This brings me to my main point. While Foucault was not a revolutionary philosopher like Marx was, his observations point to the vulnerability of the present system. Without the appearance or air of authority, the present power structure simply ceases to exist. The OWS movement implicitly understands this. It is not a revolutionary movement in the conventional sense. It does not seek merely to replace the heads of authority—whether governmental or economical. Rather, it seeks to replace the existing power structure entirely. Do not think of OWS as an interest group or a political party. When it claims to be (rather than to represent) the 99%, it means it literally. The entire 99% may not be on the street protesting and many of them are still stuck in their habits of self-surveillance and conformity. Nevertheless, the advent of instantaneous, decentralized communication has caused the masses to turn the surveillance tables onto the existing power elites.
I realize I am generalizing the OWS movement. Specific individuals want specific things of course and on some details they may even be at cross-purposes. On the large scale, however, OWS represents a genuine, inevitable, and irresistible threat to those who imagine themselves in power. The movement is in its infancy presently, but as the fascist-capitalist system creates more victims out of what was once the middle class, more and more will realize that there is no political remedy. In 2006 and 2008, the electorate demanded changed. Having failed to deliver fundamental change, the electorate again turned to its only option and put the Republicans back office. Now, approval ratings strongly suggest that most people have given up on the present system. Those with a vested interest in the present system—the military/prison/industrial complex—know they have reason to fear. A similar movement brought partial revolution to Egypt and Libya and hopefully will eventually bring down the Syrian dictatorship. Meanwhile, rioting against nationalized debt slavery fills the streets in Europe.
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There is no leadership, spokespersons, or official demands of OWS for the simple reason that the nation need not define itself in opposition to anything else. By creating demands or selecting leaders, the movement would define itself in opposition to the status quo casting itself as “the other” and apart from what is normal. Further, a specific leadership renders it vulnerable to decapitation by removing that leadership by arrest, death, or bribery. OWS and any larger movement that grows from it ought to continue to avoid that trap by remaining a decentralized movement. The goal of OWS is not to replace the existing power system or to put pressure on liberal or progressive (whatever that might mean) politicians. We are way beyond liberal solutions.
Liberalism holds that one can make improvements to the human condition within the institutional establishment by tweeking the existing system. In this sense, it is a close relative of conservatism, which holds that improvement comes by complying with existing rules. Liberal, representative democracy institutionalizes class conflict to create a struggle of interests within the legal system. In the case of the European power structure (including its settler states like the USA), that balance has been damaged to the point where the laboring classes no longer possess the political resources to exercise political agency. Instead of fixing or overthrowing the current system, OWS seeks an organic replacement. At some point, the movement will simply be the nation and perhaps more than that. After all, we will eventually have to admit that humanity has outgrown its collection of nation states.
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If it seems like people who would ordinarily support the Democrats are skeptical or are unenthusiastic, it is because we know that the political contest is a sideshow. The reason it is “Occupy Wall Street” and not “Occupy the Capitol” is because we know that Washington is a puppet theater and that gambling on change by playing party politics is a sucker’s game. Again, the idea is not simply to replace leaders or to enact specific reforms. OWS seeks to replace the entire political, social, and economic culture with a wider sense of human community. It already conducts itself in that manner. Rather than leaders with the prerogative to make decisions for the group, OWS operates on consensus. It is clear from the past ten or twelve years that there is no political, institutional solution for what ails us. Fortunately, we do not need one.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/100238810
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