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Social Activism
Occupy demands: Let's radicalise our analysis
The crisis we face is caused by failed systems - replacing leaders while keeping the old system intact will not help.
Occupy demands: Let's radicalise our analysis
The crisis we face is caused by failed systems - replacing leaders while keeping the old system intact will not help.
'Occupy' protests have spread around the world as discontentment with capitalism has grown [EPA]
Original article: http://aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/11/201111191022862285.html
and
'http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/spotlight/occupywallstreet'
Peter Burgess COMMENTARY
This is the comment I made on the AlJazeera website:
Robert Jensen has summarized the history and the present state of affairs very well, and I have no grumble with anything that he has written. I like in the opening when he suggested 'We demand that you stop demanding a list of demands', but there is a need to start having some ideas about where the Occupy Movement is going and how it is going to get there.Peter Burgess
I am an old corporate CFO and development consultant (World Bank, UN etc) with some history in managing change. My experience is that when change is 'pushed', nothing happens ... but when the incentives are structured to encourage desired change, there is 'pull' and change happens automatically and quickly.
In society and the economy the main metrics being used encourage the wrong results, and the 1% have become hugely wealthy while society has been looted. Money profit, GDP growth and stock market indexes are inadequate metrics. There also needs to be universal metrics about the use of resources in society where valueadd is as important as profit. There are many initiatives going in this direction including my own effort with TrueValueMetrics. When something is measured ... it can start to be managed. More important, when there are suitable metrics, everyone can become engaged, and everyone can start pulling in the right direction.
Written by Robert Jensen ... AlJazeera English Opinion
Last Modified: 03 Nov 2011 09:32
There's one question that pundits and politicians keep posing to the Occupy gatherings around the country: What are your demands?
I have a suggestion for a response: We demand that you stop demanding a list of demands.
The demand for demands is an attempt to shoehorn the Occupy gatherings into conventional politics, to force the energy of these gatherings into a form that people in power recognise, so that they can roll out strategies to divert, co-opt, buy off, or - if those tactics fail - squash any challenge to business as usual.
Rather than listing demands, we critics of concentrated wealth and power in the US can dig in and deepen our analysis of the systems that produce that unjust distribution of wealth and power. This is a time for action, but there also is a need for analysis.
Rallying around a common concern about economic injustice is a beginning; understanding the structures and institutions of illegitimate authority is the next step.
We need to recognise that the crises we face are not simply the result of greedy corporate executives or corrupt politicians, but rather of failed systems. The problem is not the specific people who control most of the wealth of the country, or those in government who serve them, but the systems that create those roles.
Most chart the beginning of the external US empire-building phase with the 1898 Spanish-American War and the conquest of the Philippines that continued for some years after. That project went forward in the early 20th century, most notably in Central America, where regular US military incursions made countries safe for investment. If we could get rid of the current gang of thieves and thugs but left the systems in place, we will find that the new boss is going to be the same as the old boss.
My contribution to this process of sharpening analysis comes in lists of three, with lots of alliteration. Whether or not you find my analysis of the key questions compelling, at least it will be easy to remember: Empire, economics, ecology.
Empire: Immoral, illegal, ineffective
The United States is the current (though fading) imperial power in the world, and empires are bad things. We have to let go of self-indulgent notions of American exceptionalism - the idea that the US is a unique engine of freedom and democracy in the world and therefore is a responsible and benevolent empire. Empires throughout history have used coercion and violence to acquire a disproportionate share of the world's resources, and the US empire is no different.
Although the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq are particularly grotesque examples of US imperial destruction, none of this is new; the US was founded by men with imperial visions who conquered the continent and then turned to the world.
The empire emerged in full force after World War II, as the United States assumed the role of the dominant power in the world and intensified the project of subordinating the developing world to the US system. Those efforts went forward under the banner of 'anti-communism' until the early 1990s, but continued after the demise of the Soviet Union under various other guises, most notably the so-called 'war on terrorism'.
