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Rethinking Marxism: A Journal
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Politics of Indignation: Radical
Democracy and Class Struggle
beyond Postmodernity
Mario Espinoza Pino
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Democracy and Class Struggle beyond Postmodernity, Rethinking Marxism: A Journal of
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Politics of Indignation: Radical
Democracy and Class Struggle beyond
Postmodernity
Mario Espinoza Pino
This article analyzes the social impact, dynamics, and political organization of the
Spanish revolt of the Indignados. The article starts with the emergence of the 15M in
Spain, criticizing the representation of the movement in the media and exposing the
political and economic conjuncture of Spain at the date of the revolt. Then it
analyzes the Indignados sociopolitical phenomenon as an articulation of social
movements linked by one method of political decision and association: the assembly.
After this, it tries to explore the limits and advantages of a noninstitutionalized
approach towards social conflict, exposing the social changes the movement has
introduced into the Spanish society. Finally, it points out the real obstacles for the
15M as a post-Fordist class movement in an attempt to understand the role of the
Indignados like an alternative for political change in Spanish society.
Key Words: Indignados, Spanish Revolt, Class Conflict, Neoliberalism, Social Movements
Thus it happened that Napoleon, who, like all his contemporaries,
considered Spain as an inanimate corpse, was fatally surprised at the
discovery that when the Spanish State was dead, Spanish society was full of
life, and every part of it overflowing with powers of resistance.
*Karl Marx, Revolutionary Spain
Thirdly and lastly, it comes to be considered, that those things are not so much
within the commonwealth’s right, which cause indignation in the majority. For
it is certain, that by the guidance of nature men conspire together, either
through common fear, or with the desire to avenge some common hurt; and as
the right of the commonwealth is determined by the common power of the
multitude, it is certain that the power and right of the commonwealth are so
far diminished, as it gives occasion for many to conspire together.
*B. Spinoza, A Political Treatise
Beginnings: Beyond the Veil of Representation
The 15th of May 2011 will live for many years in the political memory of Spanish
people as the historical beginning of a new wave of social and political conflict in the
middle of the global economic crisis. On that date an enormous demonstration took
– 2013 Association for Economic and Social Analysis
Rethinking Marxism, 2013
Vol. 25, No. 2, 228Á241, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08935696.2013.769358
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place in the capital city of Spain, Madrid, linking different collectives and several
generations of protesters, all united against the inefficient structures of the Spanish
liberal democracy and the powers of the capitalist market. Beyond the heterogeneity
and apparent dispersion of the movement, there were clear political objectives on that
day, common objectives: the Indignados’ critique of the corrupted political institutions*state,
parties and trade unions*demanded from the beginning a radical
transformation of democracy, questioning the liberal ways of representation with new
forms of participatory democratic action. This issue was related with a critical
approach towards free trade, financial capital, and neoliberalism as the other side of
the Spanish problem: the political power seems to be completely entangled with capital
and subordinated*subsumed Marx would say*to it. The gradual privatizations of
public services to maximize the financial benefits of the elites and banks show us*
without doubt*that politics does not govern for the citizenship but for private
economic power. On the other hand, the state apparatuses of the old welfare model are
now only another dimension of capital: an instrument to dispossess people from their
rights and create new sources of surplus-value.1
These two lines of critique made by the
15M will have a concrete formulation in the first measures proposed by the
Indignados*for example, a reform of the electoral law with open lists and true
proportionality, the nationalization of the privatized companies and public services,
limits to the power of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Union
(EU) in Spain, the right to and adequate housing for all the people, the abolition of the
Sinde Law,2
the Labor Reform3
and the Migration Laws, a radical democracy guided
through popular assemblies, etc.
