Studien Occupy

STUDIEN

ROBERT OGMAN THE U.S. OCCUPY MOVEMENT – SINCE THE EVICTION FROM THE SQUARES

Study commissioned by the Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung ROSA LUXEMBURG STIFTUNG ROBERT OGMAN studied social theory at The New School in New York and was active in the alterglobalisation movement. Following the evictions of the Occupy encampments in late 2011, he met with and interviewed participants. Today he lives in Berlin, where he’s researched, amongst other things, social movements in Germany and the U.S. In his PhD, he is analysing “social impact bonds” and “impact investing” as strategies of crisis governance.

IMPRINT STUDIEN is published by the Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung Responsible: Martin Beck Franz-Mehring-Platz 1 · 10243 Berlin, Germany · www.rosalux.de ISSN 2194-2242 · Editorial deadline: September 2013 Copy-editing: Eric Canepa Layout/Production: MediaService GmbH Druck und Kommunikation Printed on Circleoffset Premium White, 100 % recycled paper Table of Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction �� 5 Crisis of Neoliberal Hegemony and Blocked Transformation �� 5 Occupy Wall Street: A counter-neoliberal response �� 5 Towards a counter-hegemonic bloc �� 5 Evicted from the squares: Regrouped on the front lines of the crisis �� 6 Navigating the tensions as an agent of societal transformation �� 6 Four interventions: Occupying the crisis �� 7

1. ‘Occupy Our Homes’: Fighting foreclosures �� 8 ‘Occupy Wall Street on Your Street’ �� 8 Direct action against eviction �� 9 The Foreclosure- and Eviction-Free Zone �� 9 Beyond OOH �� 10

2. Occupy Labor: Against precaritisation �� 12 Organised labour meets Occupy Wall Street �� 12 Reverberations: The ‘99 % Spring’ �� 13 New wave of labour struggles �� 14

3. Occupy Debt: Towards A ‘People’s Bailout’ �� 15 Student debtors as a new oppositional force and voice of a counter-neoliberal narrative �� 15 The movement’s common and diverging goals and perspectives �� 16 Diverging strategies �� 17 Congressional reform �� 17 A student debtor’s movement and the debt strike �� 18 Strategic blockage �� 20 Strike Debt! and the ‘Rolling Jubilee’ �� 21 The ‘Rolling Jubilee’: A ‘Bailout of the People by the People’ �� 21 Towards debt cancellation as a counter-hegemonic strategy �� 23

4. Occupy Sandy: Hurricane relief and a ‘People’s Recovery’ �� 24 Hurricane relief �� 24 ‘Mutual aid, not charity’ �� 25 ‘We Got This!’ �� 26 On neoliberal terrain �� 26 ‘From relief to protest’ �� 27 The ‘People’s Recovery’ �� 28 Towards a counter-hegemonic project? �� 29

Conclusion �� 31 Missed Opportunities �� 31 Dead ends and new openings �� 31 Democracy beyond horizontalism �� 32 Solidarity Beyond Mutual Aid �� 32 Independence beyond autonomy �� 33

Introduction

INTRODUCTION

CRISIS OF NEOLIBER AL HEGEMONY for expressing material grievances with the ‘1 %’, with- AND BLOCKED TRANSFORMATION out however ignoring the differences amongst them- This text analyses the U.S. Occupy movement as a selves. particular societal response to the crisis of neolib- Inspired by the Arab Spring and European anti-aus- eral hegemony, and as the initial stirrings of a coun- terity protests abroad, the new movement also gath- ter-hegemonic project. Here, the movement is situ- ered the rebellious spirit of the labour-community ated within the context of a blocked transformation, in uprising in Wisconsin against austerity and the cur- which the finance-dominated accumulation regime, tailment of labour rights, the student protests in Cal- despite falling into a deep structural crisis, nonetheless ifornia against budget cuts2, and the Chicago factory remains dominant. Instead of a post-neoliberal trans- occupation against wage and benefit theft following formation, we are experiencing a resurgent neoliber- a plant closure. It provided a convergence for diverse alism. social struggles to find one another and build collective Despite the widespread delegitimation of ‘trickle power from below. down economics’ and the ‘self-regulating market’ fol- This occurred in hundreds of encampments across lowing the financial meltdown of 2008, a social and the country, enabling a convergence and temporary political transformation has been blocked by the bal- condensation of the fragmented left, labour move- ance of forces defending a neoliberal agenda. Not only ment, social justice groups and critical left individu- did the Obama administration fail in its own reform als.3 And this temporary condensation had an impact agenda and marginalise its own base, which would beyond the sum of the individual parts. The movement be essential for such a project, but extra-parliamen- also mobilised previously unorganised individuals, tary forces in general remained either passive or mar- connecting them with milieus beyond the left’s tradi- ginal. Organised labour advanced only a moderate tional reach. programme and limited its strategy to congressional With its use of the general assembly for deliberation lobbying.1 and collective decision-making, Occupy returned par- Yet in 2008, even mainstream and conservative ticipatory democracy to the centre of left organising voices began proclaiming the end of neoliberalism, and and to the left’s political goals. The encampments pro- voices to the left of centre began discussing the pros- vided the space for mutual aid and solidarity, with free pects of a Green New Deal. Despite scattered labour services and the collective organisation of labour, and opposition to increased precaritisation, and social pro- for the experimentation with communal and solidaris- test against a variety of issues, this opportunity was tic lifeways. And they fostered the connection between not taken up by left or progressive forces. They did not a convergence around a general political message rally behind an alternative political project. Hence, the about material inequality and lack of democracy to political marginality of the left itself contributed to the concrete struggles against the ongoing crisis. blocked transformation. This left the field open to the regrouping of conserv- TOWARDS A COUNTER-HEGEMONIC BLOC ative and neoliberal forces behind the Tea Party move- Not only did Occupy initiate a process of condensa- ment, which reinforced the calls for austerity and a tion amongst extra-parliamentary social movements, political climate of social chauvinism, race baiting, and and link these to sections of the broader public, but it the scapegoating of transnational migrants. also caused disturbances within the dominant bloc, Despite what might otherwise have been a situation pushing previously passive sections of it to the left. The favourable to the left, its weak condition, fragmenta- critique of class polarisation caused widespread dis- tion and passivity prevented it from congealing into an ruption of the status quo inside the established insti- effective bloc, and from intervening in the conjuncture tutions and governing coalitions. Rather than causing to shift the balance of forces around an alternative exit a rupture between ‘society’ and the state, it produced strategy from the crisis, and towards a social, demo- and nurtured disruptions and contradictions within cratic, and ecological trajectory. the hegemonic bloc itself, whose passive consensus began to thaw. The movement’s message resonated OCCUPY WALL STREET: with actors within the establishment, shaking up the A COUNTER-NEOLIBERAL RESPONSE power relations within the ruling coalition. It was in this political conjuncture of a blocked transformation, that an ‘occupation’ of a small square in New

York’s financial district was able to ignite the imagina- 1 See Chris Tilly, ‘An opportunity not taken … yet: U.S. labor and the current eco- tion of broad sections of the U.S. population behind an nomic crisis’, (September 2010), Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, UCLA. See also Ruth Milkman, ‘The US Labor Movement and the Audacity of explicitly counter-neoliberal response. For the first time Hope’, in Socio-Economic Review 8 (2010): 372–376. 2 Barbara Epstein, ‘Univer- in decades, a popular social movement had placed sität in Aufruhr‘, in Luxemburg 2/2009. 3 Bill Fletcher Jr. and Carl Davidson, ‘How the Left Can Become a True Political Force to be Reckoned With’, Alternet (13 class at the centre of its concerns, providing a platform November 13 2012).

5 Introduction

Reframing the crisis as one around a conflict between structive visions of an alternative recovery from the the ‘99 %’ and the ‘1 %’, and opposing the insulation crisis. of policy from the democratic input of broad sections The possibility that the movement would survive its of the population who are negatively affected by neo- dispersal from the public squares, by relocating itself liberal crisis management, the movement indirectly along the contested sites of social reproduction (in amplified marginalised progressive voices within the community and labour struggles), was conditioned mainstream and established institutions. Not only did upon its ability to establish complementary relation- it create popular opposition to the Tea Party’s ‘budget ships between direct movement participants and other ceiling’ austerity drive, but it also gave new life to Oba- social forces beyond its immediate circles. Just as the ma’s call for a federal jobs programme. Inside the Fed- encampments were upheld by a combination of forces eral Reserve, it produced increased support for fighting directly ‘occupying’ the squares and political and pub- unemployment, and the central bank began pushing lic support, planting roots in front line struggles relied Washington to pass mortgage debt relief for underwa- on a two-way relationship as well. ter home-owners. In many ways, the support Occupy received from Organised labour also took bolder action and progressive Democrats, disappointed Obama support- expanded its position beyond the defence of its mem- ers, and frustrated union members, who saw in the bership, speaking on the part of popular, class inter- movement the opportunity to push back against the ests. As a result, Occupy sparked a new wave of labour Tea Party-led austerity drive, was replicated by a simi- militancy amongst public workers and in the low-wage lar dynamic in front line struggles. Here the movement sector. gained legitimacy and support from people struggling These developments presented the possibility of in the recession. In many cases, Occupy was called a new concentration of forces around a social, dem- upon, and welcomed into struggles, by homeowners ocratic, and ecological alternative to neoliberal cri- resisting foreclosure, workers fighting precaritisation, sis governance, inside and outside the state, which students battling indebtedness, and public provision received broad support from the population. recipients opposing the further erosion of the welfare state. EVICTED FROM THE SQUARES: Hence the blocked political transformation that REGROUPED ON THE FRONT LINES resulted in Occupy being elevated to the national polit- OF THE CRISIS ical level was echoed by a crisis of social reproduc- Had these developments been able to continue, and tion, which pushed the movement to deepen its sol- were the movement then able to consolidate its diverse idarity campaigns to relieve acute material suffering. social forces around a common programme, this nas- To the degree that the movement was successful, it cent counter-hegemonic bloc may have opened up was never fully autonomous and was rather the result new political trajectories. This possibility was put down of a productive convergence of forces, both in direct by repressive state force. Less than two months after interaction on the ground and on a more removed level the first occupation began, a federally coordinated plan of establishing a common counter-neoliberal trend in was enacted to evict the encampments and to physi- public consciousness. cally prevent their return. Yet the movement did not immediately disappear NAVIGATING THE TENSIONS AS AN but rather regrouped and reorganised itself to respond AGENT OF SOCIETAL TRANSFORMATION to the new situation. Its dispersal from the central Occupy was the product of multiple societal crises and squares shifted the centre of gravity to community and struggled to balance many tensions. As a response to labour struggles and pushed Occupy into closer con- the crisis of political legitimacy, it sought to create net- nection with existing social struggles on the front lines worked and horizontal forms of participatory democ- of the crisis. racy for the self-organisation and consolidation of sub- While the occupations of public squares provided altern power. Yet simultaneously, it spoke not only as the possibility of intervening in the symbolic order as the collective voice of direct participants but as the well as a space for the convergence of left forces and symbolic representative of the ‘99 %’, and for this was the broader public, the new sites of struggle trans - increasingly pushed into a leadership position. It was formed the movement strategy towards one of inter- seen by progressive factions of labour and the Demo- vention into the broken circuits of a precarious social cratic Party as a force to counter the Tea Party-led aus- reproduction. Here Occupy initiated solidarity cam- terity drive,4 and was called on by the subaltern to join paigns with people struggling in the ongoing reces- their struggles against foreclosure, deepening labour sion. In these endeavours, they faced new challenges precaritisation, increasing student indebtedness, and of coalition-building with diverse social forces, con- the further destruction of public provisions. necting specific concerns with the broad, class perspective of the ‘99 %’. They brought with them an emphasis on participatory and democratic forms of 4 See for example, the statement of comedian and political commentator Bill Maher: ‘[W]e need Occupy to be our Tea Party. An unwavering bloc that will force organising from below and began to develop recon- things to the left.’ http://hbo.com/ (8 June 2012).

6 Introduction

Occupy had the task of establishing both an autono- The four examples are as follows: mous movement independent from the Democratic 1. ‘Occupy Our Homes’, a multi-city network oppos- Party and organised labour and one that was, at the ing home foreclosures and evictions. Using direct same time, not completely separated from their left and action along with affected home-owners, this inter- progressive wings but rather overlapped with them. It vention brings the movement into direct confrontation struggled to advance a vision of societal transforma- with the process of accumulation by dispossession tion and to put forth concrete measures to improve the (David Harvey). material situation of the ‘99 %’. It sought to establish 2. Occupy Labor describes the connections a constituent power against the neoliberal status quo, between Occupy and the labour movement. I will try to which was at a distance from the state (Poulantzas) yet show how this relationship contributed to the growth also capable of winning concrete goals, ones compat- of the new movement, on the one side, and to the ible with the larger project of a social, democratic, and emergence of a new round of labour struggles against ecological transformation, in its own language, a ‘rev- precaritisation, privatisation, and wage dumping, on olution’. the other. Here the movement has connected and sup- Especially following the evictions, the movement ful- ported struggles against a ‘recovery’ based on further filled an increasingly necessary social function aimed class polarisation. at restoring and defending people’s basic living stand- 3. Mobilisations of the ‘graduates without a future’ ards in the face of the crisis of social reproduction. Yet in multiple campaigns against student and consumer while these solidarity campaigns brought the move- debt. In these struggles for debt relief, we see state-in- ment into close cooperation with other sections of terventionist strategies, attempts to build an autono- the ‘99 %’, it had to prevent its alternative institutions mous debtors’ movement, and mutual aid initiatives. of mutual aid and solidarity from either becoming Seeking debt relief, these new subjects are attempt- micro-organisations of limited social significance or, on ing to protect themselves from financial ruin and shift the other hand, being reduced to mere service delivery the burden of the crisis of over-accumulation onto the organisations, thus functioning as a niche within the ‘1 %’. neoliberal process of rolling back public provisions and 4. ‘Occupy Sandy’, a rapid mutual aid network social protections.5 developed to aid victims of Hurricane Sandy, who were How could it intervene in the processes of social left unprotected by the eroded state safety net, and reproduction, such that it could retain both its con- to defend them against debt-based, personal recov- structive and oppositional character and avoid integra- ery strategies. In this example, we see the attempts to tion into a passive revolution in which it was assigned a develop an alternative to a ‘disaster capitalism’ based role within the neoliberal regime? on the dispossession of low-income urban populations The navigation of these challenges and tensions and debt-based recovery, through the formulation of a was not always successful, and in the process critical holistic alternative recovery called ‘the people’s recov- obstacles to Occupy’s hope of broadening its societal ery’. impact emerged. However, an analysis of its concrete These specific examples provide a window onto the engagement may help us identify ways of overcoming post-eviction situation of the Occupy movement. I will its current stagnation and limitations for the next round show how the movement reconfigured itself, inter- of social mobilisation. vened in concrete struggles, and sought to build power from below to counter the crisis. However, I will also FOUR INTERVENTIONS: show how the movement has run up against certain OCCUPYING THE CRISIS limitations, preventing it from concentrating opposi- In this text, I focus on four specific interventions of the tional forces, from growing, and from having a broader movement at the front line of the crisis to show how it social and political impact. The aim is not to simply responded to the eviction from the public squares and detail its engagement on this new terrain but to show regrouped, and how it navigated these tensions. My why and how it remains limited in its reach. This might aim is, on the one hand, to provide a historical picture help in thinking about the possibility of a new round of the post-eviction state of the movement and, on the of movement activity and the condensation of its pro- other hand, to provide an analysis of the movement’s ductive interaction between different forces into a bloc developments and current blockages. with deep and longstanding political influence.

5 Neil Brenner and Nic Theodore, ‘Cities and Geographies of “Actually Existing Neoliberalism”’, Antipode 34/3 2002: 349-379.

