The current social movement that exploded onto the national scene
with the 2011 Occupy Movement is following the path of successful
movements so far. The social movement in 2014 is poised to begin an
exciting era of broadening and deepening the growing consensus for
social and economic justice.
This week, our article for the end of 2013 focuses on where we are,
i.e. at what stage of the progression of social movements do we find
ourselves; and broadly outlines the next steps. Next week, our article
for the new year will look more specifically at the tasks ahead for the
movement in 2014 and beyond.
Successful people-powered movements follow a similar arc of development. The best description comes from Bill Moyer’s
The Movement Action Plan:
A Strategic Framework Describing The Eight Stages of Successful Social
Movements. We believe this is essential reading for activists and
include
a link to it on the strategy page on Popular Resistance. Moyer expanded this 1987 article into,
Doing Democracy, a book published in 2001, a year before he died. You can see a
video of Bill Moyer’s last public presentation
where he summarized the insights of his lifetime about how social
movements grow and succeed, and about his vision of a new culture
emerging through the cracks of a declining empire.
Moyer’s work is heartening for social justice activists because it
shows how movements grow, recede and change their functions at different
stages. By understanding the current stage of development we can better
define the work that must be done to achieve success and predict how
the power structure and public will react to our actions. Moyer worked
with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference on poverty campaigns. He also worked on a variety of causes
over his nearly 50 year career in social movements.
In
a recent conversation, Ken Butigan, a
peace and justice activist
who worked with Moyer, told us that Moyer wrote the first draft of the
Eight Stages of Successful Social Movements when he was jailed with more
than 1,400 people protesting the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant in 1977.
Butigan explained that one reason Moyer wrote the Eight Stages was so
people involved in movements would not despair when the movement did not
immediately succeed and seemed to disappear without success. These are
expected stages of development. Just as we would not expect a 4th grader
to be doing calculus, we cannot expect a social movement to jump from
Stage 2 to the success of Stage 7. Each step in the process serves an
important role.
This Historic Moment
Using the Movement Action Plan as a guide, we see that we are closer
to success than one might think. The Occupy Movement was Stage Four of
Eight. Moyer describes it:
New social movements surprise and shock everyone when
they burst into the public spotlight on the evening TV news and in
newspaper headlines. Overnight, a previously unrecognized social problem
becomes a social issue that everyone is talking about. It starts with a
highly publicized, shocking incident, a ‘trigger event’, followed by a
nonviolent action campaign that includes large rallies and dramatic
civil disobedience. Soon these are repeated in local communities around
the country.
Stage 4 is the “Social Movement Take-Off.” During Occupy, it seemed
that suddenly the unfair wealth divide, the corruption of Wall Street
and the dysfunction of government came into people’s consciousness.
These issues were discussed in the media and politicians started using
language to show they understood there was a problem. Prior to this,
these issues were largely ignored taboo topics that were not on the
political radar.
In Stage 4, there are three concepts about which the public must be
convinced. The first was accomplished during Occupy, that is:
there is a problem that must be confronted. We also began to accomplish the second concept:
current conditions and policies must be opposed.
During later stages this second goal will be broadened and expanded.
The final concept – and this is still ahead of us– is that
people no longer fear the alternatives but want the alternatives put in place.
Throughout this process, the movement shows itself to be consistent
with the best ideals of the nation, e.g. democracy, equality, justice
and fairness; while the movement shows the power structure is out of
step with these ideals. The movement exposes the differences between
‘official policies,’ what the government says that it is doing, and
‘actual policies,’ what the policies actually accomplish, which is the
opposite of what they claim to accomplish.
Stage 5 is a state of “Identity Crisis and Powerlessness.”
Participants feel like they failed and commentators say that the
movement is dead and accomplished nothing. Some of the people involved
in the Take-Off get burned out and suffer despair and hopelessness. In
fact, this is as natural as the receding of a wave and Moyer points out:
“The perception of failure happens just when the movement is
outrageously successful” because it raised the consciousness and
national awareness of a serious problem that was previously ignored.