Whether it was Latin America, southern Africa, the Middle East, or Southeast Asia, the central goal of US foreign policy has been consistent: to make sure that an independent course of development did not succeed anywhere. The 'virus' of independent development could not be allowed to take root in any country out of a fear that it might infect the rest of the developing world.
The victims of this policy - the vast majority of them non-white - can be counted in the millions. In the Western Hemisphere, US policy was carried out mostly through proxy armies, such as the Contras in Nicaragua in the 1980s, or support for dictatorships and military regimes that brutally repressed their own people, such as El Salvador. The result throughout the region was hundreds of thousands of dead - millions across Latin America over the course of the 20th century - and whole countries ruined.
'The central goal of US foreign policy ... [is] to make sure that an independent course of development did not succeed anywhere.
Direct US military intervention was another tool of US policymakers, with the most grotesque example being the attack on Southeast Asia.
After supporting the failed French effort to recolonise Vietnam after World War II, the US invaded South Vietnam and also intervened in Laos and Cambodia, at a cost of three to four million Southeast Asians dead and a region destabilised.
To prevent the spread of the 'virus' there, we dropped 6.5 million tonnes of bombs and 400,000 tonnes of napalm on the people of Southeast Asia. Saturation bombing of civilian areas, counterterrorism programs and political assassination, routine killings of civilians, and 11.2 million gallons of Agent Orange to destroy crops and ground cover - all were part of the US terror war.
On 9/11, the vague terrorism justification became tangible for everyone. With the US economy no longer the source of dominance, policymakers used the terrorist attacks to justify an expansion of military operations in Central Asia and the Middle East. Though non-military approaches to terrorism were more viable, the rationale for ever-larger defence spending was set.
A decade later, the failures of this imperial policy are clearer than ever. US foreign and military policy has always been immoral, based not on principle but on power. That policy has routinely been illegal, violating the basic tenets of international law and the constitutional system. Now, more than ever, we can see that this approach to world affairs is ineffective, no matter what criteria for effectiveness we use. An immoral and criminal policy has lost even its craven justification: It will not guarantee American dominance.
That failure is the light at the end of the tunnel. As the elite bipartisan commitment to US dominance fails, we the people have a chance to demand that the US shift to policies designed not to allow us to run the world but to help us become part of the world.
Anti-democratic economics
The economic system underlying empire-building today has a name: capitalism. Or, more precisely, a predatory corporate capitalism that is inconsistent with basic human values. This description sounds odd in the US, where so many assume that capitalism is not simply the best among competing economic systems but the only sane and rational way to organise an economy in the contemporary world.
Although the financial crisis that began in 2008 has scared many people, it has not always led to questioning the nature of the system.
'Although the financial crisis ... scared many people, it has not always led to questioning the nature of the system.
That means that the first task is to define capitalism. It is an economic system in which:
- Property, including capital assets, is owned and controlled by private persons;
- Most people must rent their labour power for money wages to survive; and
- The prices of most goods and services are allocated by markets.
Today in the United States, most people understand capitalism in the context of mass consumption - access to unprecedented levels of goods and services. In such a world, everything and everyone is a commodity in the market.
In the dominant ideology of market fundamentalism, it's assumed that the most extensive use of markets possible, along with privatisation of many publicly owned assets and the shrinking of public services, will unleash maximal competition and result in the greatest good - and all this is inherently just, no matter what the results.
If such a system creates a world in which most people live in poverty, that is taken not as evidence of a problem with market fundamentalism but evidence that fundamentalist principles have not been imposed with sufficient vigour; it is an article of faith that the 'invisible hand' of the market always provides the preferred result, no matter how awful the consequences may be for real people.
How to critique capitalism in such a society? We can start by pointing out that capitalism is fundamentally inhuman, anti-democratic and unsustainable:
Inhuman:
The theory behind contemporary capitalism explains that because we are greedy, self-interested animals, a viable economic system must reward greedy, self-interested behaviour.
