EMAIL SIGN UP!
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
How to Occupy the World
The leading tagline of the Occupy Wall Street movement reads: “Protest for World Revolution.” This is an ambitious claim, to be sure. And in most respects it seems to ring quite true: the movement has successfully taken root not only in cities and towns throughout the United States but also in major urban centers around the world. On October 15, Occupy Wall Street’s success inspired a broad wave of coordinated occupations across Europe. I was a founding participant in the one that began in London.
But the Occupy movement has been notably absent outside of North America and Europe. Not for want of trying, of course: in southern Africa, where I am originally from, small groups of committed activists tried to instigate occupations in a few key regional cities, but without much success. In South Africa, a society divided by violent inequalities that proceed directly from neoliberal policy, Occupy managed to attract only a few dozen souls – a poor showing for a country known for one of the highest protest rates in the world.
What accounts for the failure of Occupy to capture the imagination of the global South, which comprises precisely the people whose lives have been most brutally affected by the recent global financial crisis? And in what sense can Occupy claim to be a world revolution if it leaves out – and in some cases even alienates – the vast, non-white majority of humanity?
Occupy is “international” at the moment only inasmuch as it exists in many different countries at the same time. But each of the occupations is primarily concerned with particular local or national issues. For instance, Occupy Wall Street is focused on corporate personhood, the Glass-Steagall Act, and collateralized debt obligations, while Occupy London is worried about tuition hikes, preserving the National Health Service, and reversing Thatcher’s 1986 financial deregulation bonanza.
Yes, the occupations communicate, and yes, they stand in solidarity with one another. But they are not united around concerns that are recognizably global in scope.
True, Occupy protestors and their sympathizers have helped sound the alarm on issues of international concern like fossil fuels and climate change, as we saw recently at the COP17 meetings in Durban. But as it presently stands the Occupy agenda is rather provincial – even Eurocentric. Aside from its radical elements, most of the movement’s American and European supporters simply want to reclaim their rights to live decent, dignified, middle-class lives.
Western Affluence and the Global System
There’s nothing wrong with this aspiration, in and of itself. But middle-class affluence in the West depends on a system of extraction that produces and perpetuates tremendous poverty in the global South. This was true under European colonialism, when the gap between the richest and poorest countries increased from 3:1 to 35:1, and it obtains even more so in this era of neoliberal capitalism, during which – according to the Human Development Report – that gap has reached an unprecedented 74:1.
According to World Development Indicators, in 2005 the wealthiest 20 percent of the world’s population – a proportion that includes almost all of the Occupy protestors – accounted for 76.6 percent of total private consumption. The wealthy nations of Europe and North America have an inordinate degree of control over the world’s resources, which they command through international financial institutions like the World Bank, the IMF, and the World Trade Organization.
Occupy Wall Street correctly criticizes the fact that an increasing proportion of these spoils has gone to the top 1 percent of U.S. society since the mid-1970s. But it is not enough to want to redistribute that wealth back to middle-class Americans. Even if the Occupy movement does manage to fix the financial sector, stabilize the economy, and redress social inequality in the West, the violent, imperialist modes of accumulation will still remain in place.
The process of extraction from global “periphery” to global “core” is what sociologist Emmanuel Wallerstein has called “the world-system.” Since the 1980s, one way of facilitating extraction within the world-system has been through “structural adjustment” loans from Western governments to post-colonial countries. Debts from these loans are leveraged to forcibly liberalize markets, privatize resources, cut social services, and curb labor and environmental regulations to create business opportunities for multinational companies and facilitate the flow of wealth to the West.
Western corporations realize huge profits by taking advantage of these policies. They externalize the costs of production to the global South where they can get away without paying for the labor they exploit, the resources they extract, and the pollution they leave behind.
Forced liberalization has plunged poor countries into economic collapse, slashing average per capita income growth in half after 1980 and leading in some cases to negative rates. Economists estimate that poor countries have lost $480 billion per year as a result of structural adjustment, while multinational corporations have stolen as much as $1.17 trillion (from Africa alone!) through loopholes created by market deregulation since 1970. The upshot of this has been rising inequality, deepening poverty, and worsening health, mortality, and literacy rates in much of the global South.
Finding the Right Targets
Western affluence and the consumer lifestyles of the "99 percent" in the United States and Europe depend on the plunder of other places and other peoples. This is one of the reasons that people in the global South tend to feel alienated by Occupy. First of all, they don’t see why they should support a movement of Westerners who want to regain levels of affluence that depend at least in part on the extraction of their countries’ labor and resources. What’s more, the locus of the economic decisions that affect them is not ultimately their national governments, but the institutions in Washington, DC and Geneva that determine economic policy from afar; it doesn’t make much sense to occupy locally when the power lies elsewhere.
Occupy’s vision for world revolution will only catch on in the global South once the movement extends its purview to encompass these concerns and begins to challenge inequality between nations as much as within them.
We cannot rely on “development” to accomplish this. Not only does development serve as a façade for the global extension of neoliberalism, it also rests on a purely absurd premise. The notion that everyone in the world should enjoy the equivalent of Western middle-class living standards ignores the fact that the planet simply does not contain enough resources for each person to consume as much as, say, the average American. Instead of “developing” the global South, we need to un-develop the West; we need to subvert and dismantle the flows of tribute that underpin Western affluence.
Occupy must realize that even huge wins at home will not necessarily translate into changes in the world-system or even changes in the U.S. role in it. Given that neoliberal capitalism is organized on a global scale, any real change will require a movement that is global in scope. Never has there been a better time to challenge the WTO, the World Bank, and the IMF’s policies on trade, debt, austerity, structural adjustment, resource extraction, and sweatshops.
