A Marxist Critique of the Occupy Movement

For a movement that impacted the country both socially and politically, the occupy movement started out relatively small. According to Peter Katel of the CQ Researcher, a group of 1,000 protesters settled into Zuccotti Park, in New York City, in mid-September of 2011. This group, motivated by the growing chasm between the wealthy and middle classes hoped that non-violent protest could enlighten lawmakers and bring about economic change. The movement spread from New York to cities across America. The driving force behind the movement was a desire to change national policy, which favors the rich at the expense of the poor. There was a strong push against the movement as well. Many people (mainly conservatives) saw the occupy movement as an attempt to over through the American political system and in its place, impose a communist form of government. Major newspapers such as The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times compare the occupy movement to the Soviet communist uprising. William F. Jasper a writer for The New American, states, “The leading activists openly display their communist, Marxist, socialist, anarchist affiliations and orientations. One would have to be totally blind and totally dishonest not to notice this. The purpose of Mr. Jasper’s article was to show the contrast between the tea party who “paid for permits, police, security, and port-a-potties, and cleaned up after themselves; they did not stick the taxpayers with the tab,” and the occupy movement which he described as a violent communist uprising bent on overthrowing the government. Oddly enough the members of the occupy movement used this Marxist label as a rallying point. This created a peculiar situation in which each side used the term communism in an atte...

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... similarities exist, in critically examining the differences, it becomes quite difficult to classify the Occupy movement as a communist uprising. Carl Marx envisioned a revolution in which the oppressed lower class was forced by economic devastation to overthrow the government and enact a system where each person had the ability to produce what he or she wanted. The occupy movement resembled Marx’s dream as it pushed for equality between the rich and poor. The Occupy movement, however, only pushed for reforms within the capitalist system to reduce corruption thus separating it from Marx’s idea of a communist revolution. According to Tumino, capitalism, by nature, regardless of governmental control, will favor the upper class at the expense of the workers. There cannot be change in the socioeconomic stratification without eliminating capitalism altogether. (Tumino)