Globally as well as in New Zealand, the Occupy movement points to both a resurgence in leftwing politics and an ongoing ideological crisis facing capitalism. This is incredibly significant, because for the left, capitalism has seemed impenetrable in recent decades. Due largely to the collapse of ‘really existing socialism’ late last century, the left essentially accepted the thesis that radical change is impossible and that there is no viable alternative to the global market system. The Occupy movement now represents a partial challenge to prevailing capitalist hegemony. In this guest blog, John Moore argues that despite the radical nature of these protests, this nascent left movement could easily succumb to a form of middle-class liberalism. Presently the occupations waver between remaining ‘apolitical’ rebellions or alternatively to endorsing a set of mild and acceptable reforms. Ultimately the protests are likely to dissipate or be co-opted if they continue to fail to seriously pierce the hegemony of liberal capitalist ideology. What is needed is a discussion over what type of demands can act to transcend the ‘apoliticism’ of this new left. The movement needs also to address what form of demands can act to seriously challenge dominant capitalist ideas. Ultimately those involved in these occupations throughout major world cities need to go beyond the weak social-liberalism that has been prevalent amongst the left for the last few decades. [Read more below]
The triumph of liberal capitalism
Partly as a result of the global financial breakdown of the late 2000s, capitalism is now facing a crisis of ideas and intellectual legitimacy. To understand how pro-capitalist ideas have suddenly been seriously challenged, it is useful to examine the writings of Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci. Gramsci’s theory on hegemony saw that the dominant framework of ideas in any one society are a social construct that act to sow legitimacy in the superstructure of society, including political structures, and in the mode of production, the base structure. Ideas that make up the hegemonic order, that are viewed as ‘common sense’ and ‘natural’, are critiqued as a manufactured discourse.
Therefore, the liberal capitalist consensus that dominated intellectual and mainstream discourse since the 1980s needs to be seen as a political construct. The ascendancy of liberal ideas (both in terms of neoliberal economics and social liberalism) was born out of a number of factors including the collapse of Stalinist regimes, the decline of social democracy and the delegitimising of Keynesian economic theory and practice. The advent and domination of neoliberalism in the West centrally came about through a combination of the failure of Keynesian interventionist polices to regenerate stagnant and depressed economies, and equally the failure of unions, the mainstream left and academia to present an alternative to the New Right’s cure for a stagnant capitalism. The consensus that had existed in the West around the need for a comprehensive welfare system, a strong interventionist state, and a power sharing structure involving private corporations, trade unions and the state, unraveled. This previous consensus was replaced by a new order based around the need for a more unfettered form of capitalism.
Legitimacy was sown in the new neoliberal order with the dissemination of constructed ideas that emphasised that ‘free markets’ represented the natural human order. Therefore the logic was that the market would always be the best vehicle for wealth creation. One of the key intellectual architects for a new pro-capitalist ideology was Francis Fukuyama. Fukuyama argued that the collapse of ‘communism’ and the ascendancy of liberal capitalism represented the end of history. By this claim he meant that it was now recognised there was no viable alternative to global capitalism:
What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government (Fukuyama, 1992).
A slight shift occurred within neoliberal thinking with the development of ‘Third Way’ politics. ‘Third Way’ politics did represent a distancing from the excesses of neoliberal ideology, and gave some credence to the need for a degree of state intervention in the economy. However at the core of this approach was a continued disavowal of the state playing a central role in economic management, and so a continued emphasis on the primacy of the market.
That capitalism as a system seemed irreplaceable, and natural, was reflected in the near disappearance of references to terms, and discussion around the concepts of, capitalism, class and inequality. As philosopher Slovoj Zizek had argued several years ago, the disappearance of capitalism now seemed pure fantasy:
Think about the strangeness of today's situation. Thirty, forty years ago, we were still debating about what the future will be: communist, fascist, capitalist, whatever. Today, nobody even debates these issues. We all silently accept global capitalism is here to stay. On the other hand, we are obsessed with cosmic catastrophes: the whole life on earth disintegrating, because of some virus, because of an asteroid hitting the earth, and so on. So the paradox is, that it's much easier to imagine the end of all life on earth than a much more modest radical change in capitalism. (As quoted in the 2005 documentary Žižek!).