Two days after the first demonstration, and following several episodes of police
repression, the central square of Madrid, Sol, was pacifically occupied again thanks to
a popular call in Facebook and Twitter; this time the Indignados camped, creating
Acampada Sol4
and a general assembly to organize and spread the movement through
1. For an interesting analysis of these subjects see Harvey (2007).
2. On 6 March 2011 the Sinde Law*called Sinde because of the surname of the former cultural
minister*was approved in the Spanish Official Bulletin of the State (BOE) as the 43rd disposition
of the organic Law of Sustainable Economy (LES). This disposition regulates Internet download
traffic, prohibiting sharing content with any type of copyright, under penalty. In the law,
companies’ ‘‘intellectual property’’ is protected against users in an attempt to ban the P2P
systems and portals used in cultural file sharing (films, books, music, etc.). Several associations
of consumers and users have criticized the law, arguing it was only another step in the
privatization of the Internet’s free space. Finally, the government of Jose´ Luis Rodrı´guez
Zapatero (PSOE) decided not to apply the law. However, on 1 March 2012 the law was fully
applied by the government of Mariano Rajoy (PP), banning many webpages where one could
download materials for free.
3. The labor reform announced by the government of Rodrı´guez Zapatero in 2011 was a pack of
measures to make the job market more flexible, with the aim of reducing unemployment. But
the previous reform of 2010 had revealed the true meaning of ‘‘making more dynamic’’ the labor
market: cheaper dismissals for employers, the weakening of collective negotiations and trade
unions’ power, less legal justifications for dismissal, etc. The reform of 2011, approved in the
middle of social conflict, continued the line of the law of 2010: abuse of the internship contract
in employment (with minimum salary or without it), more limits to collective negotiation, and
unlimited temporality in contracts.
4. ‘‘Sun Encampment.’’
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Spanish territory and beyond. Soon, the general assembly divided itself into different
commissions (Food, Action, Communication, Infrastructures, Legal, Internal Coordination,
and Cleaning) all led by different open assemblies with a horizontal structure.
When the camp secured its conditions of existence, the commissions developed their
competences, generating working groups in different areas: economy, politics,
national, international, culture, LGTB, feminism, thought, analysis, etc. Acampada
Sol began to create a solid web of social relations thanks to its ability to produce its
own sources of knowledge and information through the Internet (webpages, blogs,
Facebook, and Twitter) and its own press. All the working groups and projects of the
Indignados were articulated via assembly organizational terms: horizontal democracy,
global consensus, reflexive public deliberation, and a well-founded critique of
traditional leadership and representative forms of political action. And all of them
were open to everyone who would like to participate with his or her own voice. During
the Acampada, the center of the city was completely repoliticized, transforming the
squares and streets near Sol into spaces of democratic deliberation; the shops and
department stores of the zone were eclipsed by the people and their political actions
and decisions. The economic rationality and commodification of the shopping centers
coexisted in extreme contradiction with acts of solidarity, generosity, radical
criticism, and fresh projects of social justice. This contradiction lasted a month
until the general assembly, integrated by all the people of the Acampada and the 15M,
decided to leave the camp and spread their projects and antagonisms through district
and town assemblies, all of them intertwined and coordinated.
Since the first days of the camp, the whole Spanish media*from left to right*
started a campaign to ‘‘represent’’ the sociopolitical phenomenon of the Indignados,
building an image of the movement that we can call, in a classical Marxist way,
ideological.5
The media was not the only problem: many intellectuals who tried to
understand or criticize the 15M contributed with their cultural capital, interests, and
class prejudices to the construction of a stereotype suitable for the media and the
Spanish ‘‘common sense.’’ On the one hand, a major part of the progressive media
tended to represent the movement as a disorganized multitude without real projects
and disillusioned with the sterile political life of the country; although their protests
could be legitimate (we are in ‘‘times of crisis’’), the Indignados didn’t seek political
power. In fact, their insistence on assembly democracy and their critique of the party
5. I refer to the way Marx and Engels use this term in their classic The German Ideology: ‘‘The
class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time
over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those
who lack the means of mental production are subject to it’’ (Marx and Engels [1932] 1968).