That's certainly part of human nature, but we are also just as obviously capable of compassion and selflessness. We can act competitively and aggressively, but we also have the capacity to act out of solidarity and cooperation. In short, human nature is wide-ranging. In situations where compassion and solidarity are the norm, we tend to act that way. In situations where competitiveness and aggression are rewarded, most people tend towards such behaviour.
Why is it that we must accept an economic system that undermines the most decent aspects of our nature and strengthens the cruelest?
Capitalism has always been, and will always be, a wealth-concentrating system.
Because, we're told, that's just the way people are. What evidence is there of that? Look around, we're told, at how people behave. Everywhere we look, we see greed and the pursuit of self-interest.
So the proof that these greedy, self-interested aspects of our nature are dominant is that, when forced into a system that rewards greed and self-interested behaviour, people often act that way.
Doesn't that seem just a bit circular? A bit perverse?
Anti-democratic:
In the real world - not in the textbooks or fantasies of economics professors - capitalism has always been, and will always be, a wealth-concentrating system. If you concentrate wealth in a society, you concentrate power. I know of no historical example to the contrary.
For all the trappings of formal democracy in the contemporary US, everyone understands that for the most part, the wealthy dictate the basic outlines of the public policies that are put into practice by elected officials. This is cogently explained by political scientist Thomas Ferguson's 'investment theory of political parties', which identifies powerful investors rather than unorganised voters as the dominant force in campaigns and elections.
Ferguson describes political parties in the US as 'blocs of major investors who coalesce to advance candidates representing their interests' and that 'political parties dominated by large investors try to assemble the votes they need by making very limited appeals to particular segments of the potential electorate'.
There can be competition between these blocs, but 'on all issues affecting the vital interests that major investors have in common, no party competition will take place'. Whatever we might call such a system, it's not democracy in any meaningful sense of the term.
People can and do resist the system's attempt to sideline them, and an occasional politician joins the fight, but such resistance takes extraordinary effort. Those who resist sometimes win victories, some of them inspiring, but to date concentrated wealth continues to dominate. If we define democracy as a system that gives ordinary people a meaningful way to participate in the formation of public policy, rather than just a role in ratifying decisions made by the powerful, then it's clear that capitalism and democracy are mutually exclusive.
Unsustainable:
Capitalism is a system based on an assumption of continuing, unlimited growth - on a finite planet. There are only two ways out of this problem. We can hold out hope that we might hop to a new planet soon, or we can embrace technological fundamentalism and believe that ever-more-complex technologies will allow us to transcend those physical limits here.
Both those positions are equally delusional. Delusions may bring temporary comfort, but they don't solve problems; in fact, they tend to cause more problems, and in this world those problems keep piling up.
Critics now compare capitalism to cancer. The inhuman and antidemocratic features of capitalism mean that, like a cancer, the death system will eventually destroy the living host.
Both the human communities and non-human living world that play host to capitalism eventually will be destroyed by capitalism. Capitalism is not, of course, the only unsustainable system that humans have devised, but it is the most obviously unsustainable system, and it's the one in which we are stuck. It's the one that we are told is inevitable and natural, like the air we breathe. But the air that we are breathing is choking the most vulnerable in the world, choking us, choking the planet.
Ecology: Out of gas, derailed, over the waterfall
In addition to inequality within the human family, we face even greater threats in the human assault on the living world that come with industrial society. High-energy/high-technology societies pose a serious threat to the ability of the ecosphere to sustain human life as we know it. Grasping that reality is a challenge, and coping with the implications is an even greater challenge. We likely have a chance to stave off the most catastrophic consequences if we act dramatically and quickly. If we continue to drag our feet, it's 'game over'.
While public awareness of the depth of the ecological crisis is growing, our knowledge of the basics of the problem is hardly new.
