Zapatistas and OWS, which is their reliance on direct democracy. The Zapatistas place a lot of emphasis on the idea that an individual should not just participate in a political system, but instead determine the very nature of it. This concept of democracy can be described as: “the application at all levels of society of the direct participatory democracy of the local assembly, involving collective and inclusive decision-making based on consensus rather than voting” (Corona & Cunninghame 17). One can find this same principle of direct democracy in OWS’s use of the General Assembly to make decisions.

CONAIE shows that it is possible to influence the political landscape through protesting, without actively participating in the political realm.

Even though the Zapatistas, CONAIE and OWS share the same anti-capitalist convictions and tactical approach, they do not share the same results. The Zapatistas were able to transform their movement and the conflicts they faced to their benefit, and the movement changed from a small Marxist insurgency group to a movement that gives a voice to Mexico’s multi-ethnic identity and civil society. The Zapatistas were furthermore able to transform the conflict with the Mexican government beyond actual warfare, and the movement has thus “inspired and stimulated a wide variety of grassroots political efforts in many other countries. It is perhaps not exaggerated to speak of a ‘Zapatista Effect’” (Ronfeldt & Arquilla 191).

CONAIE is an interesting movement to consider for this dissertation, too, because it is a perfect example of how successful a movement can be in influencing politics through demonstrations without formally participating in the existing political system. At the same time it also shows the negative effects that can happen if a protest movement does decide to participate in politics. In 1996, CONAIE decided to form a political party, Pachakutik. The idea was to use the power and recognition that the movement had gained through protesting in order to change the system from within. This did not happen, however, because Pachakutik’s direct involvement in politics muddled its message. As a result, CONAIE lost and was never able to regain the wide support it once had. CONAIE’s history shows the potential pitfalls a protest movement can face by going the political route.

CONAIE – is the historical connections the three nations Mexico, Ecuador and the US have had to capitalism and neoliberalism. While the Zapatistas and CONAIE were protesting against an ever-increasing influence of US-inspired neoliberalism that had been superimposed on their nations, Occupy Wall Street was fighting against some of the core values of US society itself.

In order to define the reasons for OWS’s failure in contrast to CONAIE and the Zapatistas, it is important to compare the history of capitalism and neoliberalism in their respective nations. It can be argued that the US has had an organic relationship with capitalism that dates back to the first Puritan settlers as well as the Founding Fathers. The spirit of capitalism has thus always been present throughout the country’s history, and aspects of the capitalist ideology have become synonymous with national values and traditions in the US. Latin American nations like Ecuador and Mexico, however, have had a far more ambivalent relationship with capitalism. Throughout the 20th century, Latin American nations have experimented with different economic ideologies, ranging from laissez-faire capitalism to socialism and Keynesianism and finally neoliberalism. When the Zapatistas and CONAIE emerged on the scene, they were able to gather far more supporters for their cause because they were fighting against neoliberalism as a foreign ideology that was forced upon them by the US after the Latin American debt crisis of the early 1980s. Both CONAIE and the Zapatistas prove that it is far more effective to rally against an ideology that is seen as being foreign and forcefully superimposed, than to demonstrate against the principles that lie at the root of one’s own society.

what it set out to do, I will argue that Occupy did leave behind a foundation for future similar movements to build upon. As the US’s first anti-neoliberal movement of the twenty-first century, OWS managed to place the spotlight on the ever-increasing income disparity in the US. Occupy helped to make different activists connect, and many of them are now active for the same cause in local communities throughout the nation. The movement also sparked “organic intellectuals” (Gramsci 131) such as Elizabeth Warren, whose tough opposition against big businesses and banks echo the concerns of OWS, or Slavoj Žižec, whose work provides the intellectual backbone for the movement. I believe, therefore, that it is too easy to simply dismiss OWS as a failed experiment. Instead, I contend that the remnants of the occupation will provide the breeding ground for the next anti-neoliberal movement in the US.  

Chapter I

The Misconstruction of a Failure:

Occupy Wall Street’s Tactical Link to Latin America and the

Misconceptions About the Reasons for the Movement’s Failure

∞

When one considers the criticisms that have most often been raised concerning the failure of OWS, there appears to be a general consensus on the part of US politicians and the media on both sides of the political spectrum. As I have outlined in the Introduction, their criticism is often directed at the tactics that were used by the movement, like OWS’s reliance on direct democracy to make decisions, its refusal to participate in the existing political system, and the absence of a predetermined revolutionary agenda. The idea is that because OWS did not adhere to the tactics previously used by other protests movements in United States history, it failed to get a coherent message across and therefore faded away after the eviction in 2011. However, when one takes a closer look at the tactics used by OWS, a different picture begins to emerge. In this chapter, I will argue that this general consensus about the reasons for the failure of Occupy Wall Street is too shortsighted. OWS’s tactics are not unique to the movement, and more importantly, Latin American movements like the Zapatistas and CONAIE have been considerably more successful by using similar tactics to advocate the same anti-neoliberal message. By comparing these movements, I will demonstrate that the reasons for the failure of Occupy cannot solely be attributed to the generally accepted truths about OWS’s unconventional tactics.