Therefore, the ideology of the dominant class is one of the main ideological mediations in the
production of social subjectivity. A distorted social image of the Indignados has been
constructed by the hegemonic Spanish media, which is sponsored mainly by capitalist companies
and financial corporations. Even El Paı´s, one of the most popular periodicals traditionally
associated with the Left, is now another tool of an increasingly repressive and homogeneous
system. Nevertheless, thanks to the counterinformation of the movement and some marginal
media, the ‘‘social common sense’’ has understood*as the last polls affirm*that many of the
demands of the 15M are legitimate and necessary. See, for example, this index of public opinion:
http://www.simplelogica.com/iop/iop12011.asp.
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system, capitalism, and corruption seems to condemn them to the dead end of utopia,
and*‘‘as we all know’’*only parties can change the political direction of society in a
liberal democracy. On the other hand, the discourses of the press associated with the
Right fluctuated between the social stigmatization of the movement*anti-system
people, radicals, bad students, losers, lower class*and their conversion into terrorists
or just ‘‘rats.’’ From the intellectual front, two different interpretations emerged:
1. The 15M is excessively emotional and lacks reflexive thought; the Indignados are
nothing more than a discontent and reactive multitude that has apparently found
new ways to express their dissent, but in the end they are victims of their own
spontaneity and disorganization. Although they rage against the system, they
don’t know how to use their rage: ‘‘if emotion is appropriate to destroy, it turns
out to be particularly incompetent to build anything. People of any class and
condition meet in the squares and shout the same slogans. They all agree in what
they reject, but a hundred different answers would be received if they were
interrogated by what they want . . . emotion is inappropriate to configure something
coherent and durable’’ (Bauman 2011, my translation).
2. The 15M is not only a post-Fordist revolt but also a postmodern revolt; it is only the
aesthetic representation of a revolution in the middle of capitalism and its effects
are more apparent than real. Only violence can break truly with capitalism:
‘‘without repression the protests are condemned, more than to the defeat, to
ineffectiveness. This way, the Acampada de Sol turns into symptom of everything
that is bad in our system and of the inability to reform it from within: a thematic
park of the counterculture, as surprising or uncomfortable as an ambulant flea
market’’ (Volpi 2011). Or in a more Leninist way: the Indignados are petite
bourgeoisie, the discontent middle class struggling to reconquer the welfare state,
not class revolutionaries. A vanguard party is needed to command the discontent.6
These forms of representing the 15M movement are not only false but also ignorant
about their projects and their ways of organizing a plural antagonism. Despite the
different nuances, the media representation tends to stereotype the Indignados as
youth protesters, disorganized and non-political, thus forgetting that the movement is
intergenerational and has created, since the day of its birth, a solid package of political
measures against the crisis and the corrupted structures of democracy. The only way
that the term ‘‘non-political’’ could describe the movement in a limited sense would
have to do with their rejection of parties and trade unions. But this rejection should not
be decontextualized from Spanish political life; the PSOE and PP*parties of the
moderate left and the right, respectively*have proven that the only true politics
under their terms is the neoliberal way: destruction of social rights, inequality, and
extreme increases in unemployment. Their differences*important in past decades*
have been practically erased by the technocratic homogeneity imposed by the
International Monetary Fund, the European Union, and European financial capital.
6. See, for example, the press release of the PCPE about the 15M, insisting on Leninist forms of
organization and criticizing the 15M as an interclassist movement: http://www.pcpe.es/
comunicados/item/268-sobre-las-movilizaciones-iniciadas-el-15-m.html.
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These parties’ submission to capital and corruption have created a social feeling of
betrayal in the people, forcing them to seek and build new institutions and common
spaces in order to express their political aspirations. The same applies to the major
trade unions: UGTand CCOO have been seriously criticized by the 15M because of their
political co-optation (subventions, elitism, corruption, weak social pacts, etc.) as
inefficient Fordist state apparatuses incapable of representing the interests of the
actual multitude of the working classes. But these critiques made by 15M about the
political structures of Spain do not make the movement’s own projects either ‘‘nonpolitical’’
or disorganized. The 15M movement*as we’ll see later*is generating an
alternative understanding of politics and social institutions by means of popular
assemblies, webs of communication, and common knowledge production. The image in
the media about the Indignados could not be more false and premeditated, built to
discredit and*as we have seen recently*criminalize the movement.
