Weekend Economists Deck the Halls Christmas Day 2013

[Demeter]

8. Leaning on the Party

http://www.correntewire.com/leaning_on_the_party

The left must organize around clear goals, or else we will be sidelined. As readers are no doubt aware, since 2011 there have been numerous urban uprisings across the globe. A recent tweet from a BBC Newsnight presenter , Paul Mason, asserted that in a year there will be "2 categories: riot news and other news." While the optics of people marching the street may be similar all over the world, the actual circumstances are often very different. The purpose of this article is to examine three social uprisings in the US, Brazil and Egypt. The focus will be on the number of participants, class composition, political programs and the role of the security services.

Number of Participants

During 2011, there were over 600 Occupy protest sites in the United States. Estimating the total number of participants is of course difficult. However, large marches and/or camps were found in New York, Boston, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Pittsburgh, Oakland, Los Angles, Davis, San Francisco, Portland, Tampa and Seattle. Thousands participated in marches, with numbers reaching into the tens of thousands in New York, Oakland, Portland and Boston. The population of the United States in 2010 was approximately 308 million...

Class and Demographic Analysis

Although comprehensive survey data for overall US participants in Occupy is hard to come by, researchers at CUNY interviewed and surveyed participants in New York City during 2012. They found that participants were "disproportionally highly educated, young and white, with higher than average household incomes," especially among those who considered themselves actively involved. Significant numbers were enrolled at or had graduated from elite institutions. Despite their elite educational attainment, at least a third had experienced job loss, and high debt loads. Overwhelming numbers had participated in the Obama campaign during 2008 by phone banking, donating money and knocking on doors.

In other words, they were disaffected members of the bourgeoisie.

Anecdotally, there was also significant participation in the Occupy camps by homeless people and low level street criminals, people at the very margins of society. In the author's experience in Oakland, these individuals were able to sustain a high level of involvement because they had no day job and found meaning and inclusion in the camp community. While Occupy was not a union organized event, the various Occupy camps did see significant actions of solidarity and support from organized labor (the Oakland teachers' union funded portable toilets at the camp), and in some cases, (Seattle/Oakland) worked synergistically with the longshoreman's union in their disputes with management....

Political Programs

Unlike the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, Occupy famously had no demands, but participants often stated that they were motivated to support Occupy because of economic issues. The top three listed in the CUNY study were inequality/the 1%, money in politics/frustration with D.C., and corporate greed. Although various groups were involved with the first protest site in New York City, the dominant political ideology within Occupy was a highly horizontalist anarchism. Operating in General Assemblies with a consensus process, complete with the easily copied hand signals, Occupy proved flexible enough to gain traction across the United States. A formally leaderless movement presents some analytical problems, in that it is always difficult to say what politics dominate. While there may not have been formal leaders, it was always clear that some people wielded more influence than others. In the author's experience, many people influential in the movement believed that the consensus based process that governed the encampments prefigured the world that we wanted. Politicians and journalists often asked "what is the endgame?" If they had been listening, they would have understood that for many, the desired endgame was revolution. In practice, this proved operationally difficult, and in the end, the security services successfully dispersed the encampments....

Security Services

While Occupy (oh so thankfully) did not end in a coup, the security services nonetheless played a significant role. We know now that the Police Executive Research Forum helped mayors co-ordinate raids by state and city law enforcement in 18 cities during Occupy. Typically, the major Occupy sites faced heavy police presence as well as routine arrests and abuse. There were also agents provocateur within the camps; for example, at Occupy Austin, undercover officers organized an action that led to the arrests of the participants.

At the Federal level, the Department of Homeland Security provided intelligence via its nationwide network of Fusion Centers that combine information from various state and federal agencies. For example, journalist Beau Hodai found that the fusion center in Arizona heavily monitored Occupy Phoenix, with information collected to include names, addresses, social security numbers and other identifying information. The Center tracked social media as well. There is also evidence that fusion centers delivered intelligence briefs to some private companies. In light of Edward Snowden's disclosures about widespread NSA wiretapping, it seems highly likely that NSA also directed analysts to monitor electronic communications among Occupy participants...

Conclusion

Political action requires definable goals, whether those goals are as small as stopping a fare hike or as large as removing a sitting president. Moreover, the Egyptian experience illuminates very clearly that post-Revolution, the most organized forces prevail. The security services will do everything possible to undermine or stonewall any true regime change. The lesson for the American left is clear -- be organized or be crushed.