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2012 36: 76Humanity & SocietyBen Brucato

StreetThe Crisis and a Way Forward: What We Can Learn from Occupy Wall

  

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Action Note

The Crisis and aWay Forward: WhatWe Can Learn fromOccupy Wall Street

Ben Brucato1

AbstractThe financial crisis of 2007 has generated ubiquitous commentary; it also spurred aglobal grassroots uprising that began with Occupy Wall Street. This movement pro-vided a unique analysis of the crisis as well as a practical example of a way forward.Occupy Wall Street possesses a unique analysis of and response to the financial crisis.Here we see facilitation of political action by heterogeneous partisans that bothdemand and exemplify increased transparency and participation in decision making.Further, this movement relies upon both human-scaled and participatory technolo-gies. Occupy Wall Street is a microcommunity that embodies a vision for a pluralistic,direct democratic society and demonstrates it through practice. This uprising providesa potential democratic solution for a way beyond crisis to new horizons.

Keywordssocial movements, 2007 financial crisis, Occupy Wall Street, human-scaledtechnology, participatory technology

Reflexive Statement

I am a PhD student in Science and Technology Studies (STS) at Rensselaer Polytech-

nic Institutes (RPI) in Troy, New York. I study the politics of technology as it

1 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, USA

Corresponding Author:

Ben Brucato, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 110 Eighth Street, Troy, NY USA 12180

Email:

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addresses materially-embedded ideologies and hierarchies. As a particular site of

inquiry, I investigate mediating technologies – from social media to surveillance

cameras – to identify ways that they add obduracy to past and existing relationships

of dominance and authority, and how they resist popular intervention. Part of the

aim of my work is to develop analytic and evaluative criteria that will allow better

engagement with technologies to counter tendencies toward technological

somnambulism. Other current substantive research is focused on surveillance and

weaponization in college campus policing. The structure of the general assemblies

and ‘the people’s mic’ drew my attention to Occupy Wall Street first and foremost.

These demonstrated the embedding of deliberative and critical orientations to

organizational technologies that give the movement unique prospects for building

democratic community.

The Occupy Wall Street movement is the first worldwide postmodern uprising.

This essay focuses on Occupy Wall Street’s analysis of the financial crisis; the

facilitating of political action from disparate, heterogeneous partisans; increasing

of transparency and participation in decision making; and relying upon both

human-scaled and participatory technologies. Through these means, the Occupy

Wall Street microcommunity embodies a vision for a pluralistic, direct democratic

society and demonstrates it through practice. Through this process, this uprising

embodies potential democratic solutions for a way beyond the crisis.

The Occupy Wall Street movement more effectively addresses the cause of the

financial crisis than economists and discussions in the mainstream press. Three years

into an economic recession that rivals the Great Depression, economists are scrambling

for explanations of its origins and the steps to take. Congressperson Darrel Issa (R-CA),

Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,

blames unaffordable housing and political kickbacks from the banking industry. He

stresses the need to ‘‘return to fiscal discipline and prudent, responsible housing poli-

cies’’ (Issa 2011:419). Gary B. Gorton of the Yale School of Management traces an

added cause to the ‘‘parallel’’ banking system and a banking panic that began in August

2007 (2010:2). Former economist at Freddie Mac and the Federal Reserve and cur-

rent Cato Institute adjunct, Arnold Kling, blames capital regulations and ‘‘cognitive

failures’’ of executives in financial institutions. It may not be surprising to the reader

that this employee of a libertarian think-tank advocates for deregulation and expects

the public to ‘‘not be deceived into believing that regulatory foresight can be as keen

as regulatory hindsight’’ (Kling 2011: 517). Ten-year veteran Chief Executive Offi-

cer and President of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis and current Senior Fellow

at the Cato Institute blames ‘‘a failure of political leadership in Washington’’ and

‘‘short-sighted portfolio policies’’ by financial firms (Poole 2010:433, 440).

While there is much hemming and hawing over causes, and plenty of caution

and hesitation over solutions—especially those that might impinge on profits at

financial institutions—tens of millions of Americans are unemployed, and just

as many are in nearly catastrophic situations. But one would be in error to expect

Brucato 77

economists to focus on this group of Americans that outnumber the entire popula-

tion of any member state in the European Union. ‘‘They’re happy to take the credit

in the good times, but the disciples of this false science are hard to find in a reces-

sion’’ (Jenkins 2009). One would be better aided to turn to those catastrophically

impacted by this crisis than those who constructed and maintain a financial system

that routinely fails the public, while the power and privilege of elites continue to

escalate.

