Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-wzw2p Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-15T10:59:05.854Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Dude, Where's My Job?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Extract

The question of what occupy wall street wants has been a hard one to answer—despite or because of Adbuster's founding call for “one” “simple” and “uncomplicated” “demand.” This is partly because the Adbuster candidate, “Democracy without Corporatocracy,” was a little vague and partly because the many specific demands that followed it—from reinstating Glass-Steagall to reforming campaign finance to establishing an “Office of the Citizen”—didn't really capture the radical spirit of the movement. What emerged as most characteristic of OWS was something like a critique of the very idea of demands: we refuse to make any because we refuse to acknowledge that anyone has the authority to accede to them, or we will make only demands that cannot be met. But this strategy, not unlike the mechanism of occupation itself, has obvious limitations: going someplace just because you're not supposed to be there and asking for something only as long as you can't possibly get it doesn't look like a recipe for changing the world.

Type
Correspondents at Large
Copyright
Copyright © 2012 by The Modern Language Association of America

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Abelson, Reed. “Health Insurers Making Record Profits As Many Postpone Care.” The New York Times. New York Times, 13 May 2011. Web. 9 Mar. 2012.Google Scholar
Adjunct Project. Adjunct Project, 2012. Web. 9 Mar. 2012.Google Scholar
Allegretto, Sylvia A. The State of Working America's Wealth, 2011. Washington: Economic Policy Inst., 2011. PDF file. EPI Briefing Paper 292.Google Scholar
Becker, Gary S. The Economics of Discrimination. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1971. Print.10.7208/chicago/9780226041049.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bollinger, Lee C.College Diversity at Risk.” The Washington Post. Washington Post, 15 Jan. 2012. Web. 9 Mar. 2012.Google Scholar
Goldin, Claudia, and Katz, Lawrence F. The Race between Education and Technology. Cambridge: Belknap–Harvard UP, 2008. Print.Google Scholar
Leonhardt, David. “Top Colleges Largely for the Elite.” The New York Times. New York Times, 24 May 2011. Web. 9 Mar. 2012.Google Scholar
Lockard, C. Brett, and Wolf, Michael. “Occupational Employment Projections to 2020.” Monthly Labor Review Jan. 2012: 84–108. PDF file. 9 Mar. 2012.Google Scholar
Marsh, John. Class Dismissed: Why We Cannot Teach or Learn Our Way out of Inequality. New York: Monthly Rev., 2011. Print.Google Scholar
Meister, Bob. “Debt, Democracy, and the Public University.” Remaking the University. Ed. Michael Meranze and Christopher Newfield. N.p., 16 Dec. 2011. Web. 9 Mar. 2012.Google Scholar
#Occupy Wall Street.” Adbusters. Adbuster Media Foundation, 13 July 2011. Web. 9 Mar. 2012.Google Scholar
Pryor, John H., Hurtado, Sylvia, Saenz, Victore B., Santos, Jose Luis, and Korn, William S. The American Freshman: Forty-Year Trends, 1966–2006. Los Angeles: Higher Education Res. Inst., 2007. Print.Google Scholar
Reed, Adolph. “Kissing Up Rhetorically to OWS.” Message to the author. 10 Mar. 2012. E-mail.Google Scholar
Rodan [Rick Martinez]. “The ‘You O Me’ Mentality Is Killing This Nation.” The Blogmocracy. N.p., 29 Feb. 2012. Web. 9 Mar. 2012.Google Scholar
Sacks, Peter. Tearing Down the Gates: Confronting the Class Divide in American Education. Berkeley: U of California P, 2007. Print.Google Scholar
Shaer, Matthew. “The Case(s) against Law School.” New York. New York Media, 4 Mar. 2012. Web. 9 Mar. 2012.Google Scholar
University of Michigan Student Profile: Comparison with Other Highly Selective Public Institutions. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan, 2008. PDF file.Google Scholar