Street roots
Dec. 23, 2011
BY ROBIN HAHNEL
Are we really 99 percent?
C O N T R IB U T IN G C O L U M N IS T
n a posting on ZNet on Nov. 21 Michael
Albert argued that “we” are not really 99
percent “When occupiers and critics
alike say, we love the creative innovation
embodied in the 99 percent slogan, I worry.
Does saying we are the 99 percent obscure
more than it reveals?” Albert went on to
argue that if we don’t give “serious
attention” to differences among the 99
percent — differences between roughly 19
percent who monopolize empowering tasks,
supervise others, and enjoy relatively
generous compensation, and the remaining
79 percent who work for much less pay
carrying out orders
issued by th ese.
“coordinators” — the
Robin Hahnel is a
Occupy movement
politial activist and
runs the risk of being
visiting professor of
hijacked by a minority
economics at
within its ranks.
Portland State
On the other hand,
University. He is a
in his column in the
cocreator o f the post
New York Times o n :
capitalist economic
Nov. 24 Paul Krugman
model known as .
participatory
argued that a careful
economics, along with look at the data
Z Magazine editor
reveals that “we” are
Michael Albert. He is
actually 99.9 percent
also Professor
because it is actually
Emeritus at
the top 0.1 percent
American University
who
have
in Washington, D.C.
appropriated the lion’s
share of the
productivity gains of
all of us over the past thirty years. “We are
the 99 percent is a, great slogan.... If
anything, however, the 99 percent slogan
aims too low. A large fraction of the top 1
percent’s gains have actually gone to an
even smaller group, the top 0.1 percent.”
So what is one to think? Are “we” 99
percent as the slogan says? Are “we” only
79 percent as Albert argues? Or are “we”
actually 99.9 percent as Krugman says data
suggests?
Facts are facts, and “in fact,” both Albert
and Krugman are correct Krugman is
correct that the thirty-year larceny by the
super wealthy has actually been more
“grand” than the 99 percent slogan implies.
But Albert is also correct that in addition to
die 1 percent there are another 19 percent
who are the beneficiaries of economic
arrangements that cannot he justified and
work to the , detriment of the 79 percent
below them.
But the question is not really what
percentage “we” are. The question we need
to answer is how the Occupy movement
should try to deyelop. Should the Occupy
movement focus on hammering out an
agenda for those of us who already consider
ourselves progressive to rally around and
fight for? Or, should it try to reach out to
those who áre increasingly upset with what
is happening to them but have not identified
with progressive causes and movements in
the past?
I want to insert one other “fact” into this
I
K O S T A M IL O V A N O V IC / W D O Y O U W
important discussion about where the
occupy movement should try to go.
Neither leftists nor progressives have ,r
been able to “connect” with an important :
part of the 99 percent for many decades.
Assume with Albert that there are 19
percent who are “coordinators” with
important class interests, which put them at
odds with the rest of the 99 percent
Unfortunately, many in that majority do n o t
have progressive values. Worse still, many in
that same majority have long been actively
hostile to progressive ideas and movements.
I would venture that 30 percent is a
generous estimate of the percentage of the
US population that is progressive; In which
case, at most, 30 percent of the 79 percent
is solidly “with us.” That leaves as much as
49 percent of the population who have long
lent “us” a deaf ear - but not because of any
objective class interests that should make
them ünreceptive to a progressive economic
agenda.
This 49 percent is the magnitude of the
historic failure of left and progressive
economic movements in the U.S. over the
past thirty years. And unless* “we” figure out
some way to connect with a significant part
of this 49 percent we will continue to be
unable to build a majoritarian movement for
social change. Left and progressive
movements in the 1930s and 1940s did
connect with many in this 49 percent who
participated in the famous FDR New Deal
coalition, But that was a long time ago.
When the financial crisis broke out in
2008, soon to be followed by the greatest
recession and foreclosure crisis in over 80
years, I thought leftists and progressives
might be able to reach out and connect with
at least some in that 49 percent who had
long been beyond hearing our voices. After
all, I reasoned, the Rush Limbaugh narrative
they had been tuned into had been “proven”
false by the economic crisis the right wing
narrative predicted was impossible. Surely
the 49 percept would start to look for
answers elsewhere. Unfortunately much too
little of this happened in 2008 and 2009.
Instead, the right wing quickly came up with
a list of false; scapegoats and spurious
theories to explain what had happened tS
their listenership. As most who “voted for
change” in 2008 waited in vain for Obama
and the Democrats to respond effectively to
the crisis, public anger at elite misrule
broke out first on the right in the form of
the tea party movement which peaked in
time for the 2Q1&midterm elections.
But the tea party is so 2010, and 2011 is
all about Occupy! 2011 began with ¿’winter
uprising in Wisconsin that was led by
traditional progressive organizations, with a
very traditional progressive agenda.
However, what followed was anything but
traditional. By late summer, Occupy Wall
Street and solidarity occupations in
hundreds of cities across America had
fingered the financial sector and its political
cronies in both political parties as the cause
of our distress. The Occupy movement also
provided a radical diagnosis for the root
cause of our economic illness — obscene
economic inequality — as well as a radical
cure — replace elite mis-rule with
participatory democracy. Moreover, it was
obvious that the Occupy movement was not
organized and led by “the usual suspects,”
as progressive activists and organizations
scrambled to support the movement after
the fact
Below are three questions I think those
debating where the occupy movement
should go would do well to consider.
(1) While there are many in the 49
percent who remain tied to tea parly politics
and its fantasy world created by right wing
think tanks for broadcast on right wing radio
and Fox TV, there are some in the 49
percent who are somewhat detached from
this right wing narrative. How many are
“some,” and what is the extent of their
detachment are important questions.
(2) Does the Occupy movement provide
“us” with a second chance to break out of
“our” historic isolation? Cap Hie Occupy
movement reach people in the 49 percent
who progressives failed to connect with
three years ago, now that it is clear that
neither mainstream political party is going
to do anything to make the economic crisis
go away in the foreseeable future?
i (3) What can the Occupy movement do -
or be careful not to do - to maximize
reaching new people?
The 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and
1990s saw the rise of important “new social
movements” in the US fighting against
imperialism, environmental destruction, and
oppression based on race, sex, and sexual
orientation. In a prolonged period without a
severe domestic economic crisis it was ’
difficult for leftists and progressives to
engage the body politic in discussions of
class issues. Is not the worst economic
crisis in over eighty years which shows no
sign of abating something of a “game
changer?” Suddenly the super economic
elite and their apologists in the media and
academia seem unable to suppress
discussion about how badly economic
inequality has poisoned our society. Is this
the time to change the subject to discuss
conflicting interests among the 99 percent?
Or should we instead thank the 0.1 percent
for over-playing their hand to such an extent
that they have goaded tens, if not hundreds
of milhons of average Americans to openly
question an economic system that has
spawned unacceptable economic inequality
and destroyed any semblance of political
democracy? The Occupy movement surely
doesn’t want to hand the super-elite another
bailout by changing the subject to divisions
among the 99 percent, however real and
important they may be.
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