Occupy Dame Street as slow-motion general strike? Justifying optimism in the wake of Ireland’s failed multitudinal moment

Abstract

Discussing their hopes for a horizontalist mode of politics, Hardt and Negri envision a grand, kairotic event that will announce the ‘becoming prince’ of the multitude. This article reflects on this idea in light of the strategies and discourses of Ireland’s Occupy Dame Street (ODS) activists. Starting with a brief account of the rise and fall of the ODS movement, as it struggled to engage the political imagination of a nation beset by financial crisis, the article explores the extent to which the actions of the movement conformed to ‘multitudinal ideals.’ It suggests that, in a way, and quite unconsciously, dominant factions in the movement came to embrace a kind of ‘event politics’ of their own – a turn which posed a barrier to the movement’s success, in a way with which occupy movements elsewhere simply did not have to contend. Taking this story as an opportunity to reflect on the place of the event in Hardt and Negri’s work, the article then discusses two alternative approaches to horizontal politics. Turning first to Eugene Holland’s concept of the Slow-Motion General Strike, we find a more experimental and piecemeal approach to social transformation. This approach, it is concluded, has the virtue of retaining Hardt and Negri’s enthusiastic rejection of hegemonic thinking while avoiding becoming caught up in a debate over the relative merits of passively waiting for a constitutive event over reform or revolution. That said, in Ireland at least, there is a certain danger that a ‘chronological’ approach can cede too much, especially in a time of general neoliberal expropriation of public space. With this urgency in mind, a second position is staked out. While in some ways reasserting the importance of kairotic time, this position borrows from anarchist understandings of public space, and puts a strong focus on tactics. As the article concludes, the actions of ODS-affiliated activists to expose the blatantly undemocratic operations of the country’s National Asset Management Agency by occupying vacant commercial properties in Dublin suggest a continuing relevance for direct-action tactics in Irish public space.

Keywords:

• autonomist Marxism
• the common
• horizontal politics
• anarchism
• multitude
• activism
• Irish financial crisis
• general strike

Acknowledgments

This paper emerged out of a series of conversations with scholars and activists over the last two years. For their time and generosity, I wish to acknowledge Wanda Vrasti, Garnet Kindervater, Anna Selmeczi, Marcus E. Green, Moira Murphy, Aubrey Robinson, Tiarnán Ó Muilleoir, and Helena Sheehan. Responsibility for errors or omissions lies solely with myself.