A world in protest

Published on openDemocracy (http://www.opendemocracy.net)

A world in protest

Paul Rogers, 17th November 2011

Subjects:
International politics [1]
Democracy and government [2]
Civil society [3]
democracy & power [4]
politics of protest [5]
globalisation [6]
global security [7]
Paul Rogers [8]

The global demonstrations of 2011 both highlight the reality of economic system-failure and
reveal its linkages to the crisis of resource constraints. The result is a measure of the scale of change
needed over coming decades.
About the author
Paul Rogers is professor in the department of peace studies [9] at Bradford University. He has been
writing a weekly column [9] on global security on openDemocracy since 28 September 2001, and
writes an international-security monthly briefing for the Oxford Research Group [9]. His books
include Why We’re Losing the War on Terror [9] (Polity, 2007), and Losing Control: Global Security
in the 21st Century [9] (Pluto Press, 3rd edition, 2010). He is on twitter at: @ProfPRogers

The authorities are undertaking a legal and judicial counter-offensive against the "occupy" camps
that have sprung up in central locations in New York and London. But scores of camps remain across
north America and western Europe, part of a diffuse and dispersed phenomenon that has acquired a
life of its own within a few short weeks.

These protests echo others earlier in 2011, including the turbulent actions in Greece and the
extensive mobilisations in Spain (see "A time of riot: England and the world [10]", 11 August 2011).
They also connect with developments elsewhere: the mass student demonstrations in Chile that
moved from opposition to a failing education system to a much wider campaign against
marginalisation, and the protests by middle-class Israelis against their more restricted life-chances
(albeit such conditions are still far outranked by the great poverty in the nearby occupied territories,
notably Gaza).

This upsurge of demonstrations is largely a response [11] to the renewed economic crisis and to the
enduring spectacle of financial institutions paying huge salaries and even larger bonuses to their
elites while the majority of populations bear the brunt of government-imposed cuts. More broadly it
recalls the large-scale anti-globalisation movement of the late 1990s, not least around the Seattle
(1999) and Genoa (2001) summits. This movement receded after 9/11 and the launch of the wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq - but it has now returned, albeit in a different guise, as a result of the
accumulating economic crises of 2007-11.

The double problem

These protests, demonstrations and movements may well be sustained or they may (at least in the
short [12] term) recede. Yet in a global perspective they reflect two processes that lend them deep
importance.

The first, and an extraordinary aspect of the last few months in particular, is the growing [13]
acceptance that free-market capitalism simply is not working. This outlook has permeated the
consciousness even of traditional economists - a marked contrast to the "end of history" era of the
early 1990s, when the Soviet centrally-planned system had been consigned to the dustbin of history,
the Washington consensus [14] was "freeing" countries in the global south from the supposed

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rigidities and inertia of a mixed economy, China was embracing the market, and "turbo-capitalism"
was the order of the day.

The assumption took root then that free-market capitalism was the only way forward, and anyone
who thought or said otherwise was either deeply misguided or even malign. Yet the reality has failed
to live up to the claim: in 1980-2010, overall international economic growth was lower than it had
been in 1950-80, and (far more important) the later model has greatly increased the world's
socioeconomic divide [15], with 20% of the world's people now owning 84% of household wealth
(and the richest 1% alone reported to have more than 20%).

The second process runs in parallel: the huge if relative improvements in education, literacy and
communications across the majority world of the global south, which ensure that far more people are
aware of their own marginalisation [16]. This phenomenon, detailed in many past columns in this
series [8], has already resulted in radical and sometimes violent social movements, not least the
Maoists [17] in Nepal and the Naxalites [18] in India, as well as the persistent (and under-reported)
problems of social unrest in China(see "China and India: heartlands of global protest [19]", 7 August
2008).

The Arab awakening of 2011 can be viewed in this light. The triggers of the phenomenon [20] may
include opposition to stultifying autocracies, but a further key factor is the demographic bulge of
educated and knowledgeable young people with few job prospects. Some estimates, for example,
suggest that Tunisia [21] has 140,000 unemployed graduates amid its population of just over 10
million.

The underlying trend of a widening [22] global divide was ignored by economists until 2007-08, amid
widespread belief that overall growth at a reasonably sustained level would diminish any dangers.
The onset of major financial crisis made that extremely doubtful, as bottomless debts from a variety
of mechanisms - sub-prime mortgages, credit default swaps, collateral debt obligations - came close
to bringing large parts of the western banking system to collapse.

After the initial patchwork response, an illusion took hold in the 2008-10 period that "business as
usual" was returning. This has now disappeared as a full-scale slump begins to look probable. Even
orthodox economic analysts are realising that unfettered and largely unregulated free-market
capitalism is fundamentally unsustainable [23], and that basic rethinking of how the global economy
is allowed to develop is essential.