7 ‘Occupy Our Homes’: Fighting foreclosures

1. ‘OCCUPY OUR HOMES’: FIGHTING FORECLOSURES

‘They have taken our homes through an illegal fore- other established channels for social defence. This void closure process, despite not having the original mort- provided a political opening conducive to the Occupy gage.’ – Declaration of the Occupation of New York movement’s direct intervention into these broken cir- City, September 29, 2011. cuits of material reproduction. This context positioned The foreclosure wave that sparked the global eco- Occupy, as a movement for and by the ‘99 %’, at least nomic crisis and caused mass dispossession of mil- symbolically, as an advocate for threatened homeown- lions of people from their homes became a central ers at the front lines of the crisis. issue of the Occupy movement since its inception in September 2011, and more significantly since the evic- ‘OCCUPY WALL STREET tions from the public squares with the establishment of ON YOUR STREET’ the nationwide Occupy Our Homes (OOH) campaign. It was not solely the movement’s general statements When the movement first emerged, millions of peo- in opposition to the ‘1 %’ which elevated the Occupy ple were still threatened with foreclosure, and little reg- movement to the status of the emblem of opposi- ulatory action was taken to stop these developments. tion, but also the connections the movement made An initial call for a foreclosure moratorium amongst between the crisis winners and losers7 and the focus some officials of the Democratic Party never became on specific processes of downward social mobilisa- legislation, and the new homeless were left to fend for tion. By connecting the movement’s general critique themselves, resulting in new shanty towns across the of class polarisation with the specific processes and country. experiences of the crisis amongst homeowners threat- This political failure was combined with, and was ened with dispossession, they were able to intervene in partly the result of, the socially repressive atmosphere social struggles and raise them to the level of general created by the Tea Party movement, which mounted public concern. malicious smear campaigns against homeowners From the very beginning, the occupations of public threatened with foreclosure, accusing them of being squares were complemented by anti-eviction actions personally responsible for the housing market col- and demonstrations against mortgage lenders who lapse. The conservative movement opposed Demo- were profiting from foreclosures. However, it was cratic proposals for extending social protections to also the movement’s democratic approach that led to those threatened with dispossession. Countering state specific forms of intervention which made it possible intervention, they argued against ‘subsidiz[ing] the for those negatively affected by the crisis to become losers’ mortgages’.6 This entrenched the individualis- oppositional subjects of the movement. Homeowners ation, isolation, and feelings of personal guilt associ- themselves spoke about their situations and directly ated with the experience of foreclosure and in general made the connections that enabled them to personally in those suffering in the recession. identify with the ‘99 %’. However, the foreclosure epidemic was not to Here the movement created a convergence of differ- remain unchallenged. Neither direct repression entially affected subjects in a common struggle. Fol- through forced evictions nor public shaming of the lowing its eviction from a public park, Occupy Atlanta affected homeowners were ultimately able to secure (Georgia) operated out of a squatted homeless shelter, passive acceptance. Nor could neoliberal economists bringing the ‘graduates without a future’ (see Section convince them to let the foreclosure wave ‘run its 3, Occupy Debt) together with the homeless residents course’. Intellectuals of the neoliberal bloc could not in a common struggle against the city’s attempts to be trusted in the face of the real crises people experi- close it down, and with homeowners in efforts to block enced, nor could their privileging of ‘economic laws’ foreclosures and evictions. compete with the moral outrage and human-rights ori- The movement connected the occupations of public entation amongst the dispossessed. squares with the struggles at the front lines of the cri- Since the beginning of the foreclosure wave, home- sis by organising collective acts of solidarity with those owners had been organising against eviction in com- affected by the foreclosure crisis. It called demonstra- munity based organisations across the country. But tions in support of those facing dispossession and it was the emergence of the Occupy movement that organised civil disobedience to physically prevent it. gave these struggles broader appeal and situated them This built a bridge between the movement and people within a societal narrative about the crisis and the dras- struggling in the recession. In local neighbourhoods, tic concentration of wealth. the abstract expression of solidarity was brought The political and social context produced the possibility of a counter-neoliberal movement. The absence 6 ‘Santelli’s Tea Party’, http://video.cnbc.com CNBC (February 19, 2009). 7 This of state action to protect homeowners created a deep was a fundamental difference between the successful U.S. Occupy movement and crisis of political legitimacy. And the passivity of organ- its German counterpart. The latter expressed abstract resentment against the financial sector without supporting the losers of the crisis, and without identifying the ised labour in defending living standards closed off governing processes responsible for class polarisation.

8 ‘Occupy Our Homes’: Fighting foreclosures

down to the practical level of solidarity, uniting people nity level, with residents, neighbourhood associations, in a concrete struggle over the crisis in people’s every- community groups, and the right-to-the-city network. day lives. Organisers scouted neighbourhoods, knocking on These common struggles ran parallel to the encamp- doors, asking residents if they are in foreclosure and ment phase of the movement, and in some cases they if they would like to defend themselves together with were the centre of the movement’s activity altogether, others. They canvassed neighbourhoods, conduct- especially where the Occupy groups did not have phys- ing research on foreclosures, raising awareness of the ical encampments. Additionally, the anti-foreclosure epidemic, creating lines of communication between movement, which had preceded the Occupy move- neighbours and political activists, and forging bonds of ment, collaborated in common actions, helping to ele- solidarity and coordination to oppose the foreclosures. vate these struggles in the media and on the local polit- Many participants see these activities as drawing a ical stage. straight line between ‘Wall Street and Main Street’. 8 This engagement has helped forge multi-racial alli- DIRECT ACTION AGAINST EVICTION ances around class-based issues, countering the con- Anti-eviction actions began in the early days of the tinued process of accumulation by dispossession. Col- Occupy movement. They began on the initiative of lective action has helped move people out of shame movement participants who sought out distressed and into social justice organising, with the use of direct homeowners for common actions in physically imped- action. While some groups focus on correcting illegal ing the police from carrying out evictions by surround- seizures, others have articulated their grievances in ing the properties in question with their bodies, linking broader terms around human rights.9 Through these arms in non-violent civil disobedience. They also organ- campaigns they have helped dozens of homeowners ised demonstrations against mortgage lenders, some- pressure mortgage lenders into refinancing. And, as times ‘occupying’ banks to demand the reduction of mentioned, the grassroots mobilisations of OOH and the principal. They also disrupted foreclosure auctions other initiatives have also produced reverberations at by singing, preventing the auctions from going forward the top, encouraging the Federal Reserve to call on the and keeping people in their homes. White House to promote mortgage cancellation and While individual Occupy groups were fighting fore- renegotiation.10 closures throughout fall 2011, the movement began However, the struggle against foreclosures was not converging around anti-eviction campaigns following only the result of the active intervention of Occupy its forceful removal from the squares in the fall and win- activists in existing struggles against eviction. The initi- ter. In December 6, 2011, a nationwide day of action ative was also taken by home-owners asking the move- was called, which included simultaneous and diverse ment for support. Hence, Occupy was also pulled into actions carried out by groups in over twenty cities. a position of leadership by distressed homeowners. While some used the occasion to physically halt evic- One example of this was the request made by a tions, others demonstrated against mortgage lenders. police officer to the Occupy Atlanta group, request- Foreclosure auctions were also disrupted by Occupy ing its help in preventing the bank from foreclosing on activists, and other groups helped move homeless his house. This elevated the movement’s status as the people into vacant houses. Rallies were also organised symbolic and practical defender of the ‘99 %’.11 to draw public attention to the scandal of the ongoing foreclosure wave. The common aim was to call for THE FORECLOSURE- increased resistance from below and to point to the AND EVICTION-FREE ZONE failure of political action from above. The message was The direct actions against evictions helped dozens of clear: housing is a human right. people remain in their homes by putting public pres- As with the Spanish Mortgage Victims Platform, sure on individual mortgage lenders to renegotiate Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca, the centre of mortgages and provide lower monthly rates for strug- the movement’s activities were the anti-eviction block- gling homeowners. While this helped refocus public ades, which use civil disobedience to physically pre- attention on the plight of heavily indebted homeown- vent people from being dispossessed of their homes. ers, many Occupy participants felt the gap between In some cases, the groups went door to door to deter- their desire for housing rights, decommodification, mine who in a particular neighbourhood was threat- and social transformation, on the one hand, and, on ened with foreclosure and then linking up neighbours the other hand, the moderate lender accommodations and organising home defences. they received as a result of the movement’s actions.12 While OOH claims dozens of victories, it is not as advanced as the Spanish mobilisation. It has nonethe- 8 Astra Taylor, ‘Occupy Wall Street on Your Street’, The Nation, (7 December 2011). less managed to win many concessions from mort- 9 Laura Gottesdiener, ‘Occupy Homes, One Year On and Growing’, Znet, (26 gage lenders, obtaining reduced principals and getting December 2012). 10 William Greider, ‘The Federal Reserve Turns Left’, The Nation (30 April 2012). 11 Think Progress, ‘Occupy Atlanta Encamps In Neighborhood To refinancing to lower mortgage payments. This suc- Save Police Officer’s Home From Foreclosure’, (8 November 2011). This was a com- cess has relied on the movement’s close relationships mon experience amongst OOH groups, which were called to action by vulnerable home-owners facing foreclosure. 12 See here, ‘Occupy vs Eviction: Radicals, built with existing anti-eviction groups at the commu- Reform, and Dispossession,’ http://libcom.org (22 June 2012).

9 ‘Occupy Our Homes’: Fighting foreclosures

One effort to go beyond this dilemma was seen in the nising the contradictions of power within the state, call by the Minneapolis OOH group to establish a ‘Fore- where public policy has failed to enact a morato- closure- and Eviction-Free Zone’.13 In December 2012, rium, they call on ‘public servants, city officials, police Occupy Homes Minneapolis, Socialist Alternative, and officers, and sheriffs’ to ‘not interfere with any negotia- community organisations initiated a campaign to organ- tion by evicting residents who intend to negotiate with ise a geographically based resistance movement. A their lender’. This would enable the ‘City and County low-income neighbourhood of colour which had expe- officials’ to ‘enact a de facto moratorium’. In an effort rienced a high level of foreclosures was chosen, and six to garner public support for the social movement, they homeowners who were threatened with eviction com- also gained support amongst a majority of city coun- mitted to collective resistance together with one home- cil members to confront the mayor’s support of evic- less family who reappropriated a vacant house. tions.14 They therefore tried to use the tensions within The initiative employed a democratic organising the state to their advantage. model that used neighbourhood assemblies to mobi- The Minneapolis initiative is an effort to link struggles lise popular participation. The aim was not only to present in civil society with those located on the polit- build solidarity between threatened residents and ical terrain, while maintaining the movement’s auton- strengthen community bonds, but to build broader omy at the base. commitments amongst neighbours to refuse eviction, beyond the usual pool of Occupy participants. BEYOND OOH The initiative was an effort to go beyond the specific While the OOH network grew rapidly following the limitations of the movement. First, it moved beyond evictions of the encampments, its activity has largely a framework limited to the return of illegal seizures leveled off. It has formed bonds with other, longstand- based on fraudulent foreclosures and began to speak ing housing rights groups, with the right-to-the-city of housing as a human right, calling for ‘safe, equitable, network, and with other urban struggles. But up to and affordable housing’ for all. now it has neither managed to scale up nor to advance It highlighted the injustice of a situation in which the a strategic programme enabling it to engage the polit- number of vacant houses drastically surpasses the ical terrain beyond the push for immediate conces- number of homeless people. To resolve this problem sions. Although limited to Minneapolis, the ‘Foreclo- the activists called for the appropriation and placing of sure- and Eviction-Free Zone’ represents a potential ‘bank-owned vacant properties […] under community step beyond these limitations. control’, ‘to be used for affordable housing’. Here the movement’s ambiguous relationship to This illustrates the continuation of Occupy’s demo- the state is being tested. This is because the implicit cratic impetus, while showing how it has been trans- demands of the movement, aimed at halting foreclo- formed in the frontline struggles. The call for com- sures, are being reflected on in an explicit way. Not munity control is a longstanding demand amongst only are these demands being formulated, but there community organisations and the left, and it concre- are also pragmatic attempts to go beyond them. The tises the movement’s aspirations for increased public demands go beyond the attempt to redress the injus- control over society. Its democratic spirit also shows tices of mortgage fraud. They advance a ‘rights’ frame- in the organising style, in which public meetings are work beyond existing legal rights and call for universal used to host open forums for discussion and collective rights to quality homes for all. decision-making on movement strategies and goals. Additionally, this demand is related to more prag- These horizontal forms of organising are connected to matic and immediate demands, such as the call for multi-dimensional strategies of empowering local resi- immediate negotiations with lenders. And this has not dents in a defensive struggle, while bringing the urban been an abstract wish list but is rooted in a community terrain under increased popular control. struggle employing civil disobedience amongst neigh- The activists called for direct negotiations between bours and allies and seeking support from within state lenders and homeowners and for principal reductions institutions. as well as a federal policy of moratorium on foreclo- Hence, in this example, the movement has strug- sures. But what brings their efforts to the next level is gled to go beyond an anti-political stance, yet to do their effort to link these aims with a strategy of inter- so without giving up its initial and fundamental con- vention on the local level of the state. cern with co-optation. Instead of acting indirectly as Recognising the limitations of direct action, they a direct action pressure group for minor concessions, sought to swing local public officials and local state it has sought to navigate the difficult terrain of politi- power behind their struggle. They did this by calling cal intervention as an oppositional yet also pragmatic on public authorities to refrain from mobilising their movement. repressive forces against homeowners. And by calling on local government to commit ‘no public resources for unjust evictions’. In so doing, they have sought to push city govern- 13 ‘Declaration of the Eviction Free Zone’, http://start2.occupyourhomes.org/petitions/declaration-of-the-foreclosure-and-eviction-free-zone. 14 Ty Moore, ‘Les- ment into passively supporting their struggle. Recog- sons from Occupy Homes’, http://socialistalternative.org, (25 April 2012).

10 ‘Occupy Our Homes’: Fighting foreclosures

While similar free zone initiatives have been called for eral population and onto the owners of concentrated in other cities, none have yet developed to the level of wealth. the Minneapolis example. However that may be, the This shows that despite the movement’s insistence struggles of OOH and many other anti-foreclosure on waging its struggles at a distance from the state, struggles are indeed having an indirect effect on the these are nonetheless shifting social relations of power political terrain. and opening up space for alternatives to neoliberal pol- Recently, the Green Party mayor of the city of Rich- icy. However, at present the movement has refrained mond, California has put forward a plan to use emi- from supporting the Richmond initiative. There is a nent domain laws to confiscate homes threatened with strong desire to remain politically independent and to foreclosure if mortgage lenders do not accept the city’s prevent struggles from being absorbed by policy bat- offer for a drastic reduction of principals. 15 The city tles. The main aim remains empowering affected pop- would then refinance the mortgages for home owners ulations to defend themselves, even if the result is a at the current market price, rather than at the inflated policy reform limited to minor improvements in social price that preceded the housing market collapse. This protections or alleviation of particular grievances. The would mean huge losses for the lenders who have question remains as to how the movement can raise responded swiftly with threats to cut off mortgage the general policy level, shifting it away from neoliberal lending to the city. The proposal, however, is catching orthodoxy. Until now, the movement has not rallied its on in other cities across the country and shows signs of troops behind state-based initiatives. Even where it is becoming an alternative crisis management strategy to engaging the state, it seeks to hold on to its independ- shift the burden of financial losses away from the gen- ence as a convergence point for struggles.

15 ‘A City Invokes Seizure Laws to Save Homes’, New York Times (August 26, 2013).