Targeting these institutions is crucial because they determine Western access to labor and resources in the global South. The United States controls the levers of this system, since voting power in the World Bank and the IMF is apportioned according to each nation’s level of financial ownership. With about 17 percent of the shares, the United States has enough to singlehandedly block major decisions, which require 85 percent of the vote.
At the WTO, market size determines bargaining power – so rich countries almost always get their way. On top of this, rich countries control key decisions by using exclusive “green room” meetings to circumvent the consensus process. If poor countries choose to disobey trade rules that hurt them, rich countries can retaliate by using the WTO’s courts to impose crushing sanctions.
Change in the world-system can only happen once these institutions are democratized and de-corporatized. This will require building alliances with the global justice movement and anti-globalization campaigns in postcolonial countries that have been working on these issues for decades (such as La Via Campesina, an organization of 200 million peasants worldwide). Neoliberalism was crushing people there long before it hit white, Euro-American youth.
Alliances with the Global South
Another reason that Occupy has not caught on outside the West is that the leaderless, consensus-based horizontalism that has made the movement so popular in North America and Europe doesn’t work as well where most people can’t network through the Internet. Instead of fetishizing this tactic for its own sake, we need to be pragmatic about reaching out to established parties, unions, and other institutions – even if hierarchical – that actually have the ability to organize the rallies that an international movement needs. We reject traditional tactics at our own peril.
It’s easy enough to explain why the global South hasn’t joined Occupy. But why should we care? First, because the extractive processes that underpin Euro-American affluence cannot be fully understood from within the “core.” Our goals need to be informed by conversations and alliances with activists in the global South. Second, because challenging these powerful and deeply entrenched interests will require serious pressure from all corners of the world-system. If we want to bring about “World Revolution,” we have to be able to mobilize the world.
Occupy might do well to glean a few lessons from the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. Like the world-system in microcosm, apartheid capitalism allowed a white minority to accumulate massive wealth by extracting cheap labor and resources from a non-white majority. A number of white people rejected this system and became key activists in the anti-apartheid movement. But their efforts would have come to naught without their African counterparts, who mobilized mass resistance by going door-to-door in the townships, building the capacity for the strikes and boycotts that brought the apartheid state to its knees.
A truly global movement is not out of reach. Indeed, it has never been more possible than it is today. This is our opportunity to occupy the world. We dare not miss it.
- Posted in
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
40 Comments so far
Show Alloccupy - the movement which is so desperately needed in these dark times - has been pretty much sidelined and neutered. sad to say
occupy is the 1% of the 99% who got off their asses and did something
the other 98% are pretty determined to watch tv and nibble on their bon bons
if you want to talk about occupy - look at the amerikan military - they truly occupy the world with their 1100 + bases in every country you could mention, now quickly moving in to re-colonize africa for the corporations
that doesn't even count the torture sites
not that's an occupation....
Eternal occupations and eternal wars equal an eternal revenue stream for the military industrial complex. Could any economic model be simpler ?
This piece makes some good points but doesn't take into account the elephant in the living room: oil depletion coupled with climate change. Together, these factors mean that wrenching changes are coming very soon, worldwide. Whether or not it's true that most Occupiers want to go back to the 1970's when middle class white youth could expect a rising standard of living--robbed from them by student debt and permanent job depletion--those days are not coming back, anywhere. Because the same worldwide kleptocracy that has denied these youth their economic future has also seen to it that no meaningful controls will be put on the fossil fuel industry, ALL youth, from the white US occupiers to the barely surviving, ill educated slum dweller in India, to the children of the Wal-Mart heirs, can expect to live on a ravaged planet. Perhaps the latter will have some protections because they'll get the last of the oil. But they cannot buy a healthy planet, and their own children are likely to live in the same misery as those of the slum dweller. Some of the occupiers are aware of these things--one of the most important functions of occupations is to spread awareness of the real issues, so that action can be taken, ideally at a global level. And there IS significant solidarity: Occupy Pittsburgh is protesting the Pennsylvania factories that made the tear gas that workers in the port of Suez refused to unload to be used in Cairo.
Let us cry copious tears. Let us wring our pearls. Let us point rigid fingers.
Un-develop the West?
Oh good luck with that one. Who decides what is developed and what is not?
What is NEVER mentioned in the minds of the heterosexist cult of baby worship is the obvious.
Stop having children for a good twenty years. Give people time to figure out this mess.
Climate changes and resource loss effects everyone.
We are the hundred percent.
Occupy a condom.
I will say this. That is one cute doctor.
"Stop having children for a good twenty years."
To coin a phrase, oh, good luck with that one.
"Un-develop the West? Oh good luck with that one." Stop having children for twenty years? Oh good luck with that one.
Hey queerplanet, I get your incessant single focus on population reduction, I have to admit your one-liners are clever, and only a gay man could say "Occupy a condom" with a straight face (pun intended), but I have to take issue with your "heterosexist cult of baby worship".
Surely you're aware of the ever-growing number of gays and lesbians who are having their own offspring, through surrogates, artificial insemination etc., especially with the Marriage Equality laws being passed here and there, so let's include the "homosexist cult of baby worship" in our de-population rant, shall we? Okay, you'll probably say it's not a fair comparison, state statistics and historical references and throw in some snitty remark in an attempt to belittle my post, but go ahead, no problem, I'm just having fun with ya' -- and btw, there is one thing we totally agree on...that IS one cute doctor!
kisses, junebug
I would agree with you on the "stop having children issue" and I am a 100% for it. But I know that this will not happen anytime soon as long as women in developing country don't get equal education, equal rights and therefore control over their bodies.
