It Ain’t Over Till It’s Over

With Occupy camps around the world threatened by eviction, it is easy to pack up and go home. But many of the issues that drove dissenters into the streets of Athens, Madrid, New York or London remain unsolved. 

ECONOMIC CHANGE

While Occupy has helped to put the issue of inequality back on the agenda, the problem persists. Debt continues to grow, income inequality continues to rise – and vast resources are being spent to keep the global economic system from tumbling into the abyss. According to recent calculations, payments towards Greece will total 145 billion Euros. Yet the effects are hard to see – unemployment in Greece continues to hover near 20%. Meanwhile, international hedge funds are considering suing their debtors for property rights violations. Regulatory initiatives such as the Tobin Tax are being discussed, but opposition from lobby groups and the British government continues to be fierce. Despite the crisis, the logic of laissez-faire and the rhetoric of austerity continue to hold sway within mainstream discourses.

POLITICAL CHANGE

In the UK, the government has tried to marginalise and defame dissenters. Despite historically low approval ratings – 13% for the US Congress -, parliamentary politicians continue to govern with staggering indifference towards the voices of their constituents. On a European level, the idea of citizens’ participation is caught in the bureaucratic web. The democratic process has often been reduced to the ritualistic participation on election day. And even that is declining: In 2010, UK voter turnout hit 65%, the third-lowest since the end of World War II.

ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE

The Durban Climate Change Conference in December 2011 failed to yield the strong guidelines that many had hoped for. Some emission reduction goals won’t become effective until 2020, others are made porous by a myriad of small-print exceptions. It remains questionable whether the “Rio 20+ Conference” on sustainable development in June 2012 will produce better outcomes. Meanwhile, human habitation continues to extract a large toll from the environment. In 2011, around 13 million hectares of  woodland were lost to deforestation; annual global CO2 emission have reached more than 30 billion tons.

SOCIETAL CHANGE

NHS cuts, tuition increases, reduced expenditures on housing and pensions – the politics of austerity manifest themselves in the middle of society. Since George Osborn announced 7 billion pounds in welfare cuts in 2010, the laundry list of government spending cuts has only continued to grow. Income inequality in the UK is rising more quickly than in any other OECD country. In 2011, the top 10% earned twelve times as much as the bottom 10%. The top 1% earn over 15% of overall wealth in the UK – and pay income tax rates that are lower today than they were in 1980.

LEGAL CHANGE

Once controversial policy proposals are codified as law, they become much harder to change or repeal. Yet even the law itself is far from uncontested. The conservative desire to repeal the Human Rights Act, debates about financial regulation, and the increasing restrictions on the right to protest – especially in anticipation of the 2012 Olympics – illustrate how much the legal sphere has become a political battlefield that concerns every citizen.

By Martin Eiermann