The Occupy Wall Street movement - for now it is a movement - is the most important political happening in the United States since the uprisings in 1968, whose direct descendant or continuation it is.

Why it started in the United States when it did - and not three days, three months, three years earlier or later - we'll never know for sure. The conditions were there: acutely increasing economic pain not only for the truly poverty-stricken but for an ever-growing segment of the working poor (otherwise known as the "middle class"); incredible exaggeration (exploitation, greed) of the wealthiest 1% of the U.S. population ("Wall Street"); the example of angry upsurges around the world (the "Arab spring," the Spanish indignados, the Chilean students, the Wisconsin trade unions, and a long list of others). It doesn't really matter what the spark was that ignited the fire. It started.

In Stage one - the first few days - the movement was a handful of audacious, mostly young, persons who were trying to demonstrate. The press ignored them totally. Then some stupid police captains thought that a bit of brutality would end the demonstrations. They were caught on film and the film went viral on YouTube.

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By Immanuel Wallerstein / 18 October 2011 / post comment

Keith Gessen's "A Year in Reading" for The Millions includes, we were relieved to note, David Harvey's Limits to Capital and Immanuel Wallerstein's Historical Capitalism. If you, like Gessen, would like "to get to the bottom of things by reading Capital," we would also recommend Harvey's A Companion to Marx's Capital—"without a doubt one of the two best companions to Marx's [Capital]" according the the Nation.

Visit The Millions to read Gessen's post in full.

By Clara Heyworth / 13 December 2010 / post comment