Among the interviewees who contributed their perspectives to this project, there were a few significant points of disagreement. But on one score, there was perfect unanimity.
“I think OWS was just the beginning of something great,” writes Martin. “It’s the beginning of a dialogue criticizing the establishment as a whole, the system as a whole, which has never been done before in this country.”
Like Martin, Rebick believes Occupy was only the beginning, and sees great potential in the Idle No More movement to carry the torch of resistance into the future.
“[G]iven the way that [the protesters] present their struggle, which is that it’s a struggle led by Indigenous people, but for all of us, because of the environmental element of it, I think that’s very exciting and very important to support.”
Wolff also believes further uprisings, either under the banner of Occupy or a different name, are inevitable.
“It is a certainty in my mind that more of this [revolt] is coming,” he said, “especially since I don’t see a decline of the conditions that brought this crisis to bear.”
“Occupy’s legacy, is that they dared, finally, to put the economic, systemic inadequacy of the system right in front and centre,” Wolff believes. “And instead of failing as a result, they got more sympathy from more Americans than any of the other [recent protest] movements have been able to achieve. And they did it faster than anyone could imagine.”
Unsurprisingly, perhaps the most animated in his prognostications is Lasn.
“I see Occupy Wall Street as just being one of many Big Bang moments…and there’s going to be many other Big Bang moments to come,” he said. “I think we are headed for some kind of Global Spring, a global revolutionary moment, when all those national moments will somehow cohere into one big global moment.”
As Lasn points out, Occupy in its physical form may have fizzled out, but the core impulse that the status quo is not working persists. Popular dissatisfaction is evidenced by the Quebec student uprisings, anti-gentrification rallies, the Idle No More movement, environmental protests, and offshoots of Occupy like Strike Debt, InterOccupy, and community initiatives in low-income neighbourhoods like Occupy the Hood. The empirical evidence—an economic system that is despoiling the natural environment and exacerbating climate change, while doing little or nothing to raise the standard of living of the vast majority of people in Western countries—suggests there’s good reason to object to the status quo. But danger lies ahead in the form of new policy proposals and legislation even more reprehensible than their predecessors: internet surveillance bills like the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA); pharmaceutical patent protection wrapped up in some “free trade” pacts that will almost certainly increase the cost of prescription drugs, medical technologies and health care overall; further annulment of environmental regulations; and investment protection agreements that override national sovereignty. Perhaps most distressingly of all, the secretive and ominous Trans-Pacific Partnership—called a trade agreement despite the fact more than 95 per cent of its chapters don’t deal with trade—will enhance the ability of multinational corporations to establish oligopolies and monopolies, gouge consumers, override domestic environmental and health laws, and, naturally, offshore even more jobs in sectors like manufacturing and telecommunications.
The world economy limps along on unsure footing, laden with debt and credit bubbles, and plagued by the environmental catastrophes of climate change, biodiversity loss, ocean acidification, and deforestation. These menaces to the welfare of future generations notwithstanding, languorous economic indicators have impelled many political and economic elites to call for even more deregulation, even lower corporate taxes, even more dismantlement of barriers to business at virtually all costs. Economic crises continue to ripple through Europe, and the U.S. balance of payments deficit grows. The BRIC countries —Brazil, Russia, India and China—have threatened to abandon the U.S. dollar as their reserve currency (Hudson, 2009) and establish a sister organization to the World Bank and IMF in which the U.S. has no veto power, a move that would undercut American monetary hegemony and vastly shift the balance of economic power in the world. Protests and uprisings continue to shape the future of political discourse. Vigilantist organizations like Anonymous gain currency as opaque, unresponsive governments—from China, Turkey and Syria to the increasingly authoritarian U.S., U.K. and Canada—persistently fail to deliver economic or even judicial justice, but seemingly have no shortage of public monies to invest in propaganda campaigns, and an increasingly militarized security apparatus to stifle dissent. Activists and whistleblowers are persecuted and imprisoned, while CIA torturers and war criminals within the U.S. military operate in impunity. Criminal prosecutions of financial executives have been scarce, as regulators have favoured civil suits and fines in an effort to avoid destabilizing the big banks; HSBC, for example, was issued a fine for covertly laundering billions of dollars worth of securities with links to Mexican drug cartels. We are living through an era in which power is entrenched and ubiquitous, but true political leadership seems scarce.
13.2 Dare to envision an alternative
The Occupy movement and its constituents have succeeded at identifying the serious, systemic problems inherent in the current model of political economy, and starting a conversation around those issues. Where they have fallen short, perhaps, is in articulating a vision for something better.
Many economists, former political staffers and members of the news media advocate what mildly resembles a return to the pre-neoliberal era: re-regulation of the financial sector and multinational corporations, increased taxes on those corporations to fund programs to bring about full employment, reduce deficits and increase investment in infrastructure and social services. And it should be abundantly clear to all people concerned, that private “Too Big To Fail” banks are inherently problematic.