Moyer quotes the
I Ching (Book of Changes), an ancient Chinese text which dates back to the 3rd or 2nd millennium BCE,for guidance. The
I Ching
describes “Retreat” as a time of “an inner conflict based upon the
misalignment of your ideals and reality,” i.e. the unrealistic
expectation that long-term goals can be achieved immediately. This is a
“time to retreat and take a longer look to be able to advance later.”
We know many in Occupy who did just that before moving on to Stage 6,
where we are now.
During the stage of Identity Crisis or Retreat, activists who step
back may realize we actually created a massive grassroots-based social
movement, put our issues on the agenda and gained majority support for
many of our views. In addition, people began to learn of the enormity
of the problem, agonize over the suffering of the victims of the unfair
and corrupt economy and realize the complicity of people in power that
they trusted.
The essential lesson of Stage 5 is that resistance from the power
structure is a normal stage of the process. When we step back and look
at the course of history, within the overall framework of change, the
movement is on the path to success. We need to understand “what the
powerholders already know – that political and societal power ultimately
lies with the people.”
Often simultaneous with this feeling of powerlessness is Stage 6,
“Majority Public Support,” which is where we are right now. During the
current phase, the movement seeks to create broad and deep consensus
over the issues that have been raised in the “Take-Off.” Our job is to
win over the hearts and minds of the American people.
The movement must consciously undergo a transformation
from spontaneous protest, operating in a short-term crisis, to a
long-term popular struggle to achieve positive social change. It needs
to win over … an increasingly larger majority of the populace and
involve many of them in the process of opposition and change… The
majority stage is a long process of eroding the social, political, and
economic supports that enable the powerholders to continue their
policies. It is a slow process of social transformation that creates a
new social and political consensus, reversing those of normal times.
During this phase, the movement must transform from a “loose”
organizational model to an “empowerment” model. This requires more
structure but in order to be effective and create lasting change, it
must follow the principles of being “participatory democratic,
efficient, flexible, and capable of lasting over the long haul.” The
movement must avoid becoming a “professional opposition organization”
(i.e. avoid becoming part of the system or a member of the non-profit,
professional complex). The movement must avoid becoming a mainstream
group working for “achievable” reforms, focusing on elections and
partisanship; instead they must remain “principled dissent groups”
advocating for what is right, not what is possible, continuing to
protest and resist and be based in the grassroots. Leaders must be
“nurturing mothers, not dominant patriarchs.”
The focus at this stage should be grass roots organizing to build a
broad-based pluralistic movement. The primary goals are educating,
converting, and involving all segments of the population through a
variety of means but most importantly through direct contacts at the
local level to show people how the big social injustices of our era –
the unfair and corrupt economy as well as the dysfunctional and corrupt
government – affect them directly. It is important during this phase
for the movement to continue to have nonviolent actions, rallies, and
campaigns, including civil disobedience at key points of time and key
locations – even though the size of protests will be smaller than during
the “Take-Off” phase.
In addition to protest, opportunities need to be created for
widespread civic involvement in projects that put the people at odds
with the current system. These citizen involvement programs need to
reflect the movement’s values and goals and the full range of the new
world the movement wants to create. The movement should be putting forth
a bold vision, a new paradigm, and larger demands beyond mere reforms
of the status quo.
Moyers describes a grand strategy that includes 12 phases that lead
to Stage 7, “Success.” Throughout this process it is important to
remember a movement is only as powerful as its grassroots base and
therefore must continue to nourish, support and empower that base.