On the other hand, many intellectuals have misunderstood the proposals and
critiques of 15M, and the way they have tried to comprehend the movement is
absolutely naive. Zygmunt Bauman, for example, with his opposition between emotion
and thought, remains ideologically and sociologically blind; from his perspective, an
understanding of the movement’s roots and its dynamics seems to be impossible.
Bauman simply projects the ‘‘spontaneity’’ of 15M’s first days onto the development of
the movement as a whole without knowing anything about its structures and common
objectives. Besides, ‘‘indignation’’ is not only a reactive or negative ‘‘affective force’’
against political structures, nor is it a mere repulsing of the old order without ideas to
transform society.7
This indignation creates at the same time that it destroys; it has
generated links of solidarity between the people, including collective deliberation and
different social values to confront the crisis. Its rationality is dialectical: negative,
because it is a radical critique of the post-Fordist society and individualistic
postmodern values;8
positive, since it puts into practice forms of immediate collective
democracy and political actions that go beyond the status quo.
Though Bauman thinks the 15M does not have to deal with the individual/collective
problem thanks to its assembly dynamic, conflict and difference are at the base of the
assemblies, and assemblies are only mediums to produce dialogue and common
7. ‘‘Emotion is unstable and inappropriate to construct something coherent and lasting’’
(Bauman 2011, my translation).
8. As Fredric Jameson has pointed out, postmodernism*as the ‘‘cultural logic’’ of late
capitalism*involves the spheres of mass cultural production/consumption and also the
sociocultural values of the people. Therefore, postmodernity produces political subjectivity
because the workers and citizens of different strata live their everyday lives through its
discourses, aesthetic appreciations, and ideological and affective standards. We can talk about a
moment of de-differentiation inside society, in which the economic, cultural, and political
structures start to blur its limits. The cultural sphere seems to be commodified from its roots
thanks to an expansion of the society of consumption, and affectivity, creativity, and knowledge
are*at the same time*subsumed by capital. The effects of this subsumption are the loss of
temporality; consumption represents for the people an eternal and mobile present without
direction except for capital’s accumulation*the blurring of social and political references for
individuals, including the concept of class*and a brutal commodification of their way of life. As
we can see, it is the perfect ‘‘cultural superstructure’’ for neoliberalism, credit, and financial
capital. See Jameson (1991).
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perspectives about the projects and tasks to be realized. The diversity of individual
opinions or answers to the crisis and the limits of representative democracy are not the
‘‘weak point’’ of the 15M; on the contrary, they are the source of the life of the movement
because without conflict or dissent a consensus or a common political space cannot be
forged. But there is another thing Bauman does not see because of his ‘‘emotional’’ point
of view: the common production of knowledge and subjectivity. The Indignados are
students, teachers, technicians, cognitive laborers, the unemployed, and workers of
many other sectors and not simply the ‘‘masses’’ or the alienated sons of consumer
society. They have abilities*intellectual, physical, affective, and creative*and they
put these abilities into action to understand the social space and the national situation.
Intellectuals who think of the 15M as a postmodern revolt are also mistaken about
what has occurred in Spanish society. Acampada Sol was not a mere ‘‘flea market’’ or
‘‘symptom’’ of the problems of late capitalism. The camped people posed a strong
contradiction in the center of a capitalist city, transforming its heart into something
totally different: a space of popular democracy. It is true, as Jorge Volpi says, that for
many people the camping appeared only as a curiosity, but this is not an argument
that can reduce the power of the anomaly the Acampada has represented. The
everyday life of the capitalist city had to coexist with its other, and the effects of this
coexistence are still alive in the assemblies of the towns and districts. The 15th of
May and the occupation of Sol were not aesthetic representations but immediate
collective actions, immediate democracy. With respect to violence, the pacific
development of the ‘‘Spanish Revolution’’ has to do with a strategic and collective
decision: the media belongs to public and private corporations which are deeply
rooted in the system, and, because of this, violent behavior creates an image that will
be criminalized by the media and, at the same time, will legitimize the repression of
the police forces. In contrast, a pacific revolt delegitimizes the intervention of the
police and repression, unveiling explicitly the structural violence of the system,
thanks to the media coverage. This pacific action has revealed itself as more powerful
than violence, increasing the social acceptance of the movement.