"Western affluence and the consumer lifestyles of the "99 percent" in the United States and Europe depend on the plunder of other places and other peoples."
So well stated. Until Occupy becomes a true global movement, addressing the deprivation and suffering expierenced by the global South and caused by European whites, their focus will be on the wants of a relatively few Americans and Europeans. Forgiveness of student loans would hardly resonate in Africa where European whites have pillaged and stolen their resources for centuries.
My complaint about Occupy has been that, being typically solipsistic Americans, the occupiers failed to look beyond themselves when protesting. Rarely did you hear mention of our multiple wars and the associated devastation to other countries, rarely did you hear mention of global inequality or the environment and our burning planet. Rarely did you hear mention of population control and basic human needs.
The average American is not wired to think beyond their next purchase. Global equality, clean drinking water and a clean place to sleep for all 7 billion of the earth's inhabitants is what we as a global population should aspire to. As long as the U.S. and Europe gain affluence at the cost of others we will be hated.
We need an easily-understood study on what would be the minimum "inputs" required for living a seriously secure & comfortable life for 7-to-10 billion people. The only guy I know of, who was on top of this task his whole adult life, was R. Buckminster Fuller. He maintained we ALL could live like veritble "millionaires" ( in ways that count, NOT talking "golden toilets" & baubles & trinkets and such nonsense). I remember him saying there is no longer any need for mining operations. All the stuff needed is, by now, already above-ground, in landfills, and recyclible. He fell out of favor when the right-winger/reagan revolution came to town. We need to pickup and advance where Bucky left off. Also, lots of creative inventor-types have been busily creating the new alternatives to the current regime, in Jeane Manning's book "Breakthrough Power", also advancing where Bucky left off.
What is it about great people? Admiral Halsey said, "There are no such things as great (people). There are only great challenges which ordinary (people) like you and I are forced to meet by circumstance."
What a pile of compost.
>>bluegrass wrote: "My complaint about Occupy has been that, being typically solipsistic Americans, the occupiers failed to look beyond themselves when protesting."<<
And action on climate change and demands for a sustainable system too don't seem to be priorities yet, even though climate change-induced disaster could render ALL their other demands completely secondary or even irrelevant!
While "urgency" of action on climate change is something they may agree on, and many here on CD may agree on, I see a distinct reluctance to touch the issue of "equity" when it comes to action. It is this lack of concern, or even an outright contempt for such a thing as "equity" that makes the USA, despite being the single largest emitter of greenhouse gases, to still refuse to ratify the Kyoto Protocol which most nations signed in 1997 and ratified subsequently. Under the terms, the USA would have had to reduce its GHG emissions by 7% below 1990 levels by 2012. The non-participation by the US has emboldened Canada to default big time on its commitment to reduce its emissions by 6% below 1990 levels, and a few days ago, Canada pulled out of the Kyoto treaty.
Most people in the US and Canada simply don't care about the Kyoto Protocol or even know what it is. And among those that do, most are opposed to the "exemption" given to developing countries in the first phase from taking on legally binding emission cuts, based on the principle of "common but differentiated responsibility", the basis for the Kyoto Protocol. That is the case here on CD too. I have a name for such people: "closet patriots". They simply don't give a damn about the historical, cumulative emissions of the rich countries which used up the "spare capacity" of nature to absorb additional carbon emissions, and the logic of the rich nations having to "free up" some of this capacity by taking the first step in reducing their emissions.
But most westerners do understand "urgency" when it is their safety that is threatened. While coal power plants have threatened the whole world, nuclear power plants mostly threaten the nearby region, and so nuclear plants face greater opposition than coal power plants.
An article by Amy Goodman called "Climate Apartheid"
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/12/14
has received only 20 comments (out of which 8 have to do with someone's objection to a young person such as that Anjali Appadurai who gave that brilliant "Get it done!" speech at Durban, for participating in such action). Whereas, another article, published on the same day, called "Shock as Retreat of Arctic Sea Ice Releases Deadly Greenhouse Gas - Russian research team astonished after finding 'fountains' of methane bubbling to surface"
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/12/14
has received 261 comments so far.
My explanation: the former has to do with "equity" and the latter has to do with "urgency". I am convinced that both are absolutely related. If the US had participated in the Kyoto Protocol like the EU countries and Japan and had started action to reduce its emissions (which is not at all a difficult target, given the enormous potential for conservation and efficiency improvements alone!), then by the time of the Copenhagen summit in 2009, the rich countries would have had much greater leverage over emerging economies such as China and India, and could have forced them to sign up to a legally binding treaty as well. Instead, the US sabotaged the outcome in various ways. And most Americans and Canadians couldn't care less, really!
Even today, the only realistic option to avert disaster is for the rich countries to reduce their per capita emissions at least halfway closer to the global average, while helping the developing countries to follow a less carbon-intensive path to development. Even if they don't provide such assistance, the western countries could at least remove the threat of military action against developing countries that would like to pursue an independent course of action and if they demand fair payment for their export of resources and greater control over their own resources and affairs. That too should help in the fight to tackle climate change.
"I spent 33 years and 4 months in active service as a member of our country's most agile military force--the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from second lieutenant to Major General. And during that period I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism. I suspected I was part of a racket all the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all members of the military profession I never had an original thought until I left the service."