11 Occupy Labor: Against precaritisation

2. OCCUPY LABOR: AGAINST PRECARITISATION

From the outset, labour has played an important role in given access to unions’ institutional infrastructure, the Occupy movement. including labour halls and community centres. And The movement was strongly influenced by the pop- dozens of union locals issued public support for the ular uprising in Wisconsin, by public sector employees movement. and their community allies against ‘right-to-work’ laws The warming up of the official labour leadership and austerity measures. The physical occupation of the was paralleled by spontaneous support for the move- state capitol building, the strikes of public employees, ment from some of the rank-and-file. New York City and the broad societal support revealed popular dis- bus drivers objected to the police’s use of city vehi - enchantment with resurgent neoliberalism since the cles for the transportation of protesters to jail, and in financial meltdown of 2007/08. November 2011, on the two-month anniversary of the The movement was also inspired by the 2008 Chi- movement’s inception, labour was a major force in the cago factory occupation by manufacturing workers of 30,000-strong demonstration in support of Occupy. the Republic Windows and Doors Company, who were The positive relationship between Occupy and defending themselves against wage theft following labour was not an automatic process. The crisis of their plant’s closure. The slogan ‘The banks got bailed political representation involved the estrangement of out. We got sold out!’ originated in this struggle and young workers and students from labour represent- was later taken up by Occupy to express a broad oppo- atives and unions, largely because of the close rela- sition to the class dimensions of the federal recovery tionship of unions to the Democratic Party and their strategy. In the labour struggle, the workers targeted passivity during the crisis. It was the strategic efforts Bank of America for absorbing federal bailout funds of progressive union members straddling the worker/ rather than issuing credit to the factory owner, and the social movement divide that opened lines of communi- state for failing to defend precarious workers. cation between the Occupy movement and organised The struggle received national attention and even labour. supportive words from President Obama. It was the In New York City, the Labour Outreach Group was first stirrings of labour unrest since the crisis and had a formed for this explicit purpose, which was paralleled broad political and class focus.16 The slogans and spirit by the formation of a similar group in Chicago. And of this labour struggle constitute the pre-history of the not only did the collaboration shift public conscious- Occupy movement. ness to the left, it also produced concrete victories for The direct predecessor to the Occupy movement workers, including communication workers at Ver- also had its roots in labour struggles. Just three izon, employees of Sotheby’s auction house, and for months before the occupation of Zuccotti Park, union- the largely immigrant staff at a Manhattan bakery, ‘Hot ised teachers, homeless-rights activists, and students and Crusty’, after Occupy activists and staff together under the name ‘New Yorkers Against the Budget occupied it in protest of management’s attempts Cuts’ organised an anti-austerity encampment in New to close that particular store and shut out the union. York City against Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s austerity These examples displayed what worker centres and measures. They camped out across from City Hall and new organising strategies had been learning over the held general assemblies to make collective decisions. past decade: that labour victories can be achieved by labour-community coalitions and organising beyond ORGANISED LABOUR the workplace. And, in return, Occupy received sup- MEETS OCCUPY WALL STREET port from labour as a result of these experiences, as the With the occupation of Zuccotti Park – and hundreds AFL-CIO urged its members to defend Zuccotti Park of public squares across the country – a space opened from police eviction.18 up for the convergence of labour and the new social In California, Occupy Longview helped the militant movement. At first, Occupy only received minor support workers union, the ILWU, fight off attempts of the port from labour, which was distant from the precar- grain terminal company to exclude them from new ious students and indebted home-owners occupying contracts.19 Occupy Oakland received support from the squares. But, increasingly, connections were built the Alameda Central Labor Council, which defended that strengthened both the Occupy movement and them against police repression.20 And Occupy Oak- labour. land’s call for a general strike, while not shutting down Richard Trumka, the leader of the country’s largest labour confederation, the AFL-CIO, personally visited

Zuccotti Park and met with the members of Occupy’s 16 This factory occupation was organised by a marginal union, using new organ- Labour Outreach Group17 and, like much of organising strategies and driven by Latino workers. 17 Arun Gupta, ‘What Occupy Taught the Unions’, http://www.organizingupgrade.com/ (6 February ised labour, began broadening the AFL-CIO’s perspec- 2012). 18 Peter Rugh, ‘Will Occupy and unions reunite on the docks?’ http://social- tive beyond the defence of its members to include the istworker.org (29 January 2013). 19 Josh Eidelson, ‘How Occupy Helped Labor Win on the West Coast’, Salon (24 February 2012). 20 Bill Balderston, ‘Occupy popular, class interests of the ‘99 %’. Occupy was also Oakland and the Labor Movement’, New Politics 14/1.

12 Occupy Labor: Against precaritisation

the city, gathered union support. The day of action REVERBERATIONS: THE ‘99 % SPRING’ brought 20,000 people to shut down the Oakland port. Already before the crisis, some sections of labour had In December, Occupy Oakland organised another been trying internally to push the unions away from port shutdown, this time in coordination with west the failed strategy of issuing moderate demands, of a coast actions reaching into Canada. But the numbers service unionism model, and of an approach focused dropped to 12,000 people, due to the division between on lobbying Democratic officials. This faction sought Occupy Oakland and the major port workers union, bolder actions for labour-community collaboration, the which withdrew support from the action.21 use of civil disobedience tactics, and an expanded per- According to Barbara Epstein, Occupy Oakland’s spective in defence of popular, class interests beyond insurrectionist orientation led it to press forward with union membership. the action despite the withdrawal of union support The Occupy movement strongly boosted these on the grounds that the social movement represents developments. In April 2012, a broad coalition of a broader constituency and is opposed to the union labour, community organisations, NGOs, and inde- bureaucracy. This ‘substitutionism’ was also confirmed pendent political parties, came together to form the by others who criticised the ‘impatience to take action ‘99 % Spring’. This mobilisation brought together at the expense of patient, organic linking with the rank immigrant worker centres with environmental groups, and file’.22 industrial unions with anti-war groups, family farmers This experience left many participants seeking with victims of house foreclosures, public housing res- an Occupy-labour alliance with the feeling of being idents with youth. Participants held nearly a thousand ‘burnt’. According to Epstein, there was a deficit in popular education sessions on class stratification and strategic thinking. Whereas originally, militancy was the crisis as well as civil disobedience trainings for a coupled with outreach, later the expression of public week of actions. Across the country between 9 and 15 outrage through protests took precedence over the April, they disrupted shareholder meetings of major kind of coalition building that was required for shifting corporations that have profited from the crisis.24 power relations. The emergence of the 99 % Spring raised exist- However, the interactions between labour and ing tensions within the Occupy movement. While Occupy differed by locality. In Chicago, one of the some social movement forces welcomed the liber- most productive interactions occurred. There, labour al-left mobilisation as a possibility for expanding the and grassroots socialist movement organisers were movement and connecting it to grassroots organis- active in Occupy Chicago from the very beginning, ing, many others levelled accusations of ‘cooptation’. building bridges of trust and mutual support for each Adbusters magazine, which issued the original call to other’s protests. When the encampment was sup - ‘occupy’ Wall Street, and Counterpunch magazine, pressed by the police, the Labor Working Group began both rejected the 99 % Spring because of the partici- building alliances with unions and mobilising support pation of Move On, which has close connections to the for urban anti-austerity struggles. According to partic- Democratic Party and has been involved in the party’s ipant Susan Dirr, the group included the regular partic- electoral drive.25 ipation of a variety of union members and delegates.23 However, leftists participating in the new initiative These collective engagements enabled broad anti- pointed to the diverse participation of social justice cuts protests in the field of education, health services, organisations rooted in working-class communities public libraries, and employment contracts for public and communities of colour. These ‘represent immi- workers. grant workers and other low-wage workers, African Dirr argues that this labour-Occupy alliance pro- American communities, foreclosed homeowners and duced ‘a new generation of class-conscious, pro-labor tenants, people on welfare and public housing resi- activists […] providing the public with much needed dents’. Involvement in the 99 % Spring would ‘anchor’ images of unions fighting back for the working class’. the ‘mass public action’ of the Occupy movement But she cautioned that ‘deeper and broader rela- ‘within communities that are on the frontlines of our tionships’ need to be built with union members. She economic, political, and ecological crises’.26 pointed out that the unions are not homogenous blocs The debate over the 99 % Spring revealed a set of but rather convergences of different political tradi- related tensions within the movement. First, there was tions, and she suggests that Occupy should ‘support the relationship between its deep transformative aspi- reform caucuses and other forms of worker organisation within unions’. And while recognising the strength of civil-society and labour mobilisations, she identifies 21 Barbara Epstein, ‘Occupy Oakland: The Question of Violence’, The Question of the limitations at the political level, where the mobilisa- Strategy, Socialist Register 2013. London: Merlin. 22 Bill Balderston, ‘Occupy Oak- land and the Labor Movement’, New Politics 14/1. 23 Susan Dirr, ‘The Occupy-La- tions lacked support and, as a result, could not halt the bor Partnership in Chicago’, New Politics 14/1. 24 Mark Engler, ‘Occupy, the 99 % austerity agenda. Spring, and the New Age of Direct Action’, Yes Magazine. (23 April 2012). 25 See ‘Battle for the Soul of Occupy’, Adbusters (24 April 2012), and Counterpunch (16– 18, March 2012, 12 April 2012, and 13–15 April 2012). 26 Joshua Kahn Russell and Harmony Goldberg, ‘New Radical Alliances for a New Era: How the Left’s Talk of Co-optation Missed the Real Critical Questions that the 99 % Spring Offers Our Movements’, http://zcommunications.org (9 May 2012).

13 Occupy Labor: Against precaritisation

rations and its desire for immediate, concrete meas- the flexibilisation of labour, the expansion of charter ures to relieve people struggling in the recession. This schools, the increase of the prevalence of standard- was connected to the question of the movement’s ised testing over qualitative learning, and the closing autonomy and its relationship to other social forces. of schools in low-income, predominantly black, neigh- How would it navigate between an autonomous role, bourhoods. The strike received strong support from on the one side, where it held a leadership function in families, pupils, and the community. After a week, the mobilising an organic outpouring of counter-neolib- union won partial demands but also projected a sym- eral dissent, and a collaborative role, on the other side, bolic statement of popular opposition to privatising through which it built broad coalitions of a plural left education. Occupy Chicago’s Labor Working Group bloc with a variety of social forces? And, relatedly, how established the Labor Solidarity Campaign, linking the would it balance the need, on the one hand, to distance Occupy movement more closely with the teacher’s itself from the establishment – including sections of the strike, and broadening the appeal of the latter for the Democratic Party – while, on the other hand, simulta- general public. neously intervening in contested processes over the Two months later, in November 2012, Walmart work- realignment of the relation of forces underpinning and ers began a campaign against low-wages, precarious countering hegemony following the disruption of the conditions, and anti-union policies. The workers cen- passive societal consensus behind neoliberal crisis tre ‘OUR Walmart’, initiated by the United Food and management? Commercial Workers, headed the mobilisation, and Joshua Kahn Russell and Harmony Goldberg argued employees throughout the supply chain participated. that their participation in the 99 % Spring is aimed at The campaign began with a strike by Mexican contract ‘shift[ing] the “spectrum of allies”’ and ‘pull[ing] the workers in a seafood distribution company in Louisiana support out from under [the] opposition’. The objective against forced labour and violent threats from man- is ‘to get neutral groups to become passive allies, and agement. This sparked walkouts by warehouse work- to get passive allies to become active ones’. The aim is ers in California and Illinois, and fifty demonstrations to shift ‘different “social blocs” in our direction’27. It is a by store personnel across the country, on the busiest question of shifting the balance of forces around a dif- shopping day of the year (‘Black Friday’). The demon- ferent societal trajectory. strations were supported by Occupy groups through- Many commentators thus maintained that the 99 % out the country, and helped publicise the scandal- Spring did not represent the co-optation of Occupy ous conditions of the low-wage sector. Following the by sections of the Democratic Party, but possibly the deadly fire in a Bangladeshi textile factory producing opposite. In mobilising behind civil disobedience clothing for Walmart and other major corporate chains, actions, liberal-left forces, instead of dedicating all of the New York City ‘99 Pickets’ group, which came out their energies to campaigning for the upcoming pres- of the Occupy movement, disrupted business in Wal- idential election, reflected the impact of the Occupy mart’s Manhattan stores, contributing to the growing movement on labour, community groups, and progres- public outrage over the low-wage industry. sive advocacy groups.28 In addition, in November, fast food workers began However, while the 99 % Spring created the pos- a campaign calling for a doubling of their wages to sibility for temporary cooperation between Occupy $15, essentially igniting a movement for living wages. and other social and labour movement forces it has The walkouts began in New York City before inspiring not consolidated these links into a stable alliance that similar actions in dozens of cities, and in August 2013 might have had broad and lasting impact. Neverthe- sixty cities were involved. They have been organised by less, local connections have continued to various Fast Food Forward, which was supported by the Ser- degrees, and the diffusion of bolder actions and more vice Employees International Union, a union that was critical perspectives have helped produce a new wave behind many new organising strategies amongst low- of labour militancy. wage workers over the last decade. While the Occupy movement helped spark much of NEW WAVE OF L ABOUR STRUGGLES this energy and set the public mood, it is currently play- The collaboration of Occupy and labour heightened ing a supportive role in solidarity actions with the new workers struggles across the country and unleashed labour mobilisations and helping lay the groundwork a wave of labour unrest. In October 2012, 29,000 for a living-wage campaign that is gaining support in Chicago teachers, led by a progressive reform fac - several states as well as a broad opposition to corpo- tion in their union, went on strike against the biparti- rate education reform, which has materialised in elec- san reforms to privatise education. These involved toral victories and new community mobilisations.

27 Ibid. 28 Peter Rothberg, ‘The 99 % Spring’, The Nation (4 April 2012).

14 Occupy Debt: Towards A ‘People’s Bailout’

3. OCCUPY DEBT: TOWARDS A ‘PEOPLE’S BAILOUT’

‘They have held students hostage with tens of thou- STUDENT DEBTORS AS A NEW sands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself OPPOSITIONAL FORCE AND VOICE a human right.’ – New York City General Assembly, OF A COUNTER-NEOLIBERAL NARRATIVE ‘Declaration of the Occupation of New York City’ Since the very first days of the occupation of pub- September 29, 201129 lic squares, the ‘graduates without a future’ began The backbone of the Occupy movement has been to organise around their specific issues of concern. the ‘millennial’ generation, the first generation since In New York’s Zuccotti Park, the General Assembly World War Two to experience widespread downward included in its list of grievances the ‘hostage’ situation social mobility. The skyrocketing costs of tuition and of graduates who owe tens of thousands of dollars and living expenses have left many student and gradu- asserted that education is a human right. As in many ates of higher education with tens of thousands of dol- occupations across the country, a working group was lars of debt (many of these debts even exceeding the established, which began to address student debt in hundred-thousand mark), who following graduation particular and began formulating aims and strategies are dumped onto a job market incapable of absorbing for increasing public attention to the issue, uniting stu- them. Many are compelled to take highly precarious dents under a common perspective and mobilising for positions, many of which are far below their level of public action. training, and rely on food stamps and other state subsi- Already existing student debt reform initiatives were dies to make ends meet. also given a boost by the new energy of the Occupy Political and economic analysts have identified the movement and were modified, merged, joined, and cumulative societal effect of these individual situations reworked to increase public pressure, to accommo- as the continued stagnation of consumer markets, the date to the new movement, and to elevate these efforts redirection of income towards loan payments, the put- to the next level. ting off of the consumption of homes, automobiles, Additionally, pupils in nearly twenty states formed and other consumer products, as well as the lack of ‘Occupy High School’ groups, organised walk outs start-ups of new businesses. against school disciplinary measures and teacher pay This student crisis had already ignited mass pro- cuts, and organised ‘free school’ classes.31 And new test in the years immediately preceding Occupy Wall Occupy groups added their voices to the struggles of Street. Across California, students mounted demon- educators, parents and policy makers across the coun- strations, university occupations, and broad mobilisa- try against school privatisation and neoliberal reform, tions against cuts and tuition hikes.30 initiating ‘Occupy the Board of Education’, ‘Occupy the Many who have joined the Occupy movement Department of Education’ and an innumerable flood of lacked previous political experience and were not moti- other groups and demonstrations, adding to the nas- vated by explicit political conviction; they were moved cent counter-neoliberal mobilisation brought to a new to action by the organic dissonance they experienced level by the Occupy movement. through the broken promise of higher education to Initially, the many initiatives against student debt secure their path to upward social mobility. Occupy brought forward a broad opposition to unsustainable had initial success in politicising this gap, and thereby debt levels, to the lender industry, and to rising tuition mobilising students and graduates to challenge the costs. They used social media to replicate the success dominant narrative based on individual, job-mar - of the wearethe99percent blog,32 providing internet ket competition by publicly identifying their common platforms for exposing the heavy burden of student obstacle as being unsustainable student debt. In some loans and the predatory nature of this kind of lending. cases, Occupy went further, enabling them to name This helped sections from within the ‘99 %’ forge a spe- the structural basis of their struggles as being exorbi- cific collective identity as student debtors, overturning tant tuition costs and profit-oriented education as well the personal shame associated with their common sit- as the slumping job market and stagnant wages. The uations, and therefore challenging the dominant neo- predicament of student debtors became a main focus liberal narrative, and pointing out the political structure for much of the movement, not only as one narrative behind massive indebtedness, and the profit-making of the multiple grievances of the ‘99 %’, but also as the behind it. focus of a plethora of working groups and targeted Student debtors, progressives, and social justice campaigns to ameliorate the situation of debtors and activists began organising on campuses across the to change the overall political trajectory in the current country, forming Occupy Colleges (OC) and Occupy conjuncture.