On September 17, 2011, several hundred activists marched to Wall Street, near

the New York Stock Exchange. This was the beginning of an uprising now known

as Occupy Wall Street. This broad group of citizens, who claim unity as ‘‘the 99%’’

against the corporate influence in American politics, was more clear in assigning

blame for the financial crisis: it belongs to the top 1 percent. A marcher explained,

‘‘You need a scorecard to keep track of all the things that corporations have done

that are bad for this country’’ (Moynihan 2011). For this movement, the crisis was

not a dysfunctional failure of financial capitalism but the essence of its utilization

of catastrophe to consolidate financial capital. We see in this approach a distinctly

postmodern analysis of class relations and political economy in which cognitive

capital becomes central and financialization is a fundamental yet new process of

capital accumulation (Marazzi 2011).

This group quickly grew to several thousand protestors who took and maintained

control of Zuccotti Park. Campers maintained a constant occupation of the park,

representing the interests of distressed homeowners, the elderly, people of color,

women, noncisgendered persons, small farmers, low-wage workers, college stu-

dents, manufacturing workers, the uninsured and underinsured, privacy advocates,

journalists, victims of police brutality, consumer advocates, alternative energy advo-

cates, and prisoners. The park became a microcommunity and homes to dozens of

permanent campers, and hundreds who stayed for varying lengths of time. This

became a place to read and criticize, to eat and sleep, and to organize and mobilize.

From this base, occupiers expressed concerns ranging from access to medicine and

health care to oil spills, truth in media to internal colonialism and imperialism,

weapons to healthy food advocates, and animal rights to the rights of children

(General Assembly 2011).

Two months later, Zuccotti Park remained occupied, and the movement has

inspired over 2,000 other solidarity protests and occupations throughout the world,

mostly in the United States (Occupy Together 2011). As this movement spreads to

differing cities and becomes home to multiple subjectivities, each occupation

demonstrates localized political and policing strategies. Organizational strategies

of occupiers for marches, encampments, direct actions, and public relations vary,

and they are met with dramatically differing reactions from law enforcement. In

Oakland, multiple militarized police raids of the encampment led to mass arrests and

hospitalizations of injured protestors (Petty and Cooper 2011). In Albany, Governor

Cuomo ordered the occupation to be evicted and all occupiers arrested, but the Chief

of Police refused to make arrests and the District Attorney refused to charge anyone

78 Humanity & Society 36(1)

if they were (Lyons 2011). Despite the variety of policing tactics, during the first 2

months of the movement, there have been thousands of arrests. In November 2011,

President Obama was heckled at a speech in New Hampshire by local members of an

occupation who criticized his silence on the over 4,000 arrests nationwide at Occupy

Together occupations (Jackson 2011).

These heterogeneous groups have a functioning pluralism, whereas ‘‘liberal dem-

ocratic states have not sufficiently practiced it’’ (Lindblom 1986:352). Perhaps, the

lack of familiarity with authentic pluralism is what has inspired perplexity toward

the movement, especially among journalists. Most media pundits express exasper-

ated confusion by this diverse group of interests expressed by an even more visibly

diverse group of activists and citizens. Commentators on FoxNews complain about

the lack of a cohesive message and clearly stated goals. The New York Times ran a

story on the ‘‘faulty aim’’ of the movement, condemning its ‘‘lack of cohesion and its

apparent wish to pantomime progressivism rather than practice it knowledgably’’

(Bellafante 2011). Douglas Rushkoff argues that ‘‘What upsets banking’s defenders

and politicians alike is the refusal of this movement to state its terms or set its goals

in the traditional language of campaigns’’ (2011). The pundits and reporters employed

by megacorporate-owned press not only lack the language to discuss this movement,

its analysis and aspirations; they also lack the interest in utilizing the rhetoric articu-

lated by the movement. Since this movement possesses a fresh political and economic

analysis, new models for organizing, and different styles of communication when

compared with traditional protest events, the response by the press to dismiss the

movement for lacking a message is an easy play.