Smedley D. Butler (1881-1940)
_____________________________________________________
Gen. Butler has already conveniently connected the dots, not to mention that he blew the whistle on an attempted fascist coup in this country when they tried to recruit him (and according to the story, George W's grandfather was one of the conspirators). So the next step is obvious.
_____________________________________________________
The posters above me have also mentioned over-population, resource depletion and climate change, all of which has been talked about for years here on CD, and talked about, I might add, in relationship to the context brought up by this article. Put it all together and you have a comprehensive. integrated understanding of the situation.
OPEN LETTER TO ROCKY ANDERSON
Dear Mr. Anderson,
You are either the bravest person in America or the craziest for wanting to clean-up the mess created by Bush and Obama. I choose to believe you are the bravest.
First, we have the opposition:
The Corporate State of America (CSA) currently owns probably 80% of the members of Congress, the Presidency, and a majority on the Supreme Court. CSA also owns many governors and members of the state legislatures.
The CSA also owns those living the LUSH LIFE, which is probably at least four million American voters. There are probably another ten million or more living just below the Lush Life who aspire to the Lush Life and vote Republican or Blue Dog Democrat.
The CSA, as owners of the Mogul Media, heavily influence the “dumbed down” voters with a torrent of propaganda, mixed with mind-numbing trivia produced for television, radio, movies and assorted other venues.
The CSA has been instrumental in shaping the content of our educational systems to make sure no “controversial” subjects are mentioned in our schools. “Controversial” means anything contrary to the ruling elite's beliefs, purposes and pleasures.
The CSA has an enormous cow pattie to sling at any advesary, and they have plenty of manure in reserve to make more cow patties.
The CSA is one of the many minions of the NEW WORLD ORDER, and thus additional resources from the Rothschild Group, the Bilderberger Group, the Tavistock Institute, the Clubs of Rome, and many “Astroturf” fronts.
Voter apathy will arise because of the massive confusion from the fight by the Justice Party for its candidates against the Republicratic Party's candidates. This confusion will be aided and abetted by the “Poop-agandists” employed by the CSA.
Second, we have the forces of good versus evil, light versus darkness, love versus hate, the poor versus the rich, and the 80% versus the 20%. As unorganized as the “rabble” may seem, after a large number of defeats of the OCCUPIERS by CSA's shock troops, a majority of the General Assemblies will realized that they have to organize into multiple defenders of freedom in each state, in each voting precinct, town, city and region. We need many very competent and ethical candidates to get on the ballots in each state and voting area.
Third, the organizations should have at least one, well crafted plan of many parts so that we do not work at cross-purposes but we do use our limited resources with maximum leverage. You can bet your bottom dollar that the Republicrats have such a plan; probaby they have many plans in order to meet and best anything the Justice Party can throw at them. The New Party plan needs creation, definition, discussion, consensus, funding, and activation. The outline exists. See: the plan for the NEW PARTY (name is placeholder): http://thedragonsteeth.wetpaint.com/page/THE+NEW+PARTY
Sincerely,
James E. Miller, JD
jimmiller5417@gmail.com
"But as it presently stands the Occupy agenda is rather provincial – even Eurocentric."
The 99% are global and diverse. Each of us can address their pet peeve direct democratically.
Excellent article. But can we please stop using the term "neoliberal"? Just start calling it Conservative Capitalism, Conservative Economics, etc. It may not fit exactly, but so what.
what fits is predatory capitalism: exploiting everything & everyone on earth.
"The greatest menace to freedom is an inert people."
Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis
Turning point this weekend for Trinity Church and Episcopalians: http://taoofwalking.wordpress.com/2011/12/16/a-turning-point-for-protesters-and-protest-ants/
Help US End/Stop WorldWideWeb of Corporate (NWO!;)
http://sanders.enews.senate.gov/common/mailings/index.cfm?sniv=2100081670.549649.6.1
• Thank you for signing the petition supporting The Saving American Democracy Amendment. The outpouring of support from you and tens of thousands of others sends a loud and clear message that the American people want to undo the disastrous 5-4 Citizens United Supreme Court decision. We must stop corporations from spending unlimited sums of money, without disclosure, to influence Americans elections. American democracy is not for sale.
Senator Bernie Sanders : Thank You
sanders.enews.senate.gov
It will just keep on going round and round until the for-profit paradigm is eliminated.
The only purpose of profit is to ensure the dominance of those who take it over those from whom it is taken.
The end of kapitalism with its usurious monetary system will allow human evolution to resume.
The continuation of the for-profit, kapitalist scenario will ensure the extinction of Homo sapiens.
Wow what an excellent article. I would suggest that we have common cause with the Global South because we face the same system, the same enemy. I think there's already a general consensus; in a year or two a manifesto could be drawn up and a program derived from it, a program that established organizations like unions would find to be in accord with their founding impulse of respect and liberation.
And that impulse toward human liberation is also a spiritual one, and this should be pointed out to the good people of all religions. Let the dominionists and the 1% have each other. We should say, "There's more to life than wealth and power."
How about the Arab Spring and the demonstrations in Moscow? Aren't they part of the worldwide struggle against oppression and exploitation?
While I have always battered my fellow 'lefties' since the 80's about 'our consumption', there are HUGE fallacies that are being thrown about , concerning 1st world consumption. I am an anarchist, and believe me , I agree with half of what this article says. but the numbers are wrong. And when you ascribe this HUGE percentages of guilt to every working and middle class member of the 1st world war states, you don't achieve direct action organizing but a simple glassy eyed.......guilt. Because you are washing with a big brush.
