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News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygohttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-teitelman/end-the-fed_b_1088873.html Anarchism, Liberterianism and OWS
by Robert Teitelman
Posted: 11/15/11 09:34 AM ET
Occupy Wall Street has, from its earliest days, been something of a
bazaar of causes and hobbyhorses. That, in fact, is what defines it, as
I argued in a post a few weeks ago: not a single program or doctrine,
but a kind of open process that, among its more articulate
spokespersons, could be described as anarchism or direct democracy. That
process has baffled most of the media, accustomed to the orthodox left,
right or Republican, Democratic split. This explains the initial
reaction to OWS that it was simply a Tea Party for the left and the
insistence by pundits that it stood for this or that. But it soon became
clear that something else was going on. One day as I wended my way past
Zuccotti Park, I was struck by waving signs demanding to "End the Fed."
This shruggingly seemed, at the time, to represent an example of the
general incoherence of OWS. But a few days later, on the prime media
strip along Broadway by the park, there were suddenly four sign wavers
in a row urging not only to "End the Fed" but to sign up with Ron Paul,
last seen on the GOP presidential debate stage trying to help Rick Perry
with his list of agencies to kill.
This is the kind of thing those on the left -- labor, say, or
doctrinally correct progressives -- will reject as just a fringe
manifestation or, more darkly, an attempt by forces of the right to
co-opt the movement, a sort of Occupy Wall Street occupation. But I'm
less sure of that today than when I first saw those signs. Early this
week an OWS press release publicized "Federal Reserve Awareness Day" on
Wednesday featuring a "moderated discussion" between an outside expert,
David Korten, and an occupier, Harrison Shulz, on the Fed's role "in the
corrupt and dysfunctional systems of financial malfeasance that caused
global depression."
Perhaps the most articulate and sophisticated of OWS "spokespersons"
(that being a mild contradiction in a movement that rejects leadership)
is David Graeber, an anthropologist from Goldsmiths, University of
London who, as far as I can tell, was first identified as such in a
piece in Bloomberg Businessweek last month, and who has since confessed
to being the creator of the "We are the 99%" slogan. Graeber is an open
advocate of anarchism, and was a key player in the discussions in New
York that occurred last summer that gestated what we now know as OWS.
Graeber, however, is no naïf. He's long been involved in
anti-globalization campaigns (or as its known by activists, "global
justice") over the last decade -- he seems to have lost his position at
Yale University over his activism -- and he's the author of a recent
book, "Debt: The First 5,000 Years," which I hope to review in the next
few weeks. Graeber has had a few moments in the public eye, including
two interviews on television -- one on PBS in August (before the protest
began) about debt, the other with Charlie Rose in 2006 -- where he
freely discusses a range of subjects. Both now take on greater
significance than when they were broadcast.
Graeber particularly goes into the history and beliefs of anarchism with
Rose. He has very interesting things to say about the ties between
anarchism today and in its American heyday (heyday being a relative term
-- it's always been relatively small) in the Gilded Age of the 1880s and
1890s and up to World War I. He argues that the war ushered in a long
period of global conflict and struggle, right up to the Cold War,
driving underground a movement that argues against the necessity for
authority, hierarchy and government. Anarchism, he notes, re-emerged in
the form of the anti-globalization movement as the Cold War ended and
the economy boomed. Of course he was speaking in 2006, before the
financial crisis and before the world economy began to shake and
shudder. Looking back now, you have to wonder why, under these crisis
conditions, so many seem attracted to what Graeber calls "experiments in
direct democracy" and re-imagining the world in new ways. But, of
course, Graeber in 2006 could no more foresee the crash any better than,
say, Alan Greenspan.
But that's a digression. Here's Graeber on Rose in 2006 with his short
definition of anarchism: "Anarchism is about acting as if you're already
free. ... Anarchism is democracy without the government. Most people
love democracy, but most people don't like the government very much.
Keep one, take away the other -- that's anarchism. Anarchism is direct
democracy." He elaborates. "Anarchism is the commitment to the idea that
it is possible to have a society based on principles of
self-organization, voluntary association and mutual aid. It's not the
belief that we are necessarily going to have it but that we could have
it. You can't know it's possible. But by the same token you can't know
that it's not possible."
Graeber's description of the anarchist impulse, as an experiment without
government, veers awfully close to Ron Paul-like "End the Fed"
libertarianism. Venture capitalist and libertarian Peter Thiel, for
instance, has helped fund The Seasteading Institute, whose "mission is
"to establish permanent, autonomous ocean communities to enable
experimentation and innovation with diverse social, political, and legal
systems." One of the founders of the institute is Patri Friedman, a
grandson of Milton Friedman, and a former engineer at Google. What is
the difference between Zuccotti Park and a free, autonomous and
sovereign community located in (presumably warm) international waters?
Well, the seasteading idea remains theoretical, while OWS exists, albeit
with the fragile and ironic permission of the police and city. The
emphasis of a Thiel or a Paul (who Thiel has endorsed for president)
involves a far more profound belief in markets than the anarchist belief
in direct democracy, which has its market-like aspects but which is no
fan of the wisdom of markets. Paul and Thiel-style libertarianism has an
Ayn Randian edge -- meaning a kind of Nietzschian belief in supermen
dragged down by the demons -- that is utterly lacking in the consensus
style of Graeber and anarchist theory. The OWS crowd, naively or not,
seem to believe it can transform the larger community by example, like
medieval monks praying for our souls in giant monasteries; the
steasteading crowd seems to argue that they can only carve out their
free space outside the oppressive shadow of the nation-state.
Both are utopian, in the technical sense that neither exists (or at
least that that existence is artificial; OWS could be wiped out
tomorrow). And both suffer from the contradictions and flaws of any
utopian venture in history. But for all their differences -- and there's
a huge stylistic difference between the pensive academic Graeber and the
often pugnaciously argumentative capitalist Thiel -- the roots of the
two movements are tangled, and the language that they use to describe
their aspirations and goals is very similar. "End the Fed" may just be a
silly sign among the many at Zuccotti Park. Or it may suggest
ideological commonalities that we should pay greater attention to.
Robert Teitelman is editor in chief of The Deal magazine.
--
Dan Clore
New book: _Weird Words: A Lovecraftian Lexicon_:
http://tinyurl.com/yd3bxkwMy collected fiction: _The Unspeakable and Others_
http://tinyurl.com/3tyj9cq Lord Weÿrdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
http://tinyurl.com/292yz9News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo Skipper: Professor, will you tell these people who is
in charge on this island?
Professor: Why, no one.
Skipper: No one?
Thurston Howell III: No one? Good heavens, this is anarchy!
-- _Gilligan's Island_, episode #6, "President Gilligan"
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