Certain aspects of Occupy Wall Street share similarities with ‘‘new social

movements,’’ particularly Claus Offe’s characterization that ‘‘these movements

involve their postideological, posthistorical nature as well as their lack of a positive

alternative and specific target in the form of a privileged class,’’ and that ‘‘they deny

accommodation to existing power and resist standard forms of co-optation’’ (Buech-

ler 1995). What is uniquely postmodern is that the movement lacks a clear beginning

and ending. FoxNews reporter Griff Jenkins asked protestor Jesse LaGreca, ‘‘how do

you want to see this [end]? If you could have it in a perfect way, how would it be?’’

LaGreca replied, ‘‘I wouldn’t like to see this end. I would like to see the conversation

continue’’ (Grant 2011). In this sense, this microcommunity becomes a parallel

political model based on direct democracy and rooted in affinity. Whereas commen-

tators and reporters—as well as their viewing public—are accustomed to responding

to protest marches and demonstrations expressing the politics of partisan interests

and populated by a group of citizens defined by a narrowly specified aim, Occupy

Wall Street engenders the all-embracing meeting point of partisans. At this juncture,

the people are united by a politics of negativity: in identifying a common enemy in

the ruling elites; and a politics of practice: pluralist, direct democracy. So in this

sense, as LaGreca commented, there is no end. Even beyond the politics of negativ-

ity—or the removal of corporate influence in governance—the process remains.

This is a model of change exemplified by ‘‘the newest social movements’’ that seeks

Brucato 79

to generate a living, nonhegemonic model of politics as a revolutionary process, in

contrast to that which would see the seizure and control of state power (Al-Jazeera

2011; Day 2005). As Lindblom reminds us, ‘‘no social scientist or researcher can

tightly derive short-run or middle-run interim steps from a model of a far-distant,

wholly harmonious society . . . ’’ (Lindblom 1986:364). Occupy Wall Street appears

to embrace Agamben’s expression of ‘‘a politics and a life that are yet to be entirely

thought’’ (2000:111).

Douglas Rushkoff explains that ‘‘It is difficult to comprehend a 21st century

movement from the perspective of the 20th century politics, media, and economics

in which we are still steeped’’ (Think Occupy Wall St. Is A Phase? You Don’t Get

It., 2011). The politics of the past century stress the objective pursuit of goals for

the broader public, emphasizing the common good. This tradition led to ‘‘the pub-

lic interest to be defined around conventional positions . . . However another result

is that dissident interests are disproportionately deprived . . . ’’ (Lindblom

1986:349). This is precisely why Occupy Wall Street is so important to turn to for

insight—this is perhaps the first model of a truly postmodern movement in the

United States, and certainly the first one to take on global proportions. Some might

see the World Trade Organization protests in Seattle as an antecedent, and this

event has an important genealogical place in the development of what we now see

in New York. But in turning to the decision making and processual aspects of

Occupy Wall Street, we see that beyond the lack of a discernable beginning and

ending of the movement we also see a heightened level of transparency and partic-

ipation embedded in this movement.

The actual physical arrangement as well as the organizational technologies and

the mechanisms for decision making depict unique features of this newest move-

ment. First, the occupying of a physical space emphasizes proximal origins. Without

walls and doors dividing people, the occupiers are in constant interaction. Social

psychologists have recently turned to a concern for the importance of space. Maass

and Suitner explain that humans ‘‘not only live in space, they also reason in space.’’

Spatial reasoning has been demonstrated to impact social cognition in addition to

higher-level cognitive functioning. ‘‘[P]eople pay greater attention to detailed infor-

mation about temporally, spatially or socially ‘near’ objects or persons, but elaborate

distant stimuli at a more global level, considering general features rather than specific

details . . . with increasing distance, events or objects are perceived more abstractly’’

(Maas & Suitner 2011:159). Occupy Wall Street thus has a unique capability to

develop politics through interaction among a variety of partisans, and through challen-

ging existing structures—both institutional but also internalized—beyond the level of

abstraction, and instead through practice. The capacity for power to be challenged and

democracy to be exercised not through ideology and structures but through practical

decision making and action appears to better connect with findings in social research

about how humans associate with and think about one another.

Second, the organizational technologies employed are explicitly participatory.