And , as for twenty years we have read, things would be better for the 3rd world if we don't 'consume'. So people center on lifestyle changes. Rather than attacking their own gov't and their own economic hierarchies that create global disaster.
This statement is completely not true : " But middle-class affluence in the West depends on a system of extraction that produces and perpetuates tremendous poverty in the global South." No, a suburban home , a middle class wage, and two cars does not do that. Global corporations, and their client dictators in 3rd world nations do that. Though perhaps unsustainable environmentally, lawns and homes and cars do not 'cause' this system of extraction. It is woven throughout every third world dictatorship for their own wealth. And yes, for the 1st world's ruling class wealth.
And this is an absurd wash: "According to World Development Indicators, in 2005 the wealthiest 20 percent of the world’s population – a proportion that includes almost all of the Occupy protestors – accounted for 76.6 percent of total private consumption." This is a ridiculous figure. Why do these numbers get thrown around? Do any of you have a basic understanding of how much resources militaries and corporate agriculture use? Of how GDP is calculated? Of how 'consumption' is figured? The USA military is the largest single user of petroleum on the planet. And what are most the occupy people against? The USA military machine.
Jason, the majority of the occupy people....certainly the original anarchist organizers, have a very basic understanding of something called the ruling class. Something you are lacking. An American living in a flat or SRO, or apartment does NOT use anymore than a Mexican in Mexico City. Half the country are tenants and have no more than $1 in assets. We pay rent, buy food and often HAVE to have a car. We buy clothes, food, and some computer shit, or a guitar. That is the extent of 'our' consumerism. And you complete lack of knowledge of bottom up movements going on across the world that actually INSPIRED occupy and the people now involved is betrayed by this:
"Another reason that Occupy has not caught on outside the West is that the leaderless, consensus-based horizontalism that has made the movement so popular in North America and Europe doesn’t work as well where most people can’t network through the Internet. Instead of fetishizing this tactic for its own sake, we need to be pragmatic about reaching out to established parties, unions, and other institutions – even if hierarchical – that actually have the ability to organize the rallies that an international movement needs. We reject traditional tactics at our own peril."
ahhh yes the zapatististas don't exist. The syndicalists in Argentina were a 'leader movement'...The CNT and UGT (anarchist) in Spain need some leaders...the middle class and working class in Greece 'needed to reach out to established parties'....Yes....Jason...lets be pragmatic ...while the 'third world' bottom up loves our occupys....you gotta steer us to some leaders!
Where are you sitting typing? Every occupy in major cities has been international in signs and actions. You university 'typers' are so damn weird really. People in Egypt held up signs for San Francisco right away. A country that has been brutalized , thousands killed with american dollars for 50 years.
you're weird dude.
Tommy1961, I live in southern Africa (where this writer is from), trust me when I tell you, the whole Occupy movement is not garnering as much attention as one would've expected down here. In fact, since Tunisia and Egypt, there's been very little by way of similarly-conceived mass protests. I for one am rooting for the Occupy movement and have been reading everything that I can from commondreams and places like globalresearch. I am 100% behind Occupy, but I remember reading an article written by Michael Parenti published here which struck me as very odd because he framed Occupy as a "white, middle class movement that needed to invite in minorities in America" he got a bit of flak for that from some posters and I don't think he did that intentionally but it sort of betrayed the assumptions that he as a member of his class and race operates under. All that I'm saying is this: we're all going to approach things depending on where we come from and what influences were brought to bear upon us.
It shouldn't therefore come as a surprise that someone who comes from southern Africa views these issues in this manner because we've generally seen the global North as exploitative and oppressive in its dealings with "us" and that it has been...I think that this is a genuine call to the Occupy movement to examine itself and its own motivations and perhaps realise that this is a unique opportunity to build a truly global movement (or forge links with existing movements e.g. La Via Campesina) that takes into account power relations between states around the world and how these relations are dictated to by Western corporations. I've seen banners of young people at Occupy decrying the fact that they will have to pay off usurious student loans for most of their working life...tell that to a 7 year old child working in a coltan mine in East Africa under the most horrific conditions, that child will never even dream of going to college, much less of owning a cellphone (but these are things that you take for granted right? aren't these also gadgets that you get dirt cheap because of the slave labour involved in producing them?)
One thing that dismays me about Americans in general is why you don't seem to be concerned about the fact that you get a lot of things very cheaply while people in other countries don't e.g. your petrol or gasoline. I read American media on a daily basis, I try to stick to mainly commondreams but do venture out to other places less progressive news-sites, one thing that is clear to me is that a lot of your countrymen and women do not know much about the wider world and the role that America has played in making this planet a living hell, that level of ignorance never ceases to amaze me. Being defensive about some of these issues doesn't help!
I disagree with Hickel about the need for so-called leadership though, I think Occupy has done splendidly without "leadership" thank you very much! Take care.
I saw that same response to the Parenti article, people getting worked up because of the race issue. But I'll say that I'm in the inner city of Boston and there not paying much attention to the Occupy groups here either (except for thinking them strange for camping out in the cold).
I'm all for the Occupy groups but it should be acknowledged that it's not exactly a diversified group. I'm not sure why exactly but it should be something that's discussed within the movement without getting hysterical blowback. It makes it really easy for detractors to chock the group up to being dirty white hippies
oh I see now. he's an academic in an economics department. That says it all.AN EXPERT....that says we NEED EXPERTS.
