Demarchy

Qu’est-ce que le tiers état ? Tout.
Qu’a-t-il été jusqu’à présent dans l’ordre politique ? Rien.
Que demande-t-il ? À y devenir quelque chose.

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The economy is shit. The price of food often outstrips the income for a normal family. The government has an enormous disconnect from the citizenship. The upper classes exercise an inordinate amount of political control and amass vast amounts of wealth while paying very low taxes. Le peuple have begun to organize.

If you haven’t caught on to my double-meaning yet, I’m referring to France circa 1988 and to Occupy Wall Street.

I pondered the similarities on my way to Occupy Montreal. Maybe I shouldn’t have watched that History Channel documentary on the French Revolution last night.

Evidently, I wasn’t the only Quebecer with the French on my mind.

And maybe there’s some justification for French metaphor. Perhaps more applicable in the American context — intensive and disastrous economic deregulation, massive national debt, the financial burden of war, a tumbling standard of living and massive income inequality  — but the pervasive discontentedness has certain extended to Canada as well.

The Nature of the Revolution

The movement in Montreal, and across North America, is remarkably diverse. From 5 year-olds to Maoists, Anarchists to middle-aged women — some are professional and radical activists, others are merely malcontents. There’s an important note to be made here. In any given era, there will be upheaval and detentes. In 1968, thousands took to the streets of Chicago to trumpet their discontent at the extended, brutal and ultimately wasteful war in Vietnam. In 1969, queers in New York fought back against police repression - Torontonian queers did the same in 1981. That anger can be misguided too, such as the 1933 Christie Pits riot where anti-Semites faced off against the Jewish Community.

But then comes the detente; like the 50s or the 90s. Periods of relative social rest. This quietness has pacified many into thinking that we’ve reached the apex of social development and that we’ve figured it out. They’re wrong.

The historical and political significance of populist movements are not defined by how many blocks they occupied, how many reporters were there or how many important folk endorsed their cause — they were transformed into movements by how many people they could recruit to give a shit.

And there seems to be a serious deficit of those who give a shit in Canada. Our main metric for measuring this seems to be voter turnout, and that has certainly seen a precipitous decline, but I think generally speaking we’ve seen a real lack of anger over many realities that deserve anger.

Perhaps the anti-prorogation protests that took place in January, 2010 were an exception, yet they failed to materialize into anything beyond that that inital, reactionary displeasure at an unpleasant decision.

No, what this Occupy movement hopes to accomplish is something lasting. In fact, its very nature is that of lasting occupation. But, as I’ve said, sitting in a park isn’t a step up the ladder to owning the public discourse. What Occupy really needs to do is engulf the general population.

In a very organic way, I think that’s happening. From chants of “We are the 99%! You are the 99%!” to shouts of “Join us!” at pedestrians on Rue Saint Catherine, the spirit is there.

The question remains whether or not this movement can win the ideological knifefight. Its foe is powerful — the well-estabished realities of liberal capitalist economics and constitutional monarchy.

Occupy the Mindset

At the end of the day, not everyone needs to pour into the streets, wave signs and chant. No, most peaceful, democratic revolutions win not by storming parliaments, but by creating an idea so infectious that it precipitates a paradigm shift. Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela needed only as many bodies as it took to fill the streets, to let shopkeepers and pedestrians know that the embodiment of their discontent had arrived.

Indeed, marching in the streets need not affect or persuade the upper classes (ruling or economic) but instead they must convey truths that resonate with the broader public. That is to say, they must hold a mirror up to society and say ‘this is what’s wrong.’ It was George Orwell who once said “In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” That deceit need not be intentional or conspiratorial, but rather institutional. We’re told that capitalism provides greater opportunity, a greater standard of living and a more peaceful equality.

There is no doubt that statement is deceitful.

But what’s great about this movement is that it takes no presuppositions. While anarchists and socialists may well account for a large number of these activists, this movement does not profess to know the answer, nor does it even inherently disagree with the basic premise of capitalism. Neither does our society. Long ago, Western thought come to an understanding that capitalism could be a very dangerous thing to implement. Pure capitalism is predatorial by nature and takes no account for human lives. So, what we created was a softer capitalism that set basic guidelines for what the market may decide - it may not determine our basic quality of education, for example, or the safety of our food.