During this phase the movement participants switch roles from being
“rebels” to being “change agents.” The 12 phases are to (1) Keep the
issues on the political and social agenda; (2) Win majority support
against current policies; (3) Cause powerholders to change strategy
although they do not solve problems; (4) Counter each change in strategy
by showing it is a gimmick, not a solution; (5) Push powerholders to
new strategies that take riskier positions and make it harder to hold
old positions; (6) Create strategic campaigns that erode support for the
powerholders; (7) Expand policy goals as the movement realizes the
problems are greater than was evident; (8) Develop stronger and deeper
opposition to current policies; (9) Promote solutions and a paradigm
shift; (10) Win majority support for the movement’s solutions; (11) Put
the issues on the political and legal agendas; (12) Finally, the
powerholders change positions to appear to get in line with public
opinion while attacking the movement and its solutions (e.g. passing a
Wall Street health law that claims to cover everyone while demonizing
single payer health care which would be universal as too extreme).
Opposition to current policies will quickly grow to 60%, then rise to
70% or 75%. Support for the movement’s alternatives will grow more
slowly during this time, with the public split on the alternatives. The
movement must build public support for the alternatives to achieve
success.
At this point, even though everyone wants the issue resolved, the
government is still unable to take action. As a movement reaches the end
of Stage 6, many powerholders begin to join the calls for change. As
elites defect to support majority opinion, the political price paid by
those who want to maintain unpopular policies exceeds their benefits and
creates a political crisis that leads to resolution.
This leads to Stage 7: “Success.” The duration of Stage 6 is
unpredictable and can take years. Success can come in several ways (1) a
“dramatic showdown that resembles the ‘take off stage.’” There could be
a trigger and the movement needs to mobilize with broad popular
support. (2) A “quiet showdown” where the people in power realize they
can no longer continue the status quo and launch a face saving endgame
of “victorious retreat,” changing their policies and taking credit. (3)
Through “attrition” where the social, economic and political machinery
slowly evolve to new polices and conditions. The result is not
guaranteed when this process begins and the movement must continue the
struggle until the goals are won. Stage 8 defends the success and
begins the social movement again, focusing on the new injustices of that
era.
Applying the Model to the Current Social Movement
In recent years there has been a global awakening of people
understanding that big finance capitalism’s neo-liberal model of
privatization and corporatization while defunding public programs and
cutting necessary services to people is the cause of economic inequality
and the failed economy. At the same time, the collapsing ecology of the
planet with mass extinctions, destruction of the oceans and environment
as well as the impacts of climate change have become evident to super
majorities. The inability of governments to respond appropriately to
these crises because they are corrupted by mega-banks and transnational
corporate interests has led to mass protests.
A September
study of protests from 2006 to mid-2013
found a rapid rise: “Our analysis of 843 protest events reflects a
steady increase in the overall number of protests every year, from 2006
(59 protests) to mid-2013 (112 protests events in only half a year).”
They found that what is driving protests are four inter-related issues:
economic justice and opposition to austerity, failure of political
systems, the injustice of global trade rigged for big business, and the
rights of people, e.g. indigenous, racial and ethnic groups, workers,
women, LGBT, immigrants and prisoners and the right to free speech and
assembly.
Another study that
mapped protests from 1979 to the summer of 2013
graphically shows the intense increase in protests in recent years.
While there were protests against Thatcherism and during the break-up of
the Soviet Union as well as against the Iraq War, no period like the
last few years has had the intensity and breadth of protests at any time
in the last 30 years. It is visually evident in a dramatic,
interactive map of protests based on reports in the media (which we know
does not even cover most protests).
This research, and so much more, indicates that the global protests
have passed Stage 4, the Take-Off phase. In our daily reporting of
movement news (
sign up for a daily digest of news here) we have identified ten “fronts of struggle” in which sub-movements are very active. These include (1) mobilizing
youth and students and making education a human right, (2) confronting
environmental issues around
climate change, extreme
energy extraction, toxicity,
food and mass extinction, (3) creating a national
healthcare system based on single payer financing and human rights principles, (4) ending
homelessness and creating affordable
housing, (5) ending
poverty and creating a new
democratic economy including confronting the
banking and finance system and
unfair wages and inadequate employment, (6) ending mass
incarceration, police abuse and the drug war, (7) establishing
immigrant rights, (8) establishing
indigenous sovereignty, and (9) creating a fair
global trade system and (10) ending
war and militarism. We cover all these fronts on
Popular Resistance, and the links above are to
weekly newsletters that focused on them or to a series of articles on the issue.