'World Scientists' Warning to Humanity' - issued by 1,700 of the planet's leading scientists:That statement was issued in 1992, and since then we have fallen further behind in the struggle for sustainability. Look at any crucial measure of the health of the ecosphere in which we live - groundwater depletion, topsoil loss, chemical contamination, increased toxicity in our own bodies, the number and size of 'dead zones' in the oceans, accelerating extinction of species and reduction of bio-diversity - and the news is bad.
'Human beings and the natural world are on a collision course. Human activities inflict harsh and often irreversible damage on the environment and on critical resources. If not checked, many of our current practices put at serious risk the future that we wish for human society and the plant and animal kingdoms, and may so alter the living world that it will be unable to sustain life in the manner that we know. Fundamental changes are urgent if we are to avoid the collision our present course will'
Remember also that we live in an oil-based world that is fast running out of easily accessible oil, which means we face a huge reconfiguration of the infrastructure that undergirds our lives. And, of course, there is the undeniable trajectory of climate disruption.
Add all that up, and ask a simple question: Where we are heading? Pick a metaphor. Are we a car running out of gas? A train about to derail? A raft going over the waterfall? Whatever the choice, it's not a pretty picture. It's crucial we realise that there are no technological fixes that will rescue us. We have to acknowledge that human attempts to dominate the non-human world have failed. We are destroying the planet and in the process destroying ourselves.
Hope amid a harsh future
The people who run this world are eager to contain the Occupy energy not because they believe that the critics of concentrated wealth and power are wrong, but because somewhere deep down in their souls (or what is left of a soul), the powerful know we are right.
The industrial system is incompatible with life.
People in power are insulated by wealth and privilege, but they can see the systems falling apart. US military power can no longer guarantee world domination. Financial corporations can no longer pretend to provide order in the economy.
The industrial system is incompatible with life.
We face new threats today, but we are not the first humans to live in dangerous times. In 1957 the Nobel writer Albert Camus described the world in ways that resonate:
'Tomorrow the world may burst into fragments. In that threat hanging over our heads there is a lesson of truth. As we face such a future, hierarchies, titles, honors are reduced to what they are in reality: a passing puff of smoke. And the only certainty left to us is that of naked suffering, common to all, intermingling its roots with those of a stubborn hope.'
A stubborn hope is more necessary than ever. As political, economic, and ecological systems spiral down, it's likely we will see levels of human suffering that dwarf even the horrors of the 20th century. Even more challenging is the harsh realisation that we don't have at hand simple solutions - and maybe no solutions at all - to some of the most vexing problems. We may be past the point of no return in ecological damage, and the question is not how to prevent crises but how to mitigate the worst effects. No one can predict the rate of collapse if we stay on this trajectory, and we don't know if we can change the trajectory in time.
There is much we don't know, but everything I see suggests that the world in which we will pursue political goals will change dramatically in the next decade or two, almost certainly for the worse. Organising has to adapt not only to changes in societies but to these fundamental changes in the ecosphere.
In short: We are organising in a period of contraction, not expansion. We have to acknowledge that human attempts to dominate the non-human world have failed. We are destroying the planet and in the process destroying ourselves. Here, just as in human relationships, we either abandon the dominance/subordination dynamic or we don't survive.
In 1948, Camus urged people to 'give up empty quarrels' and 'pay attention to what unites rather than to what separates us' in the struggle to recover from the horrors of Europe's barbarism. I take from Camus a sense of how to live the tension between facing honestly the horror and yet remaining engaged. In that same talk, he spoke of 'the forces of terror' (forces which exist on 'our' side as much as on 'theirs') and the 'forces of dialogue' (which also exist everywhere in the world). Where do we place our hopes?
'Between the forces of terror and the forces of dialogue, a great unequal battle has begun,' he wrote. 'I have nothing but reasonable illusions as to the outcome of that battle. But I believe it must be fought.'
The Occupy gatherings do not yet constitute a coherent movement with demands, but they are wellsprings of reasonable illusions. Rejecting the political babble around us in election campaigns and on mass media, these gatherings are an experiment in a different kind of public dialogue about our common life, one that can reject the forces of terror deployed by concentrated wealth and power.
