Riots and Political Protest

Simon Winlow, Steve Hall, Daniel Briggs, James Treadwell

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9780415730815
• eBook ISBN: 9781317909972
• Topic: Scienze sociali
• Subtopic: Criminologia

The years 2008 to 2013 saw a new generation of political protestors take to the streets. Riots disrupted many Western cities and new protest movements emerged, keen to address a bleak context of economic collapse and austerity politics.

In this groundbreaking new study, Winlow, Hall, Briggs and Treadwell push past the unworldly optimism of the liberal left to offer an illuminating account of the enclosure and vacuity of contemporary politics. Focusing on the English riots of 2011, the ongoing crisis in Greece, the Indignados, 15M and Podemos in Spain, the Occupy movement in New York and London and the English Defence League in northern England, this book uses original empirical data to inform a strident theoretical critique of our post-political present. It asks: what are these protest groups fighting for, and what are the chances of success?

Written by leading criminological theorists and researchers, this book makes a major contribution to contemporary debates on social order, politics and cultural capitalism. It illuminates the epochal problems we face today. Riots and Political Protest is essential reading for academics and students engaged in the study of political sociology, criminological theory, political theory, sociological theory and the sociology of deviance.

2 Part I

Gulags and gas chambers

DOI: 10.4324/9781315849478-2

It is now commonplace to argue that the deep ideological commitments that shaped the twentieth century are almost entirely absent from the sphere of politics. The ideologies that once structured political attempts to put right what was perceived to be wrong – the drive to change entirely the social field so that it might better reflect one’s ideological conception of justice, fairness and progressive civility – have been jettisoned from parliamentary politics and systematically removed from social life. Utopianism is now subject to sustained symbolic violence in the liberal democratic states of the West, and all who openly advocate the politics of far-reaching social transformation are dismissed as terrorists or ideological demagogues who would tear down the towering achievements of liberalism’s ‘open society’ and, in so doing, thrust us towards a future of totalitarian brutality.

Why is it that attempts to imagine more ethical ways of living together tend to elicit such a vitriolic response? As we will see, the most famous attempts to imagine Utopia are naïve, but they most certainly are not arguments for brutal dictatorship. Most summon up images of bucolic landscapes free from the excesses of industrial production and individuals liberated from the debilitating effects of material hardships, anxiety and base acquisitiveness. In the most notable utopian texts of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the cultural life of the utopian community is structured in relation to openness, fairness, acceptance and the common good: a space defined by expansive freedoms rather than oppression and tyranny. These utopian writers envisioned a world free from social and material pressures, a world in which the unrelenting competition that has such an enervating effect upon our emotional life today is entirely absent. Not one of these texts advocates the enslavement or the slaughter of minorities, or indeed imagines such a thing to be a regrettable but necessary means of moving towards the beatific dream of peaceful coexistence. However, post-war liberalism has transformed our political and intellectual life to the extent that its central tenets – in particular, its piecemeal democratic reformism – are presented as the only means of addressing the perceived social problems that plague our world today. All those who propose to deviate from the well-trodden path of reformism, and all those who advocate political attempts to move beyond our current system, are immediately portrayed as symbols of absolute evil. The dominant ideology demands that we fall into line and accept that only barbarism lies beyond the borders of parliamentary capitalism. Either we will again be subject to a totalitarian barbarism of order, or we will drift towards a barbarism of disorder, in which the rituals, processes and institutions of liberal democracy implode, shattering the basic framework of modern civility (Hall, 2012a, 2012b).

We are constantly warned that comprehensive social and political transformation will inevitably lead to barbarism. Even those who regard themselves as radical liberals chastise utopians for their naïvety. Be careful what you wish for, the utopians are told. Don’t let your anger at injustice blind you to the indisputable fact that every economic and social alternative to our present system is immeasurably worse. Instead, put your righteous indignation to a more productive use. Engage with the system and seek to rehabilitate it. Why risk tragedy by abandoning liberalism, when democratically elected governments have before them a range of mechanisms that can significantly improve what already exists? Why bother to revolutionise our world, when we have the opportunity to change our government at the next election? Doesn’t our current system give individuals the right to choose, and don’t elected governments have the capacity to change the world with carefully calibrated policy interventions? The ultimate message should now be perfectly clear: what we have is the best of all available systems; any attempt at fundamental change will inevitably make things worse.