This is certainly aided by proximal space, as ‘‘people draw on their affective,

80 Humanity & Society 36(1)

cognitive and bodily experiences as a source of information’’ to make judgments

(Schwarz and Clore 2007:385). But this is only important if they are able to exer-

cise this judgment. Occupy Wall Street, without predetermined demands or goals,

and with its General Assembly structure, allows participants to speak freely to

shape its evolving politics. Decisions are consensed after anyone can take the open

floor. Facilitators mediate the assembly to allow full participation, including tak-

ing a ‘‘progressive stack,’’ in which people from historically oppressed groups talk

first, and when frequent contributors to the discussion are moved back in the

speaking order. The facilitation processes lead to synchronous yet slow decision

making. Asynchronous decision making can lead to the prioritization of rationaliz-

ing, reduction to ideology, and a diminishing of the role of affect. Rapid decisions

suppress certain voices and propel conventional thinking and action. Democracy

that is direct and participatory is notoriously slow, however, is deliberate and

mindful: only those things worth the investment of time and cognitive energy are

endeavored.

Additionally the use of human-scaled technologies pulls participants together.

Amplification is banned in the parks in New York. To effectively communicate with

a large crowd, speakers break up their communication into small phrases that are

echoed by the crowd. Sometimes this occurs in succession, so the speech is transmitted

in waves emitted away from the oratory among the audience. This is referred to as the

‘‘people’s mic,’’ which introduces reciprocity and feedback, thereby producing a dem-

ocratic communication as opposed to ‘‘the more conventional Saussaurean model of

sender-message-receiver, which so easily becomes the conservative media model that

produces non-communication’’ (Mason 2011). When author of The Shock Doctrine,

Naomi Klein, spoke at Occupy Wall Street, she characterized the people’s mic as

encouraging one to ‘‘Say unto others what you would have them say unto you, only

way louder’’ (Occupy Wall Street: The Most Important Thing in the World Now,

2011). This is a human-scaled technology in the most literal sense. Occupiers are

increasingly turning to highly customizable social media, such as Vibe, to aid commu-

nication. ‘‘The app allows users to share messages with users within certain dis-

tances—160 feet to worldwide—that will be automatically deleted within a set

amount of time that they control, from 15 minutes to 30 days’’ (McMillan 2011).

Instead of relying on the mainstream press, Occupy Wall Street participants are cap-

turing and editing video on location for viral films. Meetings and events are streamed

live on the Internet. A variety of social media is utilized to spread footage of police

brutality against protestors. In addition to their availability on the Internet, these

videos have been picked up and broadcast by news outlets across the world.

Too often we are apprised of complicated or muddling explanations of a predica-

ment and offered simplistic and reductionist recommendations for a way out of it.

Occupy New York offers a break from this tradition. The financial crisis is their (the

1 percents) crisis, yet we (the 99 percent) have to bear the brunt of it. Indeed, ‘‘we

don’t need a score card.’’ What we do need is a mind toward practice and process.

While the liberal democratic state has failed to integrate pluralism, Occupy Wall

Brucato 81

Street shows the degree to which transparency and participation is essential for

partisan politics to play out. Further, it lacks both the demand for the feasible and

the focus toward official representatives (cf. Lindblom 1986). These critical

aspects are embedded in the very processes, organizations and technologies

employed by Occupy Wall Street, and thus its commitment to democracy is not

merely ideological but also practical. None of this is to say that Occupy Wall Street

will take monumental steps forward; rather, the argument is that this model enables

such steps while the existing political, organizational and technological structures

prohibit them.

The Manichaean posing of the 99 percent against the 1 percent offers some polit-

ical utility if pursued with vigor, and if the often-contradictory needs of the 99 per-

cent are worked out. Such a dualistic approach creates not two, but three categories:

friends, enemies, and those undecided or not yet mobilized (Olson 2012). A redis-

tribution of wealth and political power toward the most exploited, marginalized, and

disenfranchised would certainly mean a reduction in the privileges of the middle

class. Historically, the managerial and professional classes have served as a buffer

to maintain class relations, legitimating ruling class dominance, and suppressing

uprisings of the working class and poor. Declaring the 1 percent as the enemy is

not new, as the ownership of the means of production has been so consolidated

since early in the industrial period, a phenomena never without its critics. But to

pose the unity of the 99 percent against this enemy is distinct. What it lacks in his-

torical analysis it may gain by posing this Manichaean rift, but only if the move-

ment forces the middle class from their historic buffer zone and into the struggle

against the ruling class.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship,

and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of

this article.

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