mark bergfeld, meccsa presentation: the role of "anarchists" in occupy, 20 nov 2013

8/13/2019 Mark Bergfeld, MeCCSA Presentation: The role of "anarchists" in Occupy, 20 Nov 2013

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The role of anarchists inOccupy

Mark BergfeldQueen Mary University of London School of

Business and Managementmdbergfeld[at]gmail.com

www.mdbergfeld.com

MeCCSA Social Movements Network Conference Generations of Protest - Marxism Matters?


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Occupy as an arena of class struggle

Barkers notion of social movement as a mediationof class struggle (Barker, 2011; Barker 2013)

Different actors contend with one another, seek to

influence the direction and make sense of strategy Epitomised by struggle within Occupy: conduit for

Obamas re -election(?), left-wing Tea Party (?),revolutionary party in the making (Dean, 2012)

Movements thus always heterogenous networks,always in flux and ever-changing

MeCCSA Social Movements Network

Conference Generations of Protest -

Marxism Matters?


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Idea(l)s in practice but theory also becomes a material force as soon as it has gripped the masses.Theory is capable of gripping the masses as soon as it demonstrates ad hominem,and it demonstrates ad hominem as soon as it becomes radical. (Marx, 1844)

Ideas can either further or inhibit the development of asocial movement (i.e. unity of cause between environment andlabour - Teamsters & Turtles in Seattle 1999) Different actors (nodes in the network) hold different ideas

which they seek to test against reality (Occupy Oakland

General Strike) Ideas cross-fertilise in the course of a movement (Occupy as

an American idea, Graeber, 2011, Graeber, 2012)



Marxism Matters?


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From my own experience

Participated in COP-15 mobilisations, UK studentmovement, solidarity demos outside Spanish embassy,and Occupy LSX

Encountered a common sense anti-authoritarianism or

anarchism actvists favoured informal politics as opposed to formal

politics Notions of leaderlessness, decentralised and

horizontalism dominant inside movement and activistcircles The reasons why people became activists and what they

expected from being an activist had changed



Marxism Matters?


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One, two, many anarchisms



Marxism Matters?

By 2001 [] a new, open -ended pragmaticanarchism was emerging as the spiritual centre of therevolutionary left" (Graeber, 2012: 425)


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Who are the anarchists?

Difference between small- a anarchists and capital -AAnarchists ( Graeber, 2002)

anarchists draw upon the student revolts of 1960s,spontaneist groups of the 1970s, and the German

Autonomen Draw heavily on the uprising of the inidigneous peoples

of Chiapas Mexico, their democratic practices and theuprising of the EZLN

Most importantly have imported movement -practicesfrom the Global South, and in particular, Latin America(Sitrin & Azzellini, 2012)



Marxism Matters?


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What did they do this time?



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Photo from Toronto G20 demonstration


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Did we only end up with this?



Marxism Matters?

Source: http://digitalpolitico.net/2011/11/02/i-hate-to-copy-guido-fawkes-but/


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Or this?



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What role they played Provide their infrastructure (i.e. soup kitchens) to Occupy as a whole

(Bray, 2013; Khatib et al 2012) Use previous movement-knowledge to advance movement (rf to

Seattle, 1999; PGA; WSF)

Create a culture of encounter and horizontalism which allowedpeople to participate who experience a life without democracy (rf.Sitrin & Azzellini, 2012)

Provide an ethico-political framework for the movement throughprefigurative politics

Created movement-practices and forms of communication whichdiffuse (Della Porta, 2005) and anti-systemic (Wallerstein & Arrighi,1997) in form (rather than content); Graeber calls thiscontaminationism



Marxism Matters?


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The function of the anarchist

Difference between role and function important theoretically adopted vanguard function ( Nunes, 2013) similar to Gustav

Landauer as elaborated by (Swain, 2013). This can be taken up by anumber of actors in social movements. Characterised by thosetaking initiatives ( rf. Bray, 2013; Graeber, 2012)

As the vanishing mediator (Dean, 2012) they allowed people toenter the movement until their ideas clashed with the scale, size ofmovement and was not able to provide further impetus

Popularisers of anti-capitalism and class politics

Leaders (Fox Piven, 2012) - can rest in collective groups as well asindividuals; can be formalised or informal; manifests itself in newways; Leaderfull (Occupy Research Collective 2012); "There areno leaders (or, more radically, everyone is a leader)." (Williams, 19)



Marxism Matters?


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The turn in anarchism

"Anarcho-popu l i sm is the dominant ideology in contemporary protestmovements. It is a form of mass anarchism, or of libertarian populism,in which political traditions apparently at odds with one another cometogether in contradictory ways. This development can be understood asa consequence of the current situation of economic and political crisis,in which traditional anarchist and anti-statist themes are capable ofresonating with sectors of the population well beyond its traditionalheartlands. At the time of the NSA scandal and of the politics ofausterity, being against the State is no longer an identitarian declarationthat only befits the mouths of dishevelled drop-outs hanging out in

squats and communes, but it is a persuasion that wide sectors of thepopulation can at the very least relate to. ( Gerbaudo, 2013)



Marxism Matters?


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Conclusion

Culture of encounter creates initial opportunities (newactivist culture) but also a strategic impasse formovements (demandlessness, rolling jubilee etc)

There is a valuable shift: no insistence on ideological

purity. Instead translated anarchy (Bray, 2013) orbecome pragmatic anarchists (Harvey in Khatib et al,2012) work with faith groups, political parties, tradeunions. Already saw that during COP-15 and discussionson diagonalism (Mueller, 2010)

Problem with popular agency (due to the role-functionproblem) needs to be resolved - in theory but also inpractice as Occupy Oakland showed with the GeneralStrike on November 2, 2011



Marxism Matters?


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The End

For full bibliography please e-mailmdbergfeld[at]gmail.com

For review essay on Graebers The Democracy Project and Khatib et al.s We Are Many check ContentionJournal http://bit.ly/1eyRgav

For other writings please visit www.mdbergfeld.com



Marxism Matters?
http://bit.ly/1eyRgavhttp://www.mdbergfeld.com/http://www.mdbergfeld.com/http://bit.ly/1eyRgav

mark bergfeld, meccsa presentation: the role of "anarchists" in occupy, 20 nov 2013

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