华尔街抗议者值得称赞
英国《金融时报》专栏作家 约翰?加普
2011年10月10日 06:09 AM
  

上周我去拜访了一下“占领华尔街”(Occupy Wall Street)运动，我沿着设置了许多路障的街道步行，经过仍然残留着坑洞的前摩根大通(J.P. Morgan)总部，据信1920年意大利的无政府主义者曾在这里引爆了一颗炸弹，夺去了38人的生命。然后，我在圣三一教堂(Trinity Church)右拐，一路走到祖科蒂公园(Zuccotti Park)的营地。

这些年轻的抗议者在上上周逐渐占领媒体头条，尤其值得关注的是其中700人因为堵塞布鲁克林大桥而在周末被捕。抗议者当中也有一些无政府主义者，但我遇到的人都温和而有风度。他们制造的最大噪声，只不过是一群人围坐成一圈，和着手鼓唱“我们带来改变，我们是升起的太阳”。

“占领华尔街”抗议活动已经持续了3周，但刚刚开始蔓延到美国其他城市。抗议活动一直被批评为缺乏领导、不成熟、缺乏具体诉求。我认为他们应该这样坚持下去——他们对银行家的幻灭之感与几乎所有人形成共鸣，而诉求模糊目前还无伤大雅。

我所见到他们提出的政策要么很疯狂（一名抗议者在一段视频中大喊着要求关闭美联储(Fed)并废除法币），要么不太可能获得广泛支持。例如，《被占领的华尔街日报》(The Occupied Wall Street Journal)要求政府采纳的两项政策是：社会化医疗和银行国有化。

抗议者上周三举行了横穿纽约的游行，并获得大型工会的加入。实际上，这次游行让人感觉，抗议者的天真无辜开始消失。“占领华尔街”运动与典型的左翼诉求和组织结合得越紧密，它的吸引力就会消失得越快。

那将非常可惜，因为在他们的理想主义中存在某种强有力的东西。我们必须接受华尔街和银行的存在，经济增长需要它们提供资金，但抗议活动表露出了一个不可否认的事实。欧洲即将推出新一轮纾困计划，而大西洋两岸的民众还因为上一轮纾困而感到生分，那么这当中一定有什么不对劲的地方。

抗议活动的优势与其说在于其目的，不如说在于其形式——它坚持一种运转低效的大众民主，祖科蒂公园“人民大会”中的每一个人，不但在每一项决策中被询问意见，还可以否决那些他或她不喜欢的决定。抗议活动组织者之一、23岁的安德鲁?史密斯(Andrew Smith)对我说：“世界上没有一个组织可以用这种方式来管理。这样做既不方便，又缺乏效率。”

但面对国会的政治僵局和软弱的总统，如果人们能够在示威游行中能集合在一起，并且如果真的真的非常努力，还有可能达成共识，那么这将是一场有违常理的游行。令人迷惑的事情并不在于抗议者缺乏诉求，而在于他们仍然充满热情地努力达成一项诉求。

他们提到了阿拉伯之春和希腊、西班牙反紧缩政策民众抗议的影响，还有1999年西雅图反全球化示威游行的组织方式。最近的国内榜样是2005年“网络草根”(netroots)的数字起义，它使霍华德?迪安(Howard Dean)当选为民主党全国委员会(Democratic National Committee)主席。

这类活动在历史上有先例，比如掘土派运动(The Diggers)，他们是一群信仰经济平等的英国农民（他们自称为“真正的平等派”(True Levellers)，以区别于另一个不信奉英国国教的组织），1649年在萨里郡的圣乔治山上开荒，种植蔬菜，以抗议圈地运动。

就在那之前不久，清教徒航海抵达马萨诸塞湾殖民地寻找自由。而“占领华尔街”运动的露营有一种人类堕落前的纯朴味道，仿佛想要回归"山巅的闪光之城"。这一点与茶党(Tea Party)相似，但区别是它们把美国的弊病归咎于巨额融资和大企业的贪婪，而不是联邦政府将手伸得过长。

它的另一个优势是非暴力，尽管正因为此，它起初更加难以引起“主流媒体”的注意，而它既想讨好主流媒体，又不信任它们。希腊的抗议活动已经转向了暴力，伦敦骚乱则充斥着纵火和打砸抢。相反，“占领华尔街”藉绝对和平建立了威信——它迄今最具破坏力的举动就是布鲁克林大桥静坐。

问题是，在此基础上，它要达成什么目的。“我们需要明确提出要求，并且要得到满足，”24岁的杰西?利维(Jesse Levy)说，他十分友好，带着我们这群来访者四处参观营地。即使他们能够提出要求，要得到满足却是空想——普通美国选民或许对金融体系怒不可遏，但离变成无政府主义的工团主义者还很远。

更明智的做法是保持难以捉摸的特点。正如史密斯所说：“没有诉求的力量令人难以置信，你们这些媒体的家伙会发了疯地试图把这件事弄清楚。”只要抗议手段仍然是他们希望传递的中心思想，谁会反对一群充满希望、关心国事的年轻人呢？