29 NYC General Assembly, ‘Declaration of the Occupation of New York City’, http:// www.nycga.net (29 September 2011). 30 Barbara Epstein, ‚Universität in Aufruhr‘, LuXemburg 2/2009. 31 http://www.occupyhighschool.org/schools. 32 http:// wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/.

15 Occupy Debt: Towards A ‘People’s Bailout’

Student Debt (OSD). In Washington DC they targeted lic acts of dissent delegitimising student debt and sym- the main student loan agency, Sallie Mae, in October bolically rejecting the obligation to repay. 2011 at its headquarters, criticising the exorbitant levels of student loans and the financial burden of grad- THE MOVEMENT’S COMMON AND uates, gaining widespread media attention. In a pop- DIVERGING GOALS AND PERSPECTIVES ular internet campaign, they pushed the company to Not only did these debt organising initiatives help nur- cancel its ‘unemployment penalty’ fee for borrowers in ture an oppositional subjectivity amongst student forbearance.33 borrowers and indebted graduates and advance a OSD used social media to further publicise the plight counter-narrative to the neoliberal position, they also of unsustainable student loans, providing a platform produced a broad set of goals, demands and alterna- for students to broadcast messages about their per- tive programmes for overcoming the student debt cri- sonal struggles with loan burdens. Here they chal- sis and the crisis of higher education. The movement’s lenged the individualisation of debtors as victims of political pluralism did not negate the significant com- their own personal irresponsibility and presented a monality in demands, especially in the explicit calls for counter-narrative, identifying the debt-based structure debt cancellation or alleviation. There was great varia- of higher education. tion in the intensity and depth of such calls, as well as in In spring 2012, with ‘Occupy Graduation’, these the different kinds of framing the groups used to lend groups demonstrated the society’s increased recep- the demands popular legitimacy. And the plurality was tiveness to the further diffusion of critical positions also present in the strategic approaches advanced by along the fissures of the crisis-ridden neoliberal com- the different groups. promise. Supported by the mass liberal organisation Move On and funded by Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream, Debt Relief they mobilised students across the country to ‘occupy’ The common emphasis of many of the groups, initia- college graduation ceremonies, by attaching signs to tives, and activities centring on student debt has been their caps and gowns, displaying their individual debt the call for debt cancellation or alleviation. But both burdens, some of them also attaching a ball and chain the extent and form of cancellation has differed. The to their ankles to symbolise debt bondage. direct-action-focused Occupy Student Debt Cam- It was clear that the taboo on student indebtedness paign – and later its successor organisation, Strike was being broken. This theatrical intervention disrupted Debt! – called for broad cancellation of consumer debt the myth of the successful, competitive individual on in a ‘jubilee’, to ‘wipe the slate clean’, thereby imme- the labour market by reminding themselves and others diately relieving borrowers of heavy debt burdens. In of the common barrier they all faced in high levels of stu- their ‘principles’, the OSDC calls for ‘Student debt [to dent debt. The broad, positive media coverage showed be] written off in the spirit of jubilee ... where the injus- that the movement was tapping into a widespread anx- tice of an unpayable debt is redeemed through a single, iety about the ongoing crisis and recession and taking a corrective act’ as ‘the only just response to this crisis’.34 symbolic step in the direction of developing an alterna- Other actors, organised with Occupy Student Debt tive perspective. It made possible increased public cri- and Occupy Colleges, also call for debt cancellation tique of tuition costs amongst public intellectuals and for student borrowers as a central demand. But rather rallied support behind bold debt relief efforts. than a ‘jubilee’ they advocate partial cancellation Occupy also raised public awareness about the stu- through the reduction of principals and the lowering dent debt crisis and increased political pressure for of monthly payments based on income. They also call debt relief with the cross-country demonstrations on for the overturning of restrictions on student debtors April 25, 2012, with ‘1TDay’ demonstrations, marking prohibiting them from declaring bankruptcy. OSD/OC the day student debt was to exceed 1 trillion dollars. also advocate the expansion of state programmes ena- This action was organised by the New York City-based bling borrowers to reduce their principals through their Occupy Student Debt Campaign (OSDC) – not to be employment in specific public services and call for sim- confused with the OSD project (more below) – which ilar programmes for borrowers whose debts are owned emerged out of a working group in Zuccotti Park. The by private lenders. demonstration was endorsed by a dozen progressive organisations and inspired ‘solidarity actions’ in twenty Lowering Tuition Costs cities across the country. Rallies also included the Both groups of the movement call for action on exor- public burning of debt statements by students, in an bitant and growing levels of college and university tui- effort to create a new symbolic image of debt refusal, tion fees. Here, however, the divergence has been very recalling the burning of draft cards amongst students strong. While OSDC calls for free public higher educa- against the Vietnam war. tion as the ‘single, largest step to alleviate future student In contrast to strategies that centre around debt relief as a wise policy reform to exit the current crisis, these efforts nurtured a cultural mood of resistance towards 33 ‘Online Campaign Prompts Sallie Mae to Change Fee Policy for Loan Suspen- sions’, New York Times (2 February 2012). 34 Occupy Student Debt Campaign, ‘debt servitude’ amongst the indebted. It fostered pub- ‘Our Principles’, http://www.occupystudentdebtcampaign.org/our-principles/.

16 Occupy Debt: Towards A ‘People’s Bailout’

loan debt,’35 the OSD/OC rejects this position as too focused on building a debtors’ movement with the aim maximalist, calling instead for a freeze on tuition hikes.36 of organising a massive debt strike to disrupt the processes of finance-dominated capitalism through the Reducing Interest Rates direct refusal of payment. Here the tensions between Linking the radical call for free public higher education different forms of engagement have not been con- to immediate demands, the OSDC also calls for zero-in- structively addressed. Instead, positions have been terest student loans that would counter the ‘extortion- taken exclusively supporting either one approach ate rates and extract[ion] [of] lavish profits’ in the stu- or the other. This has created a polarisation between dent aid industry. OSD/OC also calls for cuts in interest strategies situated on the terrain of the state and those rates, but not to zero. Instead they call on congress located at a distance from it (Poulantzas), and this rep- to prevent Republican efforts to allow rates to double licates a false dichotomy between struggles in the from 3.4 to 6.8 percent. state and those in the streets, and the historical tension between reform and revolution. In what follows Regulating the Lending Industry I will attempt to show the strengths and weaknesses Common positions also exist in regards to the student of both of these tendencies, and show how each has loan industry. The OSDC calls for financial transparency been limited by its refusals to engage the other strate- in the private universities to allow students to know gic approach in a constructive way. where funds are being spent. OSD/OC seeks increased regulation, by cutting direct ties between lenders and CONGRESSIONAL REFORM universities, which together have raised tuition costs, OSD was formed by a handful of student loan reform borrowing amounts, and student debt levels. advocates, including Robert Applebaum of the ‘For- This overlap and divergence of demands is paral- give Student Loan Debt’ organisation, Kyle McCarthy leled by a similar pattern with regard to how the groups of the non-profit ‘Studentdebtcrisis.org’, Stef Gray frame their projects and thereby seek public legitimacy. who pressured Sallie Mae to eliminate unemployment There is a tension running through the movement, fees, and the filmmakers of ‘Default: The Student Loan between the advocacy of an alternative economic Documentary’. They have advocated a variety of goals recovery and calls for an abrupt rupture. Unfortunately, in ‘ending the student debt crisis’, including the expan- until now these have tended to become polarised into sion of employment opportunities, job programmes for the false dichotomy between reform and revolution, a living wages, congressional action on reducing princi- trap which has historically plagued the left and persists pal balances and interest rates, and supporting the Stu- in today’s Occupy movement. dent Debt Forgiveness Act.37 The OSD/OC articulates its programme in terms of OSD merged with Occupy Colleges, which shared an alternative economic recovery in which consumer similar aims of ‘advocat[ing] on behalf of students debt relief would allow for debt payments to be redi- and educat[ing] as many people as possible about the rected into consumption. They draw on the imagery growing crisis of student debt’. Together, the groups of the ‘American Dream’ and support its restoration, are ‘fighting for quality, affordable and accessible by stressing the individual aspirations of debtors to education for all students who want to obtain a col- become home-owners, business owners, and to be lege degree’.38 Occupy Colleges organised ten direct financially solvent, in order to start families. actions, protests, and teach-ins on student debt, and The OSDC also praises aspects of the Fordist wel- participated in ‘Occupy Graduation’. fare system, referring to the GI Bill positively as a fed- OSD rallied behind the White House petition ‘For- erally funded programme for mass higher education give Student Loan Debt to Stimulate the Economy and and framing their call for debt cancellation as a form Usher in a New Era of Innovation, Entrepreneurship of ‘abolition’. Here they are referring to the abolition of and Prosperity’.39 Popular support and mainstream chattel slavery. However, rather than a restorative focus media attention forced an official response from the to alter the system, they focus on the ‘injustice’ of ‘debt White House, which moved up its plans for an income servitude’. They frame education as a right, not a com- based repayment policy that lowers monthly payments modity, and declare that as long as people are reliant on and cancels outstanding principals on loans after employment requiring higher education degrees, they twenty straight years of consistent repayment by the should not be forced into ‘indenture’. They seek debt borrower.40 ‘abolition’ as part of a rupture with a debt system that is one of the main components of neoliberal, finance- based accumulation. 35 Ibid. 36 Kyle McCarthy and Natalia Abrams, A Solidarity Statement from Occupy Colleges and Occupy Student Debt, http://occupystudentdebt.com/post/ 26432746703/a-solidarity-statement-from-occupy-colleges-and-occu- DIVERGING STRATEGIES py#notes. 37 Occupy Student Debt, ‘Goals for Ending the Student Debt Crisis’, There are, however, important differences on strat - http://occupystudentdebt.com/goals. 38 Natalia Abrams, ‘Occupy Colleges and Occupy Student Debt Join Forces’, The Nation (9 July 2012). 39 ‘Forgive Student egy within the movement between a state-interven- Loan Debt to Stimulate the Economy and Usher in a New Era of Innovation, Entre- tionist approach that focuses on congressional reform preneurship and Prosperity’, https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/forgive-student-loan-debt-stimulate-economy-and-usher-new-era-innovation-entrepreneur- through lobbying and petitioning efforts and one ship-and/jHfPW9c9 (23 September 2011).

17 Occupy Debt: Towards A ‘People’s Bailout’

The reform was miles away from the one being advo- This, however, is not to endorse the position of the cated, but the movement’s impact on political debates OSDC, which wholly rejects the terrain of the state as a could not be ignored. While admitting the enormous political site of struggles. Such reform initiatives could gap between the content of the reform and what OSD indicate growing societal support for a turn away from advocated, the group nonetheless regarded the devel- orthodox neoliberal discipline. They could be linked to opment as a sign of the movement’s power to have other more thoroughgoing calls for a new New Deal, or impact on public debates and an opening for poten- even a programme that goes far beyond it. But this will tially more significant reforms. It provided impetus not happen automatically. The reforms are not neces- for increased public pressure and the construction of sarily stepping stones. broad coalitions for more fundamental reforms. The OSDC maintained the position of a radical oppo- The presence of debt relief bills on the floor of con - sition, highlighting student debt as a form of profit for gress is a ‘stepping stone’ towards something larger.41 a well-developed industry, and class conflict between This conclusion led the OSD/OC to direct growing public lenders and debtors. They feared that moderate debt support for debt relief and increasing student organising relief efforts are too susceptible of being incorporated towards more substantive state initiatives for debt relief. into a process of passive revolution, in which alternative proposals for social relief are used to merely help A STUDENT DEBTOR’S MOVEMENT capital overcome its own barriers to expanded repro- AND THE DEBT STRIKE duction. They wanted to avoid the incorporation of In addition to OSD and Occupy Colleges, a working potentially oppositional forces into the dominant bloc’s group associated with the New York General Assembly own hegemonic project whose potential reforms began organising for the formation of an independent would provide little social or material benefit for those debtors’ movement calling itself the Occupy Student affected. Debt Campaign (OSDC). The actual trajectory of these efforts is determined by struggles over the balance of power, and the wing advo- Critique of Congressional Reform cating an autonomous debtors’ movement did point The OSDC did not see the White House’s response to to the overwhelming balance against thorough-going the debt relief petition and the congressional debt relief reforms. However, while the OSDC points out the lim- bill as a success and confirmation of the movement’s itations of these reform initiatives, their own approach power to affect the political terrain. Instead, they does not solve the problem, but only inverts it. rejected these as merely ‘micro-cosmetic’ changes Where congressional reform efforts have treated and as ‘token gestures’ by the Democratic Party to congress too simplistically as an open political arena maintain support from its student base.42 Additionally, for collective problem solving and for the advancement they argue that the role of ‘money in politics’ prevents of the common good, the OSDC reduces the political progress on the policy front. The power of finance cap- to a completely closed space entirely dominated by ital prevents congress from being led in a different the dictates of capital and the distinctively neoliberal direction, they argue: ‘[Elected officials] are chroni- accumulation regime, without contradiction. The OSD/ cally dependent on the financial backing of the lending OC too easily accommodate themselves to lobbying, industry and are structurally incapable of addressing seeking new policies that both ameliorate the situation this crisis, let alone resolving it.’ of student debtors and initiate an economic recovery, Progressive reform advocates countered that the while OSDC points to the unequal power relations pre- admittedly moderate reform efforts are part of a pro- venting such a new compromise. gramme for more fundamental change and that max- However, the OSDC’s recognition of the persistence imalist positions are unrealistic. Kyle McCarthy and of neoliberal power turns into an alibi for ignoring the Natalia Abrams wrote: ‘We will never see debt forgiven instabilities of neoliberal hegemony, contradictions in one large bill, and how can we even ask for free edu- within the state and societal configuration, and the cation when tuition prices keep rising – how about we potential openings towards alternative exit strategies start with a tuition hike freeze before we ask for all edu- that could benefit the subaltern. It becomes clear that cation to be free?’43 while the one reduces the social movement to a mere However, they have not placed their policy proposals source for supporting progressive policy intervention within a broader progressive reform agenda, nor have in the state, the other rejects state intervention by col- they explained the connection between immediate aims and long-term objectives. It is unclear how they 40 The White House, ‘We Can’t Wait: Obama Administration to Lower Student intend to avoid the slide towards a social democratic Loan Payments for Millions of Borrowers’, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press- incrementalism. The movement’s focus on class polar- office/2011/10/25/we-cant-wait-obama-administration-lower-student-loan-payments-millions-b (25 October 2011). 41 Kyle McCarthy and Natalia Abrams, ‘A isation and the profits made by the lender industry is Solidarity Statement from Occupy Colleges and Occupy Student Debt’, 3 July 2012, rather marginal in their project, giving the impression http://occupystudentdebt.com. 42 Occupy Student Debt Campaign, ‘A Statement From The Occupy Student Debt Campaign’, http://www.occupystudentdebtcam- that progressive reforms could proceed without caus- paign.org/click-to-read-our-statement-on-student-debt-reform-initiatives/. 43 Kyle ing tension with the capitalist mode of production and McCarthy and Natalia Abrams, ‘A Solidarity Statement from Occupy Colleges and Occupy Student Debt’, http://occupystudentdebt.com/post/26432746703 its current neoliberal form. /a-solidarity-statement-from-occupy-colleges-and-occupy#notes.

