Searching for Marx in the Occupy Movement

Searching for Marx in the Occupy Movement is two books in one: a case study of Occupy Philadelphia (2011–2012) informed by author John Leveille’s own sustained participation and a series of theoretical meditations that offer ‘‘a rebooted Marxist perspective’’ (p. 266) on contemporary social movements. The monograph proceeds from a critique of the dominant perspectives in social movement studies—the resource mobilization/ political process approaches associated with American sociology and the more European ‘‘new social movement’’ theories. The alternative favored by Leveille draws heavily on Critical Theory—particularly Adorno’s thinking on negative dialectics—in reading Occupy as both a product of advanced capitalism’s contradictions and an inchoate attempt to address those contradictions. The book is theoretically innovative in how it approaches capitalism’s contradictions, arguing that in postindustrial capitalism the classic capital-labor divide is no longer politically generative (at least not in the United States) but has been displaced into a contradiction pitting humanism against capital, as ‘‘capitalism negates the humanity of individuals’’ (p. 27). The contradiction is manifested both on the institutional level and ‘‘on the level of being and self’’ (p. 21). At the personal level, the disembedded self is increasingly shaped by forces anchored in capitalism that negate its autonomy, yet it is increasingly expected to define itself and exercise autonomy. Institutionally, the contradiction replays Weber’s analysis of rationalization, with formal rationality identified as capital’s logic and substantive, value rationality seen as an expressive alternative. Against this ground, Occupy appears as a collective attempt to express authentic selves, refusing the cold calculations of abstract individuals and markets. The sometimes naı̈ve stances of Occupy activists—as in the refusal to enunciate concrete demands—were attempts to break out of capitalism’s stultifying hegemony. ‘‘The protestors were produced by capitalism and were producing however awkwardly a moral mode of being in the face of a world framed by instrumentalities and appearances’’ (p. 246). Much of the book (Chapters 4 through 12) is focused on Occupy Philadelphia—the macro and proximate contexts of its emergence, development, and demise, its organizational structures, ideologies, schisms, and its relations with other actors and structures. These chapters are peppered with rich ethnographic insights and occasional theoretical digressions, which always add interpretative value. Leveille recounts how the general aversion in Occupy to leadership and organization produced a movement segmented formally into a host of autonomous working groups. Informally, however, hierarchy and power differentials emerged around charismatic leaders and selective access to the use of social media. In practice, the movement was structured as ‘‘a series of concentric circles’’ (p. 123), in which members of the inner circle knew each other well and had detailed knowledge of events, planning, and activities, while outsiders lacked this knowledge and had difficulty knowing who was in the inner circle. Unaccountable leadership, in a movement committed to deep democratization, however, was not the only contradiction within Occupy. The movement’s segmented structure encouraged schisms, as activists with different perspectives self-selected into different working groups. Reasonable Solutions, a subgroup favoring pragmatic reform, withdrew from Occupy late in 2011, complaining of exclusionary practices at the General Assembly. The Dissenters, in contrast, were a relatively small group of poststructuralist anarchists who assumed a position of ‘‘disproportionate influence’’ (p. 151). Viewing power as saturating immediate 328 Reviews