This is important insofar as disorganization prevents collective action. The Pre-Occupy Movement -- what little there was -- consisted of "issue-based activism," i.e., different groups working disconnectedly towards various goals. Occupy has the power to change this, to create real power for working people. Initially, Occupy had united all the various left groups while bringing in new blood. But the old habits of issue-based, fragmented activism were hard to break.
Many Occupiers are content with "autonomous" actions, i.e., small groups acting independently of a larger body towards various ends. Small actions have their time and place, but a powerful movement is one that inspires. Working people are given hope when they sense that a movement is able to achieve victories for working people, i.e., when it is powerful. And working people are only truly powerful when they are united and acting collectively in massive numbers (the corporate elite uses divide and conquer tactics for a reason).
One reason that Occupy is fearful of centralization (organization) is because being organized inevitably creates leaders. And since much of Occupy is "anti-authoritarian" (again in response to the failed USSR), "leaders" are not welcome. But leaders exist within Occupy regardless of intentions; saying that Occupy is a "leaderless movement" does not make it so.
The inevitable leaders of Occupy are those who dedicate their time to the movement, organize events, are spokespeople, those who help set agendas for meetings or actions, those who set up and run web pages, etc. In reality there already exists a spectrum of leadership that is essential to keeping the movement functioning.
Occupy needs both leaders and organization while still operating entirely democratically. It already has leaders who refuse to accept the title as such, much like Noam Chomsky does, the famous anti-authoritarian and leader of the anarchist left, who thinks that by saying he is "not a leader," he ceases to be one. In reality his massive authority continues to exist outside of his humble intentions.
Occupy seems, at times, so fearful of power or creating leaders that many Occupiers would focus on neutering the movement, so as to prevent Occupy from ever having real power, and therefore preventing the movement from ever making real change. The left has long suffered from the self-induced fear that, if we have actual power, we'll become like our oppressors, since "absolute power corrupts absolutely" (a hangover from yet another shallow analysis of past socialist experiments).
In Occupy, this expresses itself by a fanatical fear of the movement being co-opted. Yes, Occupy should be wary of Democratic Party representatives in sheep's clothing, but this fear has infected and has spread throughout Occupy and now includes internal finger pointing and accusations of "co-opting," creating more unnecessary divisiveness.
It is a healthy impulse to strive towards greater democracy and away from charisma-based leadership, but any idea taken to its extreme can become nonsense. To denounce real organization and leadership "on principle" is to vastly oversimplify the real processes of movement building while erecting unnecessary barriers in Occupy's path to real power. To self-mutilate a movement because of leader-paranoia is similar to euthanize a puppy because of its potentially dangerous sharp teeth. In fact, true leaders can only emerge in the context of real democracy; both need the other.
There is no blueprint for movement building, but general principles can be erected based on the revolutionary experiences of the past. The key strategies of Occupy should be based on those ideas that unify and promote collective action against the 1%.
Ultimately Occupy needs to organize for power; we need a greater power to displace the current power of the 1%. This doesn't mean that we must adopt the same forms of power utilized by the state, but that new ones must be created, while using EVERY opportunity within the existing structure to organize, educate, and mobilize working people.
Luckily, an upcoming action has the potential to put
the above ideas into action. The current struggle of the Longview,
Washington ILWU Local 21 is a chance to see real power in action. The
Longview Longshoremen have asked for Occupy's support to create massive
mobilizations against the union busting corporate-conglomerate EGT.
Hopefully this action has the potential to unite Occupy in practice over
a concrete struggle. If the action-- or actions-- are effective it will
prove that Occupy needs to organize and mobilize in large numbers over
issues that connect with working people -- proving that theory is best
learned in action.
Shamus Cooke is a social worker, trade unionist, and writer for Workers Action (http://www.workerscompass.org)
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