18 Occupy Debt: Towards A ‘People’s Bailout’

lapsing the political into ‘civil society’ and heroising the of support’.46 Kyle McCarthy and Natalia Abrams, in self-empowerment of civil society. their ‘Solidarity Statement from Occupy Colleges and Occupy Student Debt’ also rejected a debtors’ strike as The Debt Strike a ‘great disservice’ to those individual defaulters who The OSDC correctly observed that meaningful stu- would suffer the financial consequences. dent debt relief would not come from ‘futile pleas [to The proposal for a ‘voluntary default’ was unan- congress] for economic reform’, but rather ‘through a imously rejected by more than fifty Occupy Colleges political movement’.44 It is indeed true that the balance groups.47 However, despite differences in strategy of power would have to be shifted in order to make and approach they argued that groups with different even moderate shifts away from neoliberal orthodoxy approaches should still express public support for each and that, in the absence of this shift, current policy pro- other’s initiatives and collaborate in common efforts posals are simply voted down and drowned out by the where possible. dominant neoliberal positions. However, to OSD/OC’s The critique pointed out serious deficiencies in tendency to reduce their strategy to the congressional OSDC’s plans. The advocates did not have a sufficient sphere OSDC opposes the mirror opposite, reducing answer to the legitimate concerns about going into the strategy of such a political movement to ‘self-em- default. Their response was to praise public expres- powerment and direct action on the part of debtors’, sions of mass discontent and to loosely link this to rejecting any intervention on the political terrain. This is social change, without making any clear connections. what they did in their call for a debt strike. They wrote: ‘Rather than suffering the consequences On the one hand, OSC/OC see the key aim of the in personal isolation and without recourse, this initia- movement in its exertion of pressure on political repre- tive gives debtors a way to publicly express their pre- sentatives from the outside, while those advocating for dicament, and to collectively contest the outcome.’ a debtors’ movement narrow the movement’s focus Absent a strategy of collective defence, OSDC dis- to the immediate exertion of direct economic power. solved real and legitimate concerns over the risks of Through collective refusal of debt payments they have default into heroic mythology about a radical rupture. sought to draw public attention and increase political But while a massive default on that scale might make a pressure for solving the student debt crisis in favour of strong symbolic statement, it is completely unclear as debtors. to how it would produce a beneficial outcome for the The OSDC attempted to gather 1 million people to defaulters. The identification of immanent sources of sign the ‘Student Debtors’ Pledge of Refusal’, in which power amongst debtors, located within the structure signatories promised to ‘stop making student loan pay- of financialisation, could not disguise the hollowness ments after one million have signed this pledge’.45 In of the debt strike strategy. contrast to the passive and individualised position of Only later did some participants recognise this defi- debtors as people suffering from indebtedness, the ciency and emphasise the need for ‘alternative econ- campaign sought to find agency in the situation of omies’ or ‘safety nets’ of support. Pam, a member of indebtedness, through the disruption of the payment OSDC, said, ‘I think that the greatest challenge for us flows that represent the lenders’ profits. Here they tried is to figure out how to build an infrastructure where we to uncover latent sources of power that had been over- could actually sustain each other if we did have true looked and claimed that the collective refusal of pay- economic resistance to the system’.48 But this came ment would have a public and political impact. too late and fell too short of the challenge. In contrast to congressional action, they focused No matter how desperate student borrowers may be, on sources of potential agency immanent in the pro- they will not jump into the abyss simply because they cesses of finance-dominated capitalism to overcome are doing it together with others. The group focused on the fragmentation they experienced as individual debt- changing people’s mindsets about debt, opposing the ors, and pointed to the possibility of leveraging class dominant moral conception of the personal responsi- power beyond the political realm bility to repay loans and of personal, competitive strat- However, while seeking forms of collective power egies for getting ahead. But this focus on the moral from below and from within financialisation itself was aspects of individualisation and personal everyday sur- certainly indispensable, the campaign was plagued vival strategies ignored the critical, material underpin- with problems. ning of individualisation, which is in the form of legal

Shortcomings of the Debt Strike 44 The Occupy Student Debt Campaign, ‘A Statement from the Occupy Student OSD/OC immediately rejected the call for a debt strike. Debt Campaign’, http://www.occupystudentdebtcampaign.org/click-to-read-our- In a public statement, Robert Applebaum of OSD statement-on-student-debt-reform-initiatives/. 45 The Occupy Student Debt Cam- paign, ‘The Student Debtors’ Pledge of Refusal’, http://www.occupystudentdebt- pointed out that the campaign did not protect partici- campaign.org/pledge-archive/. 46 Robert Applebaum, ‘Don’t Be A Dupe! DO NOT pants from default and the heavy financial burdens this Pledge to Voluntarily Default on your Student Loans’, http://www.forgivestudent- loandebt.com/ (27 November 2011). 47 Kyle McCarthy and Natalia Abrams, ‘A brings upon them. He accused OSDC of being a ‘can- Solidarity Statement from Occupy Colleges and Occupy Student Debt’, http://occu- cer in the movement’ with ‘no public good will in stock, pystudentdebt.com (3 July 2012). 48 ‘Rebecca Burns interviews Strike Debt!, “Charity or Mutual Aid?: A Conversation with Organizers of the ‘Rolling Jubilee’”’, no “political capital” to expend and no meaningful base In these Times (15 November 2012).

19 Occupy Debt: Towards A ‘People’s Bailout’

institutions through which individual people are bound STRATEGIC BLOCKAGE to honour contracts that they had no choice but to sign In many ways, Occupy’s anti-debt campaigns in their names. remained blocked by the left’s historical dichotomy These central flaws of the campaign were not lost on of ‘reform or revolution’ and incapable of developing those the OSDC sought to mobilise. The project suf- what Rosa Luxemburg called a ‘revolutionary realpo- fered an unequivocal collapse. After garnering a mere litik’. Rather than treating extra-parliamentary action two thousand pledges, the campaign was terminated, and state intervention as potentially complementary and the OSDC was fused into the new organisation practices of an integral strategy of social transforma- Strike Debt! (see below). tion, these became conflicting and exclusive modes of As Doug Henwood wrote about similar tendencies operation of contending groups. Both advocates and within Strike Debt!: ‘If you’re jonesing for systemic col- opponents of the debt strike denied its function as a lapse in the hope of building something better out of ‘repertoire of contention’ (Tilly) or as an instrument of the rubble, then be honest about it. But don’t expect to collective action for targeted objectives. Neither group get much support for the agenda.’49 considered it a tool for the defence of collective interests or for the exertion of subaltern power directed to Collective power of debtors? strategic goals. For the OSDC, it was an expressive act Does this mean that a debtors movement is impossi- of discontent, which as a mass outbreak of deviance ble and that they have no power? Are they confined to was mysteriously to transform mass default into mass street protests and congressional lobbying? debt relief. Their opponents’ dismissal of the debt strike While OSD/OC correctly criticised the debt strike’s went beyond a rejection of its faulty conceptualisation, major flaws – that it did not protect those taking which ignored the negative material repercussions for action – their critique also revealed their own limited the actual ‘strikers’ (i.e., default); they simply rejected view of social power. In rejecting the debt strike, they the role of collective refusal as a tool of political sig- also rejected the possibility of a debtors’ movement nificance. And this despite their desperate need to and the use of collective disruptive action. increase public pressure if even their most moderate As Bryan and Rafferty point out, student loan pay- reform initiatives were going to succeed. ments provide the ‘income streams’ for global inves- Thus instead of working out a constructive and tors,50 which suggests the potential power of organ- dynamic interplay between civil society and political ised labour as debt resisters. They point out that there struggles the two were separated within a static divi- is a ‘parallel’ between potential debt resistance and sion of labour, preventing both from advancing beyond labour resistance. Collective refusal of debtors to make their own limitations. Rather than building an autono- loan payments is not dissimilar to the collective refusal mous debtors’ movement while also making alliances of workers to provide their labour power. The labour with diverse progressive and left forces, an unneces- strike was developed as a form of collective action that sary wall was built between them. As a result, the hope directly disrupted the process of production and accu- that Occupy might become an important factor in con- mulation, hence nurturing the nascent power of labour- tributing to the resolution or at least amelioration of the ers in the production process, towards political ends. student debt crisis became a fantasy. However, the labour movement and organising The tendency of OSDC to formulate a debt strike as efforts such as tenant unions, structures to defend col- an expressive revolutionary act of will, disconnected lective interests and thereby foster collective action, from strategic goals, helped affirm the narrow lob- provide historical examples of collective protection, bying focus of the OSD/OC and its restricted policy but the OSDC did not connect collective action to pro- objectives. This drove a wedge between a deficiently tection. With thoroughgoing utopianism, OSDC cel- designed extra-parliamentary strategy and a limited ebrated the millions of defaulters as an already exist- policy effort. The anti-debt struggles remained caught ing ‘debt strike’, as a wildcat strike, therefore glossing in the division between revolutionary posturing and over the material suffering that defaulters actually face incrementalist reform. and ignoring the real needs people have for taking bold To move forward, a dynamic interplay between action.51 struggles in the state and those at a distance from it In an article supporting the development of a debt- needs to be developed. Here the potential power of ors movement, Francis Fox Piven also draws the his- debtors through collective acts of refusal in the form torical comparison between different expressions of of a debt strike might be retained but reformulated. disruptive power, for example in the form of labour Just as unions were developed to provide workers’ or rent strikes, and feels that the movement is in fact with forms of autonomous organisation for general struggling to find ways of defending itself collectively protection in situations of risky collective action, sim- from repercussions. But it was precisely this that was totally neglected by the OSDC, thereby inhibiting the 49 Doug Henwood, ‘The Problem with (Strike) Debt’, Jacobin (14 November mass mobilisation of participants needed to carry out 2012). 50 Dick Bryan and Michael Rafferty, ‘Deriving Capital’s (and Labour’s) the action and therefore resulting in the collapse of the Future’, in Leo Panitch, Greg Albo and Vivek Chibber (eds.), The Crisis This Time. Socialist Register 2011: 215–117. 51 Francis Fox Piven, ‘Occupy’s Protest is not campaign. Over. It has barely begun’, The Guardian (17 September 2012).

20 Occupy Debt: Towards A ‘People’s Bailout’

ilar organisations might help a debtors movement get This would also involve transcending the false dichot- off the ground by materially supporting their steps omy between struggles within the state and those at towards collective acts of refusal. But such sturdier a distance from it. The OSDC’s basic supposition of structures as forms of democratic self-organisation, the latent power of debtors to use collective action to which could also retain the movement’s emphasis on disrupt the flows of profit in the processes of finan- horizontal and direct participation, would go beyond cialisation needs to be connected to forms of collec- the loose network structures that the Occupy move- tive defence, the precedents being labour and ten- ment has until now been comfortable enough to build. ants unions. But instead of imagining a direct and However, it is not only Occupy’s organisational reluc- immediate rupture with debt-based higher educa- tance that would have to be renegotiated. It would tion, this power would have to be connected to a stra- also have to explore how a relationship between direct tegic approach to political change and an alternative action and political reform may contribute to a pro- policy agenda that is possible in the current conjunc- ject of societal transformation, which then addresses ture. The OSDC is correct that the latter will not come the relationship between struggles in civil society and from merely petitioning congress but has to involve the those within the state. Here an autonomous debtors’ shifting of power relations, with new sources of mobili- movement, which has developed structures of support sation and forms of asserting pressure from below. This and solidarity amongst debtors (and beyond), would could be the beginning of a re-articulation of strategies have to break with the illusion of a general strike that beyond the stalemate of the dichotomised trajectories, breaks the power of capital in one blow, in analogy to the need for which is being voiced by many, in advanc- OSDC’s belief that one million acts of refusal would ing an approach beyond either the ‘reform’ or ‘revo- bring about debt cancellation. lution’ strategies and towards one of societal transfor- Taking up a revolutionary realpolitik (Luxemburg), mation. it would have to act, as Mario Candeias puts it, ‘with This is not to obscure the real barriers to strategies on awareness of the societal power relations, but with the the terrain of the state but rather to seek to clarify them aim of shifting them’.52 Such a strategy would have to and to identify potential openings for concrete policy “base itself in the real conditions and contradictions reforms and structural transformations. Nor would within which every person must operate and the con- this imply the downplaying of the significance of social cerns and everyday interests of individuals’. It would movements, which lose nothing of their importance however, try to draw on ‘particular interests and pas- in pushing from the outside and in establishing new sions’ yet ‘re-articulate and generalise them … so that forms of democratic organisation for the restructuring the immediate interests of the various subaltern groups of societal power relations towards self-determination may transcend, and become universal to, the inter- from below. ests of other groups and class fractions’. This type of re-articulation was attempted by the OSDC’s succes- STRIKE DEBT! AND sor group ‘Strike Debt!’ (see below), which sought to THE ‘ROLLING JUBILEE’ link student debtors with mortgage debtors, and those In June 2012, the student debt organisers came burdened with medical debt to those paying exorbitant together to initiate a new campaign, ‘Strike Debt!’, payday loan fees. The aim was to interconnect the het- broadening their focus to a wide variety of consumer erogeneous components of the 99 % under the slogan debt that would connect student-loan debt to debt ‘debt is the tie that binds the 99 %’, without, however, accrued through medical bills, mortgages, credit card overlooking the significant distinctions in social and usage, and pay day loans, which are especially harmful class position. to low-income people. Here they re-centred the move- The focus on revolutionary realpolitik aims to break ment’s narrative around debt as ‘the tie that binds the down the false and unproductive antagonism between 99 %’. On the symbolic level, they sought to build sol- reform and revolution, without surrendering to a ‘diver- idarity across the distinctive experiences of indebted- sity of tactics’ approach that is loose and non-strate- ness, telling borrowers: ‘You are not a loan.’ gic. It is an attempt to build an integral strategy to build power, to concretely improve people’s lives, and to THE ‘ROLLING JUBILEE’: A ‘BAILOUT bring about social transformation. OF THE PEOPLE BY THE PEOPLE’ Therefore, a disruptive and self-organised debtors’ Strike Debt! gained popular media attention with its movement could be connected to strategic and achiev- ‘Rolling Jubilee’, billed as a ‘bailout of the people by able goals, the shifting of societal power relations, and the people’. The plan is to purchase consumer debt on the winning of symbolic victories that gather popular the secondary debt market and instead of collecting it – support, and at the same time to thoroughgoing trans- as collection agencies do – to ‘abolish’ it, by voiding formations. Congressional reform initiatives require a the contract and thereby relieving borrowers of their shift in the balance of forces to win more substantial reforms, and an organised debtors movement might employ symbolic and concrete action to build coun- 52 Mario Candeias, ‘Passive Revolutionen vs. Sozialistische Transformation’, RLS Papers (April 2010): 19 http://www.rosalux.de/fileadmin/rls_uploads/pdfs/rls_ ter-power. papers/rls-paper-Candeias_2010.pdf.