With that understanding, the central task is to keep the experiment going, to remember the latent power in people who do not accept the legitimacy of a system. Singer/songwriter John Gorka, writing about what appears to be impossible, offers the perfect reminder:
'They think they can tame you, name you and frame you,
aim you where you don't belong.
They know where you've been but not where you're going,
that is the source of the songs.'
Robert Jensen is a professor at the School of Journalism at the University of Texas, Austin.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy
COMMENTS
Carmen 19 minutes ago
Briliant, and crystal clear, Mr. Jensen. A pity I don´t live in Texas: I would go to your classes.
And it is not that the 1%sters don´t think we are right: their fear is manifest in the harsh ways to try to prevent OWS. Only, used to privilege, they believe they will be able to carry on in privilege -although the trend for lowering down/suppressing social services in order to 'thin' population, especially the poor, shows some awareness of part of the global risks(scarcity of food)- but they are blind to the already pervading pollution that makes, for instance, eating big fish, as well for rich as for poor, risky due to excess of mercury in their (fishes´) bodies. Like Reply
Intrepid Hero Familiar Face 51 minutes ago
'Problems cannot be solved by the same levels of thinking that created them' - Albert Einstein
This is a wonderfully comprehensive analysis by Robert Jensen here. The deep-seated and global issues we face will progress to no less than merciless calamity if we don't act up. These issues are deeply, deeply engrained within the amoral capitalistic and financial systems we currently venerate. The voices of thousands of scientists and experts who are warning us out of ethical responsibility have been ignored and discounted for decades. The complacency on behalf of our world leaders is baffling considering what's at stake here. We are leaving a ghastly inheritance for future generations, one that will probably be able to support life only fractionally to what we see today. More people, less arable land, more contaminated water, proliferated weapons and armies - all on a massive scale. We are setting up our future kind for global competition and lateral aggression that will make world war two look like a picnic.
It truly saddens my heart when I try to think rationally about our collective predicament. We are like the myth of Icarus, warned not to fly too close to the sun lest he fall to his death. Unfortunately we have foolishly ignored the warnings and followed our all-too-human characteristic of hubris and conceitedness. I believe total financial collapse is the only requisite for change. Yes, let everything go bankrupt so we can start fresh, no more bailouts followed by social austerity. We are currently caught in a ridiculous catch-22 where we think we can fix the existing system by propping up the old one. Now all we need is patience and a little encouragement to topple the nefarious giants we face today. 1 person liked this. Like Reply
chago river 1 hour ago
boring. i dont like american foreign policy but i dont attribute it to capitalism. only idiots equate capitalism with greed and individualism... american citizens gave 300 billion to charity in 2006, explain that? i can tell you anecdotes of how capitalism is ruining this world and also tales about how very poor people made it thru hard work and education. fact is, capitalism is what best works for the world right now. Like Reply
CBOLAR 36 minutes ago in reply to chago river
The rich are getting disproportionatly richer and the middle class is on the verge of collapse. Is that 'what best works for the world right now'? Nobody wants to 'kill' capitalism, we just need to bring it back to where it was before idiot-boy George W. Bush came to power. Capitalism seems to work just fine in other places around the world, why is it failing so miserably in the US? Greed, political corruption, unfair taxation, and disastrous trade policies. Time for a change. Like Reply
Ana Veler 2 hours ago
Some analyze, some radicalize... Can't do both at once! chago river liked this Like Reply
RoyallSpence Familiar Face 2 hours ago in reply to Ana Veler
That's absurd. To be radical is to dig at the roots of an issue. Radicalism is itself both a angle of analysis and the result of analysis. Aungsan and 1 more liked this Like Reply
Ian C 3 hours ago
Author nailed it in the first 3 lines. Like Reply
David Berg Top 100 3 hours ago
Jack, yours is the simplist and the only comment that actually goes to the best and most effective means of getting the attention of and getting a response from the entities being protested.