This is a beautiful, brilliant article by Jason Hickel. He shows that he really "gets it" and his empathy and concern for justice come through clearly. In a sense, his assessment that "...as it presently stands the Occupy agenda is rather provincial – even Eurocentric. Aside from its radical elements, most of the movement’s American and European supporters simply want to reclaim their rights to live decent, dignified, middle-class lives" summarizes the situation nicely. This is also pretty much the focus and concern of many of the articles here on CD and, I must say, most of the comments, as well.
The people who post here obviously understand the working of the empire and obviously empathize with the victims of the empire. However, I do not think many fully appreciate the significance of the statement, "middle-class affluence in the West depends on a system of extraction that produces and perpetuates tremendous poverty in the global South." This is a continuation of the colonial exploitation, but instead of using direct oppressive rule, now using “the world-system.” A little thought will clearly show that this is indeed true.
Take the case of Libya, and before that, Iraq. One of the reasons for the overthrow of the regimes in these countries was the stated preference of the rulers for a different, better form of payment for their oil. But the western countries that dump their fiat currencies on these countries were furious. They KNOW that this would set a "dangerous precedent". If ALL resource-exporting countries in the third world were to start demanding fair payment for their exports, western affluence will take a serious hit. There is NO QUESTION about it! Only fools and dishonest people will deny this FACT!
This does not mean that life in the western world will suddenly become like that in the third world. But the western countries that import huge quantities of oil and gas, cocoa, sugar, coffee, etc., will have to pay for their imports with a currency that has more real value. These countries will have to export products that other countries TRULY need, AND at competitive prices on a global basis. This could mean that Americans and Europeans may have to work much harder, and longer hours, to have the same kind of affluence. Or, they would have to make do with less, ride the bus, eat much less meat, and chocolate will become a specialty treat and not so ubiquitous, all of which is not necessarily a bad thing.
Without the enormous military might and the history of violent military action by the western countries always hanging as a threat, most third world countries will have more freedom to determine a fair price for their exports. Whatever little they export, they can choose to export to the highest bidder, or they can work out some kind of a barter arrangement with countries that have other products that they need to import. Similar barter arrangements are suppressed and expressly prohibited by the western countries today. For example, there was one petroleum minister in India who wanted to trade directly with oil and gas exporting countries, without going through western oil companies. His argument was that India had some products and technologies that they could exchange for these resources and both the exporters and the importers would be better off, overall. Just as his ideas seemed to be gaining some traction, he was replaced with a more pliable minister with clear sympathies to the US interests. Condoleeza Rice, for example, worked furiously to make sure that a pipeline proposal from Iran to India through Pakistan, was nipped in the bud. But that was a proposal that would have benefited three countries in the region and also would have reduced hostilities between India and Pakistan as they have greater stake in such a thing. Today, as before, all oil trade has to take place using the US dollar.
Many people still underestimate the enormous advantages even for ordinary people in the US deriving from the position of the US dollar as the global reserve currency. Without this status, the US, like any other country (think North Korea) would have to import ONLY what it can pay for with its exports in a competitive global market. This would obviously keep most of the manufacturing jobs at home. At the same time, the economy and the entire society would have to be totally different - as they can no longer depend on cheap oil.
Even if they do not have the same kind of "democracy" in the third world, without the threat of violence from the western countries, and the extreme burden imposed by the global system, the people will be able to live their lives with greater freedom, and will be able to overthrow corrupt and oppressive rulers more easily. After all, information could still be flowing, and people's consciousness is still linked at some level.
Thank you Alcyon, for your honesty in responding to the concerns raised by Jason Hickel in his article. I read articles on commondreams and the comments by the posters on a daily basis, I expected a greater level of engagement from the usual posters on this article, alas, there seems to be none (for now anyway). You've summed it up brilliantly! I live in southern Africa and even though some here may start talking about so-called African dictators being responsible for most of the misery that we see here that is simply not true. African people elect their own leaders and Western governments remove them if they don't like them and replace them with pliable people with no moral compass whatsoever to do their bidding (assassinations being the preferred method of removal, or sponsoring opposition movements which sometimes have no legitimacy with the general populace).
I think people just need to be honest and less defensive. One Love.
Having spent the last 15 years living in a developing nation and frequently at grass roots level, the one problem is that much of the "south" is run by a bunch of crooked bastards who are as corrupt as they come and would sell their sisters if they could make a quid. The country I lived and worked in was not raped by the colonists; it was and still is being raped increasingly by the indigenous people who run it. Just human nature in the raw. Mugabe, whoever ruins SA today, and other names etc etc etc who were handed infrastructure, working laws, a working public service, and education on a plate have CHOSEN DELIBERATELY to screw, and indeed butcher, their neighbour. Of course, it is all whitey's fault; goes without saying ........The most important thing for Occupy is to build each in its own country and to defeat and turn back the continuing drive for fascist destruction of civil liberties and the accompanying greed and corruption that is pervasive in our own societies. Without winning THAT battle, all else is lost.
Wouldn't you admit though that some of those tyrants that you mention as screwing their countries in the global south were put there by, primarily the USA? E.g. regime change is and was a tool that the US specifically used to hoard as many resources as possible for mainly its multinational corporations. In the DRC it is well documented that Patrice Lumumba was assassinated by the CIA with the help of its local stooges because of Cold War imperatives, they replaced him with the grotesque Mobuto Sese Seko who pillaged the DRC for decades and the US was more than happy with the services that he was providing...even now, the US and its allies are still using the same MO e.g. most recently in Libya. Come on, be real about this...the "colonists" are still raping and pillaging, they've just figured out more underhanded ways of doing it PantherM120. Right now, the US is establishing AFRICOM and already conducting little wars in East Africa (which are not garnering as much attention, because who cares right?) with the help of tyrants who've overstayed their welcome, you don't see the US calling for free and fair elections in Uganda because Museveni is the little stooge who does its bidding, instead they'll give him more aid money to line his pockets...all I need from people like you PantherM120 is to look at this objectively, that is all. American foreign policy is as much a problem as those so-called indigenous rulers that you've mentioned.
