Marxist theory and the politics of occupy

The Occupy Movement emerged in late 2011, and appeared to assume the status of a global phenomenon. Though there has been an extensive commentary in the popular media who have deemed Occupy to be the latest wave of anti-capitalist mobilisation, there has yet to be a comprehensive in-depth theoretically informed analysis of this movement.

This paper looks at the relationship between the ideological framing of Occupy and wider meta-theoretical considerations. Specifically we will assess the extent to which contemporary and classical theoretical approaches speak to the framing of Occupy. Do Marxist and post-Marxist, anarchist and post-anarchist theories engage with the concerns of Occupy? Does Occupy represent something new which cannot be captured through established radical political thought? And crucially, are there any possibilities of a meaningful dialogue between Occupy and Marxism? Clearly many Marxists did not hold out any hope for the possibilities of a dialogue. For example, Alex Callinicos maintains that Occupy’s failure to ‘maintain itself’ can be explained by
‘the absence of a sustained revival of working class militancy, which would give a social weight to the protest spectaculars offered by the movements. But the situation hasn't been helped by the domination of the anti-capitalist movement by "horizontalist" hostility to political parties and by unworkable (and ultimately undemocratic) methods of decision-making based on consensus.’ (Callinicos, 2013)

Is Callinicos right? Is there a better way of thinking about Occupy which reaches beyond the categories of classical Marxism? The paper will venture to provide a substantive answer to these questions.