On the other hand, the ‘‘Leninist critics’’ of the Indignados are blind and hold a totally
anachronistic point of view; the movement does not need an intellectual vanguard or a
party to represent it because representation and elitism are precisely two of the
problems of the Spanish situation. Their understanding of class conflict, as if we were in
the nineteenth century or at best in relation to Fordism, does not help to understand the
actual antagonistic currents but rather hinders this objective. The accusation of ‘‘petit
bourgeois’’ thrown at the 15M or the use of the term ‘‘interclassist’’ as a pejorative
adjective exposes clearly the dogmatism and some of the limits of certain communist
formations in Spain; they can only think about class, society, or post-Fordism with old
theoretical and political concepts: class as a homogeneous bloc, militants as an elite
with the knowledge*the truth*to lead revolution, and the vanguard party as the
hierarchical space of political decision. But from this perspective a solid knowledge of
the actual contradictions and antagonisms cannot be produced, nor can an effective
political opposition to capitalism and liberal democracy. The specter of Marx is not
behind these parties, but the ghost of Stalin.
There are additional discourses that have tried to ‘‘represent’’ or to approach the
Indignados movement, some of them opportunist (as, for example, the minority
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conservative party UPyD) and others supporting their own causes like IU/PCE or IA.
There have been dialogues because of the existence of similar objectives between
several parties, trade unions (CGT, CNT), and the movement, but today the
movement is still absolutely independent of parties or syndicates, affirming itself
as horizontal, open, and assembly-oriented. On the other hand, many of the measures
proposed by the 15M to overcome the crisis and the limits of democracy are more
radical than the measures that the traditional left parties would accept, and this is an
element of friction in the political conversations between the two sides.
The Indignados: Conjunctures, Dynamics, and Objectives
Going beyond the ideological ways of representing the movement, we have to talk
about the internal articulation of the 15M, its dynamics of action, and the content of
its objectives inside Spanish social structures*that is, inside the Spanish political and
economic conjuncture. If we were to describe the political situation of Spain at the
moment of the revolt, we would have to mention three intertwined spaces of social
tension. The first two are the constant privatization and impoverishment of social and
public services*as a measure of austerity to confront the crisis*and the strong
deregulation of the work sphere, two factors that increase the lack of protection for
the most vulnerable classes. The third factor, in which the others are founded, has to
do with the productive structure of Spain and its conversion into an orthodox
neoliberal economy in the context of the European Union.
The two main sources of economic growth in Spain*from ‘‘franquismo’’ to our
days*are the tourism trade and the construction and housing industry, with many
growth/decadence cycles based on the overexploitation of the latter. With the
acceptance by Spain of the Maastricht Treaty (1992) and its objectives (reduction of
public expenditure, inflation control, and deregulation of the labor market), Spain
entered the neoliberal era, opening the door to the power of financial markets. This
treaty sanctioned the antidemocratic structure of the European Union, the liberalization
of the central banks, the separation of capital from political and national
controls, and the triumph of capital*especially in its financial form*against workers’
rights. The second great explosion of the construction and housing industry in
democratic Spain (2000Á2007) created apparent generalized growth for the country,
but it was founded in the complete indebtedness of the local economies by means of
credit stimulation. As Isidro Lo´pez and Emmanuel Rodrı´guez (2001) have said (quoting
Robert Brenner), in Spain we have witnessed an ‘‘asset-price Keynesianism’’: to
increase economic growth and raise consumption, economic policies offered credit at a
low interest rate, something very attractive for the middle classes and even for people
with low income. This policy encouraged households to invest in financial assets that
generated an incredible*and artificial*growth of wealth, feeding the wheel of
credit. However, Spanish salaries were frozen, and the policy of reducing public
expenditure started to destroy some working-class rights; in other words, this policy
allowed capital to create a ‘‘wealth effect’’ that produced the false appearance of
generalized prosperity, generating a type of passive consensus in Spain. When the
‘‘subprime crisis’’ started in the United States in 2007 and all the markets were
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collapsing, the credit crunch harshly affected the Spanish economy and its construction
industry. This industry was the motor of the national economy, the source of
speculation and benefit, and when credit fell all the economy was shocked and the
construction bubble exploded. The result: indebted homes, banks in need of rescue,
uninhabited houses, bankrupt companies, and a sense of panic in all economic sectors.