The system fix

An even larger reality overhangs these developments, one that may appear unconnected to them
yet is in fact central: namely, global environmental constraints, especially climate change. The
dominant model of free-market capitalism seems even less able to respond to these "external"
constraints than to its own "internal" systemic problems.

If there is a saving grace here, it is that the economic crisis is unfolding some years ahead of the
moment when the full and unavoidable impact of the environmental limits to growth hits. In turn,
however, the implication is that essential economic reform must be truly radical - capable of
addressing both the fundamental inequities and the evolving constraints. This "double problem"
requires over the next two or three decades a readiness to change that matches its scale and depth. 

In this respect, the "occupy" demonstrations and the many other responses to the financial crisis
draw timely attention [24] to the woeful inadequacy of the current economic system - timely,
because they are giving voice to this truth before the system faces up to the epic challenge of a
constrained world system. By doing so, they might make it a little more likely that real change will
indeed come before it is too late. The protesters in their tents may be doing everyone a much bigger
favour than they, or we, appreciate.
Sideboxes'Read On' Sidebox: 
Department of peace studies [25], Bradford University

Paul Rogers, Losing Control: Global Security in the 21st Century [26] (Pluto Press, 3rd edition, 2010)

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Oxford Research Group [27]

Sustainable Security [28] 

Sidebox: 
Paul Rogers is professor in the department of peace studies [25] at Bradford University, northern
England. He is openDemocracy's international-security editor, and has been writing a weekly
column on global security since 28 September 2001; he also writes a monthly briefing for the
Oxford Research Group [29]. His books include Why We’re Losing the War on Terror [30](Polity,
2007), and Losing Control: Global Security in the 21st Century [26](Pluto Press, 3rd edition, 2010).
He is on twitter at: @ProfPRogers

Related stories: A time of riot: England and the world [10]

A world in flux: crisis to agency [31]
A world in breakdown [32]
A world in revolt [33]
A world in the balance [34]
A world in need: the case for sustainable security [35]
A world in hunger: east Africa and beyond [36]
A world in movement: prospects for 2011 [37]
Every casualty: the human face of war [38]
Topics: Civil society
Democracy and government
International politics

This article is published by Paul Rogers, and openDemocracy.net under a Creative Commons
licence [39]. You may republish it with attribution for non-commercial purposes following the CC
guidelines. For other queries about reuse, click here [40]. Some articles on this site are published
under different terms. No images on the site or in articles may be re-used without permission unless
specifically licensed under Creative Commons.

Source URL: http://www.opendemocracy.net/paul-rogers/world-in-protest-1

Created 11/17/2011 - 05:41

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[2] http://www.opendemocracy.net/topics/democracy-and-government
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[4] http://www.opendemocracy.net/democracy_and_power/index.jsp
[5] http://www.opendemocracy.net/conflict-protest/debate.jsp
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[10] http://www.opendemocracy.net/paul-rogers/time-of-riot-england-and-world
[11] http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,792257,00.html
[12]
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5joFiWzqNV7fp8aP6_yZTFmpmHWHg?docId=C
NG.e923b027021759e0532f8b43c7ed318d.1f1
[13] http://www.ft.com/indepth/capitalism-future
[14] http://www.cid.harvard.edu/cidtrade/issues/washington.html
[15] http://ucatlas.ucsc.edu/
[16] http://www.opendemocracy.net/paul-rogers/world-on-margin

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[17] http://www.opendemocracy.net/manjushree-thapa/nepal-containing-maoists-handling-india
[18] http://www.opendemocracy.net/paul-rogers/india%E2%80%99s-21st-century-war
[19] http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/china-and-india-heartlands-of-global-protest
[20] http://www.opendemocracy.net/david-hayes/arab-spring-protest-power-prospect
[21] http://www.opendemocracy.net/paul-rogers/tunisia-and-world-roots-of-turmoil
[22] http://ucatlas.ucsc.edu/income.php
[23] http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/a-world-on-the-edge
[24] http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,790975,00.html
[25] http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/peace/
[26] http://www.plutobooks.com/display.asp?K=9780745329376&
[27] http://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/
[28] http://www.sustainablesecurity.org/
[29] http://oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/
[30]
http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0745641962,subjectCd-PO34,descCd-authorInfo.
html
[31] http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/the-opportunity-of-crisis
[32] http://www.opendemocracy.net/paul-rogers/world-in-breakdown
[33] http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/a-world-in-revolt
[34] http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/a-world-in-the-balance
[35] http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/a-world-in-need-the-case-for-sustainable-security
[36] http://www.opendemocracy.net/paul-rogers/world-in-hunger-east-africa-and-beyond
[37] http://www.opendemocracy.net/mariano-aguirre/world-in-movement-prospects-for-2011
[38] http://www.opendemocracy.net/paul-rogers/every-casualty-human-face-of-war
[39] http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
[40] http://www.opendemocracy.net/about/syndication

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