Occupy Influence Grows: An Interview with ‘Generation Occupy’ Author | East Bay Express
On January 6, the anniversary of a crowd invading the American capital and riots within its walls as our elected officials feared for their lives, I spoke with Michael Levitin, author of Generation Occupy. Published 10 years after the brief flash of Occupy encampments across the country, his work reviews the legacy of what may be the most influential mass movement in America in the past 50 years. Wait, or was it less influential? Let’s find out.
EBX: I have the impression that in your book there is a lot of reason to be optimistic. Your optimism really shines through, but in Afterward it’s a bit more sketchy.
Levitin: [Laughs] Yeah, because we had an insurgency, right?
EBX: That’s what we did. What are some of the lessons from Occupy that you would really like to see take hold, perhaps now that the national political system seems to be faltering?
Levitin: [There is a section in my book called,] “Courage is contagious. We all have the same impulse within us to do more than what we’re doing right now, don’t we? In activism, Occupy seemed to generate this wave of courage of “wow, I can really do this, I’m just as powerful an agent as my neighbor”. It was the brilliant wake-up call he gave.
Yet whatever the form [collective action] there need to be more clearly defined objectives. It’s not just about protesting, getting angry and waving signs. It’s coming up with solutions and policies, like the Green New Deal, that can really make a difference.
The Sunrise movement, together with AOC, put the Green New Deal on the national radar and [as a result] Bernie Sanders put it on the reconciliation file. Much of what they’ve done is turn activism into real change. It didn’t happen because of what you mean, a certain senator from West Virginia …
EBX: But that’s the crux of the matter here. Yes, these efforts were inspired by Occupy. And I really dig into what you said about feeling powerful in and around each other, and …
Levitin: But …
EBX: [Laughs] OKAY, corn we do not have time to make things work out on their own. The Green New Deal has not passed. The way the left assumes that over time, gradually, things get better, even though it’s true, there is no time. On the climate scale and maybe even on other shorter-term threats, we are running out of time. It’s the anniversary of the insurgency right now. Today, in fact, yes.
Levitin: Totally, today is the perfect day to talk about it. This is what it is about. I wrote the book with optimism, in the sense that it seemed more optimistic, but once [2021] has begun [the Afterword to the] book takes a darker turn because things just didn’t work out. The year has gotten darker, and it’s dark now.
EBX: On these two great intellectuals [laughing], I mean existential crises—and intellectual — we are facing, which are 1) climate change, where we have this time frame which is about 10 years [according to the UN’s IPCC scientists] and 2) the risk for democracy at present What is, I don’t know, the deadline… is this the deadline this year, is the November election the deadline? And there is still no real movement towards electoral reform.
Levitin: Right. A fat man. I don’t know if “democracy”, even now, I don’t know how you mobilize a whole generation to, like, save democracy. I wonder if this is what will galvanize young people. Frankly, I don’t think they think democracy has given them as much as it is, that it has done its job enough to be… the thing to bring people out. I think the climate is going to be the one that attracts people, because the threat is really existential.
[What was] so effective and important in the Occupy days, it was to come out and say, “the whole system is rotten,” because nobody had done it yet. And now we’ve done it and everyone knows it’s rotten. A decade later, no one doubts that our whole system is down and that everyone at the top is complicit. We are all aware of it. The tongue has flowed. And everyone knows it.
EBX: I hear you, that the solution is in the projects: new legislation, basic food banks, etc., or is it? Is the solution really, as if we start to behave together in this radically even way, which was the basis of Occupy, are we starting to put things in order? Can we use this to build resilience in the tough times ahead?
Levitin: Building on the whole of participatory democracy [example], yeah I love this idea: the locals organize themselves like that, collective water, food, energy use, solar price negotiation, public banks…
EBX… tool shares…
Levitin: Okay, all of that. So I think nothing is stopping people on this small scale. Like, that’s where the future lies, right? Especially since things are falling apart and we’re moving from that kind of federal government [model]. This seems to be the [direction]. Like, people don’t have any more mandates from above. We seem to be entering an era of non-mandate, [which is problematic, but] I like the idea of people at the community level making changes, when they can. [navigate] the interpersonal part.
EBX: And you see how cities dominate the federal government when it comes to climate.
Levitin: Right, cities absolutely are, because they can make decisions, on a small scale.