main example. The General Assemblies served as “the decision-making body of the action and the forum through which organizers made sure that the needs of those participating were met” (Baumgarthuber 44). The aim of the General Assemblies was not to guarantee quick decision-making, but to ensure as much equality and consensus as possible. OWS used multiple strategies to ensure that every voice would be heard. One of these strategies was the use of hand signals. Gestures like the wiggling of the fingers or forming a triangle with the thumbs and index fingers “made it possible for the crowd to communicate en masse with each other and the facilitators” (Baumgarthuber 45). This allowed the group to communicate without dominant voices drowning out others. Another way to give every person in the group a fair chance to voice his or her opinion was a technique called the “progressive stack” (Baumgarthuber 48). This technique ensured that “if people weren’t being respectful of others’ identities, or were speaking from a limited perspective, this would be added into the conversation” (Baumgarthuber 48). The progressive stack gave members of potentially underrepresented groups such as women or people of color a preference if they wanted to speak. All of these measures were taken to ensure a more direct and inclusive form of democracy.

adopt a decision-making mechanism that was as inclusive and democratic as possible, in order not to fall prey to the same hegemonic top-down structure that the organizations they were protesting against used. It was crucial for every individual to have a say in the process, which was achieved by implementing “forums of democracy from below, which, unlike a specific cause managed by ‘leaders,’ are an opening up of spaces for the voiceless majority” (Earle & Simonelli). One can argue that if there had been a clearer power structure within OWS, it would have been easier to quickly deal with some of the more practical issues it was faced with. However, this would have meant that some people in the movement would have had more power than others.

The direct democracy that one can find in Occupy Wall Street’s General Assemblies also constitutes one of the core values of the Zapatistas. The principle of finding broad consensus lies at the foundation of the movement. Kara Dellacioppa describes the importance of this consensus principle:

In the Zapatista indigenous communities, the highest form of authority is the community assembly. In the community assembly, political decisions are debated for hours and even days on end. In the community, it is not enough that a few experienced leaders have their say and then the majority vote, everyone must be heard. (Dellacioppa 69)

becomes clear why Occupy protesters were reluctant to adopt a more hierarchical structure. Khasnabish explains:

While notions such as “justice,” “democracy,” and “freedom” have been and continue to be used by a wide variety of political power-holders, what distinguishes the discourse of Zapatismo from them is precisely its radical critique of power. Even within each specific context the meaning can never be fixed because such an assertion would be to claim a singular and transcendent truth, a notion that the Zapatistas reject. (Khasnabish 84)

To allow a hierarchical structure to be the basis of one’s movement would be to adopt the traditional notions of power exhibited by the organizations and institutions that OWS and the Zapatistas are protesting against. This means that in order to truly change the existing power structures in a given society, one must acknowledge the voice of every individual.

to criticism about its message. The demonstrations were said to run the risk of becoming a perpetual cycle of protesting without tangible results. However, when one looks at this strategy from a Zapatismo perspective, a different picture begins to emerge.

The Zapatistas have managed to stay relevant and to distinguish themselves from other, more traditional guerrilla movements specifically by not having a preconceived revolutionary agenda. This can be traced back to their distrust of the concept of power and the conviction that no movement can “claim a singular and transcendent truth” (Khasnabish 84). Instead of having a program about what they would want to accomplish, they did the opposite of what Hofstadter proposed, because the Zapatistas rejected the idea that this was even possible.

Rather than emerging with a preconceived plan, the Zapatistas represented the antithesis of such a vanguard. The cry of “¡YaBasta!” was in fact a call for solidarity among all those Mexicans who had said “enough is enough.” The precise nature of the demands could only result from a broader dialogue to which all those who recognized the need for change were invited. (Khasnabish 85)

results, yet this scepticism should fade when one considers the success the Zapatista movement has had by using this tactic.

It is important to note at this point, however, that the Zapatistas have not always been critical of the concept of power by shunning a preconceived agenda. The movement originally began with an encounter between the indigenous communities in the Lancandon Jungle and Marxist revolutionaries that came from urban Mexican universities with the intention of “helping” the poor native communities. These urban revolutionaries wanted to use traditional Marxist ideologies to help the Indian peasant communities start a working class revolution. “From their perspective, that of educated urban guerrillas, they were the vanguard, and the Indians were simply ‘the exploited people – those who had to be organized and shown the path’” (Higgins 161). This preconceived idea of a revolution was quickly challenged, however, by the realities of living in and with the local communities. Not only did the Indians teach the urban revolutionaries how to survive in the jungle, but their native culture and history also challenged the Marxist dogmas that the rebels arrived with. As a result, their preconceived revolutionary agenda did not resonate with the local communities, and the only way to overcome this problem was by creating a new discourse. The city rebels arrived as teachers, but they turned into the pupils of the indigenous people; in the end they “inverted the traditional leader-masses relationship and provided a distinctive model of popular and democratic organization” (Khasnabish 71).