21 Occupy Debt: Towards A ‘People’s Bailout’

responsibility to repay it. The secondary debt markets jects by pointing to their location within processes of allow banks and other lenders to off-load and write off neoliberalisation, in which the state outsources the defaulted loans, regarded as ‘toxic assets’ and unlikely general tasks and responsibilities of public provision- to be repaid by the borrowers. Available for purchase at ing and social welfare and transfers it to civil society, discounted rates, these products are often purchased where voluntary and professionalised protagonists by debt collectors who pick them up with the aim of pick up the slack. compelling borrowers to pay them back. In fact, at least one self-described ‘neoliberal’ praised According to the group, this project accomplishes the Rolling Jubilee precisely for its self-confinement to several goals. private initiative and its refusal to call for state interven- First, it practices an explicit form of mutual aid, reliev- tion. Writing in Forbes magazine, the author said that ing people of heavy financial burdens and psycholog- as long as these mutual aid projects mobilise resources ical stress. Second, it publicises the scandal of the from private individuals donated on a voluntary basis commodification of basic necessities, including med- and refrain from calling for state action, government ical care and housing. Third, it combats the social frag- funding, tax reform or other regulatory measures to mentation of debtors and the moralisation of personal challenge the financial expectations of creditors to indebtedness, revealing the structure behind it. And, relieve borrowers of their debt obligations, this project fourth, the ‘Rolling Jubilee’ might be able to build pop- does not threaten neoliberalism. ular support for massive consumer debt cancellation. In fact, the mobilisation of private initiative in solving Since November 2012, the group has raised over societal crises, rather than calling for state intervention $600,000 dollars, which according to the group’s esti- in an expanded social safety net or in the alleviation of mates, will be enough to cancel $12 million of con- class polarisation, is compatible with conservative val- sumer debt.53 So far, $15,000 has been used to cancel ues of voluntary association. This is because as long as $1.2 million of medical debt, absolving over 1,200 peo- the ‘people’s bailout’ remains the sole responsibility of ple of their financial burdens.54 The mainstream press ‘the people’ as private individuals engaged in voluntary has praised the Rolling Jubilee as a concrete initiative activity, without state involvement, without coercion alleviating people’s immediate suffering, hence restor- to push the ‘1 %’ into compromising any of its mate- ing Occupy’s status as a progressive movement for the rial power, without the reappropriation of accumulated ‘99 %’. wealth, the project presents no threat to the status quo. However, the project has also received sharp criti- On the contrary, it affirms it by showing how societal cism from within the movement itself. The objections problems can be ‘solved’ by private initiative rather are multiple: Some accuse it of being a form of char- than by state involvement.55 And in fact, the author ity rather than of political opposition; others point out cites the ‘big society’ programmes in the U.K. to out- that it only makes a tiny dent in the enormous amount source state responsibilities to the civil society sector of consumer debt; many argue that without restruc- and sees the Rolling Jubilee in this light. turing education, healthcare, housing, and other sys- This brings into focus the glaring limitations of a tems, and without halting privatisation, a ‘jubilee’ will strategy limited to the terrain of civil society. It shows not stop personal debt from re-accruing; and still oth- how efforts which possess clear oppositional aspects – ers accuse the bailout of simply restoring the capitalist such as solidarity and mutual aid against social ato- status quo by eliminating ‘toxic assets’ in the financial misation and individualisation, the exposure of the markets. scandal of for-profit public provisioning, and the popularisation of support for debt relief – can nonetheless Struggles on a Neoliberal Terrain function as parts of other, contending processes that The debate around the Rolling Jubilee is polarised are directly opposed to the intended aims of the partici- into two equally unsatisfactory positions. The first is pants. This is because the Rolling Jubilee plays not only an uncritical affirmative position expressed by partici- a functional role in giving individuals relief from their pants and supporters of Strike Debt! These claim that particular crises, but by doing so within the bounds self-organised projects of mutual aid, located at a dis- of voluntary cooperation, it is also a function of neo- tance from the state (Poulantzas), which challenge liberal crisis management strategies that relieve public social fragmentation and build horizontal bonds of sol- authorities from the responsibility of protecting people idarity that ‘prefigure’ a post-capitalist society, are the from the crisis – a refusal to call on the state to put its basic elements of the ‘new society in the shell of the resources at the disposal of a ‘people’s bailout’. old’. These simply need to expand in a turf war to over- throw capitalism. With the Rolling Jubilee’s ‘bailout for the people, by the people’, the movement’s financial resources are put to use in the processes of financialisation, to enable a collective societal withdrawal from indebtedness. 53 http://rollingjubilee.org/ [9 June 2013]. 54 http://rollingjubilee.org/assets/docs/ The second, and opposing, position challenges the debt-buy-agreement_01.pdf and http://rollingjubilee.org/assets/docs/debt-buy- agreement_02.pdf. 55 Forbes, ‘Finally, An Occupy Wall Street Idea We Can All Get apparent counter-hegemonic features of these pro- Behind, The Rolling Jubilee’, http://www.forbes.com (10 November 2012).

22 Occupy Debt: Towards A ‘People’s Bailout’

TOWARDS DEBT CANCELLATION egy situated simultaneously on the terrains of civil soci- AS A COUNTER-HEGEMONIC STRATEGY ety and the state, could open new trajectories. The ongoing crisis of capital over-accumulation Debt cancellation for ‘the 99 %’ requires a strategy means that exiting from the current crisis will involve that can shift the financial losses onto those who will the destruction of capital or, in other words, debt cannot welcome them voluntarily. And this creation of a cellation. The question is whose capital or debt will commons involves coercion and the enclosure of be destroyed, and in what form (Demirovic). How- external resources to satisfy needs not met by rela- ever, Occupy’s struggles for debt cancellation have tively small projects of mutual aid and voluntary coop- reached their limits. And this is true for the congres- eration.56 And the terrain of this re-appropriation can- sional reform efforts, the direct action wing, and the not be limited to either the state or civil society. limited range of the self-bailout initiative of Strike While the movement has reached its limits, the cri- Debt! The ongoing crisis means a situation where sis continues. Not only do the potential sites continue there are permanent opportunities for intervention. to exist in which the Occupy movement can intervene But as long as the strategies of state intervention, and thereby return as a voice and force for the interests direct action, and mutual aid remain separate from of the ‘99 %’; alternatives to neoliberal exit strategies, one another, they will not be able to overcome their and those based around debt cancellation, repeatedly own limitations. The initiatives will have only a mar- return to the political agenda. That is to say, the polit- ginal impact. ical opportunity structure remains conducive to the Congressional reform efforts have hit a wall. Not only renewal of an oppositional movement. And some of do they lack the necessary support in government; the foundations for a counter-hegemonic project have they have rejected extra-parliamentary strategies that been developed. But to go beyond the current limita- might raise the level of pressure. In outrightly reject- tions will require a thorough re-articulation of its strat- ing the (faultily formulated) debt strike, they neglected egies and the mobilisation of the movement’s forces potential forms of collective action that might have behind them. shifted the balance of powers in their favour. To move forward, the movement will have to find a The attempt to build a debtors’ movement and way to relate the emancipatory aspects of voluntary organise a debt strike has also reached its limits. First, cooperation amongst the 99 % to the necessary and the debt strike’s faulty formulation – failing to connect unwelcome expropriation of concentrated wealth. collective refusal with collective protection, its all-or- There are no simple answers. This cannot mean a sim- nothing aims – produced only minimal support. As a ple switch from the terrain of civil society to that of the result, they shifted away from the possibility of assert- state but rather an engagement on both terrains at the ing direct pressure on lenders and thereby negotiating same time. The movement will have to go beyond its reductions in debt burdens. And it moved away from currently dominant conception of civil society as coun- confrontational action towards mutual cooperation in a ter-neoliberal space, without falling into the inverse self-bailout. The all-or-nothing strategy is rearticulated position of the old left, whose state-centralism saw so that the mass debt strike aimed at a sudden societal nationalisation as the necessary first step towards an rupture is now replaced by a strategy of frictionless col- alleviation of class stratification. lective escape from the capitalist system. The popularisation of a ‘people’s bailout’ is a way for- But the Rolling Jubilee has also reached its limits. ward, placing, in general terms, people’s basic needs No matter how creatively Strike Debt! uses the finan- over those of capital. Hence, debt relief for the ‘99 %’ cial system, the consumer debt crisis is so massive that at the expense of the ‘1 %’. But there has to be a strat- a ‘people’s bailout’ cannot be achieved with the lim- egy advanced on both terrains at the same time, simul- ited resources generated from the voluntary financial taneously avoiding civil society reductionism and contributions of private individuals. Both strategies – of state reductionism, and finding a productive relation direct massive coercion of lenders and direct massive between the two, which could shift the trajectory away escape from them – have failed. from the needs of capital accumulation. This would This, however, does not have to be the end. Instead, require intervening in existing societal and political a re-articulation of a ‘people’s bailout’, strategically conflicts. This is no simple feat. But it is one with which employing the tactics of direct action, mutual aid and all the global movements since late 2010 need to come solidarity, and congressional reform, to develop a strat- to terms.

56 David Harvey observes that the expansion or reclamation of the commons is simultaneously a process of enclosure, thus putting the spotlight on the dialectic between cooperation and coercion. See David Harvey, Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution. (2012) Verso: New York/London: 70.

23 Occupy Sandy: Hurricane relief and a ‘People’s Recovery’

4. OCCUPY SANDY: HURRICANE RELIEF AND A ‘PEOPLE’S RECOVERY’

Hurricane Sandy hit the U.S.’ northeast coast in late they (4) initiated a holistic perspective and programme October 2012, becoming the second costliest hurri- for a ‘people’s recovery’ and against ‘disaster capital- cane in U.S. history. It destroyed thousands of homes ism’ (Naomi Klein). and left millions of people without power, warm water, In what follows, I will describe these efforts, illumi- and a roof over their heads. It was the second deadliest nating the strengths and weaknesses of this mobilisa- U.S. hurricane since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. 57 tion in respect to the building of a counter-hegemonic The incredibly powerful storm unsettled the com- project. mon dismissals of the warnings of scientists and environmental activists about the impact of human-caused HURRICANE RELIEF climate change on weather patterns. This was not the As soon as the storm hit the U.S. shores, movement only aspect of the ‘natural disaster’ narrative that was veterans rapidly put their technological skills and social destabilised in the immediate aftermath of the storm. media to use by networking a mobilisation of first Beyond this, its uneven effect on urban populations responders in badly affected neighbourhoods through- was also illuminated by mainstream media outlets. The out the city. Here the movement outpaced the Federal front page photograph in New York magazine with a Emergency Management Agency, the National Guard, bird’s eye night-time view of Manhattan showed the and the Red Cross, which delivered goods to Occupy clear demarcation between those with full light and Sandy ‘hubs’ for distribution. A week after the storm, the power in upper Manhattan and around the new World movement had established nearly 40 drop-off locations Trade Center and the Goldman Sachs building, on the for donated supplies across the city and three distribu- one hand, and the zone of darkness in the central and tion centres, with three more in the works.60 An online lower sections of the city. It provided a powerful image registry had garnered 1.5 million dollars in donations.61 of the differential impact of the storm.58 In an interview Not only did Occupy Sandy outpace traditional relief with the photographer, he characterised New York as institutions, but it also absorbed a much larger num- being divided into two cities, one of which resembles a ber of volunteers, putting them to work in distribut- ‘third world country’, ‘where everything was becoming ing donated supplies, cleaning away storm rubbish, scarce’, while the affluent section continued on as a removing mould from people’s homes, knocking on ‘vibrant, alive New York’.59 According to the photogra- doors in public housing projects, and delivering food pher, the photo ‘shows also what’s wrong with the and assessing the medical requirements of those country in this moment’. trapped in their homes because of elevator power But such social criticism and illustrations of societal outages, and much more. The group had established polarisation – along with criticisms of the response of direct contact with affected populations and immedi- federal disaster relief agencies – were not to continue ately ascertained their needs. automatically in the media. Nor were they alone going Tens of thousands of volunteers in the greater New to produce policy shifts to the benefit of the affected York metropolitan area have worked with Occupy populations. Doing this would require active and regu- Sandy.62 In November 2012, Occupy Sandy had over lar intervention into the general level of discourse, with 50,000 people on its email list.63 the presentation of a counter-narrative; it would require The movement was being publicly recognised as a growing levels of support amongst social forces on leading relief organisation, and Comedy Central deliv- the ground behind the counter-narrative; and it would ered food to it for further distribution. The Occupy involve the development of an alternative programme movement, which had largely disappeared from pub- and strategy for a just and sustainable recovery. lic view, had returned to public prominence, crowned This is the turbulent situation in which active Occupy as a progressive movement in concrete support for members intervened with their mobilisation ‘Occupy the down-trodden within the mainstream media and Sandy’. As soon as the storm hit, they (1) rapidly mobi- amongst affected populations alike. lised a grassroots response of direct relief and solidarity The group received praise from the New York Times with affected communities; and (2) began developing for filling the void where the Federal Emergency Man- a counter-narrative of the social causes of the disaster and a critique of the dominant, debt-based reconstruc- 57 National Geographic, ‘A Timeline of Hurricane Sandy’s Path of Destruction’, tion, and of the displacement of low-income New York- http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com (2 November 2012). 58 New York Mag- ers by profit-based redevelopment schemes. They also azine, ‘More Images from New York’s Sandy Cover’, New York Magazine (5 Novem- ber 2012) http://nymag.com. 59 ‘Photographer of New York Magazine’s Hurricane (3) built alliances with other civil society actors on the Sandy Cover Explains How He Did it’, http://www.complex.com (6 November ground, in campaigns to pressure public authorities to 2012). 60 Alternet, ‘How Occupy Sandy’s Relief Machine Stepped Into the Post-Superstorm Void’, http://www.alternet.org (5 November 2012). 61 ‘Storm release necessary funds for vulnerable populations, Effort Causes a Rift in a Shifting Occupy Movement’, New York Times (April 30, and to empower communities in democratic struc- 2013). 62 The Guardian, ‘Occupy Wall Street, two years on: we’re still the 99 %’, The Guardian (17 September 2013). 63 ‘Occupy Sandy: From protest group to tures to determine the form of the recovery. And lastly, storm recovery’, BBC (20 November 2012).

24 Occupy Sandy: Hurricane relief and a ‘People’s Recovery’

agement Agency ‘fell short’, was called a ‘Godsend’ Emergency Management Agency; it has received sup- by the President of Public Housing Development in port from the United Postal Service; it has borrowed a Coney Island, Brooklyn,64 and was said to be ‘doing a bus of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority for a great job’ by Mayor Bloomberg who had evicted the distribution hub; it has coordinated activities with vol- encampment the year before and then had the police unteers of the National Guard; it has been present in remove an Occupy Sandy distribution site shortly after joint meetings with local police departments; and it has giving the group public praise. been in conversation with the New York City Mayor’s If critics were unaware of the multiple ways in which office.65 the movement had been engaged in community and labour struggles parallel to the encampment phase ‘MUTUAL AID, NOT CHARITY’ of the movement throughout fall 2011 and charged True to the movement’s original spirit, Occupy Sandy Occupy with being too removed from front line com- emerged in a lateral, network form and used social munities, Occupy Sandy produced a sharp contrast to media both for the mobilisation of its base and for the the misconception that the movement was divorced integration of a wide swath of newcomers drawn to from concrete material concerns and struggles. the grassroots effort of hurricane relief. People seek- Just like Occupy Our Homes and Occupy Labor, ing to contribute their various skills were much more this direct involvement in supporting struggling pop- quickly integrated into the Occupy Sandy hubs than ulations throughout the city by building connections they were into the traditional charity organisations, and and common struggles helped the movement bridge they were quickly involved in collective learning pro- the gap between the disproportionately white, mid- cesses, becoming leaders and trainers themselves in a dle-class, and college educated demographic with the very short time. struggles of low-income black, Latino and Asian com- Yet, although Occupy Sandy became a central pillar munities, building a bridge of solidarity across the dif- in the relief effort, it did not want to be a charity organ- ferentially affected ‘99 %’. isation. Its activists drew on the left’s longstanding The movement’s physical presence at the disaster traditions of solidarity and equality, inscribing on their sites lent it significant public legitimacy, enabling it, just banners that Occupy Sandy was based on ‘mutual aid, as in the first months of its initial success, to expand not charity’. beyond the normally static boundaries of the left, gain- What they meant by this was that they opposed the ing entry into mainstream consciousness and society, administrative approaches of bureaucratised service into liberal-left circles, and even put it into communi- provision and the treatment of people in need as mere cation with state agencies and government represent- recipients of goods. The group wanted to build lat - atives. eral relationships with affected populations and local- The work of Occupy Sandy was also not done alone ly-based community groups to foster collective forms but rather in collaboration with local community organ- of self-determination in satisfying their own needs. isations, faith groups, multi-racial social justice organ- Furthermore, mutual aid was to contrast with the isations, unions, and workers’ centres, throughout Band-Aid solutions offered by official charity and relief the boroughs of New York and especially in the neigh- efforts, which only restore the already crisis-ridden sta- bourhoods of the Rockaways and Red Hook, Brook- tus quo. Projects of mutual aid were supposed to cre- lyn. The group’s immediate growth had to do with ate long-term transformation of the social conditions the void it stepped into, amidst the shallow and slow and structures of injustice that produced Sandy in the state response. Affected populations relied on Occupy first place. Sandy not only for the distribution of goods, but also On this difference between traditional charity and for the cleaning of rubbish that had swept up onto mutual aid, Ryan Hickey wrote: neighbourhood streets, for the gutting of houses that The Salvation Army, The Federal Emergency Man- were infested with mould, and for the knocking on agement Agency (FEMA), and the American Red doors in multi-storey social housing blocks, checking Cross are, and have always been, knee-jerk reactions on residents who were trapped in their apartments for to storm devastation. They do nothing to address the weeks without medication and food, as broken eleva- class relations that pre-empted [sic] the scope of this tors had demobilised them. This strengthened their ties crisis. Where Occupy Sandy succeeds, and must con- to affected communities and drove them beyond relief tinue to succeed, is in its ability to bridge the effects of work, back towards protest to get the city, state, and neoliberal capitalism and Sandy’s destruction. federal governments to step up their efforts in the relief Occupy Sandy must form more coherent and acces- and reconstruction. sible critiques of capitalism than its predecessor, focus- At the same time, the group’s popular reception has ing less on ameliorative solutions than on transforma- also driven it onto unfamiliar and challenging new terrain, where it must not only negotiate new relationships with civil society organisations but also with 64 ‘President of Public Housing Development in Hard-Hit Coney Island Calls governmental agencies and officials. Occupy Sandy Occupy Sandy a “Godsend”’, Take Action News http://takeactionnews.com (12 November 2012). 65 ‘Occupy Sandy: From protest group to storm recovery’, BBC has participated in conference calls with the Federal (20 November 2012).