But we’ve entered into an era of stasis. Our tinkering with the great experiment has ended. It could be argued that the industrial revolution truly created a capital-based economy, and thus capitalism. That revolution, I would contend, didn’t end until the late 20th century. This digital revolution that we currently find ourselves in has started the revolution not from the top down, but from the ground up. With this new revolution we must find new ways to radically alter the system to suit us all better.

The corporal body for our digital revolution started with a tweet, a Facebook message and a text in the Arab world. That idea arrived to us though our media and we began to ponder the ideas ourselves.

How can we change things here?

How Do We Edit Our Terms of Service?

If we look at the history of economic/socio-political revolutions in the Western world, we can deduce a few things. Our list should include -

• The advent of the ‘citizen’ (18th century)
• The creation of democracy and decentralized government (19th century)
• The death of feudalism (19th century)
• The adoption of capitalism (19th century)
• The socializing of the economy (20th century)
• The repudiation of classical imperialism (20th century)
• A diffusion of the means of communication (21st century)

Okay, given those events, we can tie them together with these similarities

• They are primarily populist
• The final changes are ultimately decided by the top political or economic classes
• Each step is a slow devolution of power and rights onto the people
• Each step is taken without knowledge of the steps that will proceed
• At the time, the movements are often seen as an experiment in the unknown. In retrospect, they are viewed as natural evolutions and extensions of basic human rights or ideals. They are not, as some seem to believe, breaking down barriers.
• The actors involved in these movements rarely realize the end product before it materializes

So, assuming that the preconditions are all in place for Occupy to take on something bigger (these things are impossible to predict) - what will we be demanding? Indeed, we’re not really asking for anything right now.

If you ask me, we’ll be asking for contract negotiations. That is, our mere existance in this country is resting upon our social contract - our constitution and and associated documents. Those documents enshrine certain privledges onto us as rights. I think this movement could push us to reconsider and alter those documents and our very definition as citizens. I think it will cause us to reconsider our structural society and find a new, pragmatic approach to dealing with and treating one another. 

Given the commonalities I list above, we can apply virtually all of these, if not to the Occupy protests themselves, at least to the growing recognition of the need for momentous change -

Except one.

Who Needs Government?

There are those who think that this movement will abolish government. I don’t believe that, and I think that an opinion such as that requires an egregiously bad reading of history and an enormous leap of faith (sorry, anarchist friends!)

What I do believe is that this will be a movement that will be done without the participation of governments - at least not the federal ones. That does not necessarily preclude the replacement of our current governments with another, however.

There is no goal loftier than changing, or better yet - creating, an ideology of a nation or generation. If you asked Hegel, he’d call this ideology (or intellectual movement, or whatever) a Zeitgeist, or spirit. But I see no reason to ask Hegel anything.

My point is this - parliament should keep doing what it’s doing. We won’t see any momentous policy shift from the prime minister and anything other than his steady-hand model of free-markets-make-free-people policies would be piecemeal.

The government will not pass on changes to the people, the people will remold their government in their likeness. But, like I said - this change will not come from who we elect, but perhaps how we elect them, what they can (and must) do and the nature of public interaction with the government.

So the importance of this movement is in its effect on people, not governments. Not immediately, anyway. Once this movement is realized in the minds of the average Canadian - the Tim Hortons-drinking, minivan-driving, child-rearing Canuk - we’ll see change. That change, I think, will be Democracy 2.0. A devolution from the government, to the people. Without trying to project too much onto this movement, I think it’s a demand that the frustrations of the people have a more acutely-heard and powerful voice in the corridors of power.

If I pull this all back to the French revolution, I’ll make the analogy all the more apt.

What is the Third Estate?

To all you non-Francos, that is the title question of this article.

What is the Third Estate? Everything.

What has it been until now in the political order? Nothing

What does it demand? To become something.

In the États Généraux (a quasi-democratic parliament) of 18th century France, and in everyday economic life, the Third Estate represented the workers. The term ‘worker’ is branded about quite freely by many, but this is the broadest sense of the term - those who work to feed themselves. This includes what we would today consider the middle and upper-middle classes, as well as everyone else who makes a wage or salary. The other two estates were made up of the clergy (who were predominately wealthy) and the nobility (who were rich and made up the administrative and governmental bodies.)

When it come down to voting in the États Généraux, all three bodies had one vote. If the nobility and clergy voted together, which they always did, the Third Estate did not get its way.

And how did these estates break down? The clergy and the nobility: 2%.

The Third Estate? 98%.