counterinsurgency, in which the small, poorly equipped EZLN may not have done well” (Ronfeldt & Arquilla 172). They realized that the only way to offer an effective counterweight to the Mexican army was through appealing to Mexican civil society and external activist groups. The Zapatistas thus developed the conviction that through dialogue with civil society, individuals should “not only participate in a political system, but determine the very nature of it” (Khasnabish 88). Ronfeldt and Arquilla describe the role that activist non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) acquired in supporting the Zapatista struggle. The support of these activist NGO’s had been growing during the 1970s, and “since the 1980s, they developed information-age organizational and technological networks for connecting and coordinating with each other” (Ronfeldt & Arquilla 175). The absence of a fixed ideology thus allowed the Zapatistas to establish connections with many different NGO’s. The only conviction they shared was a

revolutionary agenda does not necessarily signify a failed strategy for protest movements. The early days of the Zapatista uprising prove that a small movement can garner support by shunning traditional power relations and allowing outside parties to contribute to constructing the agenda, which in turn shows that the criticism that OWS failed due to not having a predetermined revolutionary agenda is shortsighted. Not only has this tactic been used by similar movements in the past, it has been successful as well. It is not a sign of indecisiveness but rather of inclusiveness.

principles: “Occupy does not want to be mainstream. It is deeply committed to a radical departure from political norms” (Gitlin 155). On the surface, it may thus seem as if OWS deliberately frustrated its own cause by refusing to engage with people in power to realize reforms. Yet OWS is not the first protest movement to take this step, and one can look at the history of the Ecuadorian indigenous movement CONAIE for a good example of how successful the reluctance to join the political arena can be.

Based in Ecuador, CONAIE “intended to create one large pan-Indigenous movement dedicated to defending Indigenous concerns and agitating for social, political and educational reforms” (Becker 9), and since its inception in November 1986, CONAIE has been one of the most successful Latin American social movements. From the late 1980s on, CONAIE has also taken over the role of trade unions by managing to “organize their base membership, craft their agendas, and engage in political actions to influence the government and the society” (Postero & Zamosc 8). While CONAIE may differ from OWS in terms of having a clear agenda, they have been very similar to Occupy in their tactic of trying to influence politics without entering the political system. Instead, they tried to achieve change through taking “initiative in national mobilizations to pressure the state, have a permanent public presence by taking stands on all relevant issues, combine forms of struggle, and put CONAIE at the center of a broad front of all exploited and marginalized sectors” (Zamosc 145). This tactic can be described as “politics of influence” (Zamosc 147): pressuring and achieving reforms of state power without actually being in a political position of power.

entrepreneurial production and privatizing irrigation water” (Zamosc 135), for example, CONAIE called for an uprising, in this way “paralyzing the country . . . for several days” (Zamosc 135). By demonstrating and blocking the highways, the movement managed to get attention for its cause, while “the military refused to repress the uprising and the government was forced to negotiate every chapter of the law with Indian representatives” (Zamosc 135). This led to a new law that “defined peasant agriculture as a rightful beneficiary of state support, reaffirmed that the water was a public source, and recognized the legality of communal and cooperative forms of property ownership” (Zamosc 135). This is only one example of the ways in which CONAIE was successful in influencing government policies without taking part in the political process.

The successes of CONAIE subsequently also attracted various human rights activists, feminists, and development NGO’s. In 1995, President Duran could not get a majority in Congress for a proposition that included “strengthening executive power, approving the privatization of state enterprises and social security, and weakening the unions” (Zamosc 135). He tried to circumvent Congress by holding a referendum, with heavy financial support from Ecuadorian corporate sponsors, yet CONAIE and its allies managed to organize an effective counter-campaign and the Ecuadorian people voted against Duran’s proposal.

traditional political parties would assimilate the movement and its members. However, the success of the campaign against Duran’s referendum and changes to the electoral law in 1994 eventually led to CONAIE giving the green light for the formation of a new political party. By forming a political party, CONAIE did what critics of OWS urged the movement to do. It stepped into the political arena and tried to change the system from within. Yet this step also shows the dangers and pitfalls of deciding to transition from a protest movement to a political party.

Pachakutik refused to sign a bill and PSP dismissed all the Pachakutik ministers. This show that the concessions that have to be made in politics can lead to a disconnect between the movement’s goals and political realities. While it originally appeared to be a good decision to try to attain political power, it turned out that in practice “the extent of that participation depended on the president, who had the authority to define the composition of the cabinet and its modus operandi” (Zamosc 152). The failure of Pachakutik also reflected negatively on CONAIE, which had trouble re-claiming the same influence it had had before. “The main symptoms of CONAIE’s crisis were the internal divisions, the loss of political capital vis-à-vis other popular organizations, and the vulnerabilities which had become apparent in the confrontations with Gutierrez” (Zamosc 152). When one reflects on Pachakutik’s failure, it becomes clear why OWS was so reluctant to endorse or start a political movement. CONAIE was most effective when it was exercising its politics of influence by blocking roads and demonstrating. However, when the movement got directly involved in the political system, its message got muddled and CONAIE was severely damaged by internal struggles. One can gather from this that the criticism that OWS failed due to its reluctance to participate in the political system is unfounded, since direct involvement in the political system can also lead to the opposite effect and cause a protest movement to fall into a crisis.