But in Richard Wolff’s view, a deeper critique of the system is required. The reintroduction of the old rules, he maintains, in an arrangement that pits the captains of business and industry against regulatory authorities in the context of a profit-seeking financial marketplace, is an endeavour doomed to failure.
Capitalism, Wolff points out, has a built-in tendency to undermine itself. As competitors vie for paramountcy in a battle over market share, the inevitable outcome is that some fare better than others; “winners” and “losers” emerge. This is how oligopolies and monopolies take shape, in the absence of robust antitrust laws. Hence, if left to its own devices, unfettered capitalism threatens both freedom of choice and the freedom of the individual from state coercion, as a corporation’s influence over the political, economic and knowledge production systems is invariably commensurate with its scale. Indeed, Wolff points out, this is exactly the process that created the giant banks in the first place, the same process by which corporations colonized and came to dominate the media, the internet and other means of knowledge dissemination, business schools on university campuses, U.S. state legislatures, and federal politics.
“The financial sector isn’t the bad guy,” says Wolff. “It’s a little stupid…to blame the bankers, since they were doing…what the system rewards them for doing, and punishes them for not doing.”
But what ought to be done about it?
Wolff believes there are options available, like nationalization of the executive functions of the large banks that played such a prominent role in the collapse, a position echoed by other economists and policy experts (Alperovitz, 2012). But, maintains Wolff, our society must also confront a cultural taboo that suppresses debate over the system of economic organization that predominates in the U.S., Canada, and several other Western states.
“Most Americans have been taught to believe that the capitalist form of enterprise is somehow inevitable, perhaps even natural, for sure optimal. In other words, shut off any conversation that imagines and weighs the costs and benefits, and the pros and cons, of alternative organizations, alternative systems.”
For Wolff, corporate capitalism’s dysfunction lies largely within the organizational structure of the profit-seeking enterprise, which pits the interests of management and ownership against the interests of workers. On the other hand, if the archetype for organizational structure were that of a worker-owned co-operative, in which the producers of goods and services exercise their decision-making power in a democratic fashion, many of the pitfalls inherent in capitalism could be mitigated, or avoided entirely, he maintains.
For instance, the workers in a co-operatively-owned, co-operatively-managed factory would be unlikely to vote to move their operation to a foreign country. Nor would they be nearly as inclined to duck environmental or food safety regulations in the name of enhanced profits, since the workers themselves would be obliged to live with the consequences of their decisions. And under a co-operative model, there would still be plenty of opportunity to reward individuals for their contribution to the productivity and success of the enterprise, Wolff argues. But the presence of a CEO who earns 500 times the salary of a worker or staffer, for example, would be anathema to the organization’s founding principles.
Like any other business, of course, the worker self-directed enterprise (WSDE), or co-operative, is subject to the forces of economic globalization, mechanization, and changes in market conditions. It must likewise contend with competition from multinational corporations, which may be able to offer comparable goods or services at lower prices through economies of scale and globalized supply chains. But the WSDE also possesses cost-saving advantages over the standard capitalistic multinational corporation: no need to attract top executives with lavish compensation, no imperative to pursue profit for profit’s sake in order to raise a stock price and appease investors. The selling points of local job creation, economic development (and tax revenue) appeal to politicians in a position to offer financial incentives to co-operatives (rather than to multinational corporations), particularly in underdeveloped localities. The genuine benefits associated with buying local goods and services hold substantial appeal to many consumers. Beyond this, co-operatives also have the option to confront economic globalization by going with the flow—that is, by offshoring some of their own operations, seeking out and entering foreign markets, offering co-operative membership to workers overseas, and adjusting their business models at home.
The WSDE is already a prominent economic presence in many countries, and a growing phenomenon in the U.S. Worldwide, roughly a billion adults are members of co-operative enterprises, including Spain’s Mondragón Corporation, credit unions throughout the U.S. and Canada, worker-owned enterprises in Cleveland, Ohio, and various economic development initiatives under the auspices of Mayor Chokwe Lumumba in Jackson, Mississippi. Among the aims of these various co-operative endeavours is to permit economic development at the local level—retaining capital within the community, and to promote a more environmentally sustainable form of production and distribution.
The advantages and disadvantages of the WSDE relative to the conventional capitalist firm merit discussion and debate in countries like the U.S. and Canada, maintains Wolff—especially considering the negative consequences associated with the economic system that prevails in those countries now.
“[Occupy] taught Americans, who believe that this system is in deep trouble and needs change, they taught each other, in that upsurge, that they number in the millions, that Americans all over the country feel this way. And that overcomes one half, or more, of what’s holding the United States back.”