political romanticism

In The Guardian David Graeber has extolled the Occupy movement. However, it is worth noting that public demonstrations still seem to have an effect in nations where civil society is restricted or non-existent (see the “Arab Spring”) and in France (in the form of the general strike), but this political style is pretty much exhausted in the USA, almost to the point of becoming a cliche. The declining significance of street protests is made worse when organizers (if any exist) promise more than they can deliver. Occupy Wall Street… until what happens? The closing of the DJIA? What Graeber purports to be one of the signs of the fall of the American Empire, the tribal drumbeats echoing through the canyons of lower Manhattan, is a spectacle; meanwhile, for criminal banksters and feral traders (like the USB thug Kweku Adoboli) it’s business as usual.

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The anarchist vision apparent in Graeber’s commentary (“This is why protesters are often hesitant even to issue formal demands, since that might imply recognising the legitimacy of the politicians against whom they are ranged”) is no substitute for a real political theory of how the widespread change its author envisions might be actualized. Hardt and Negri suffice for the sound bit imagination of well-meaning demonstrators; the rest of us can still hope for something more profound.