Chapter II

Enforcing Capitalism:

How a Nation’s History Can Determine the Success of Anti-Neoliberal

Movements

To understand the difference in success between OWS and the Latin American protest movements, one must first examine the histories of their respective nations. It is important to note that the connection between capitalism and the US can be traced back to the religious beliefs of its earliest colonial inhabitants. German sociologist and economist Max Weber drew a link between the Protestant work ethic and the Puritans’ emphasis on hard work and rationalism, arguing that the latter helped develop the capitalist system in colonial New England. The Puritans originally believed that:

God had entered into a covenant of works with Adam and that He had promised Adam eternal life if he followed the moral law. When Adam broke the moral law, he also destroyed the covenant of works and humankind could no longer be saved by doing good works. (Daniels 100)

This covenant of works was in line with the religious thinking of the Puritans, who were convinced that earthly possessions could never rival what was awaiting them in the afterlife. Weber describes how acquiring wealth was seen at the time: “Wealth as such is a great danger; its temptations never end and its pursuit is not only senseless as compared with the dominating importance of the Kingdom of God, but it is morally suspect” (Weber 103).

The Puritans considered the loss of the covenant of works a terrible situation since God could now send anyone to hell whether one’s behaviour on earth was in accordance with moral law or not. To counter this problem, they gradually developed a different covenant:

every person and if that person did nurture this grace, he or she would be saved. (Daniels 101)

The effect of replacing the covenant of works with the covenant of grace meant that people could once again influence their chances of salvation by nurturing God’s grace. Not only did the covenant of grace allow agency over one’s own salvation, it also allowed more room for interpretation about what living in the grace of God actually entailed. This is where the connection between the Protestant work ethic and capitalism becomes clearer. Weber explains how the Puritans, by using the covenant of grace as their guideline, defined labour and (morally just forms of) profit as an example of nurturing God’s grace:

If God shows you a way in which you may lawfully get more than in another way (without wrong to your soul or to any other), if you refuse this, and choose the less gainful way, you cross one of the ends of your calling, and you refuse to be God’s steward, and to accept His gifts and use them for Him when He requireth it: you may labour to be rich for God, though not for the flesh and sin. (Weber 108)

This shows how making profit and acquiring wealth is no longer considered to be a distraction from religion under the covenant of grace, but instead a sign of God’s blessing that should be accepted. In other words, if one was effective in acquiring capital, then one had “successfully followed the divine hints” (Weber 109). One can thus see how the foundation for the important role of capitalism in US society can be traced back to the Puritans and their Protestant vision of labour and the individual acquisition of wealth.

success and wealth seen as God’s blessing, commercial fortitude was also interpreted as a prerequisite for liberty: “Landownership equalled liberty, both in Lockean theory and practice” (Kagan 15). It is thus no coincidence that many of the Founding Fathers were land speculators and capitalists themselves. George Washington had a “stake in the Ohio Valley” while Thomas Jefferson was “a speculator by inheritance” (Kagan 18).

While throughout history the US have consistently relied on capitalism as their preferred economic model, Latin American nations have experimented with many different economic policies since gaining independence. Until the early decades of the 20th century, laissez-faire based economic policies, combined with David Ricardo’s principle of comparative advantage ruled the thinking of most Latin American leaders1. However, the crash of the world economy in 1929 showed the inherent danger of giving “the market” unrestricted freedom. The apparent shortcomings of the liberal approach made Latin American economists think more critically about their stance vis-à-vis capitalism. One of the most relevant thinkers and critics of capitalism was the executive director of the Economic Commission of Latin America (ECLA), Raul Prebisch. Under his leadership, the ECLA published several reports that criticized the theory of comparative advantage, noting that the supposed mutual benefit for all parties was not correct, and that instead it would only widen the gap between industrialized and agricultural, i.e. rich and poor countries2.

1  _{Ricardo’s theory stated that: “Every nation should concentrate upon its ‘comparative} advantage,’ exporting goods that it could produce most cheaply and importing goods that it could not” (Skidmore & Smith 154). For countries in Latin America,

Prebisch’s thinking influenced a new Latin American school of structuralist economists who proposed as an alternative the so-called Import-Substitution Industrialization (ISI) system which allowed them to limit their countries’ dependence on import by producing most of what they would need themselves. Therefore, it was believed, they could evolve beyond their status on the periphery of the global economic system and become more influential participants themselves.

The ISI policy was successful for Latin American countries on many different levels: “It fostered extraordinarily rapid rates of economic growth for over half a century, and led to profound economic, social and political transformations across the region” (Saad-Filho 131). The program also had negative side effects, however, including contributing “to inflation because of monopolistic elements in the domestic market for industrial goods” (Love 104).

During the 1970s the ISI countries were struggling with heavy inflation and increasing national deficits, made worse by destabilizing global events like the OPEC oil crisis. These huge national deficits eventually forced large countries like Mexico and Argentina to declare bankruptcy in the early 1980s because they could no longer service their foreign debts. This was when the International Monetary Fund (IMF) provided rescue loans to these nations, which only made the problems worse since it led to even bigger debts3.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              2  _{They argued that: “commercial relationships worked to the disadvantage of} primary-producing countries. Because the price of manufactured goods was rising faster than the price of agricultural and mineral commodities, the developing countries of Latin America were obtaining less and less real value for their export products” (Skidmore & Smith 160).