This narrative has become so ubiquitous that it scarcely registers these days. If leftist or rightist groups are to pursue significant social change, they must first secure a democratic mandate. All political acts that fall outside these borders are terroristic – the folly of dangerous, power-hungry egotists whose blinkered ideological vision encourages them to undervalue the core principles of our current way of life. Their juvenile radicalism is a threat, not just to our political system, but to Western civilisation itself. Their passion and commitment can seduce otherwise cogent members of the public and carry them along the path towards a pathological interpretation of Utopia. It is, therefore, vital that radicals of Right and Left are restrained and brought back into the fold of electoral democracy, history’s most advanced form of government.

The standard dismissal of the utopian is to insist that she is a closet Stalinist, willing to sacrifice the freedoms of all so that she might impose her impractical ideology upon reality. Don’t these ridiculous ideologues know that capitalism has proven itself time and again to be the best of all available systems and the best available means of boosting the living standards of the poorest? Don’t they understand that Soviet-style command economies are hopelessly inefficient and entirely incapable of coping with the complexities of contemporary economic life? Isn’t it now clear that economies work best and grow fastest when they are animated by the energies of countless individuals all striving for their own personal advantage? Doesn’t it then follow that any attempt to create a less brutal and iniquitous socio-economic system will, in the fullness of time, prove to be an utter disaster? Capitalism dangles the possibility of rapid upward social mobility in front of the individual. It cultivates the belief that even those at the bottom of the heap can completely transform their lives for the better with a bit of hard work and creative energy. Consumerism’s sign-value system provides the individual with the means to establish both individuality and social distinction, to stand out from the herd. It claims to be a fundamentally meritocratic system, and it welcomes diversity at the top (see Greenspan, 2013). Capitalism fills our cultural life with desirable objects, and the economic and cultural logic of consumerism is now so well established that these objects become the qualitative measure of our lives. Can we ever show respect to those who would throw all of this away in pursuit of a dream that will inevitably turn into a nightmare?

A similarly aggressive critical response awaits those who hope to explore a politics beyond the horizon of parliamentary democracy. They are reminded of the injustices that existed before the rise of electoral democracy and the sacrifices of those who fought for the right to vote. Don’t such people realise how lucky they are to live in an open society in which ordinary men and women are granted the luxury of choosing their own leaders? The diverse advocates of parliamentary democracy – from the social liberals of the Left to the neo-liberal free-marketeers of the Right – instruct utopians to consider countries whose populations do not have such rights, and then to consider countries that have historically suffered under the yoke of dictatorship. Despite its manifold and often quite stark failings, electoral democracy is said to be structured in relation to a base egalitarianism that values the vote of a banker or a bishop no more and no less than the vote of a refuse collector or a call-centre worker. The utopian is portrayed as a dangerous charlatan who stupidly undervalues the great benefits of our current way of life. Adopting the tone of a worldly schoolmaster exasperated by the gullibility of his charges, the pragmatic defender of democracy observes that the utopian may not value democracy now, but, should it ever be removed, they would quickly find themselves transformed into determined advocates of the democratic system. For the established defenders of parliamentary capitalism, there is either democracy or totalitarianism. Either we stick with what we have and continually remind ourselves how lucky we are to have it, or we throw everything away and become mere playthings for some as yet unidentified despot. The message is quite simple: utopians should ‘read some fucking Orwell’ (Webb, 2013) and accept that our current political reality provides us with the capacity to change the world to suit our collective will. Deeper and more fundamental changes simply aren’t necessary, and must be dismissed entirely if we are to avoid the inevitable descent into barbarism that would follow. If you are dissatisfied with the current order of things, engage with it; vote, organise and petition for change. Join a political party and seek to influence its policies. Become an activist and organise peaceful protests to communicate your dissatisfaction to your democratically elected representatives. Accept that, although the existing order isn’t perfect, it’s better than all the alternatives. There will always be a few problems here and there, and so there’s no point getting too hung up on the difficulties of the current system. Instead, find comfort in the rituals of the electoral process. Accept that what currently exists reflects the preferences of the majority of your peers. There’s simply no need for abrupt change. Piecemeal policy interventions will create a better world without any need for disruption and conflict.