From 2008 to 2011, the crisis increased its effects on the Spanish economy, and
moderate left parties like the PSOE began to implement neoliberal measures to
overcome the crisis. Known in Spain as ‘‘recortes,’’ the plan was to reduce public
expenditure at all costs, destroying the public healthcare and education and transforming
the rights of workers into nothing; under discussion was the promotion of formative
contracts until the age of thirty (poorly remunerated), low-price dismissing, lower
unemployment benefits, trash employment, more flexibility, etc. The 15 May movement
began in this context, with the tension of the announcements of more neoliberal
measures and an aggressive labor reform made for the satisfaction of markets.
The great demonstration of 15 May responded to this critical situation, articulating
inside it the protests of all the collectives and individuals affected by the crisis and
directed against the neoliberal offensive of the dominant classes. As I have said
above, two days later the 15M began to take the structure of a great assembly, selforganizing
all the antagonisms that had participated in the demonstration on the
15th. But this articulation process*wide and fast*has to be understood not as an
incredible e´ve´nement but as the result of the experience of the collective
antagonisms acquired by many during the last ten years in Madrid and other parts
of Spain. When we say different ‘‘collective antagonisms,’’ we try to point to the
coexistence of several movements with ideological compatibility (though not always):
for example, okupas, radical trade unions (CNT), republicans of the Left, libertarian
communists, LGBT groups, social democrats, leftist students, and so on. Associations
in defense of human rights, the right of a public education, or a decent healthcare
system also participated in the revolt. Despite this ‘‘leftist’’ appearance, many
people without clear ideologies or with only partial or reformist perspectives
integrated into the demonstration and the movement. But the experiences of these
groups revealed themselves as definitive in the composition of the 15M: without
multiple collectives with assembly experiences or experiences of horizontal organization,
the development of the movement would have been more difficult and slow.
The first thing that attracts our attention is the diversity of political ideologies
involved in the 15M, the heterogeneity that constitutes the movement. If we want to
think about the Indignados as a political subject, we have to abandon some Fordist
topics or commonplaces about what makes a revolutionary subject or, at least, a
subject of antagonism. For example, we cannot adequately think about the
Indignados with classic terms such as ‘‘unified class consciousness’’ or ‘‘vanguard’’:
these two concepts are in need of a third, ‘‘the party,’’ the real subject of the
political transformation in other moments of the class conflict. But the concept that
allows articulating a unified ‘‘class consciousness,’’ ‘‘vanguard,’’ and ‘‘party’’ is the
necessary mediation of political ‘‘representation.’’
The 15M rejects all forms of classical representative policy, considering such as
unnecessary to transform the conditions of existence. We have to change the classical
perspectives in order to enter and understand the proposals of the Indignados.
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Opposite to a homogeneous ‘‘class consciousness’’ we can talk about the ‘‘common
production of class/political consciousness,’’ instead of ‘‘vanguard’’ we have to think
in terms of ‘‘plural and horizontal leadership,’’ and in place of ‘‘party’’ we must put
the ‘‘assembly.’’ The concept that substitutes for ‘‘representation’’ is ‘‘participa-
tion.’’9
Although this is a schematic presentation, it is a good point of departure to
understand the internal structure of the movement.
What does the ‘‘common production of class/political consciousness’’ mean?
Following E. P. Thompson, we can say that classes only exist through struggle and
that struggles create classes. Class is not a static positivistic category; class is made
of experience, different types of habitus, historical memory, and sociopolitical
objectives.10
Of course, class is linked to the mode of production, but we cannot
9. The John Holloway-Enrique Dussel debate, one of Latin America’s most important political
discussions, may illustrate some differences between representation and participation. Holloway
presents a well-founded critique towards the state as a capitalist space, submissive to the
logic of capital below a perverse liberalist mask. The state is not a tool for the classes and social
groups in struggle, the state is another enemy to beat because it tends to reproduce the logics of
hierarchy, control, and social exclusion. We have to think of other ways to organize society.