At this point the US saw their chance for intervention and subsequently proposed the Washington Consensus. This economic policy prescription meant that the US were willing to “support a broad portfolio of debt reduction and restructuring alternatives for countries willing to undertake market-based economic policies” (Skidmore & Smith 369). This fundamental reform that the US demanded in effect meant a return to liberalist economic principles – hence termed neo-liberalism – and can be summed up as follows:

First, Latin American governments should support the private sector; second, they should liberalize policies on trade; and third, perhaps most important, they should reduce the economic role of the state (in particular, they should privatize state-owned industries). They should exercise fiscal discipline – as commonly preached, but rarely practiced, by Washington itself. They should concentrate budgetary expenditures not on social subsidies but on long-term investments in health, education, and infrastructure. They should also deregulate their national economies, letting market forces operate without political or bureaucratic restraints. (Skidmore & Smith 170)

One can thus say that the US used the Latin American nations’ financial struggles to blackmail them into accepting American economic principles. One of the US’s main reasons for doing so was that the minimal government involvement created a favourable business environment for US corporations, and they were able to secure important markets. What made the situation so difficult, however, was the fact that the rules dictated by the Washington Consensus were not only the polar opposite of what the citizens in Latin America had become accustomed to over the past five decades, it was also ordained by the US, the colossus to the North that many had come to regard as the most dangerous influence on the southern hemisphere. One of the countries most strongly affected by the effects of the Washington Consensus was Mexico.

With the emergence of neoliberalism in Latin American countries like Mexico, a new political elite rose to prominence. Most of the new rulers were educated in economics at American Ivy League institutions. The majority of Mexico’s cabinet members during the 1980s and 1990s, for example, had an American degree in this discipline, and “all three presidents from that period – de La Madrid, Salinas, and Zedillo – had studied economics or administration, and not coincidentally, all had served in the budgeting and finance departments of the administration previous to theirs” (Higgins 135). This fact “helped determine the kind of policies adopted by Mexico, but also served to exclude rival claims to knowledge” (Higgins 136).

policies. Many of these communities were poor and partially relied on government subsidies to support their agricultural lifestyle. However, subsidies and government help were incompatible with the new neoliberal approach. The government wanted to achieve economic goals through “the reduction of inflation via wage and price controls, privatization of state enterprises and trade liberalisation” (Higgins 149). By enforcing these measures, the farmers saw their prices drop since they now had to compete on an international market without government support. One can thus argue that the US was directly responsible for the ensuing financial malaise of the rural communities in Mexico.

In Ecuador, the turn toward neoliberalism did not come naturally either. During the late 1990s the nation was hit by a sizeable economic crisis that can be traced back to the fall of the oil price and the destruction of the coast by the natural phenomenon El Niño. The aftermath of El Niño left many coastal business sectors in ruins, which led to a financial crisis where “the economy contracted by 7 percent, unemployment and the state deficit shot upward, and it became evident that the country would not be able to pay its external debt” (Zamosc 138). This in turn resulted in increased pressure from the IMF to reform the Ecuadorian economy

according to neoliberal principles, and it created a situation where “neoliberalism took the form of a hegemonic mandate; that is, it was accepted by governments of different parties as the only viable alternative” (Zamosc 140). The result was that many

different vulnerable groups such as peasants and indigenous people were

disproportionally hit by the neoliberal measures. Many of the negative effects of the new neoliberal policies “were aggravated by the ability of the economic elite to safeguard its interests and divert the sacrifices of adjustment onto the popular sectors” (Zamosc 142). Zamosc lists figures that show the effects of two decades of neoliberal policy on Ecuadorian society:

In the background was a failed economic model, as evidenced by the fall of the GDP growth rate from 9.1 percent in the 1960s to 3.9 percent and 1.8 percent in the 1980s and 1990s, respectively. Between 1980 and 1999, salaries decreased by more than half, the share of salaries within the aggregate GDP contracted in an even more pronounced manner, and open unemployment tripled. (Zamosc 142)

banks and on fiscal reforms, thus “allowing the business sector and more powerful groups to benefit from low income taxes” (Zamosc 143). One can thus see why CONAIE was so successful in appealing against neoliberal policies: not only were they subjected to a total overhaul of the previous system they had known for several decades, but the new economic system also created a new elite that was benefiting disproportionally from these changes. This inequality between the elite and the rest of the nation was fertile ground for a protest movement like CONAIE. Like Mexico, Ecuador did not have the same historical connection to capitalism like the United States, and when neoliberalism was forced upon these two countries after the credit crisis, it created room for a rebellion.

relationship to society” (Fiske 306). One central difference between old and new Marxist thinking thus is that in Neo-Marxist approaches the ideas and ideology of the elite are not fixed. Instead, the ruling class is constantly trying to incorporate even divergent thoughts and behaviour in an attempt to strengthen its own position by diminishing the effects of resistance through making it an important part of the system itself.

becomes to see beyond it. This concept is defined as common sense. Antonio Gramsci describes common sense as being

constructed out of longstanding practices of cultural socialization often rooted deep in regional or national traditions. It is not the same as “good sense” that can be constructed out of critical engagement with the issues of the day. Common sense can, therefore, be profoundly misleading, obfuscating or disguising real problems under cultural prejudices. (Gramsci 321)

Once the ideology of the ruling class has become common sense, the society in question has accepted their values as ‘the only logical way.’ People may have issues with the way society is run, yet they never challenge the underlying values that have been established as common sense.

culture’s badges of ability even as they recognize that those badges are often a sham” (Lears 578).

