By Steve Clark
An old adage says, “A correct political line finds followers.”
Events are moving fast now. Since the advent of the Occupy Movement, the revolutionary situation is developing powerfully. As that first and most persistent anti-corporate fighter, Ralph Nadar, said last week, “Just wait to you see the American Spring!”
Since Occupy Wall Street, all occupations and much other resistance explicitly target finance capital. In the spring and through next summer, against the backdrop of the approaching American elections, the Occupy Movement is going to deepen, spread and link up with occupations that are developing worldwide.
We might all use this winter to get prepared. For my friends who have not done so, this is the time to get on Facebook and master the art of social media networking.
The service economy sanctions networks rather than organizations. The rising forces of the new economy – the service class, civil society and the progressive global grassroots – are networked through social media. We are entering a decisive phase in the struggle against the hegemony by the big banks and corporate sector. In the period ahead, progressive global forces will debate, then settle on the core demands of our revolt.
Currently, the movement’s political line is unclear. Indeed, as a spontaneous mass rebellion, the movement is very small-p, more cultural than political. In that sense, it manifests the popular desire for a new social contract, a new deal between the elites and the masses. In the realm of values and structures, the movement is utopian socialist, accepting the reality that we are all in this world together and that we have to learn to manage it for our common interests.
Ultimately, however, political power is a fact of social existence, and it is through politics – revolutionary or not – that society decides its course of action. Not only will the Occupy Movement begin to gravitate toward more definite political demands, so too will the unionists (aroused since last winter in Wisconsin), the environmentalists and the legions of unemployed, educated youth and mortgage victims whose needs the corporate system is ignoring. This trend will be accelerated by the pressures of next year’s American elections.
All these forces (and similar counterparts in other nations worldwide) want to hold finance capital to social account, but despite the worthy exception of Elizabeth Warren, few mainstream practical or opinion leaders consistently express need of a new social contract. The concept needs to be more broadly articulated and clearly explained so that mass movement participants can become more conscious of their objective. THIS SHOULD BE ONE EXPLICIT GOAL OF PROGRESSIVE FORCES.
Separate from the concept of a new social contract, a variety of ideas are being discussed among progressives about how to pursue social justice and security vis-a-vis the financial sector: for instance, re-enactment of Glass-Steagall, debt forgiveness, a bank tax. Of these, the bank tax is the most strategic as it creates a new and potentially vast revenue stream (a trillion dollars per year from transactions taxes on global commerce). Opinion leaders are beginning to line up behind this concept. The first was Dean Baker, shortly after the 2008 financial crisis (and the formal onset of the present global depression). About a year ago, Angela Merkel and Nicholas Sarkozy started touting it to the G-20 (apparently, Brazil already has some form of transaction tax). Though the City (the London financial center) opposes such a tax, British Prime Minister David Cameron expressed interest last summer. The National Nurses Union (NNU) picked up the demand last August, and it has been floated in every journal that provides favorable coverage or comment on the Occupy Movement. Two weeks ago, Senator Tom Harkin (D—IA) and Representative Peter DeFazio (D—OR) introduced legislation calling for a tax in the US Congress. Last week, Bill Gates, in his address to the G-20, urged adoption of a “modest” and limited transaction tax.
Given the extent of the world’s mounting catastrophe and the inevitable need to contain and abate social unrest, it is essential that the global economy find new revenues to blunt the crisis. Thus, adoption of a “bank transactions tax” is all but inevitable. However, there are two lines on how to manage and direct this revenue stream. The lines turn on two questions: what is the purpose of the tax and who should manage it? CLARIFYING THE TWO LINES ON THESE QUESTIONS SHOULD BE THE SECOND EXPLICIT GOAL OF PROGRESSIVES.
Bill Gates has been clear in saying that the money should to go to global development (vague as he left the term, I find the track record of the Gates Foundation within a reasonable framework of social necessity). Baker would probably agree with Gates. The Nurses Union says the money should be used to pay for social services provided by nurses and others (I like the way the union links service provision and employment). The European politicians, while noting that some funds should go to global development, see the bulk of the money flowing into their own national coffers, to be used as each state thinks appropriate (that is, to fund the same things that domestic tax revenue currently supports). It doesn’t appear that Harkin or DeFazio has well-developed ideas about how the tax would be used.
As to how the tax would be managed, the presumption, even among progressives such as Baker, Gates, the NNU and virtually all commentators on OWS, is that revenue would flow to national governments (of course, this is the perspective of Merkel, Sarkozy, Cameron, Harkin and DeFazio). While progressive advocates of the tax cannot fail to see the danger of turning the revenues over to the same governments that are currently failing to address the world’s problems, they seem incapable of imagining anything different or better.
Though my inclination is to demand direct, popular control over the use of the bank transactions tax revenue stream (through mechanisms that the global movement creates), I accept that the revolutionizing of nation-states – and, subsequently, their participation in the social problem-solving agenda of civil society and the global grassroots – is part of the struggle. It certainly is strategically and tactically correct to press the demand for a new social contract funded by a bank transaction tax in American politics next year. It is conceivable that politicians (even Obama) will find it in their interest to embrace this demand and win election on an objectively revolutionary program. If so, the struggle will continue to force the political system to reform itself in the interest of the revolution.
But, as the Occupy Movement and its global scope already show, the revolution is not mainly about taking control of states, even the US state. It is about demanding social accountability from finance capital and thereby launching a sustained, generations-long effort to tackle the global crisis, to put people to work solving humanity’s problems.
The Occupy Movement is a movement of mainly young people struggling to have a future in a corporate-dominated world that always puts private profit for the already-wealthy ahead of social stability. Without victory, this movement cannot wilt and disappear. Moreover, due to social media, it is well-organized and, also, well-equipped for broad social decision-making.
What a movement of youth lacks, as we know from the Sixites youthful rebellion, is the insight of elder progressive leaders. It is the duty, responsibility, necessity and opportunity of Boomer progressives to provide this leadership. We need to hook up with our world’s youth and help them fight for a bright future.
For this, we need to join Facebook, learn to blog and tweet. It’s not that hard, it’s fun and it’s the means of revolutionary networking in the era ahead.
