The Most Annoying Legacy of Occupy Wall Street

One of the greatest successes of the “Occupy” movement was its refusal to outline a specific platform and to thereby unite a broad coalition of groups based on a single, shared socioeconomic concern: inequality. I have on numerous occasions expressed my frustration with the divisions engendered by the non-profitization of the progressive movement and the concomitant reformist strategy. People focus on specific issues that they attempt to grapple with via policy changes and other mundane maneuvers. I have maintained, in contrast, that the only way to effect real social change is to create a united front based on a common critique of the global capitalist system. In support of this position, I described the way in which other issues (regarding race, gender, sexuality, etc.) stem from this fundamental social problem.

So, good for “Occupy” for trying to build a movement around basic socioeconomic concerns. My main problem with “Occupy” relates to some of the rhetoric used by the movement (which I already critiqued somewhat in this blog). However, it seems like the most lasting bit of discourse preserved from “Occupy” is the 99%/1% model that they used to characterize socioeconomic relations. At first it just seemed refreshing that anyone could even acknowledge that inequality really exists in the United States. Ultimately, however, the concept has serious weaknesses and the continued use of this terminology is getting a little irritating.

The main flaw of the 99%/1% rhetoric is that it tacitly presumes income distribution to be the most important feature of socioeconomic conditions. From a Marxist perspective, income distribution is a secondary – or even tertiary – concern. Of top significance is the way in which society – including economic activity – is organized. In other words, one must look at the relations of production, not income distribution, if one wishes to get to the root of the problem. All of this amounts to the fact (which I have already noted) that “Occupy” is not a comprehensive, systemic critique of capitalism, but merely a frustration with one of the more troubling manifestations of capitalism. The fact that “Occupy” would eventually have to contend with is that it is not possible to change the income distribution within the confines of capitalism.

This is more than just a theoretical error. It is a strategic blunder. Income distribution is a quantitative and not a qualitative phenomenon. Or, to put it another way, the criticism is based only on the feeling that the current income distribution is too skewed. But then the question becomes: what is an acceptable level of inequality? Where do we draw the line? No one (not even me!) is prepared to argue that income distribution should be completely even, so protesters have put themselves in a position where they are ultimately just haggling over numbers. This awkward position opens them to either the false criticism that they do support complete homogeneity, or the ideological criticism that they are jealous or unappreciative of the contributions of the creative people who rise to the top. The concept of “fairness” is nebulous and no one is going to agree about it what it means in practice.

If “Occupy” had initiated a discussion about the way in which capitalism organizes production and other social relations, and how that results in extreme income inequality, among many other things, it is true that they may have been just as easily dismissed by those people who are too devoted to neoliberal ideology to seriously think about any of their own assumptions. Yet, at least they would be opening to discussion certain considerations that have always remained outside of public discourse – and maybe, by bringing those arguments to light, many people who do not have such blind loyalty to neoliberal ideology may start to question the whole thing: the system and its ideological justification. That would be the start of a real conversation.

Democracy and Capitalism

The title of this post is also the title of a recent On Point episode.  It begins by questioning:  "Is Democracy up to the challenges of this century? Is Capitalism? We’ll look at two great pillars, and the questions now around them."

As the episode began, I was excited to hear a mainstream news outlet actually addressing these questions.  However, as things progressed, particularly when Gideon Rose began to speak, it was clear that no one was willing to really question the taken-for-granted ideas about our political economic system.  It became the same old line about "our system is really great, or at least the best we can hope for, but we just need to make some tweaks to make it work better."  Yawn.

Gideon Rose asserted that, if we could just somehow get things to work the way the did in the Good Old Days (1950s and 60s) then more wealth would be generated and it could be spread around to level inequality and alleviate poverty in the U.S.  This line of reasoning very well demonstrates the myopia and Americentrism that pervades the thought of most economists.  Things may have been going well in the U.S. (and the other industrialized powers) in the post-WW2 period, but that does not mean that capitalism was creating and spreading wealth on a global scale!  In fact, the rest of the world (even if one excludes the communist world) was mired in poverty as a direct result of the global relationships that enabled expansion in the industrialized centers.  Income inequality was much more polarized on a global scale.  So yes, the 1950s-60s were great times... if you ignore the rest of the world.

In this vein, Rose and Kupchan both seem to think that globalization is a recent phenomenon.  It may be more visibly now in the first world, as corporations have moved their manufacturing operations to other parts of the world in order to exploit cheap labor and resources.  People in the U.S. and Western Europe are suddenly angry that "their" jobs are being sent elsewhere.  But, capitalism has always been a global system.  In the post-WW2 era and earlier, manufacturing in the U.S. and Western Europe depended on the cheap raw material inputs from other parts of the world, which were obtained under conditions of colonial/neo-colonial exploitation.  The citizens of the first world, furthermore, depended for their high standard of living on the unequal global exchange relationships that allowed them to purchase, with money representing a small fraction of their own labor hours, commodities whose actual production required a far greater number of someone else's labor hours.

Furthermore, Rose and Kupchan never seem to consider why the Great Capitalism of the post-WW2 era didn't last for more than a couple decades.  Was it just that people got bored and wanted to try something new, as if an economy were a pair of shoes?  If this form of capitalism was so great, why was it not preserved?  In truth, the conditions of the post-WW2 era could not be sustained because of the inherent contradictions of capitalism, that transformed a period of great economic expansion, through the the workings of its fundamental logic, into a period of great economic stagnation.  Specifically, the revolutions in production (assembly line technology, mechanization, transnational organization), which are responsible for the economic boom enjoyed by a fraction of the world's population, also laid the groundwork for its own demise.  Production was proceeding at a scale that far outstripped actual human needs, and profitability plummeted. Everyone became Keynesians and tried to manufacture demand to keep up with the unnecessarily ballooning supply.  Result:  increased consumerism, accelerated cycles of production (i.e. things become obsolete much more quickly so that people are constantly having to buy new stuff), private and public indebtedness, bombardment by advertisements and corporate sponsorships...  As it turned out, trying to artificially manufacture demand never solved the problem of overproduction; profitability was never restored and now everyone is saddled with massive debts.