Earlier in this chapter I have established that, historically, there has been a strong connection between the United States’ origins and capitalism, dating back to the earliest Puritan settlers. When one keeps this historical connection in mind, realizing that the hegemony of capitalism has been developing and taking root in this country for several centuries, it becomes more obvious why there is such a difference in response to the rise of neoliberalism between the Occupy and the Latin American movements discussed above. Neoliberalism started to emerge on the scene in the US during the 1940s when Friedrich von Hayek formed the Mont Pelerin Society to further the cause of free market principles, but their thinking did not have a significant impact on US economic policies during the first two and a half decades after the Second World War. Keynes’ economic theory was the norm during this period, and it led to a steady economic growth and low unemployment rates. Even Richard Nixon, a Republican President, “went so far as to remark that ‘we are all Keynesians now’” (Harvey 13). During the 1970s, however, the US economy was hit by a sequence of economic and political crises (the Oil Crisis of 1973, the Iran Hostage Crisis of 1979) as well as a surge of unemployment and inflation, which brought an end to the period of decades-long prosperity. Keynesian principles did not appear to have an answer for these issues any more, and an alternative was needed. This was when neoliberal thinkers like Von Hayek and Milton Friedman gained influence. One of the most important steps in this neoliberal direction was the shift in US monetary policy under Paul Volcker in 1979, when

monetary policies with full employment as the key objective, was abandoned in favour of a policy designed to quell inflation no matter what the consequences might be for employment. (Harvey 23)

One may wonder how it was possible to implement this sudden shift away from the goal of full employment without receiving heavy resistance from various constituencies in society. In this context, the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 can be interpreted as a key event in the transition toward neoliberalism becoming common sense. Reagan’s administration was essential in instilling the idea that any interference with the free market, either through government subsidies or labour unions, was in direct opposition to the individual freedom of every American. He directly appealed to the United States’ long history of freedom, including the freedom of acquiring wealth and capital, which can be traced back to the Puritans as discussed above.

There are multiple examples of Reagan linking the individual freedoms of everyday Americans to the (often antithetical) ideology of neoliberalism, including the argument that that subsidies created inequality among different groups in society, which in turn directly interfered with the important cultural concept of the American Dream. After all, if anyone can make it if he or she works hard enough, it is not fair to give certain groups a head start. By employing this argument, the Reagan government not only diverted the attention away from the negative effects of its own policies (high rates of unemployment), it also helped make neoliberalism common sense by appealing to long-held national concepts like the American Dream.

message became during the Reagan era, one can look at the overwhelming increase in income disparity during the 1980s4, which did not lead to a working class uprising. Instead, it led to a great example of contradictory consciousness when Ronald Reagan was re-elected in 1984 by one of the biggest landslides in US electoral history, “carrying 49 of the 50 states” (”The 1984”).

After the neoliberal turn of 1979 and the following eight years of neoliberal policies under Reagan, the ideology pervaded important ISA’s. This was essential for establishing the current neoliberal hegemony in the US:

The advocates of the neoliberal way now occupy positions of considerable influence in education (the universities and many ‘think tanks’), in the media, in corporate boardrooms and financial institutions, in key state institutions (treasury departments, the central banks), and also in those international institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization (WTO) that regulate global finance and trade. Neoliberalism has, in short, become hegemonic as a mode of discourse. (Harvey 3)

Over a ten-year time period, Richard Nixon’s remarks about the universality of Keynesianism had become out-dated and irrelevant5. If anything, the people in power were all neoliberals now.

When one considers the developments sketched above, it becomes clear that the difference in success between OWS and the Latin American movements discussed

4  _{While the first neoliberal president was in office, there was “an increase in the} weekly wages of young male college graduates by approximately 30 percent relative to young males with twelve or fewer years of schooling from 1979 to 1987” (Katz & Murphy 35).  

Chapter III

Building on the Remnants of an Occupation:

The Lasting Effects of Occupy Wall Street and the Future Of

Anti-Neoliberalism in the United States  

∞

building. OWS’s failed attempt should not be seen as the final attempt to overthrow the neoliberal hegemony, but as the first step in the right direction.

Movements like OWS, the Zapatistas and CONAIE all share the same objective. The societal circumstances for these movements may be dramatically different, but they are similar in their goal to replace the existing (neoliberal) hegemony. It is important to note that in Gramsci’s view, a hegemony is never fixed. In Television Culture, John Fiske explains this view:

Hegemony is a constant struggle against a multitude of resistances to ideological domination, and any balance of forces that it achieves is always precarious, always in need of re-achievement. Hegemony’s ‘victories’ are never final, and any society will evidence numerous points where subordinate groups have resisted the total domination that is hegemony’s aim, and have withheld their consent to the system. (Fiske 32)

Hegemony, from a neo-Marxist perspective, is a dynamic system, and it is constantly challenged by and adjusting to different views. It is by no means an ideological system that can be described as permanent, yet as long as the hegemony is able to incorporate and balance out the dissenting voices and movements, it will remain in power.

even more important to recognize that other views are constantly incorporated into the dominant culture. “Some of these meanings and practices are reinterpreted, diluted, or put into forms which support or at least do not contradict other elements within the effective dominant culture” (Williams 135).