Ontology of not-yet-being

Since the close of the Second World War, in a wonderfully adept ideological manoeuvre, celebrated liberal intellectuals have sought to close the gap between naïve utopianism and despotic tyranny. For Karl Popper, Hannah Arendt and Isaiah Berlin, Stalin and Hitler were tyrants made such by their commitment to significant social transformation. Their devotion to an ideologically framed vision of a better world ensured that millions were trampled underfoot, and the lives lost were deemed a price worth paying in pursuit of the utopian dream. Mao and Pol Pot seemed to confirm the thesis. Whenever attempts are made to revolutionise our world, tyranny follows. If we start to take the abstract ideals of utopianism too seriously, it will lead us inevitably to the gulag or the gas chamber.

However, it is very difficult to see Mein Kampf sitting neatly within the earlier tradition of utopian writing, seen most clearly in the work of Edward Bellamy, Thomas More, Ernst Bloch and Charles Fourier, a positive tradition of hope and imagination. Stretching the concept of utopianism to include any attempt to intervene in history’s trajectory ensures that the original meaning is lost, or, we might suspect, deliberately discarded. What possible sense can it make to position the obviously idealistic and beautifully naïve utopianism of Charles Fourier or the early Thomas More with the industrial slaughter of Nazism? Bloch’s (1995) work in particular displays a deep fidelity to the potential of human society to improve itself and actually to realise a future Utopia. His ontology of not-yet-being suggests a reality that is not yet ontologically constituted but points towards its future realisation. What has happened to this hope in the not-yet-being, this hope that what exists can be improved upon?

For the anti-utopian liberals of the post-war period, the goal was to destroy any possibility that totalitarianism might return. Thus, any ‘ideological’ attempt to create in reality a conception of the Good must be subject to stinging rebuke. Of course, it is entirely reasonable for these theorists to attack Stalin and Hitler and denounce oppressive forms of governance. Who could possibly argue against that? However, it is also vital that we resist the injunction to withdraw from all forms of utopian thinking and all attempts to imagine a better world. The colossal injustices of contemporary liberal capitalism, when considered alongside a range of crises that lie just ahead of us (see Klare, 2002, 2012; Heinberg, 2011; Pearce, 2013), make the task of imagining a better world more crucial than ever. It is essential that we continue to imagine political and economic systems that are more inclusive and less destructive than industrial capitalism, and social and cultural orders in which insecurity, competition, envy and anxiety are much less apparent. We must never let go of the dream that the future will surpass the present.

For the moment, even though some astute commentators have reassured us that a great event of history may soon be upon us (see Badiou, 2012), firm, narrow limits continue to be imposed on hope and possibility. The received wisdom of our time suggests that we have found the magic formula – liberal capitalism and liberal democracy – and all we need to do is make a slight adjustment here and there to continue to move forward (see Badiou, 2002). Today’s dominant positive vision of the future is one in which democracy is more ‘democratic’ – for example, less manipulated by corporate interests, and more inclusive and representative – and capitalism is more efficient, more concerned with the natural environment and better able to bestow the gift of consumerism upon a much broader population.

Liberal pragmatism furnishes us with the official utopian vision of the future. Casting a dark shadow over it is the orthodox, dystopian view of a future in which the processes and institutions of liberal democracy and liberal capitalism begin to break down, or from which they are entirely absent. Our consumer lifestyles diminish, the diversity of consumer culture is transformed into a dour and unappealing homogeneous whole that allows few opportunities for expressive individuality, and the rights of individuals to actively engage in political life have been suspended. In this view, it is the relative absence of parliamentary capitalism’s institutions and processes that makes the future unappealing. For the time being, it seems impossible to free ourselves from the horizon imposed by parliamentary capitalism. Both positive and negative visions of the future tend to be structured in relation to what already exists.

It is incredibly difficult to think beyond these borders, but this task has been made much more difficult by liberalism’s obdurate drive to censure the utopian imagination. Anyone who attempts to construct new conceptions of the Good, or who attempts to access out-of-date accounts of genuine social value, tends to be greeted by a wave of postmodern cynicism or subject to sustained symbolic violence. Intellectuals who attempt to think, even in the most abstract terms, about a future beyond capitalism are dismissed as silly elitists with no idea or concern about the things that really count for ordinary men and women. The very fact that such intellectuals continue to exist is considered to be a clear indication that the money the state spends supporting the university sector is being thrown away or used to prop up decrepit humanities departments that produce nothing of genuine worth for our economy. Why are these elites being paid to pontificate about a world without capitalism? Shouldn’t they instead be applying their intellectual energies to developing new ways of boosting economic growth, or formulating new policies that might improve our experience of civil society? Our world may not be perfect, the defenders of the existing order claim, but we are lucky enough to have a system that allows us to say that it is not perfect and even to change it in a measured, incremental way that guarantees that harms are minimised and the barbarism of collectivist politics is kept at bay. What could be better than increasing the availability of those things we like about contemporary society and minimising those things we do not? In this chapter, we will argue that the first stage of a journey that takes us back to history involves freeing ourselves from the restrictions that have been placed upon our imagination.

