Dissertation

From Alterglobalization to Occupy Wall Street: Neoanarchist Movements and the New Spirit of Capitalism

Taylor, Blair

2017

Overview

From the alterglobalization movement to Occupy Wall Street, neoanarchist politics have become increasingly hegemonic on the North American left. During the same period, capitalism has increasingly taken up the language of social movements: sustainability, fair trade, authenticity, freedom. How did the language of the left become the language of business? This dissertation argues that the incorporation of social movement themes is constructing a “new spirit of capitalism” that addresses growing demand for an ethical lifeworld while neutralizing critique, channeling oppositional energies into systemic innovation and stabilization. It describes the rise of the prefigurative political orientation that emerged from the New Left and New Social Movements as an antiauthoritarian alternative to Marxism, and how it evolved into the neoanarchism hegemonic within the alterglobalization and Occupy Wall Street movements. Offering a critical analysis of neoanarchism, it argues that latent affinities with neoliberalism make it especially susceptible to recuperation—the incorporation of contentious movements and discourse into power—a process which constitutes an important but overlooked factor in movement demobilization as well as systemic stabilization. Charting the mutual co-construction of movements and capitalism, it describes how recuperation changes over time: whereas the anti-corporate politics of the alterglobalization movement of the late 90s was repackaged as ethical consumption, Occupy Wall Street’s antistatist politics of direct action mutual aid blurred into the self-management of neoliberal crisis articulated by conservative political groups. It demonstrates how this antistatist communitarian politics has become increasingly attractive to left and right actors alike, offering a glimpse of a potentially emergent new spirit of capitalism suited to a post-crisis era of “zombie” neoliberalism wherein social movements provide the social welfare duties abandoned by the state, legitimated by a language of democratic empowerment more palatable than austerity. Challenging common assumptions about the relationship between protest and power, this research explores how ostensibly oppositional social movements also constitute important resources for political stabilization in contemporary societies. It utilizes an interdisciplinary and mixed method approach which combines textual analysis of movement and business materials, archival research, interviews, and participant observation.

• Publisher: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses
• Subject: Political science / Social research
• ISBN: 1369780850, 9781369780857