Bill Moyer describes mass movements as being made up of
sub-movements. These fronts of struggle combined together in a movement
of movements create the foundation of the mass movement on which we
will build to broaden and deepen the movement. The uniting theme for
these ten sub-movements is a united movement to end the rule of money so
the necessities of the people and protection of the planet come before
further enriching the wealthiest.
The overarching theme of wealth inequality has already deepened. We
see it in the rhetoric of poll-sensitive politicians like President
Obama and Mayor-elect
de Blasio
(whether they do enough about the issue will be in large part dependent
on our actions); and we can see it in the criticism of trickle-down
economics by
Pope Francis. There is no question that
the conversation brought to consciousness by Occupy is continuing and deepening.
Economist Dean Baker clarified something that most instinctively understand –
inequality is not happening by accident.
It is happening because of policy choices made by those in office.
This includes trade agreements rigged for transnational corporations,
policies favoring big business over small businesses and entrepreneurs, a
tax system that protects the wealthiest–especially investors, patent
protections for pharmaceuticals that prop up inordinate profits and make
healthcare expensive for everyone, continued funding of big banks at a
cost of $85 billion a month while not funding a full employment economy
or necessary programs like food stamps, raising the budgets of the
military and weapons makers while at the same time cutting veterans and
government pensions and cutting necessary programs.
Joel Bleifuss of
In These Times describes this as a “
precarious democracy”
where those in office answer to big business, rather than the people.
These are policy choices that a well-organized mass movement of people
power can change.
Already, the movement is seeing success from its protests, not just in changing the conversation, but in affecting policy.
Medea Benjamin points out
ten good things that happened in 2013 including stopping the war in
Syria, negotiations with Iran, push back on Obama’s drone murders and
opposition to the NSA spying program, among other things. While these
victories do not constitute our ultimate goals, they show that organized
people power is making a difference. They should encourage each of us
to increase our efforts to broaden and deepen the movement and to work
in solidarity on multiple fronts of struggle.
The Target of Our Efforts Is Mobilizing the People
In the next article we will focus on objectives for 2014 as well as
areas where we need to focus our energy and activism. The challenges and
opportunities of the upcoming year are important and we can have some
important victories.
Bill Moyer, in
his final presentation
on his Movement Action Plan, makes a crucial point that is often missed
by activists. The critical understanding we must embrace is that
organized people have the power to direct the government and the
economy. We need to understand that we are not a fringe movement, but a
movement in the center of the best ideals of the United States. That is,
we believe in a government that is truly run by the people, not by
elite corporate and wealthy interests; we believe in equality under the
law not special treatment for those who are politically connected and
abusive enforcement against certain communities; we believe in a fair
economy not one rigged for the wealthiest. This is what the majority of
American people believe, but those in power violate these principles.
As we have written in
previous articles
on strategy to transform the nation, when a movement is able to
mobilize a small minority of the population in support of views held by a
majority of the people, they win. In fact, a review of the last 100
years of resistance movements found that
the people have never lost in a dictatorship or democracy when 3.5% of the people are mobilized.
Bill Moyer sharpens our task, telling us that
many activists
mistakenly think when they are protesting their target is the government
or a corporation when in fact the target is mobilizing the people.
We want to show that there is an effective movement speaking to the
people’s concerns and putting forth views that they support. This is
especially true in the current stage where our task is to broaden and
deepen the movement through talking, often one-on one, with people in
our communities and creating a national consensus in support of our
goals.