Precisely for this reason I would say, contrary to Rose and Kupchan, that capitalism does not come in different forms.  It comes in one form (whose basis is wage labor and generalized commodity production), with varying levels of state involvement and approaches to social welfare depending on ever-fluctuating circumstances determined by capitalism's underlying and unchanging logic.  The state is an instrument of the capitalist class, and so it is used strategically to respond to changing environments and maintain the general conditions that are necessary for capitalism to function.

Rose says that, among the members of the Occupy Wall Street movement, it is the smart ones who want to return to the capitalism of the 1950s-60s.  I can only find that statement arrogant and offensive.  Wouldn't the smart ones be those who are able to think outside the bounds of dominant ideology?

The Goals of "Occupy"

Although I wrote in a previous post that I disagree with the major criticisms of the "Occupy" movement, I do have one to level of my own. I think it is okay that they are not necessarily "for" anything, and I think it is fantastic that they are not (as of yet) working through the political process. The problem, as I see it, is how they have defined what they are against.

The name "Occupy Wall Street" says it all. The movement is targeted foremost at the "financial sector," as well as at large corporations, and thus the problem is framed in terms of "corporate greed" coupled with the government's inability to impose regulations and make everyone pay their fair share (to the contrary, offering large bail-outs). This, of course, is a worthy cause. However, I also believe it is myopic, in much the same way that I argued was the view espoused by Inside Job.

The inherent contradictions of capitalism (the drive to decrease wages and simultaneously increase demand; the negative effects of investments in technology on the rate of profit) have caused a decades-long period of economic stagnation - via a crisis of overproduction - of which the entire financial crisis is a mere symptom. All the while, the normal laws of capitalist production continue to redistribute wealth upward. The problem, then, is not greedy corporations per se, or the unregulated financial sector, but the very nature of the capitalist sytem.

The "Occupy" movement could easily turn into a critique of capitalism, although I highly doubt it will. The ideological work of turning capitalism into a sacred cow has been pretty successfully managed up to this point.

But even if "Occupy" was elevated to a critique of capitalism, its scope could be broader still. Capitalism is more than an economic principle. It is a way of organizing social relations. To that end, if one desires real change, a comprehensive critique of society, including all of its interlinked institutions, ideologies, and practices, is necessary. For everything is interrelated, and together comprises a system that is in its very nature exploitative. One should start to question the nature of the state, the justice system, the media, the family, science, the medical establishment (with its associated industries), and so forth, as well as highlight the ways in which racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia, and all other forms of discrimination emerge from the exigencies of these institutions.

Occupying Wall Street is nice, but there's a whole world to occupy!

Why Does "Occupy" Need to Stand for Anything?

The biggest criticism I have yet heard about the "Occupy" movement is that its goals are not clearly defined. They have not as thoroughly articulated what they are for as compared to what they are against. In fact, I recently ran across an opinion piece arguing that the demonstrators could put their energy to better use by trying to work through the political process.

I disagree completely. One of my favorite philsophers, Michel Foucault, responded to a similar criticism (that he would not propose any ideals for which he stood), by saying that the real task for anyone wishing to actually change the system is to investigate and understand in greater detail how the system currently works - to expose all of the subtle and diffuse mechanisms of power that are commonly ignored. Otherwise, Foucault insisted, thought is so permeated by the paradigms of the current system that people only end up reproducing that which they are trying to demolish. The results of the Russian Revolution are a great example of this principle (the revolutionaries somewhat unwittingly created a more capitalist society), and it seems that the revolutions in MENA could take a similar route: individual figureheads are being replaced but the system is being preserved.

Above all else, channeling the momentum of the "Occupy" movement into the political process would be the best way to kill the movement and ensure that nothing is done. That's what the political process is there for: to direct energies into benign activities that preserve the social order... and make people think that they are "doing something" even though they are not.

I say, "Occupy" is good enough as it is!

What "Occupy" Can Accomplish

I guess I can't have a blog like this and not comment on the "Occupy" protests. Although I have been busy and vacationy, and haven't really felt like writing anything lately. Just a few sentences...

In a general sense, these types of occurances tend to raise the heart rate of Marxists/neo-Marxists, as it demonstrates the types of conflicts that, according to them, are inherently built into the system. These events indicate that people have some sense of the limitations and injustices of the current political economic structure, and the ways in which they are being exploited to sustain it. More than that, they are dissatisfied enough to try to do something about it.

Many neo-Marxists, who have been writing for the past few decades about the current period of economic contraction (beginning in the 1970s), and theorizing the necessity of large-scale structural change, have insisted that growing social unrest was bound to occur sometime soon. Now it looks more probable that they could be right.

On the other hand, in a less general sense, do I think these particular protests are going to result in anything significant? My gut says no. But it is a start. Perhaps this is the first ripple of a movement that could, in the longer run, really reverberate and result in some major changes.

But the biggest take-home point is that conflict/resistance/revolution does not necessarily (if ever) result in real liberation. The conditions of most people, particularly the oppressed, do not actually improve in the long run. In fact, the historical precedent has been for structural rearrangements to serve as the ground of conception for new relationships and instruments of oppression, which are almost always far, far worse than what came before.

Thus, there is hope. And that is something. But the worst could be yet to come.