Over several decades variants of neo-liberalism thought have remained intellectually and politically dominant. However neoliberalism is now in a sick state, and its intellectual and political hegemony has weakened significantly. The financial crisis that hit the key Western powers, and the ongoing slump in capitalism, means that the formally impenetrable mantras of capitalist ideology and certainties of the old structures are up for challenge. The actual economic policies of governments in the West are now quite eclectic. Austerity measures are being inflicted in Europe and America, yet equally some of the biggest economic bailouts and nationalisations have happened in the last couple of years. The reality is that many of the neoliberal reforms and mechanisms have been reformed, replaced, dismantled, or at least strongly challenged. Added to this is a discrediting of neoliberalism as an ideology.
So, as well as a prolonged economic crisis, what we are also witnessing is a crisis of hegemony. Gramsci argued that a crisis of hegemony exists where the dominant set of ideas fails to incorporate and resolve conflicts between groups within civil society.
A hegemonic crisis
The degree of media attention given to the Occupy Movement is in many ways quite peculiar. In America the protests have remained relatively small, numbering generally in the low thousands. Here, in New Zealand Occupations involve merely hundreds, although an Occupy protest in Auckland did manage to attract slightly more substantial numbers. What then explains the global media’s fascination with this new movement? Part of the answer is located in the ideological crisis capitalism has faced since the credit crunch. Mainstream intellectuals, media commentators and politicians have failed to come up with any coherent explanation of, as well as any long term solution to, the quagmire Western capitalism finds itself in. Therefore the sudden spotlight given to protests which, so far, have attracted relatively low numbers reflects ‘society’s’ searching for explanations of and solutions to the current economic impasse.
So now it seems that almost everyone is an ‘anti-capitalist’. The number of politicians, celebrities and intellectuals who have expressed sympathy or aim to align themselves with the Occupy Wall Street movement is significant. What such ‘sympathy’ represents is a desire by sections of the Establishment to make a break from prevailing orthodoxies. So, for example, the likes of US president Barack Obama, ‘shock theory’ economist Jeffrey Sachs and billionaire speculator George Soros have all expressed support for the ‘sentiments’ of the current Occupation protests. However the aim of such figures is to save capitalism from itself, and their ‘support’ for the Occupy protests expresses their desires to adjust and tinker with the structures of the global economic system.
Clearly the anti-capitalism of the protesters is more genuine. This is reflected in the general leftist and anti-corporate nature of the Occupy Movement. However up to now the protesters have not defined what they are exactly opposing in terms of their opposition to capitalism. Equally, the protesters have proposed few concrete reforms or an actual alternative system to capitalism.
The Occupy movement’s Establishment ‘friends’
Some Establishment parties and individuals clearly aim to co-opt and push the movement in a reforming direction. On America’s ABC it was reported how the (US) Democrat Party aimed to benefit from the protests:
Already senior Democrat figures in America are attempting to tap into the momentum of the Occupy protests: a consensus is emerging among Democrats that the "Occupy" movement is worth tapping into, even helping along and joining with in some instances. "I support the message to the establishment," House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said on ABC's "This Week". "Change has to happen. We cannot continue in a way that does not -- that is not relevant to their lives. People are angry."
With this threat of co-option, the trajectory of this new ‘anti-capitalism’ will be in determined by how Occupy leaders react to the desire of representatives of political and economic elites to align themselves to the protests.
The more farsighted personnel of the Western elites recognise that things cannot go on as they are. The financial crisis, significant levels of unemployment, and a raise of new protest movements indicate that the political, economic and ideological structure of Western capitalism needs to undergo a reform. That the likes of Jeffrey Sachs and George Soros have ostensibly embraced the Occupy Movement indicates that key ruling class members see the need for the construction of new ideologies and political and economic institutions to stabilise and defend capitalism. Therefore, a real possible result of the growth of the current ‘anti-capitalist’ global protests is a reconfiguring of the global economic system. In Gramscian terms such an economic and ideological reconfiguring is termed as a ‘passive revolution’.
