19.10.2011

Hot autumn in New York

Jim Creegan reports on the occupiers who aim to take on Wall Street and examines the implications for left politics

Some things are predictably unpredictable. Marxists were right to assert, in the face of end-of-history gloating, that the class struggle will not disappear as long as capitalism exists. We are also better equipped than most to discern the gradual build-up of tensions between classes that are bound at some point to break out into the open, no matter how placid things may appear on the surface. When, where and by whom the spark will be lit, however, is virtually impossible to know in advance.

For three years the United States sank deeper into an economic morass, as a president, on whom millions had naively pinned their hopes for deliverance, betrayed the expectations for change he cynically exploited to enter the White House. The only challenge to business-as-usual came not from leftwingers or unemployed workers, but from elements of the petty bourgeoisie grouped around the Tea Party, financed by rightwing capitalists and determined to protect their increasingly perilous status and income at the expense of those beneath them. The hopes that surrounded the struggle of public workers in Wisconsin were temporarily dashed when the governor succeeded in ramming his union-busting bill through the state legislature, and resistance died down. But Wisconsin, it seems, was merely a prologue.

Now, amid the combustible international atmosphere of rebellion from Cairo and Tunis, to Athens and London, a spark has been lit that is already giving rise to numerous incendiary incidents at the centre of the capitalist world order, long considered fireproof. On September 17, Occupy Wall Street, a hastily convened band of young people from all over the country, originally about a hundred in number, occupied a half-acre private square named Zuccotti Park, a few blocks from the stock exchange. Though politically amorphous and without specific demands, OWS is clearly an expression of gathering resentment against the crimes and vaulting arrogance of the American ruling class. Its main slogan, ‘We are the 99%!’, expresses its intention of giving a voice to a majority it perceives as increasingly disenfranchised by a tiny financial and corporate elite. It aims to fight back against the latter’s looting of the public purse and accumulation of fantastic wealth at the expense of a population more and more debt-burdened and without prospects of decent work.

In the four weeks since the occupation began, OWS has captured the attention of the national media, drawn thousands to its impromptu marches, attracted the (often hesitant) support of major unions, featured left celebrities such as Michael Moore, Naomi Klein and Slavoj