Very interesting article and discussion so far. The Global Village is in every line. The broad view reminds me, however, of a political science or international-relations mind set.
It occurs to me that the United States is currently being occupied by many "brown" people who have learned Occupy tactics: to practice civil disobedience by stealth, skirting immigration enforcement techniques, putting up mobile housing (tents, living in automobiles and trucks and temporary shacks), moving from place to place (they call it following the crops), and extracting what wealth they can from slave wages--or by working their way "up" the ladder of becoming straw bosses, labor suppliers, and out into private business--using labor from their imported friends and relatives.
Lest you mistake me, I am wholly opposed to closed borders and oppression of Mexicans and others (with egregious human rights violations). But what I observe is an Occupy Movement that has been going on for decades. The extracted wealth sent back "home" has provided a new income for poor villages in, say, Guatemala, where family recipients use the extracted-from-Americans wealth to purchase expensive land in idyllic places in the mountains and valleys of Guatemala that they cultivate and build on.
When the places so wrought become self-sustaining, the "illegal aliens" return to their homeland and take up a much-enhanced lifestyle--escaping not only their hereditary poverty but also the much poisoned venom of the the haters in America.
The police and the right wing encourage, even enforce, racial bigotry. But the oppressed, by and large, avoid confrontation by being mobile. Those that do the oppression are almost always "tied up to the ground" and tend to feel that the problem is resolved when the Occupiers move on. But there are 20 million Occupiers among the U.S. population and they, for the most part, stay on the move.
They take the lowliest of work: chicken factories, farm labor like tomato-picking and other stoop crops, lawn services and even dangerous spot jobs for big developers. (In the subdivision Centex built around me, I witnessed during its construction, brown Central American divers take a simple air compressor hose into wholly muddied deep water while they put major sewer infrastructure in place). They live in ramshackle housing, sometimes 15 men in one single-wide manufactured home while working a crop or a "factory" that hasn't been raided for awhile by ICE.
By staying mostly under the radar, with tremendous self-discipline and spiritual strength, their Occupation has achieved great success. The individual failures are tragic--"collateral damage" in the Occupy the United States movement.
The Occupy Portland tactics work very well. The weighted-down-with-equipment riot cops aren't nearly as mobile or as whimsical as the Occupiers who use their agility and travel light. Like guerrillas without guns, the light-footed Occupiers can easily run circles around their bound-by-their-own shackles oppressors.
The U.S. Military (or corporations) who occupy the world have the same klutzy liability as the riot cops. The people smart enough, mobile enough, and lucky enough to avoid direct confrontation run circles around them.
Where are the leaders who will swear an oath to the "declaration" with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence and mutually pledge their lives, their fortunes and sacred honor for the good of mankind. Maybe, if the first goal was to OCCUPY a place "inside" the "Pearly Gates" then all else would fall in place. This young lad (Dr. Hickel) has spent most or all of his time inside a textbook and obviously has little "real world" experience as do the bulk of the OCCUPIERS.
You know this for a fact? i.e. spending most or all of his time inside a textbook? Isn't that a tad presumptuous on your part Kennybro? Please do not dismiss his views because he's an academic, many academics also happen to be very active members of civil society. What do you mean that the Occupiers have "little real world experience"????
Please explain that, many thanks.
Okay, I think wisdom comes from experience and the observations I have made of the occupier movement displays little wisdom. Real world experience I believe is taking on the responsibility first of yourself and secondly the responsiblity of your family then your community. To see the world from that perspective provides a much enlightened mindset which many young independant thinkers do not possess. This movement looks to me to take the world deeper into the abyss...leading away from the root problems that civilization faces. Tell me what "colonialism" really means. Could it be traced back to tribal civilaztions that would annihlate each other over common hunting grounds, the winner then occupies the losers hunting ground. A world under constant revolution is not the direction I want to go...what's wrong with occuping "heaven", a worthy goal I'd say with far more "global" rewards.
Thank you Kennybro for explaining your perspective on this...don't you think it's possible to take responsibility for yourself, the family and the community all at once? From what I've seen, Occupy seems to cut across generations (I've seen senior citizens holding up placards right alongside college graduates and the like)...I think this and other movements like it around the world is leading us to a saner, more just world...the people taking us deeper into the abyss are the politicians, corporate CEOs, bankers (with their derivatives worth trillions of dollars) and others of their ilk. Now these guys scare me far more than any "young independent thinker" as you put it.
As for occupying heaven, thing is Kennybro, we'd like to see real justice in this world that we're in at the moment, after all we really have no evidence that a "heaven" even exists. I don't think that too many people will buy that argument, even people who do believe in heaven. Personally, I hope it exists, taking into account that our existence on this planet is a bit on the hellish side of things.
All the best.