The perspective of the dominant culture will always be challenged, however, because it is never omnipotent and involved in a constant struggle for meaning with residual and emerging cultural practices. Residual cultural practices can be described as having continued from an earlier stage of civilization. One can think of organized religion like Christianity as an example of a cultural practice that has survived for many centuries and is still relevant in today’s societies. While residual cultures are rooted in the past, emergent cultures can be describes as the result of a process in which “new meanings and values, new practices, new significances and experiences are continually being created” (Williams 137). This means that new meanings and values are constructed that are not in line with the dominant culture. Williams makes a distinction between alternative and oppositional emergent cultures and describes it as “the difference between someone who simply finds a different way to live and wishes to be left alone with it, and someone who finds a different way to live and wants to change society in its light” (Williams 137).

showed that the dominant hegemony would do everything to maintain its position of power, either through incorporation or force.

When this balancing act can no longer be maintained, however, a crisis in hegemony can occur. This is the moment when the subordinate classes no longer offer their willing consent to accept the views and ideology of the ruling elite. Gramsci states that:

In any country the process is different, although the content is the same. And the content is the crisis of the ruling class’s hegemony, which occurs either because the ruling class has failed in some major political undertaking for which it has requested, or forcibly imposed, the consent of the broad masses (war for example), or because huge masses (especially of peasants and petit-bourgeois intellectuals) have passed suddenly from a state of political passivity to a certain activity, and put forward demands which in their disorganic whole constitute revolution. A “crisis of authority” is spoken of, and this is precisely the crisis of hegemony, or general crisis of the state. (Gramsci 311)

progress in pushing a significant part of the US population from a state of passivity to activity.

recognizing the potential of new media, the Zapatistas were able to win the “netwar” against the Mexican government. This allowed them to spread their message to an international audience, which subsequently forced the Mexican government to establish a cease-fire.

Social media have also played an important role in the emergence of OWS. It was through websites like Facebook and Twitter that the word of the occupation spread. These sites also served as a channel for the Occupy movement to spread its message on its own terms, without having to rely on the traditional mainstream media. When police officers were forcefully arresting protesters during the march on the Brooklyn Bridge, footage of the incident quickly spread via videos on YouTube. While the Zapatistas still had to use NGO’s to lobby for attention on national TV news networks in the early 1990s, OWS could use alternative social media outlets to keep their cause in the public eye. An interesting side effect of this strategy is that mainstream media attention eventually developed because of the attention that social media paid the YouTube videos showing police brutality. Occupy thus managed to get mainstream attention on its own terms.

democratic neighbourhood, city, and state wide (and, perhaps someday, regional and national) assemblies” (Juris 271). This example shows that the connections that were established through different forms of social media have a lasting impact on local communities. OWS’s occupation of different public spaces throughout the US may have failed to successfully cause a lasting crisis of hegemony, but it did create a link between different activist groups. The revolutionary use of social media did not only serve as an ignition during the period of actual occupation, but it has also helped to create a decentralized network of likeminded people that continues to exist after the evictions.

When the existing hegemony is in a state of crisis, Gramsci argues that a new hegemony can materialize through the emergence of a new “historic bloc” (Gramsci 193). This means that the old hegemony develops into another structure or is replaced by a new historic bloc altogether that will eventually overthrow the elite in power. Robert Cox explains what a new historic bloc would mean in Gramsci’s view:

A historic bloc cannot exist without a hegemonic social class. Where the hegemonic class is the dominant class in a country or social formation, the state (in Gramsci’s enlarged concept) maintains cohesion and identity within the bloc through the propagation of a common culture. A new bloc is formed when a subordinate class (e.g., the workers) establishes its hegemony over the other subordinate groups (e.g., small farmers, marginal). (Cox 57)

become unified in a counter-hegemonic historic bloc, and by eventually overthrowing the existing power structure, it would develop into a new historic bloc.

Compared to Gramsci’s time, it is not as easy to determine the different parties that would emerge out of OWS to form a new historic bloc. In the first chapter I outlined that Occupy is not interested in limiting or defining the group(s) it represents. However, the Occupy protesters are unified in a common counter-hegemonic struggle against neoliberal policies. OWS protesters may have different views, but they all protest against the same issues. The formation of a counter-hegemonic bloc does not necessarily mean that it can automatically transition into a new historic bloc, however. Especially with protest movements that cast as wide a net as OWS, it is almost impossible not to attract a large number of very heterogeneous people and groups with inherently contradicting opinions. These internal contradictions can only be overcome through a process of permanent dialogue between the different groups within the movement. This is why Gramsci strongly emphasizes the importance of the “organic intellectual,” since this figure is crucial in this dialogic process.

Important figures like Friedrich von Hayek, Milton Friedman and Ronald Reagan can all be considered organic intellectuals that helped establish the new neoliberal historic bloc at that time.

