Occupy the Commons

Lee Hachadoorian on Nov 18th 2011

Occupy Wall Street is two months old. While sympathetic with generalities of the critique, I’m a little unsure about what actual changes this will lead to. This is partially because OWS has not specified policy demands. This lack of specificity has been defended by Bernard Harcourt as a form of political disobedience, as a protest not only of the current conditions but also of the political system which has led to this point. In this view, articulating demands is merely buying into the institutions and ideologies that OWS rejects. Further, an alternative view of decision-making is being articulated in the participatory democracy of the General Assembly itself. (See this piece on the intellectual roots of the protest.)

But leaving aside participatory democracy, the essence of the critique captured in “We are the 99%” comes down to economic inequality. What is to be done about inequality depends (at least partly) on your opinion of the cause. Participatory democracy is the solution offered by OWS, because the cause of inequality is taken to be corporate capture of traditional political channels. Continue Reading »

Filed in Governance,Urban | 3 responses so far

The Panopticon Comes to Atlantic City

Lee Hachadoorian on Mar 5th 2011

I’m a big game player, and have been involved (mostly just listening in) with CUNY Games Network, a great group of CUNY faculty devoted to games-based learning. Games can teach us a lot, either through being fun ways to instill content (a simple quiz game which could be adapted to any subject), or having gameplay that is based on the subject matter (like using Pandemic in a public health class). Like everyone else in the world, I first played Monopoly as a kid. But while most people seem to outgrow it, or merely tire of it, I find it more interesting as an adult. The negotiation phase that dominates the middle game, when most properties have been put into play but few color group monopolies have been formed, is the heart of the game—the most challenging and the most fun. Continue Reading »

Filed in Uncategorized | Comments Off on The Panopticon Comes to Atlantic City

Skip to toolbar