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Occupy Wall Street and the World Social Forum

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Occupy Wall Street and the World Social Forum GLOBAL MOVEMENTS IN THE CAPITALIST WORLD SYSTEM: OCCUPY WALL STREET AND THE WORLD SOCIAL FORUM By Loren Collins A Thesis Presented to The Faculty of Humboldt State University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in Sociology Committee Membership Dr. Sing Chew, Committee Chair Dr. Anthony Silvaggio, Committee Member Dr. Alison Holmes, Committee Member Dr. Meredith Williams, Program Graduate Coordinator May 2017 ABSTRACT GLOBAL MOVEMENTS IN THE CAPITALIST WORLD SYSTEM: OCCUPY WALL STREET AND THE WORLD SOCIAL FORUM Loren Collins Over the past forty years, the information revolution, a neoliberal agenda and globalizing financial markets have led to a quantitative increase in accumulation, widening inequalities throughout the globe. This widening inequality has cast doubt on the legitimacy of a world system governed primarily by the invisible hand of the free market. Economic power has taken priority over political power in determining the nature of social relations and our institutions. This imbalance has opened the door for resistance movements to challenge a system that fails to represent the interests of the vast majority of the world’s population while it benefits a smaller and smaller subset. While capitalism has undergone shifts on a global scale, social movements and resistance to capital have undergone a shift of their own. Movements have begun to come together to confront global capitalism, identifying this contest as the central conflict of our age. These global movements are reclaiming the public sphere and places held in “common,” raising a clear ideological challenge to the neoliberalism, uniting across varied agendas, and networking at the local, national and international levels. “The Occupy Wall Street” Movement and the “World Social Forum” provide pertinent case studies in the potential ii these global movements have to challenge the powers that be and to articulate an alternative vision for globalization. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS For this thesis, I owe a level of gratitude to many that can barely be represented here. To Professor Sing Chew who nurtured an interest and passion for theory and world systems that carried through from my time as an undergrad to the submission of this thesis, and well beyond into my lifelong pursuit of learning. To Professor Anthony Silvaggio who provided insights on social movements and gave his time for a student who he had never seen before this project, your generous trust and commitment has been paramount. To Professor Meredith Williams-Teale, graduate studies coordinator and friend, who settled my concerns, arranged my timeline and always made yourself available for every question or concern. To Professor Alison Holmes, your insight into globalization and perspective from outside Sociology was certainly valuable but your insight into myself, this process, and your questions helped me come to peace with my own place in these theories and my studies; I am lucky to count you as a friend. To Larry, Austin and Kathy who helped me as close friends and provided insight, support, and a nurturing of my passions, drive to learn and to articulate clearly. To my Dad and Patti, who first taught me to read, really read, and to question everything, you were the first intellectuals I met. My mother who always believed in me. Most importantly, to my family and household, including Geneva, who was always there to listen. Alexis, Klara and Emma, above all, I would have never done this without you, couldn’t have done it without you, and certainly did this because of you; you are the heart of everything I do and you truly inspire and challenge me to grow in every way. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................ ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................... iv TABLE OF CONTENTS .................................................................................................... v LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................ vii CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................ 1 CHAPTER II: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK .............................................................. 5 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 5 Power and Social Organization ....................................................................................... 7 The Capitalist World System: ....................................................................................... 11 Globalization and Capitalism ........................................................................................ 13 The global information age ....................................................................................... 15 Role of the nation-state ............................................................................................. 22 Neoliberalism ................................................................................................................ 27 The Transnational Capital Class ................................................................................... 31 Empire ........................................................................................................................... 35 Global Social Movements ............................................................................................. 39 The stage for resistance has been set ........................................................................ 39 Historical perceptions of resistance .......................................................................... 41 Review of social movement theory ........................................................................... 41 Resistance as forces of social construction ............................................................... 46 The erosion of the public sphere ............................................................................... 47 v Resistance as a global force for global democracy ................................................... 50 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 61 CHAPTER III: CASE STUDY - OCCUPY WALL STREET MOVEMENT ................. 63 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 63 The Rise of the Occupy Movement .............................................................................. 65 A Critique of the Global Capitalist System and Neoliberal Ideology .......................... 70 The Multitude in the Occupy Movement ...................................................................... 75 The Common and the Public Sphere ............................................................................ 81 Networked Engagement of the Local, the National and the Global Levels ................. 85 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 91 CHAPTER IV: CASE STUDY – THE WORLD SOCIAL FORUM MOVEMENT ...... 95 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 95 Rise of the World Social Forum ................................................................................... 97 A Critique of Global Capital and Neoliberal Ideology ............................................... 101 The Multitude in the World Social Forum .................................................................. 105 The Common and the Public Sphere .......................................................................... 109 Networked Engagement at the Local, the National and the Global Level ................. 114 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 118 CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION....................................................................................... 122 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................... 125 vi LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Societies as Organized Power Networks .............................................................. 9 vii 1 CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION In an address at Yale University Immanuel Wallerstein (2014), the originator of World Systems Theory, stated “there have always been historical systems in which some relatively small group exploited the others.” He went on to to say “that the modern world- system, which came into existence in the long sixteenth century in the form of a capitalist world-economy, has been extremely effective in extracting surplus-value from the large majority of the populations within it.” When Wallerstein first began his research on the world system in the 1970s, the world market was just beginning to undergo a shift that would drastically increase its effectiveness in extracting value from the world’s population at a more intense rate. As national markets across the globe became integrated into a truly global economy, wealth and resources have been concentrated into the hands of fewer and fewer individuals and the economic divide between those with means and those without has increased to the point of
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