There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. ... You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea. God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is, you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along. (Warren)

This ties in with the criticism of OWS protesters against the special status that corporations seem to have created for themselves in the US, including the idea that big business’ successes can only be attributed to their own hard work, but when they fail, they have to be bailed out by taxpayer money. Warren’s speech received criticism from many right-wing pundits; Rush Limbaugh even called her “a parasite who hates her host. Willing to destroy the host while she sucks the life out of it” (Krugman). In a column addressing Warren’s speech and the subsequent backlash against her, The New York Times columnist Paul Krugman perfectly worded the new common sense that was being forwarded by Warren and OWS. He asked: “So who’s really being un-American here? Not the protesters, who are simply trying to get their voices heard. No, the real extremists here are America’s oligarchs, who want to suppress any criticism of the sources of their wealth” (Krugman).

served as an intellectual backbone. Žižec addressed the protesters in Zuccotti Park during the occupation of 2011 and was received like a rock star by the crowd who recognized that many of the philosopher’s views matched their own. But Žižec had not just come to lift the spirits of the protesters; he also wanted to warn them about the future of the movement, arguing that it “should not fall in love with itself, since the meaningful work comes after” (Žižec, “OWS Address”). This can be seen as an example of the role that has to be played by Gramsci’s organic intellectual; Žižec serves as a deputy who keeps the protesters focused on the cause of the movement. In an article in The Guardian he elaborated on this warning by reinforcing some of the movement’s key principles that I have outlined in the first chapter. Žižec warns the protesters against false friends and delivers a spirited argument for remaining outside of the political realm:

emergent culture by linking Occupy’s message to its own policies. In this way, changes and adjustments would still only be made within the neoliberal hegemony, while the actual neoliberal power structure itself would not be threatened. Žižec encourages Occupy to reject this form of incorporation and instead look for greater changes:

The reason protesters went out is that they had enough of the world where to recycle your Coke cans, to give a couple of dollars for charity, or to buy Starbucks cappuccino where 1% goes for the third world troubles is enough to make them feel good. (Žižec, “OWS: Next”)

In Žižec’s view, Occupy should not fall in love with what it has achieved so far, but instead look forward to how it can structurally change the neoliberal hegemonic power relations. In this way, Žižec as an organic intellectual did not only help OWS to gain attention through his fame as a philosopher, but he also continues to support the movement with intellectual criticism.

be part of the debates. This means that even though it is obvious that the OWS movement failed to make the impact it desired, it has become clear that one cannot disregard the effects that the movement has had. It was the first real US-based anti-neoliberal movement of the twenty-first century, and its revolutionary use of social media allowed them to remain in the public eye and to provide information without having to rely on the mainstream media. Social media also allowed different social groups to connect, which laid the foundation for many of the actions in local communities after the eviction of Zucotti Park.

Conclusion

Capturing the Zeitgeist

∞

The rise and fall of Occupy Wall Street remains one of the most interesting stories of the new millennium. Not often in American history has a movement been able to get such a firm hold on the zeitgeist, only to relinquish its grip and to disappear into obscurity over the course of only a few months. While the banking crisis of 2008 and the Arab spring of 2010 served as a clear impetus for the movement’s ascension, the reasons for its sudden demise are not as easy to pinpoint. This is not the impression one gets by looking at the narrative that has emerged since the eviction of Zucotti Park, however. This narrative can be distilled into three recurring criticisms that allegedly led to the fall of OWS: the movement’s stubborn reliance on direct democracy, its refusal to participate in the existing political system, and the absence of a concrete revolutionary agenda.

predetermined set of ideas, and they instead present themselves as a blank slate that outside parties and NGO’s can project their own vision and ideas onto. This allowed them to gain transnational funding and support, which a traditional Marxist insurgency movement can only dream about.

The irrelevance of CONAIE over the past decade, on the other hand, serves as a cautionary tale for anti-neoliberal protest movements that are considering participation in the political realm. CONAIE rose to prominence in Ecuador during the 1990s by organizing massive demonstrations to defend the rights of the nation’s many indigenous communities. The protests influenced the policies of the Ecuadorian government, without CONAIE’s actual involvement in the political system. It is interesting to notice that CONAIE’s influence waned as soon as it decided to branch off into politics by starting its own political party Pachakutik. CONAIE got dragged into political machinations that it could not control, and as its revolutionary message got muddled, CONAIE never managed to regain the broad public support it used to have.

capitalist ideals. OWS was therefore not fighting against an imposed ideology; it was rebelling against some of the core values of US society, against what many people in the U.S. would consider common sense. I argue that this is why Occupy Wall Street failed to achieve what it set out to do.

This does not mean, however, that Occupy was a total failure. It was the first movement in the 21st _{century to give a face to the growing unease that many} Americans feel about the ever-increasing income disparity. People that were involved in the occupation of Zucotti Park have established connections and learned important aspects about demonstrating that are now being redeployed in local communities throughout the nation. OWS also spawned a few organic intellectuals of its own who still carry its message on in the academic (Žižek) and political (Warren) world. I believe that OWS will not be seen as the final stand on the anti-neoliberal movement in the US, but that it will serve as the breeding ground for future similar movements.