25 Occupy Sandy: Hurricane relief and a ‘People’s Recovery’

tional ones. It must not only provide supplies and social the author writes: ‘people are not helpless against the services, but also explain Sandy’s exacerbation of storm’. They simply need to organise together. They social ills, radically changing the foundations of social can ‘find shelter when they act together in the face of relationships in the process.66 collapsing economies and ecological crises. Shelter In a similar vein, the official response of state agen- can take the form of robust mutual aid networks and cies and charity organisations alike is to treat the disas- solidarity economies by which people empower and ter as ‘a temporary problem to be managed and admin- support one another to sustain themselves outside the istered in the name of restoring things to normal’. Yet, constraints of the capitalist system’.70 this status quo ‘was already a perpetual emergency for These developments, and the intention of ‘sus- us – an emergency of economic inequality, debt-bond- tain[ing] intensive care units beyond the immediate cri- age, racial oppression, union-busting, municipal aus- sis’, are seen as components of the construction of a terity, ecological destruction, police violence, historical dual power situation, and thereby creating a ‘real emer- amnesia, and more...’. The aim of Occupy Sandy is to gency for the 1 %’.71 prevent a ‘return to normal’.67 Towards these ends, Occupy Sandy focuses its But the question remained: How would mutual aid attention on the building of new alternative institutions be integrated into a broader transformative strategy? and support for existing ones. These were to provide On this point, it can be said that Occupy Sandy stable structures for the coordination of ongoing relief repeated the mistake of Occupy Wall Street, where a efforts, for dialogue between Occupy Sandy volun- one-dimensional ‘prefigurative politics’ of mutual aid teers and community residents, for the distribution of and consensus decision-making limited to directly par- funds, for educational purposes, and for the empower- ticipating members crowded out efforts to develop ment of communities in the grassroots reconstruction strategies towards the shifting of societal power rela- effort. tions, aimed at bringing social life in general under Occupy Sandy helped to restore the YANA com- increasing democratic control. munity centre, a ‘worker training center’ in Far Rock- The ‘horizontalist’ project of taking and developing away, rebuilding it after the storm with sustainable lateral forms of mutual aid, presented as the kernels of design and technology, and turning it into a hub for ‘the new society in the shell of the old’ leaves these the distribution of goods the provision of hot meals, larger and much more complicated strategic questions free medical care, and the deployment of volunteers. to the side. Also in the Rockaways peninsula of Queens, Occupy donated funds to The Action Center, a long standing ‘WE GOT THIS!’ organisation providing direct food and medical ser- This was shown in the response of some sections of vices to hard-hit communities, as well legal advice. Occupy Sandy, which experienced the rapid expan- Respond and Rebuild, an organisation established in sion of these experiments in mutual aid in the void left the response to the storm, has also been financed by by the neoliberal ‘rollback’ of the welfare state and the Occupy Sandy and has been involved in the physical popular public recognition of Occupy’s grassroots repair of homes damaged by the storm. And the Staten mobilisation. This stardom produced precisely the Island Community and Interfaith Long-Term Recovery self-congratulatory effect that Slavoj Zizek had warned Organization has also received Occupy Sandy funds, movement activists against early on. From the Zuccotti whose disbursement will be decided by a ‘participa- Park podium he told the ‘occupiers’ not to ‘fall in love tory budgeting’ process. Occupy also donated funds with yourselves’. Nevertheless ‘We Got This!’ became to Sandy Relief for Immigrants – La Union, in Sunset the popular slogan of the movement, with its activists Park, Brooklyn, which will be given directly to immi- redefining themselves as relief workers and commu- grants. Funds have also been used to support com - nity builders ‘outside of the state’.68 munity garden projects and the Rockaway Youth Task This self-congratulation took on hallucinatory pro- Force, a youth empowerment NGO. In the Rockaways, portions in a statement by some members of Occupy $ 60,000 of Occupy Sandy funding went to the estab- Sandy, who celebrated the elaboration of mutual aid lishment of worker-owned cooperatives. projects as the alternative to the state: The People’s Emergency responds to the crisis; we ON NEOLIBERAL TERRAIN set up distribution centers and energy-generators; However, while many Occupy Sandy participants we mobilize volunteers; we raise money and attract viewed the mutual aid networks and self-organised media; we help folks on the ground when their lives are relief as a kind of counter-neoliberal mobilisation that in danger from hunger, darkness, and exposure to the elements. [...] We are creating autonomous zones for 66 Ryan Hickey, ‘To Destroy Is To Build: Occupy Sandy and Mutual Aid’, http://the- community and solidarity, not camps for managing the occupiedtimes.org/. 67 Folks from Occupy Sandy and Friends, ‘Election-Day lives of powerless victims.69 Report: The People’s Emergency’, http://occupytheory.org (6 November 2012). [2 July 2013]. 68 The slogan was also the title of a popular video produced by Brook- Another statement supports this sentiment of lyn filmmakers. See http://brooklynfilmmakerscollective.com/our-work/we-got- mutual aid networks as the political content of the this-occupy-sandy. 69 Folks from Occupy Sandy and Friends, Op. cit. 70 Chris- topher Key, ‘Mutual Aid in the Face of the Storm’ http://occupytheory.org. 71 Folks movement’s response. Focusing on empowerment, from Occupy Sandy and Friends, Op. Cit.

26 Occupy Sandy: Hurricane relief and a ‘People’s Recovery’

restored community in the face of social fragmentation how they organise themselves into a broader coun- and a hollowed out social safety net, others pointed ter-hegemonic project and seek to shift power relations out that these projects are a ‘double-edged sword’. In with a view to societal transformation. replacing state-organised forms of public provisioning, Both Occupy Sandy participants and affected resi- these initiatives could at the same time legitimise the dents pointed out the limitations of the self-organised neoliberal ‘rollback’ of a generalised public welfare sys- recovery and began advocating increased collabo- tem. Occupy Sandy could, Noam Chomsky argued, let ration with other social forces, broad mobilisation in the state off the hook, freeing it of any responsibility pursuit of popular power from below, increased pub- to ensure people’s basic material needs in moments of lic pressure, alternative policy agendas, structural crisis.72 changes towards increased democratic input, and Some people recognised this problem and alternative visions for a ‘people’s reconstruction’ that responded to the challenge by suggesting that Occupy could diverge from a capitalist status quo. Sandy should try to capture state resources and trans- fer them to the alternative institutions. Michelle Chen ‘FROM RELIEF TO PROTEST’ suggested Occupy Sandy should try to ‘absorb’ fed- What many Occupy Sandy participants agreed on was eral relief funds to finance community-based projects the need to move ‘from relief to protest’, and eventually and to support an alternative recovery process whose to an alternative recovery process. Here the self-con- direction would be determined by affected popula- gratulatory claim amongst some occupiers that ‘We tions.73 Got This!’ met with a clear response from the affected The idea of absorbing state and private resources for communities,: “No You Don’t!” – in other words, a the development of an externally situated dual power rag-tag group of volunteers cannot possibly meet the is also expressed by one of the main advocates of hori- needs of those whose lives were thrown into disrepair zontalism, Marina Sitrin. She argues that the Occupy in the wake of the storm, and whose crises pre-dated movement’s agenda in the case of Occupy Sandy the storm and are ongoing. involves a rebuilding process ‘based in the community’ Additionally, working-class families had already and which ‘takes the resources from the state’.74 been responding to the economic crisis by extend- While this strategy advocates the decentralisation ing their hours of unpaid labour in care and reproduc- of the state through the bottom-up empowerment of tive work rather than purchasing these services on the local communities in ‘civil society’, it does not neces- market as commodities, after these had been priva- sarily represent a counter-neoliberal trend. It could, tised and shifted from the public sector.75 This exten- some argued, in fact coincide with processes of neo- sion of unpaid labour is especially the case in black, liberalisation. The decentralisation of the bureaucratic Latino and Asian communities and is carried over - apparatus of Fordist generalised public provisioning whelmingly by women, children, and the elderly in into a distributed, horizontal network of self-help, com- extended family networks. While many welcomed the munity-based projects might be part of ‘roll-out neolib- support from the largely white volunteers of Occupy eralism’. Here, the responsibility of fundamental soci- Sandy, they were aware that this strategy was insuf- etal reproduction is outsourced to underfunded civil ficient to effectively halt the further deterioration of society organisations, in a setting dominated by mar- their living standards in the face of the lacklustre state ket discipline where groups are reliant on competitive response to the storm. Incapable of meeting their grant funding and under pressure to cut overhead and needs through the voluntary donations of well-mean- labour costs. ing individuals, mutual aid strategies would not suf- The debate about Occupy Sandy is polarised fice. With the productive means to satisfy their own between these two overly simplistic positions, one material reproduction blocked, there was no other which praises local, mutual aid networks as intrinsically option but to seek state enforcement of the redistribu- counter-neoliberal, while the other, taking the opposite tion of resources. position, rejects such projects as mere expressions of In this conjuncture, the ‘99 %’ movement was called neoliberalisation and not up to the task of challenging upon by the affected communities to rise to the occa- the state. Both positions raise important points but sion. It was not enough to circulate donated goods as remain one-dimensional, static and abstract formula- a mutualistic movement; instead it needed to maintain tions. They are both largely detached from an empirical an oppositional character and to intervene politically. analysis that is necessary to judge their correctness. At a meeting in a Red Hook public school, organ- A different approach treats civil society neither as ised by Occupy Sandy, one public housing resident a terrain external to the capitalist state, against which ‘society’ organises itself, nor as a sphere wholly over-determined by it. Instead, ‘civil society’ is part of 72 Noam Chomsky, ‘Noam Chomsky: The Lateral State of America’, The Occupied an ‘integral state’ (Gramsci), a contested terrain where Times http://theoccupiedtimes.org/?p=8191. 73 Michelle Chen, ‘Imagining a “Just Recovery” from Superstorm Sandy’, In These Times (6 February 2013). 74 Marina both hegemony – and also potential counter-hegem- Sitrin, ‘The Question of Demands and the State: Using, Opposing & Surpassing’, ony – is organised. Hence the question becomes how http://tidalmag.org (26 May 2013). 75 See Johanna Brenner, ‘Caught in the Whirl- wind: Working-Class Families Face the Economic Crisis’, in Leo Panitch, Greg Albo, these projects interact with other levels of society, and and Vivek Chibber (eds.) The Crisis This Time. Socialist Register 2011. London: Merlin.

27 Occupy Sandy: Hurricane relief and a ‘People’s Recovery’

reminded Occupy Sandy activists that the recovery is THE ‘PEOPLE’S RECOVERY’ going to require the exertion of political pressure to get In February 2012, Occupy Sandy joined other groups resources released to struggling communities. Narlena at the People’s Recovery Summit. The convergence Lunnon told the Occupy activists: ‘I’m tired of the free was sponsored by a broad coalition of community blankets. I’m tired of my grandchildren going to bed organisations, anti-austerity groups, environmen- cold. I’m tired of old people telling me they ’re hurting tal NGOs, immigrant worker centres, faith groups, because they can’t get up the stairs. […] If you can’t get Occupy the Hood, and labour groups. The 3-day edu- no officials down here, I got to go to City Hall and keep cational, cultural, and organising event aimed to con- screaming’.76 nect and congeal the loose networks of relief groups In this Brooklyn neighbourhood, the flooding and progressive organisations into a concerted project knocked out power and destroyed property for many for an ‘equitable and sustainable rebuilding in Sandy’s of the residents of the city’s largest public housing wake’.77 complex, that is, for 8,000 of the neighbourhood’s The Summit sought to more tightly connect affected 11,000 residents. Elevators were unusable, there residents with their advocates, to bring together eco- was not water, and lights were off. The New York City logical and social justice programmes and establish Housing Authority did not respond to residents’ com- stronger cooperation between groups working in these plaints around lack of services, but at the same time it areas, research state responses and negligence, and demanded rent payments. At a meeting of the NYCHA develop policy proposals for ‘equitable’ and ‘accounta- three weeks after the storm, about fifty angry residents ble development’ with a ‘human rights focus’ based on left the meeting to go to one held by Occupy Sandy and ‘transparency’ and democratic input. Occupy Red Hook, where they drafted demands and The Summit produced a clear goal-oriented docu- called for a protest action at the NYCHA headquarters. ment seeking to improve horizontal processes of col- They demand not only the cancellation of two months laboration between groups, explore concrete forms rent payments but also more thoroughgoing reforms of opposition to debt-based recovery, defend public including a moratorium on evictions, increased federal housing and resist displacement through reconstruc- disaster relief funds, the replacement of the agency’s tion, and demand federal funds for community invest- board with a ‘community-led board’, employment of ment and a democratic process for community con- public housing residents in the rebuilding work, the trol. It also advanced a holistic reconstruction process, use of alternative energy sources, and storm protec- including ecological building and living wage jobs. In tion measures. building broad coalitions and intervening in the politi- But this effort was powerless against a debt-based cal apparatus, it also sought to prevent co-optation of recovery strategy based on loans to local businesses the movements.78 The statement also emphasised the rather than on funding for local residents, and on out- desire for participatory budgeting and a holistic alter- sourced reconstruction contracts at the expense of the native urban recovery plan. predominantly black and Latino residents. Yet no coalition directly emerged out of this con- After this missed opportunity, the group continued vergence. Instead, a similar project, with overlapping to try and build grassroots collaboration with other membership, produced the Alliance for a Just Rebuild- community groups both around and beyond direct ing, a coalition of nearly forty community organisa- relief work. In multiple endeavours, it bridged the tions, unions and immigrant worker centres, ecological gap between left-leaning community organisations, groups, housing advocacy projects, healthcare reform social justice groups, environmental NGOs, and labour initiatives, the participatory budgeting project, faith unions, with public demonstrations and demands that groups, and racial justice groups. public authorities carry out an alternative recovery pro- The Alliance seeks to intervene in and affect the cess. form of the storm recovery by promoting an alterna- On December 15, Occupy Sandy organised a ‘Sandy tive recovery model in the public and by intervening Survivors Day of Action’, with demonstrations in Staten in the mayoral election, and to push for demands. Its Island and the Rockaways to call to ‘rebuild the city’ members’ broad aims are to push for immediate relief and ‘restore power to the people’. In the Rockaways, for affected communities, but rather than limiting Occupy activists demonstrated together with local res- these efforts to do-it-yourself projects, they demand idents, faith groups, and members of tenant unions, city, state, and federal resources. They seek afforda- creating a multi-racial opposition, concluding with a ble housing, healthcare, and access to public assis- rally at the house being repaired by Occupy Sandy vol- tance for marginalised populations. They call for public unteers. The day of action was to conclude with a large investment in infrastructure to prevent displacement, convergence at the home of Mayor Bloomberg and and for job expansion at living wages with benefits. therefore to identify political leaders responsible for the ongoing crisis in the affected neighbourhoods. But the demonstration drew only a few hundred people and 76 Peter Rugh, ‘Struggles, New and Old, Emerge in Sandy’s Wake’, In These Times, was quickly dispersed by the police without significant (26 November 2012). 77 http://summit.peoplesrecovery.org/. 78 Statement from the Organizing Workshop of the Peoples Recovery Summit, http://summit.peoples- media attention or aftereffect. recovery.org/ (6 February 2013).

