NEWARK, NJ — “Occupy Rutgers! Occupy Newark! Occupy the world!” These words rang throughout the Rutgers University campus. This was the first rally as part of the Occupy movement that is sweeping across the U.S. and many parts of the globe. Students at this multiracial working-class campus have plenty of concerns. Tuition is high; student debt has skyrocketed; the financial aid office is poorly organized and abusive; graduating students face the worst job market in many years.
Some students just keep slogging on, not daring to think about the larger implications of the situation they face. But the Occupy movement is attracting students who insist on seeing the big picture, and doing something about it.
The were a number of these new activist-students, a community organizer from the People’s Organization for Progress (POP), and a Marxist professor who described herself as an “unreconstructed 60s radical,” delighted to see students in motion once again.
There are real strengths of the Occupy movement that can be extended and deepened:
Occupy calls into question the sanctity of private property and the law. Why should Wall Street exist at all? Why should capitalist-run governments dictate where and when people express their political views?
The slogan of “we are the 99%” has the advantage of overcoming the divisions — between employed and unemployed, U.S.-born and “foreign-born,” as well as among different “races” — upon which capitalism thrives.
More occupiers recognize the great majority of workers in the United States designated as “middle class” are in fact working class. As one speaker at the rally asserted, to cheers, “The notion that we are all ‘middle-class’ is bull****!”
While the level of energy at the rally was high, there needs to be sharp political analysis of the potential pitfalls of the Occupy movement. These include:
An inadequate analysis of economic inequality that focuses on issues such as the under-taxation of corporations and very wealthy individuals. While it is true that the bosses get away like bandits, contributing less than ever to the public, the fundamental basis of inequality is the exploitation of labor.
The need to understand that capitalism is a system of class rule, not just an “economic” system that can be corrected or controlled through a supposedly democratic “political” system. Capitalism is, as Marx pointed out, the dictatorship of the owners of the means of production.
While the Occupy movement is fraught with peril, readily open to misleadership by the liberals in the ruling class using electoral politics, it has prompted many young people to think deeply about the real reasons for poverty, racism and war.