Reactionary liberalism

The first task is to contextualise liberalism’s anti-utopianism. To suggest that the horrors of the Second World War transformed Europe’s political and social order enormously is, of course, an understatement. The war was a truly transformative historical event. Nothing could ever be the same again. There could be no going back to the basic socio-economic and political frameworks that had existed before the war. The shock of war was such that Europe was thrown towards an entirely unanticipated future, totally unimaginable before the war began. In political terms, perhaps the most important aspect of this transformation was the development of a consensus relating to economic planning and the social entitlements that were to be provided to a population that had suffered greatly during six years of total war. The experiences of the Mediterranean states differed, but, for the most part, Western European states developed sizable welfare states and committed to the principle of full employment. Gradually, post-war economies picked themselves up off the floor and, with the assistance of American loans and aid, began to grow. Infrastructural investment improved productivity, and, as time wore on, currency exchange mechanisms and trade arrangements encouraged the development of export markets and diversified national economies. Trade unions became important partners in economic planning and management. As economies developed, and as new energy sources were discovered and exploited, the consumer-based lifestyles of ordinary men and women were significantly improved.

Of course, the long-running post-war economic boom did not appear magically after the declaration of peace in Europe. The initial outburst of relief and happiness that followed the end of the war quickly subsided. It took some time for post-war prosperity to really kick into gear. In Britain, food rationing continued until 1954. But, despite this, when the initial outburst of relief and happiness receded, a mood of cautious optimism appeared to take its place. The working populations of Western Europe were by this time quite used to hardship, rationing and shortages, and the proclamations of mainstream politicians of both Left and Right appeared to give people a sense of hope that the worst was behind them. They appeared to sense that, in their daily labours, they were together creating a better country for themselves and those who would follow. Things were on the up. Democratic socialism had found its way to the centre of European politics, and new policy initiatives suggested that there would be no return to the desperate poverty and grotesque inequalities of the pre-war period.

In economics, Keynesianism was in the ascendancy. In comparison, the neoclassicism of the pre-war period looked simplistic and one-dimensional. Across the West, governments were adapting their approach to fiscal planning and taking a more active role in their national economies. Even politicians of the old order were talking of fairness, justice and progress. Movements for civil rights gathered speed on the runway. For the most part, work was quite plentiful, and a new era of peaceful prosperity seemed to beckon. However, the staggering loss of life associated with the war appeared to temper the mood of optimism. The barbarism of the Holocaust was difficult to fully comprehend. It wasn’t until much later in the twentieth century that it was possible for Europe to even begin to come to terms with it. Importantly, the horrors of Auschwitz, Treblinka and Sobibor demanded that we acknowledge our species’ capacity for unspeakable evil. This realisation seeped into culture and the political unconscious. The mood was one of hope and optimism, but people now better understood the nature of violence and tyranny. They had witnessed just how bad things could get and the depths to which humanity could sink. Above all, post-war Europe was left with a powerful desire never to let such events happen again.

The perceived threat posed by radical politics demanded that we invest heavily in Europe’s institutionalised democratic systems. Throughout the post-war period, electorates seem to have shown great faith in democratic politics and the election ritual. For decades, turn-out figures in general elections remained high, and there existed a much closer connection between the political sensibilities of everyday people and the political parties that sought to represent them in government. Political contestation over our shared future was now to be firmly contained in the democratic process. The upheavals of revolution were no longer necessary. Even the most radical political parties could campaign for office and find their way into government, if they managed to secure a democratic mandate to do so. Parliamentary democracy provided a framework to contain and civilise politics. Formally, politics remained open to all, including those who proposed radical social transformation. In...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Introduction: Name your beliefs; identify your enemy
• Part I: Gulags and gas chambers
• Part II: The liberal attack upon utopianism
• The return of politics: The EDL in northern England
• The consumer riots of 2011
• What was Occupy?
• Spain and the Indignados
• The trouble with the Greeks
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index