28 Occupy Sandy: Hurricane relief and a ‘People’s Recovery’

Their democratic focus seeks to include the affected ken homes and neighbourhoods. We cannot let profits populations in oversight, planning, and representa- be the force that determines the future of our commu- tive bodies for ‘democratic planning, transparency nities. We must demand a democratic planning process and accountability’. And they want policy to address that acknowledges the importance of the common climate change and the vulnerability of urban popula- good and our shared humanity.’79 tions to storms, calling for investment in sustainable However, it is now clear that a counter-hegemonic development. project has been blocked and that Occupy Sandy is The alliance has organised public demonstrations, stagnating. pushing the mayor on these points, and drafted alter- The rapid return of the Occupy movement in native policy papers, demanding increased govern- response to hurricane Sandy and the broken social ment resources for mould remediation and housing safety net it revealed showed that the movement support. retains the capacity to mobilise large groups of people around concrete acts of solidarity in moments of crisis. TOWARDS A COUNTER-HEGEMONIC It helped build bridges of concrete solidarity, and bring PROJECT? public attention to the uneven effects of the storm on With the development of the concept of the ‘people’s low-income communities of colour. Yet while some recovery’, the Occupy movement could move beyond participants reduced their activities to direct relief, oth- its limitations and participate in a broad-based coun- ers recognised the need to move ‘from relief to pro- ter-hegemonic mobilisation. This is because it has been test’. Unfortunately, this necessary political interven- articulated as a holistic programme of relief, address- tion, the expansion of resources, and a higher level of ing the immediate material deprivations of the popu- impact, was not achieved. lation – and especially the predominantly marginalised Thousands of relief volunteers who had swarmed low-income, black, Latino, and Asian populations. to the relief efforts slowly receded in the weeks and Not only does it call for immediate relief, it also pre- months following, despite the ongoing material dep- sents an alternative recovery programme that joins rivation of affected communities. The movement ecological considerations about sustainability and could not stabilise its numbers and turn towards polit- sustainable development to green job creation at liv- ical mobilisation. Much of the energy and funds were ing wages for affected populations regardless of cit- deployed in already existing community-based organ- izenship status. And while the calls for transparency, isations or for the formation of new ones, in semi-pro- accountability, and community input through demo- fessional undertakings, such as NGOs, fulfilling the cratic channels would not institute direct democracy, responsibilities of service provision where the neo- the mobilisation moves in the direction of democra- liberal state has withdrawn. They are also involved in tisation. Seen in terms of directionality, and pushed political education and grassroots mobilisations. towards more thorough-going yet pragmatic demands As Occupy built relationships with community that do not get trapped in realpolitik, it could be the groups in the affected communities, the moment of focus of a new round of mobilisation, both against the truth was at the People’s Recovery Summit, where the current recovery plan and going beyond it. attempt was made to develop a holistic, oppositional It could become the basis for joining broad and long- perspective and bonds of collaboration. But while the standing themes of social justice and social forces Summit produced a new formation of a broad and plu- behind them to the new wave of Occupy members ral coalition of diverse organisations, it did not retain seeking radical forms of democratic participation. The the numbers and dynamism of the Occupy mobilisa- involvement of the New York Participatory Budgeting tion. The reason might lie in its effort to explicitly place Project shows a hybrid example of these two trends, demands on the state for increased city, state, and fed- connecting social justice demands to transformations eral funding. of state infrastructure in the direction of bottom-up The Alliance for a Just Recovery continues to be the power. convergence for alternative response to the recovery, Of course, this will not be radical enough for some but it largely mobilises the usual players and has not sections of the movement, which advocate no com- (yet) managed to go beyond them. While a holistic promise with the state. But the anti-political orien- ‘people’s recovery’ is being formulated, linking ecolog- tation is not as absolute as one might think. Even the ical, labour, radical justice, and other democratic con- anarchist-influenced Strike Debt! group suggests cerns, and has joined diverse forces behind it, it has not that mutual aid projects are necessary but insufficient caught on in the Occupy movement. responses to the storm. Therefore, the debt-based The immediate response to the storm remobilised recovery model should be opposed with calls for dem- the movement, reconnected it to some of the most ocratic planning so that those in need can control the marginal sections of the ‘99 %’, and returned it to pop- allocation of government resources, essentially restor- ular attention. However, while the movement mobi- ing political power to the base of society. They write, ‘In the meantime, we must continue to 79 Strike Debt!, ‘Shouldering the Costs: Who Pays in the Aftermath of Hurricane use the principles of mutual aid as we rebuild our bro- Sandy?’, http://strikedebt.org (10 December 2012) (emphasis added).

29 Occupy Sandy: Hurricane relief and a ‘People’s Recovery’

lised the grassroots around much needed relief work organisational form which would keep people involved and built an infrastructure of solidarity with affected and working together towards political change. neighbourhoods and alliances with community organ- Occupy Sandy showed that it is possible for grass- isations, it failed to consolidate these efforts into an roots mobilisations to directly respond to immedi- ongoing collective formation for political mobilisation ate crisis situations, and that given the ongoing crisis that could intervene and shift the symbolic and politi- this door remains open. But the movement’s incapac- cal realities. ity to build durable structures beyond the immediate The thousands of volunteers it initially mobilised needs shows it remains trapped in an anti-hegemonic were distributed throughout its mutual aid networks, or anti-political mode and is not ready to scale up to the eventually disappearing again, without establishing an status of a counter-hegemonic project.

30 Conclusion

CONCLUSION

The Occupy movement emerged in the interregnum Nonetheless, the lack of stable organisation has not of a blocked societal transformation of crisis-ridden resulted in the ‘falling back’ of the movement ‘to the neoliberalism. Despite its deep structural crisis and level of single-issue movements and identity politics’, a thinning consensus, it remains dominant because as Rehmann warns. The issue-specific organising to of the fragmentation and weakness of the opposi- which the movement has turned in the post-eviction tional forces. For many participants of the movement, period is itself influenced by Occupy’s broad lens. The Occupy presented the possibility of a counter-power examples analysed in this study show attempts to that could unify the fragmented and weakened forces engage in specific struggles, while articulating them of the left, social justice movements, and many other within a broad, critical, and holistic perspective. They dissidents into a new historic bloc, thus shifting the seek to connect the plural forces of social and labour balance of forces towards a social, democratic, and movements in a common struggle. They aim to elab- ecological alternative beyond neoliberal capitalism. orate forms of democratic organising to empower affected communities in the decisions that affect their MISSED OPPORTUNITIES lives. And their protagonists began to formulate a nas- While Occupy accomplished many feats in its first cent alternative political policy agenda. In some cases – phase, it has not lived up to expectations or to the his- as seen in the Foreclosure and Eviction-Free Zone and torical challenge of forging a new historical bloc out of with Occupy Sandy and especially the People’s Sum- the subaltern and popular classes of the ‘99 %’. mit – they even go beyond Occupy’s anti-political limi- However, the movement had notable achievements. tations, to intervene in the political terrain. It managed to temporarily and contingently unify the Hence while Occupy did not create a stable con- fragments of the left, the social movement, and labour, nective formation to consolidate the plural forces, the with sections of the broader public, into a counter-ne- lessons of the initial successes have not all been lost. oliberal mobilisation. It initiated a process of forging a Much from these experiences has been gathered up ‘mosaic left’ to connect the situation of the multitude and transmitted to the dispersed struggles at the front to a common project, without overlooking impor - lines. The possibility remains, that these examples can tant differences in social or class position. 80 This led contribute to the kind of formation needed to make a to a certain condensation within which the encamp- significant political intervention. ments could be defended, immediate concrete victories achieved, and the movement could, as Jan Reh- DE AD ENDS AND NEW OPENINGS mann points out, ‘intervene into the symbolic order’, While the movement has not achieved the historical producing a counter-narrative about the crisis, centring task given to it, there is much to learn from the past two on wealth disparity and the centralisation of power, years of the Occupy movement. It has reached dead hence creating an anti-austerity tendency in the public ends, which could lead to analyses that clarify possi- debates.81 ble ways forward. And it has also shown new openings Occupy also temporarily ‘change[d] the power rela- towards increased societal significance. tions in people’s common sense’, fostering an identifi- While horizontal organising has been essential for cation with a collective ‘we’, in popular, class terms, as the success of the initial mobilisation, its specific form the ‘99 %’.82 has impeded the movement’s ability to address larger The movement’s central weakness, however, is glar- questions of social organisation and political contes- ing. Rehmann correctly identifies it as the failure to tation. Many aspects of anarchism helped nurture the build ‘a new kind of network-like connective forma- movement in its formation. These are horizontalism, a tion that could stabilise these momentary successes’. spirit and practice of mutual aid, and an emphasis on Beyond the issue-specific initiatives, only the loose net- autonomy. However, in the practices of the movement, work ‘Interoccupy’ has emerged to link geographical all three of these have run up against their limits. These and issue-based groups. This has however largely been have produced dead ends for the movement but also a limited to the distribution of information and commu- learning process that is still incomplete. In some cases, nication between different groups. It is the bare min- the dead ends have moved Occupy participants to ini- imum of what an organisation can provide. The only tiate new experiments, re-articulating the movement’s other formation is the Occupy National Gathering, basic values in new forms beyond those that were first which is largely a counter-cultural get-together that dominant in the movement and which now have pre- has had no effect on the movement. Here the general vented the movement from advancing. These reveal assembly has been used to generate a laundry list of wishes for a better society. It reflects Rehmann’s concern that without connecting the general assembly to 80 On ‘mosaic left’ see Mario Candeias, ‘From a Fragmented Left to Mosaic’, LuX- questions of societal power – he specifies ‘economic emburg 1/2010. 81 Jan Rehmann, ‘Occupy Wall Street and the Question of Hegemony – A Gramscian Analysis’, Socialism and Democracy, 27/1 democracy’ – it becomes a mere spectacle. (2013). 82 Ibid.

31 Conclusion

new openings for the movement, with creative re-artic- Horizontalism could not respond to the challenge of ulations in democratic organising, solidarity, transfor- articulating and innovating ways of advancing dem- mation, and independent political formation. ocratic forms of organisation, on the one hand, and intervening on the terrain of the state, on the other DEMOCRACY BEYOND HORIZONTALISM hand. Refusing to affect state policy only lent support Advocates of a horizontalist perspective falsely inter- to initiatives that broke with democratic organising, preted the mass participation in general assemblies as replacing it with professionalised politics. It reaffirmed the emergence of a mass movement, as a mass rejec- the drifting apart of popular organisation and alterna- tion of representative democracy, and as the desire to tive political programmes. organise ‘society beyond the state’. Some explained For the social movements to advance, they are going the rapid growth of such formations as the proof of to have to find ways to be democratic in form yet tran- humanity’s natural inclination towards ‘freedom’ and scend the parameters of horizontalism. In the case of ‘democracy’ (Graeber). The conjunctural features con- Occupy Homes, the Foreclosure- and Eviction-Free tributing to the sudden hegemonic appearance of Zone shows the potential for the development of a these forums was ignored. democratic movement beyond the limitations of hori- While they certainly expressed a popular will towards zontalism. Here popular forums are used to mobilise, increased democratic participation in social life, their to articulate grievances, and to organise neighbours popularity was also the result of the crisis of political collectively in collective resistance. And absent the representation and of ‘post-democracy’ (Crouch). false dichotomy of ‘state’ and ‘society’, the movement Direct participation for many did not mean the abso- is intervening on the level of city politics without how- lute rejection of representative institutions, but rather ever integrating itself into it, or handing over its own an attempt to fill the gap between state politics and the power. This represents the possibility of democratic people and express outrage at the bank bailout at the organising that goes beyond horizontalism. expense of the ‘99 %’. And a desire to have a more substantive role in the determination of social life. SOLIDARIT Y BE YOND MUTUAL AID The general assemblies were forums for the expres- Occupy Sandy, Strike Debt! and the Occupy Student sion of grievances and the construction of common- Debt Campaign showed how the specific form of alities. They were ‘coming out parties’ for a collec - mutual aid articulated by the movement has reached its tive we, the ‘99 %’, and the formation of a common limits. In the first case, this was articulated in the form narrative about the source of the diverse grievances. of the redistribution of goods and voluntary labour for The assemblies also enabled a collaborative form for those in need. The calls emanating from affected res- the organisation of a plurality of perspectives, and in idents to place pressure on City Hall to release state a form attuned to the networked form of contempo- and federal funds did not generate much response. As rary capitalism’s modern production, technology, and a result, the specific articulation of solidarity as mutual ideology. aid within the bounds of voluntarily available resources Many anarchists misread the popular use of gen- brought this strategy to its limits. eral assemblies as popular confirmation of their own Strike Debt!’s ‘Rolling Jubilee’ also sought to create desire for a fundamental break with representative a ‘people’s bailout by the people’. While they received institutions. However, many participants and support- an impressive amount of donations, their creative use ers were not anarchists and saw these experiments as of the secondary debt markets to bail out borrowers a way to enhance their political impact on the state. The could make only a small dent in the total figure of con- directionality of horizontalist politics, aimed at detach- sumer debt. ing support from the state, and moving it towards In a similar way, the mutual aid of the Occupy Stu- the ‘self-organisation’ of society, produced a huge dent Debt Campaign’s debt strike was insufficient to gap between concentrated power (i.e., the state) and support those the movement sought to defend. Its everyday life. Without ways of connecting these levels, call for a collective action without a plan for collective horizontalism nearly lost all of its mobilisational capac- defence not only resulted in the embarrassing failure ity and legitimacy. of the debt strike; it also revealed the impracticality of This was seen most clearly in the case of Occupy struggles entirely reliant on the limited resources of Sandy, where victims of the storm pressured Occupy voluntary individuals. Sandy, against its will, to exert political pressure: to Like it or not, the movement is driven to engage the intervene on the terrain of the state, and use its social state. The question is how. Without a movement capa- position, its recognition in the media, to push for the ble of directly appropriating the means of production, release of necessary state resources. It was called on to solidarity is going to have to develop a relationship lead, but, dominated as it was by a conception of lead- to the state to free up publicly held social surplus for ership that equates leadership with hierarchy, it shied immediate redistribution and to build long-term capac- away from this responsibility and lost its capacity to ities for overturning the capitalist mode of production represent the ‘99 %’. and its lifeways.

32 Conclusion

INDEPENDENCE BEYOND AUTONOMY has also led to the bleeding away from the movement The symbolic break from the political establish- of individuals who then individually pursue political ment was critical for generating popular participation office or join campaigns without accountability to the amongst people deeply dissatisfied by the status quo. movement or strategic approaches towards campaign However, as shown above, the movement’s growth work. is drastically compromised by its outright refusal to Occupy needs an interventionist approach without engage the state. Where it has failed to do so, it has losing its independence. This seems to be the orien- lost its legitimacy and has shrunk back to being a social tation of Occupy Our Homes’ Foreclosure- and Evic- milieu rather than a movement with broad social sig- tion-Free Zone as well as of the Alliance for a Just nificance. Recovery, which Occupy Sandy is participating in. The autonomous proclamations helped the move- As the second phase of the Occupy movement in ment initially open space for the emergence of a issue-based struggles has reached a plateau, there constituent power. But a full autonomy of the move- is the opportunity to critically reflect on two years of ment never really existed. It emerged not as a rupture mobilisation. Whether the movement will remake itself between the state and ‘society’ but as a disruption of and break with its current limitations is still uncertain. hegemony throughout the established institutions. However, as long as the crisis persists it will have the While Occupy rightfully rejects the return to the ‘long opportunity to intervene. There is an opening for left march through the institutions’, it nonetheless needs political forces to play a role in mobilising dissent. to find a way of engaging them and to do so as an inde- Occupy has raised the bar of expectations, and it is pendent social movement. Refusing to do so has not now time to go forward. only limited its social significance and legitimacy but September 2013