The ongoing round-the-world occupations, which have drawn inspiration from the uprisings across the Arab world in 2011, are driven by the frustration of the young educated middle classes-in the Arab case fairly new ones-confronting societies controlled by hugely rich ruling elites but having little hope of a secure future for themselves, despite their university educations. In the United States, Citibank, which required two US government rescues after the financial crisis of 2008, posted record quarterly profits of $3.8 billion dollars in the fall of 2011, a 74% increase over the previous quarter, while its CEO, Vikram Pandit, expressed his sympathy with the Occupy Wall Street protesters and offered to meet with them. Poster created by Chelsea Peil, Roger Peet, Katherine Ball, Portland, Oregon. Roubini remarks further that the modern welfare state grew out of a post-Depression need for macroeconomic stabilization, which required “the maintenance of a large middle class, widening the provision of public goods through progressive taxation, and fostering economic opportunity for all” but all this went under during the massive Reagan-Thatcher deregulation, which Roubini-no Marxist after all-traces in part to “the flaws in Europe’s social-welfare model … reflected in yawning fiscal deficits, regulatory overkill, and a lack of economic dynamism.” 5 Roubini goes on to remind his readers that even before the Great Depression, the enlightened bourgeoisie realized that worker protections and a redistributive system providing “public goods-education, health care, and a social safety net” were necessary to prevent revolution. But the point is that neoliberalism and its rampant financialization have created a capitalism that eats its young. Roubini is saying that capitalism tends toward catastrophic collapses-no news here. Nouriel Roubini, channeling Marx, wrote in “The Instability of Inequality” that “unregulated capitalism can lead to regular bouts of over-capacity, under-consumption, and the recurrence of destructive financial crises, fueled by credit bubbles and asset-price booms and busts.” 3 Occupy Wall Street, New York, October 2011. 2 It is not news that the processes that go under the name of globalization, which center on the flows of capital, goods, and labor, create a unity that does not always serve the interests of capital or the capitalists. 1Įven before “the multitude” became a common touchstone for dreams of revolution, there was, famously, Seattle 1999, when anti-corporate protests brought environmentalists and community activists together with organized labor to block a meeting of the World Trade Organization, a scenario repeated at multiple locations in several countries in the years since. I would like to revisit the creative-class thesis I have explored here in a recent series of essays in order to frame my remarks in light of these occupations, and to make a few observations about the relationship between artists, the positioning of the creative class, and the Occupy movement. JOIN THE NEXT SPACE REBELS – Full live-action cutscenes! On your way to becoming a Next Space Rebel, meet an extensive cast of flamboyant internet characters.A discussion of the struggles, exoduses, and reappropriations of cognitive labor, especially in the field of visual art, and especially when taken as the leading edge of the “creative class,” while critically important, is trumped by the widespread, even worldwide, public demonstrations and occupations of the past year, this year, and maybe the next.EXPAND YOUR FOLLOWING – Expand your online StarTube channel! Share your recorded creations in-game to expand your channel, then export them to share in real life.COLLECT NEW PARTS – Earn and collect new parts by completing challenges to evolve from a hobby rocket builder to an advanced satellite launching rocket scientist.BUILD A ROCKET – Powerful, yet easy-to-use, rocket building tools that will help any budding rocket man reach their full creative potential.Will you join them in their race for internet freedom? Next Space Rebels enables the joy of creation, lessons of failure, and advancement of experimentation generally reserved for complex sim games through its accessible “notepad-style” creation tools and intertwined narrative. The mysterious Next Space Rebels know that those who control the satellites are now in control of the future of the internet. Order some parts online, get your camera, and expand your StarTube channel through rocket tinkering and often insane challenges! With great fame comes great responsibility, and a sudden break in your path to greatness will take you on a journey into space.
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