#Occupy movement as reaction on the global economic crisis: an overview

Notes

• “Occupy” movement should be viewed not as a couple of different local movements but as one global grassroots socio-political protest movement.

• It can be viewed as one phenomenon and actor (a “political actor”) of global public policy

• Occupy protesters can be viewed as a representatives of a postmaterial value shift: non-elite civic protest actions, values of freedom, humanistic society, tolerance, self-expression

The same reasons of the emergence

• It was born as a protest against the results of the global economic crisis/the injustice of a global capitalist neoliberal economic system

• Declining of the level of income• Unemployment• austerity economic policies.

The same agenda• These are inalienable truths that we should abide by in our society: the

right to housing, employment, culture, health, education, political participation, free personal development, and consumer rights for a healthy and happy life.

• The obsolete and unnatural economic model fuels the social machinery in a growing spiral that consumes itself by enriching a few and sends into poverty the rest

• The will and purpose of the current system is the accumulation of money, not regarding efficiency and the welfare of society.

• Citizens are the gears of a machine designed to enrich a minority which does not regard our needs.

• We need an ethical revolution. Instead of placing money above human beings, we shall put it back to our service

15-M Manifesto

Spanish Unemployment

The same agenda - II

• the future of the human race requires the cooperation;• a democratic government derives its just power from the

people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth

• no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. Сorporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments

Declaration of the Occupation of New York City

The same tactics and techniques

• 1) consensus model of decision-making;• 2) leaderlessness;• 3) direct democracy with General Assemblies

• Occupying: “the encampment-form of political activity highlights a central characteristics in the formation of group-space”

• “Occupation of a space is itself a tactic… But an ongoing occupation of space is also more than a tactic. An occupation serves as a base camp from which we launch many different tactics… This tactic star names some key factors that change agents can consider when determining tactics”

• Key factors : message; tone; timing; audience; allies; resources; target.

http://owsdirectaction.com/da/resources_files/occupy-tactic-star.pdf

What to do?

• 1) To be 99%;• 2) To gather in public spaces and re-invent them;• 3) To create open flexible spaces;• 4) To be always horizontal (to have horizontal connections);• 5) To be non-violent;• 6) To be active not reactive

“Quick guide for a revolution”

Features: HDI, FH status

• http://directory.occupy.net/

• http://hdr.undp.org/en/data/map/

• http://www.freedomhouse.org/report-types/freedom-world

Who are occupiers?

• http://www.fastcompany.com/1792056/infographic-who-occupy-wall-street

• They have interiorized post-materialist value orientations/values of self-expression

Global movement – global action

Protester’s self-dentification

• Understanding themselves as participants of one movement. As people that are suffering from the same social/economic injustices no matter where they live

• “The fire in the soul of Occupy burns from Oakland to Quebec,

Barcelona to Chicago, Wall Street to Moscow and Frankfurt” (Adbusters)

Global public policy actor

“A class- or group-for-itself consisits of:• 1) social agency – the possibility for a given group to

change society ad history;• 2) self-consciousness - some degree of awareness of

itself as a movement for social change and mechanisms for collective thought and

• 3) the prerequisite class-in-itself characteristics – common interests, similar analysis of the society, and proximity either physically or digitally” (“tidal: occupy theory, occupy strategy “)

• “Occupy” as a real grassroot manifestation of public policy and together with the participants’ feeling of being their issues really represented; bringing to life policies for postmaterial values of tolerance and self-realization

Go to the street – bring back yourself the city!

Thank You for attention!