The coming ‘passive revolution’
Rather than acting to serious challenge capitalist hegemony, the Occupy Movement may very well act to ‘save’ capitalism from itself. The rise of the Occupy Movement does sharply indicate that current political structures are failing to resolve conflicts between groups within global civil society. Gramsci argued that when institutions, as well as the dominant ideology, fails to resolve crises, then a reform process can be pushed forward. Clearly key pro-capitalist intellectuals and politicians see the need for a restructuring of the economic framework. The concurrence of the current economic slump, the raise of a new ‘anti-capitalist’ movement and the existence of more ‘farsighted’ elements of the bourgeoisie may all lead to a ‘passive revolution.
The Gramsican term ‘passive revolution’, a revolution without a revolution, refers to a reform process that can take place within the confines of capitalism. The term equally refers to the intellectual justifications and ideological refiguring needed for such a ‘passive revolution’. A passive revolution is required or pushed forward where there exists a crisis of legitimacy directly or indirectly threatening the existing system. Essentially a restructuring of state institutions is required as well as the diffusion of new ideologies. Gramsci represented a passive revolution as a ‘dialectic of conservation and innovation’ which ‘is called reformism’ (Gramsci, 2000, p428).
If a ‘reforming’ of capitalism does take place it will certainly fail to meet the expectations of thousands currently protesting throughout the world. Such a reform process may lead to some increase in taxes on the rich, and some increased state investment in an attempt to create new employment. However the fundamentals of the capitalist system will remain in place - private ownership by an elite minority and the centrality of the profit motive for the global economy. If a reform agenda does capture the imagination of the Occupy Movement, the question then must be asked – can capitalism be cured?
Can capitalism be cured?
Recently on the BBC leftwing filmmaker Michael Moore has argued that capitalism cannot be reformed and that we need a new system. However he also indicated he would be happy to see concrete reforms such as higher taxes on the rich and laws placing restrictions and controls on corporations. This dichotomy of radical and moderate beliefs, highlighted with Moore’s contradictory statements, does reflect an ideological dichotomy prevalent in the Occupy Movement itself. On one hand the movement does seem to signal a total distaste for the whole capitalist system. Yet at the same time the movement, where it does raise political demands, seems to call for a reforming of, rather than replacement of, the capitalist system.
Whether the trajectory of the movement is towards acting as a pressure group for reforms, or whether we will see a deepening of anti-capitalist sentiment, largely depends on how individuals and groups involved in the protests engage with important political questions. Issues that need to be addressed by this new breed of ‘anti-capitalists’ include discussions around political questions including: reform versus revolution; the nature of the state; class and identity; what is the alternative to global capitalism? If these issues are not, or only superficially, addressed the movement could easily be co-opted by Establishment parties such as the Democrats in America, or Labour in New Zealand.
Transcending liberalism
Philosopher Slovoj Zizek recently argued that if the Occupy Movement is to be truly anti-capitalist it needs to raise demands that act to disturb ‘the very core of the hegemonic ideology: ie one that, while definitely feasible and legitimate, is de facto impossible’. The Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky, in a similar tone, once bemoaned left-wing leaders continued inability to go beyond merely advocating minimal reforms, that is reforms acceptable to the Establishment and achievable within a capitalist framework:
Classical Social Democracy…divided its program into two parts independent of each other: the minimum program which limited itself to reforms within the framework of bourgeois society, and the maximum program which promised substitution of socialism for capitalism in the indefinite future. Between the minimum and the maximum program no bridge existed. And indeed Social Democracy has no need of such a bridge, since the word socialism is used only for holiday speechifying… The strategic task…lies not in reforming capitalism but in its overthrow.
The Occupy movement therefore has a choice: to celebrate ‘apoliticism’ and remain essentially impotent; to embrace a mild reform agenda and so become allies with discontented members of the Establishment; or to start to ask how is it possible to transcend the liberal capitalist hegemonic ideological coordinates and to start to believe once again in radical change and the possibility of a world without capitalism.