银行家非常擅长于把要求他们改变自身行为的广泛诉求，转变为关于细节的壕沟战。这一点从两个例子可以清楚地看出来。一个是围绕实施多德-弗兰克法案(Dodd-Frank Act)的晦涩辩论——从如何定义“互换交易执行场所(swap execution facility)”，到关于自营交易的“沃尔克规则”(Volcker Rule)。另一个例子是摩根大通(JPMorgan Chase)首席执行官的杰米?戴蒙(Jamie Dimon)对《巴塞尔协议III》(Basel III)资本规则的违抗。

“占领华尔街”运动最好还是继续远离摩天大楼和委员会办公室，坚持在边缘地带露营，以提醒内部人士注意公众的愤怒。如果他们能够迫使政客不向金融界的抱怨妥协，那将是一种成就。掘土派的人数并不多，并且很快被驱散了，但我们记住了他们。

译者/方舟

2011年10月10日 06:09 AM
 In praise of Wall Street protesters
By John Gapper
 

On my way to visit the Occupy Wall Street protest this week I walked along the heavily barricaded street past the still-pockmarked masonry of the former J.P.Morgan building where Italian anarchists are thought to have detonated a bomb in 1920 killing 38 people. Then I turned right at Trinity Church and up to the camp in Zuccotti Park.

There are some anarchists among the young protesters who have worked their way into the headlines during the past week – notably when 700 of them were arrested for blocking the Brooklyn Bridge last weekend – but the ones I met were a sweet-natured and gentle bunch. The noisiest they got was when one group sat in a circle and sang We are the change we are the rising sun to a hand drum.

The Occupy Wall Street protest now three weeks old but only just spreading to other US cities has been criticised for being leaderless and inchoate without an agenda. I think they should stick with it – their disenchantment with bankers is shared by virtually everyone and vagueness hasn’t hurt so far.

The policies I have seen are either crazy (one protester railed on a video about closing the Federal Reserve and abolishing fiat money) or have little chance of gaining wide support. Socialised medicine and bank nationalisation are two of the ideas mooted for adoption in The Occupied Wall Street Journal.

Indeed the protesters’ march through New York on Wednesday on which they were joined by big unions feels as if it could mark the beginning of the end of innocence. The tighter that Occupy Wall Street links itself to standard leftwing causes and organisations the sooner its charms will evaporate.

That would be a pity because there is something powerful in their idealism. We must live with Wall Street and the banks on which economies rely to finance growth but they express an undeniable truth. There is something wrong when a fresh round of bail-outs looms in Europe while citizens on both sides of the Atlantic remain alienated by the last one.

The protest’s strength comes less from its aims than its form – its adherence to a cumbersome type of popular democracy in which anyone in the “general assembly” in Zuccotti Park is not only consulted on all decisions but can block those that he or she dislikes. As Andrew Smith a 23-year-old organiser told me: “You could not run any organisation in the world like this. It is not expedient it is not efficient.”

But in the face of political stasis in Congress and a weak president it is a perverse demonstration that people can get along together and agree on things if they try really really hard. The wonder is not that the protesters lack an agenda but that they are still cheerfully trying to hammer one out.

They cite influences from the Arab spring to popular protests against austerity in Greece and Spain and the way the Seattle anti-globalisation demonstrations were organised in 1999. A recent more domestic model was the “netroots” digital uprising that led to the election of Howard Dean as chair of the Democratic National Committee in 2005.

There are historical precedents for this kind of thing such as The Diggers a group of English agrarians who believed in economic equality (they called themselves True Levellers to distinguish them from another nonconformist group) and dug up St George’s Hill in Surrey and planted vegetables in 1649 to protest at the enclosures.

That was shortly after the Puritans had sailed to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in search of liberty and Occupy Wall Street’s encampment has a prelapsarian quality as if wanting to return to the shining city upon a hill. It shares this with the Tea Party although it blames the country’s ills on high finance and corporate greed rather than federal government over-reach.

It also has the strength of non-violence even if that made it harder at first to gain attention from the “mainstream media” that it both courts and distrusts. Protests in Greece have turned violent and the London riots featured arson and looting. In contrast it has gained authority from resolute peacefulness – its most disruptive act so far was the Brooklyn Bridge sit-down.

The question is where it goes from here. “We will need to formulate demands and they will need to be met” said Jesse Levy a 24-year-old who amiably showed my group of visitors around the camp. Even if the first is achievable the second is a pipe dream – the average US voter may be irate at the financial system but is a long way from turning into an anarcho-syndicalist.

It would be cleverer to remain intangible. As Mr Smith said: “It is incredibly powerful not to have a demand – you guys in the media will go crazy trying to pigeonhole this thing.” As long as the medium remains the message who could object to a group of young hopeful concerned citizens?

Bankers are adept at turning broad demands for changes in their behaviour into trench warfare over detail. That is clear from the arcane disputes over implementation of the Dodd-Frank Act – from how to define a “swap execution facility” to the Volcker rule on proprietary trading – and the revolt of Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase over elements of the Basel III capital rules.

Better for Occupy Wall Street to remain outside the skyscrapers and committee rooms and instead keep camping on the edge reminding the insiders of popular outrage. If they force politicians not to buckle to the complaints of the financial services industry that will be something. There weren’t many Diggers and they were soon evicted but we remember them.