The May 2012 issue of American Ethnologist has three open-access articles focused on the Occupy movement. In “The Occupy MovementMore…
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A Movement Without Demands?
In this essay, we claim that far from being a strength, the lack of demands reflects the weak ideological core of the movement. We also claim that demands should not be approached tactically but strategically, that is, they should be grounded in a long-term view of the political goals of the movement, a view that is currently lacking. Accordingly, in the second part of this text, we argue that this strategic view should be grounded in a politics of the commons. Before addressing the politics of the commons, however, we dispel three common objections that are raised against demands during general assemblies, meetings, and conversations people have about the Occupy movement.
Defining a Key Term
Ha-Joon Chang considers the nature of capitalism, what it means to be anti-capitalist, and whether such a label could reasonably be affixed to the Occupy movement.