The national trend to smaller banks and credit unions is an excellent example of how effective this can be. On the other hand, no matter how much you support the various protestors and even assuming their points to be valid, the liklihood of actually causing any real long term change is tenuous at best.
I spent a number of years in the financial industry and have nothing but dislike for the megabanks such as WF, etc. However, the problems derive from blatant stupidity on the part of the oversight agencies, the secondary market and, quite frankly, on the people who applied for and accepted irrational loans. The system works just fine with proper oversight and intelligent use by consumers. 1 person liked this. Like Reply
asiajack Top 1 4 hours ago
The movement should have one simple message -- stop using the top-tier banks: Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Chase, Citigroup, Wachovia, and US. move money to credit unions, small banks, and stop purchasing on credit.
That would be a revolution with teeth.
chago river and 3 more liked this Like Reply
Intrepid Hero Familiar Face 37 minutes ago in reply to asiajack We had that opportunity handed to us on a silver platter, no protest required. We could have let the banks fail and splinter when they collapsed under the weight of their own greed. It's a crying shame we gave up that chance, a truly preposterous squandering. I look at that passed moment with nothing less than absolute shame.
It only goes to show how inept our political system is at checking that which is killing us from the inside out. They are even willing to give it second life and furnish its existence even further through the siphoning of public funds. If that doesn't represent insanity, I don't know what does. Like Reply
Aungsan Familiar Face 2 hours ago in reply to asiajack
Perhaps, but that would be just a start, we will need a lot more changes if we are going to survive the ignorance, inequality and destruction that capitalism has encouraged and enforced all around the world. Kirk Holden and 2 more liked this Like Reply
Kirk Holden 54 minutes ago in reply to Aungsan
I have asked at my local Occupy - what happens on Wednesday after you get Glass-Steagall on Tuesday? What happens on Thursday when the Fed goes away on Friday? When no one answers (hell, they don't even understand the question) I point out that in an interconnected global economy we cannot work down a list of changes until we know EXACTLY what just happened when we made the first change. Surgery with a chain saw has predictable results. Not good results at all. Aungsan liked this Like
Dennis Ramone 4 hours ago
Great article Robert. You hit many nails right on the head!! 'Infinite growth', what an illusion. How long will it take the American people to realize 'You can't put new wine, in old wine skins' ---- they BURST! Aungsan and 2 more liked this Like Reply
nomem de guerre Familiar Face 7 hours ago
The entire 'morality' of market capitalism lies in the warped anglophile logic, humans are compulsively greedy, incapable of compassion and solidarity.
This may be so for the venal brutish British who so successfully propagated this dirty myth, but the rest of humanity knows different. ATTACHED FILES RoyallSpence and 2 more liked this Like Reply
Reactions
lamat_rising 2 hours ago From Twitter Jense's analysis is hardly original. But is good reminder: industrial sys is incompatible w/life. #ows http://t.co/bS8pRT2R via @ajenglish
PatrioticVirtue 3 hours ago From Twitter Occupy demands: Let's radicalise our analysis - Opinion - Al Jazeera English http://t.co/n3Yq7wKB via @ajenglish
JeffHaws 4 hours ago From Twitter 'If you concentrate wealth in a society, you concentrate power.' via @AJEnglish http://t.co/yHONlzAN
JeffHaws 4 hours ago From Twitter RT @tinaleeinberlin: Does #OWS need a list of demands, or is that an attempt to marginalize the movement? http://t.co/DkMtW0ir via @ajenglish
blueyesinatra 5 hours ago From Twitter Occupy demands: Let's radicalise our analysis - Opinion - Al Jazeera English http://t.co/sMvnwzhV via @ajenglish
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tinaleeinberlin 5 hours ago From Twitter Does #OWS need a list of demands, or is that an attempt to marginalize the movement? http://t.co/DkMtW0ir via @ajenglish
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