I also appreciate your perspective...I am sure that given the chance we could find much common ground. My persective does not originate from an existence on this planet as the "hellish side of things". I feel I have been blessed...you know family, community, children and grandchildren. Your point on the dangers that "politicians"
and the bureaucracy they represent is right on. The system I believe is a good one. The system has been hijacked and is being grossly corrupted by a "good ole boy" "network" loaded with arrogance and the hell with the "people" attitude. Until those positions of leadership are filled with persons of high moral character like say "George Washington" or "Ghandi" we are sunk. Take care, happy trails and live long and prosper! I really like the "OCCUPY" heaven thing...it's the thought that counts!
Some of the posters here are in denial...but that is understandable, facing the truth is never an easy thing. Let me just say this: we're all facing a common enemy, what this article does is to explain HOW this all came about, that is all. If one does not understand the linkages between US foreign policy, the EU, militarism as it underpins these policies, the multinational corporations, the local stooges who are selected to run the show on behalf of the Empire (i.e. so-called indigenous rulers in the global south) and global inequality, then we shall adopt defensive positions and never get to the core of the matter. Let me reiterate, I support self-determination everywhere I see it, as a matter of principle, I fully support Occupy, but that does not mean that I do not think that we couldn't do better.
We're talking about changing the world for the better, for the benefit of all of us who are resident on this planet aren't we? Well I hope so!
One Love.
ColdWarBaby@Dec. 16 8:49pm has his finger on the right spot: the role of the profit motive in what is going on, & the need for that motive to change. But the communist/socialist model has been tried & found wanting (giving rise to the Establishment's snicker about TINA - There Is No Alternative). However, there is, indeed, an alternative; as indicated by mookins@Dec. 16 9:00pm. And it is THE alternative to answer the proposition of this article, ie, How to Occupy the World.
It's really very simple. But it requires a willingness to face the basic fact of life. Which is that it is part of a larger Whole. The 'argument':
Either there is a 'God' - and all that that reality implies and entails - or there is not. If there is not, then nothing really matters anyway, and one might as well live exclusively for oneself, independent of the effect of that pursuit on others, as not; for the end of the closed system of life can, then, as easily be seen as that as anything else, a presumed evolutionary advantage in cooperative living, or whatever. if there is, however, then certain things follow.
It follows for one thing that we should start acting/living as if there were, and not as if there were not, as we are doing - largely - at present.
Largely, we are thinking to structure our society on merely material lines. That thinking is what got humanity into this current mess in the first place, by the structuring of social living on the basis of interest-bearing money, and the idea in general that people needed, and ongoingly need, a material motive to do things, to engage in 'economic activity' and so forth. Not so.
All you need is A motive. And with the additional factor to life of a larger reality than the merely material involved - that there is more under heaven and earth than is dreamt of in our material philosophies - we are given, with that recognition, another motive we can live our lives by, than the human construct of the profit motive. A higher motive. And in fact, the highest motive we could ever hope to have: to do things - to share goods and services with one another, and give of our best in the process - out of gratitude to our Creator for life with meaning. Out of, in a word: Love.
And if we do - when we do - 'all else will be added unto us' out of the abundance of the universe to provide for our welfare, with our cooperation.
When we just lift our awareness a little. Just a little more, than we have done at present, in subscribing to various religions, and spiritual philosophies, and so forth. Far enough, to recognize the basis for my comment above, as to how our Creator has provided us with "life with meaning". Which comes into the picture more fully when we 'grok' fully the phenomenon of what we call reincarnation (for which there is, now, abundant evidence).
There's the Plan. What about the Purpose? Well, that's for another time. But I can say one thing, here, about it.
It has to do with creating just the world that is being envisioned by thinkers like Jason, and the OWS folks, without their fully understanding it. But feeling it. On the verge. Just waiting to happen.
With just a little more grounding of it. In full awareness, of where we're at, in our time on this lovely old, beleaguered old, planet Earth. Verging now on the full potential of its current, developmental stage of globalisation.
Of, in a word: Oneness.
So: Out with money (as it has been known). And out with lower forms of energy than fossil fuels (which are just waiting to emerge, when the system changes). And out with the need for 'growth', and in with the introduction of a steady-state system (as currently envisaged & explored by such futurist thinkers as thevenusproject and thezeitgeistmovement). Which could be considered the obverse to the currently conceptualized world-system.
We need to kick this thinking up to a higher level. That's all. But to quote viewfromafrika@Dec. 17 12:58pm: "We're talking about changing the world for the better, for the benefit of all of us who are resident on this planet aren't we? Well I hope so!
One Love."
Indeed.
P.S. I meant, of course, "out with lower forms of energy fossil fuels (, which are....)" Sorry. It's late.
And almost later than we think.
What, Dr. Hickel, are you too totally missing it? Since the day I first heard word of the emergence of OWS, it was obvious the objective, and the common thread to all succeeding Occupy presence, was -- and very much still is -- speaking truth to Big Money power and demanding government by and for the people!
That Big Money power is the octopus of many tentacles (i.e., all the particular issues) that we of the world fight! In the US, that Octopus of Big Money clutches its tentacles aroung our media, our education system, our healthcare system, our food production, our environment and resources, voting rights suppression, etc., etc., especially including control of our government at all levels.
This Big Money power systematically seeks to destroy our democracy, subversively replacing it with the plutocracy. ALEC is a key agent of this subversive operation, although not the only one.
True, there are places in the world so accustomed to the oppression of Big Money power that they probably don't have a grasp of what Americans are fussing about. But Americans know what it is to have a real democracy, and we sure do recognize how that democracy has been stolen from us by the Big Money powers! Wherein the reach of Occupy is to the whole world -- and yes it is!! -- it is to grow the awareness that Big Money is holding us all captive, and that We the People are rising up to break that oppression!