The Anarchism of Occupy Wall Street

The Occupy Wall Street movement arose to protest extreme economic inequality, corporate control of economic and political life, and government policies which exacerbated them. Many activists held anarchist principles, though not primarily directed at the abolition of the state but rather at the organization of the movement itself: horizontalism (no formal leadership), prefiguration (attempting to model the desired future society in the movement's own practice), autonomy from the state and other political organizations, mutual aid, and defiance of government authority. The mainly young occupiers were attracted to anarchism because neither employment in large institutions nor a government safety net appeared to offer them any prospect of security, so they invested their faith in autonomous solidary organizations governed by consensus. Though Occupy Wall Street deliberately abstained from conventional political activism, it nevertheless influenced that process by focusing political discourse on inequality, opening up political space for other actors to press for reforms Read More: http://guilfordjournals.com/doi/abs/10.1521/siso.2015.79.2.288