Left protest shifted from workplace to spectacle because it lacked embedded organizations.
Evidence
Not everyone felt comfortable with this marketization of politics. On the left, radicals contested the implementation of the new market order and began to take to the streets. Even here, however, an emphasis on “performance” proved all too tempting. The 1998 descent on Seattle and the 2001 antiglobalization protests maintained an emphasis on the visibility of certain signs, even if they counted a sizable union contingent seeking to reduce the labor market pressures induced by globalization and the China shock. These were quickly cornered by more movementist elements, however. Rather than mount assaults in the workplace, however, the left-wing struggle moved to the streets and the square, whose cobblestones were said in 1968 to hide a beach. Underneath those cobblestones, however, there was always something else, as Ralph Miliband pointed out—the sewer. — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment, 156
Categorization
- SEED: The beach-under-cobblestones vs sewer line, plus how protest became performative, could frame a piece on street protest as substitute for organizational power.
- XREF: connects to: Square movements targeted elite collusion, not capitalism per se. — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment: The Left After the…, 93; Protest events alone do not change anything without ongoing political organization; Brand-building leaders and rage algorithms hollowed out the left’s mass movements from within — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror…, 1049 (+4 more)
Broader Connections
- Anti-capitalist protest becomes carnivalesque background noise without an alternative model
#expands(0.85) — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 32 - Protest events alone do not change anything without ongoing political organization
#corroborates(0.80) - Brand-building leaders and rage algorithms hollowed out the left’s mass movements from within
#corroborates(0.75) — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, 1049