Here's the problem: Wall Street is but a display of the power of the wealthy class, as is a corporation's display of its accumulation of wealth. The liberal internationalist political economist Peter Drucker explains it quite accurately: "Accumulation of wealth is only a symptom of an underlying process that is itself highly politicized. In other words, it is an expression, not a source, of corporate power."(1) Herein lies the rub: the Occupy Movement, and to a much larger extent, Occupy Wall Street, is largely ambivalent toward political economy, theory or science, because so many of the movement's participants have labeled all pre-existing theories and knowledge as passe, or a precursor to repeating the past. Many of those, whom I have met, most closely engaged in the Occupy Movement are dismissive of critical systemic analyses that do not originate from their own tent [pun intended].
There are many theories floating around about why so many occupiers are hostile toward outside help from the political sciences and the like, but none will suffice to explain the philosophical positions of every occupier. As someone who has been deep within the communication lines of many Occupy and un-affiliated organizing groups, I feel that I can somewhat accurately state that there is a general lack of desire for outside philosophical or otherwise contribution of any kind that is not in one of three forms: money and supplies, publicity (preferably by a famous name), or ideas and theories not borne from pre-existing theoretical bases. That last bit is problematic.
"Men make their own history, but they do not
make it just as they please; they do not make it under
circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances
directly encountered, given, and transmitted
from the past." - Karl Marx (2)
In today's underground radical progressive culture, particularly among the young neo-anarchists who make up some of the front line of many of the largest occupations, there has been a bit of a backlash against the natural historical approach to building a revolution. If Marx was right, in that circumstances are "transmitted from the past," this backlash is dangerous. We all know this deep down, but we have been systematically propagandized in commercial America to be distrustful of frames of thought that challenge the logic of liberal competitive capitalism. The logic of neoliberal economics is spoon fed to every American, every minute through advertising, cable news, the Internet, and any number of more subliminal formats. If the Occupy Movement is not open to re-examining older theories, as well as the many theories that got overlooked during the past 30 years of neoliberal economic hegemony; theories like dependency theory, postcolonial theory, environmental political theory, primitivist theory, and world systems analysis. Many of those theories were developed by political scientists and economists between the late 1950s and 1970s, with dependency and dependencia theory emerging from Latin America. None of the eminently relevant work in these theoretical traditions are offered attention in the intellectual framework of the Occupy Movement. The question is not why?, because reasons abound for why Americans know not of current theoretical trends in political science and economics. The question is how to change this. How can the movement grow from being one relatively antagonistic toward what has historically been called the intellectual elite, the intelligencia, the academy, academia, and a long list of less applicable names, to one that is, by design, all inclusive? How do we go even further than that, toward a movement that can efficiently sift through the collective knowledge found within the movement, ultimately constructing the theoretical, philosophic, and economic framework of a new, more sustainable movement.
Perhaps as a response to the relative lack of access to the Occupy Movement for those theoretically and/or academically motivated, many small spinoff groups have come into being; some from a place of frustration with the movement, some in opposition, and some sympathetic to the movement, but seeing it as more of a spoke in the revolutionary wheel. We are a young country, and we are growing up in a political, economic, and social paradigm that is unique, from a historical perspective. It is easy to decide, under these pre-existing conditions, to run away from history for fear of repeating it, but we must all stop and think deeply. If we want to dismantle the system and rebuild it, something I am very much a proponent of, we must posses enough collective critical knowledge about the system to know which parts to keep, which to throw away, and which can be perhaps refurbished.
The new revolution should be sustainable, lazer-focussed, and contain within it people and collectives who are prepared on all levels to take the reigns of government when the time comes. We are up against a counter-revolutionary force that is unprecedented, both philosophically and financially. The best weapons we have at our disposal are ideas. Nothing, no matter how sophisticated and brutal, can stop the exponential growth an idea that is right for the time.
As for the Occupy Movement, I wish it well. I will always offer up my thoughts and research, but for now, I will most likely not be spending much time inside the movement. But I will not be gone. I'll be in one of those small, committed groups that Margaret Meade warned us about.
- Christopher Cox
(1) Sagafi-Nejad, Tagi (2008) The UN and Transnational Corporations: From Code of Conduct to Global Compact. Indiana: Indiana University Press
(2) Marx & Engels: Basic Writings on Politics and Philosophy, ed. Lewis S. Feuer (New York: Anchor Books, 1959), 329
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