EBX: There’s a lot of talk in the press that workers now have more power than they’ve had in years. How did the 99% concept inform the current labor movement?
Levitin: My God. The 99% was the brilliant concept of Occupy, the 99%. Even the enemies, even the 1%, everyone understands. This is what has changed the culture more than anything since Occupy. The paradox was that the Occupy didn’t have the 99% behind them on the streets when this happened. There were no workers, there were no blacks and browns. So I guess my big hope for the next participatory democratic rebellion would be that it really pays off the 99%. The workers have simply not been at the center of the conversation since the socialist and communist conversations of the [19]20’s and 30’s. Basically that was the end of the whole idea of worker-controlled and run-of-the-mill companies.
EBX: Yeah, that’s where the power is. This is the definition of “power”, of people working together.
Levitin: Sure, it seems, absolutely. It is behind the whole economy of resignation. The awareness that Occupy has awakened, that we’re not just automata working for the 1%, we actually have to make demands and start saying this is what we need. For me, this whole era of worker empowerment that we are entering, the new 20s – and the pandemic obviously started it all – was in my Occupy mind that was instrumental in the resignation economy. Everyone says, “You actually want me to get sick, you want me to work for fucking low – wages, pensions, health care, benefits, cuts, cuts – can -being I won’t, I think I’m going to retire. “
EBX: Become a journalist for example [laughing]. But really, people quit, for sure, but they don’t just beg, people do things.
Levitin: I guess the question I would ask, relating to Occupy, is that the 1% think they [Occupy] are like a group of people who need alms, that they will be worthless brakes on society. I would beg to differ. What about the interesting, enlightening and enlightening opportunities that open up in their life to finally start doing what they really want to do in their life?
EBX: Look, you and I wrote a book during that time, right? What, don’t you know other people who started new businesses during Covid?
Levitin:… started a million projects, yeah!
EBX: There is an explosion of creativity that people are sharing online. You see that, don’t you?
Levitin: Of course. On the other hand, [people are] get dressed [to make] money just so you can live that creepy lifestyle here in the most expensive economy on the planet. Real estate prices, I don’t know. I feel both ways.
EBX: Of course, I would hate to deny the efforts people make to take care of and get by with their families. Still, there are those who find ways to use the extra time they used to commute …
Levitin: Yeah …
EBX:… or they don’t work. This time goes into the stuff.
Levitin: in Things to the right? So what should he get into? For example, let’s say you’re trying to organize some awesome new things, aren’t there a bunch of new people that maybe weren’t even there 10 years ago because they were too locked up to go out and occupy?
I guess a big question is, what do you do with this huge population growth with more free time? Are they ready to commit? I do not know. Are they ready to do something beyond themselves, like forming something? I do not know. I love the idea.
EBX: So many things in our system are designed to prevent people from coming together. Like in the state of San Francisco, after all the student activism of the ’60s, the new student center was built so you couldn’t congregate. It’s designed like that. There is no way for a group to come together, little twists and turns. They are called Malcolm X Plaza and Cesar Chavez Student Center, but you can’t come together, can you?
There are all of these artificial limits to collectivism intentionally built into the education, the economy, the workplace. And so, if this new generation leaves and doesn’t go into debt for a house and limits their work where they can, you know, one person working part time in the family and one person working full time , those kind of new decisions that weren’t even options before. This should free up time to pursue their common interests, which is sometimes referred to as “the general welfare”.
Levitin: You might think so. I think that would be a great optimistic view of the 20’s. Maybe it’s the decade, like, if resignation is real, if it’s backed and people are fed up with capitalism as it was… been. desperately needed for so long.
We just got bogged down in the pursuit of wealth and materials. Yeah, what if that’s what got us going? It’s going to be a crazy time to come with the weather and other fears. It is as if there is almost nothing to lose. It could be like some kind of Burning Man mentality for mainstream life. Maybe we’re all here to make amazing and beautiful creations as a culture and do some crazy bullshit because, you know … we don’t flip shit, but we can definitely dance while we’re in the dance .
“Generation Occupy,” by Michael Levitin, is available from Pegasus Books in Berkeley or online at independent bookstores.
Michael Giotis was an animator for Occupy Petaluma. He writes about culture in this time of monumental change.