Dussel, however, criticizes Holloway’s point of view with a more moderate Gramscian
perspective. Without the state, we will give all the power to capital because neoliberalism
seeks the destruction of all public institutions. We have to create nonliberal institutions to unify
the people in a process that seeks to arrive at direct democracy. Participation in the state is, for
Holloway, a betrayal and an impasse for social movements; a critical approach that tends to
participation*and not only to representation*seems to be Dussel’s choice. These two ways of
thinking are present in the 15M, which is maybe nearer to Dussel’s point of view than Holloway’s.
The problem in the Dussel perspective*and this is a problem of the 15M too*is that creating
new institutions, including the state, presupposes both a true regeneration of democracy and
massive social participation. And this also requires a radical transformation of the society of
consumption, capital, and people’s ways of living. A general abstract of the Dussel-Holloway
debate can be seen at: http://gacetahumanidades.blogspot.com.es/2012/03/dialogo-entre-el-
john-holloway-y.html.
10. Class is not a static category of analysis; it has to be understood as a historical and social
process constructed by agents and different kinds of pressures or conditions: mainly economic
and political but at the same time ideological and cultural too. Conflict between people and
social pressures creates class in the truest sense, that is to say, in a political and cultural way.
Consider, for example, that sources of income, salaries, types of occupations, or inequalities in
access to consumption are not the best elements to define class. Class, as Karl Marx said, is
rooted in the mode of production, in the way surplus value is produced and distributed inside the
society. The division of labor is, at the same time, the social division between owners and
exploited people, a schism of inequality that gives birth to the first features of class. But this
means that only class an sich*in itself*exists, not class fu¨r sich*for itself. Class, in a
concrete sense, links the position of the productive force in the mode of production with the
political and social organization of the workers, with their subjective dynamics and strategies to
understand social conflicts and act through them. The common consciousness of these conflicts
and the customs, ideologies, discourses, and cultural symbols of recognition create class, but
only when they are embodied in practice by workers against capital. If we understand class as a
concrete relationship between agents and conditions, and if we understand it as a process, not
as a reified subject*with more or less willpower*or a static structural field, we can pass from
an abstract concept of class to a more concrete definition. This means to historicize class and
understand it as an overdetermined web of agency in the process of social reproduction and
social struggle. For a selection of different positions in this classic debate, see Luka´cs (1971),
Althusser (2005), and Thompson (1991).
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understand class only in the ways different groups are positioned inside the
productive sphere of society. We have to relate these positions to concrete struggles
and warring subjectivities if we want to truly understand what is happening in
society.11
In the case of the 15M, heterogeneity created the movement, and this
plurality of antagonisms is the true identity of the Indignados. Because of this, we
ought rather to think of the 15M as a ‘‘mode of articulation’’ of different antagonisms
that owes itself to a common methodology of political participation: the assembly.12
The construction of a plural consciousness and the criticism of liberal democracy and
capitalism have been elaborated in common by means of the tensions and differences
among the several collectives that form the 15M, but finally arrive at a coherent
program. It is true that social democrats and libertarian communists would not
construct a consensus between them because of their different political approaches
to capitalism. However, the assemblies have produced a shared program of criticism
and objectives about which they agree. And the same happens with other factions of
the movement.
A proposal like ‘‘adequate housing for everyone,’’ ‘‘free public education,’’ or
‘‘limits to financial capital’’ would be subscribed to by all the groups, be they social
11. For example, seminal Western Marxists such as Louis Althusser, whose contributions played
a major role in the reformulation of Marxist epistemologies in the midsixties of the twentieth
century, have assimilated the concept of classes to the more general concept of ‘‘productive
forces.’’ In Pour Marx, Sur la Reproduction, and other texts, Althusser defines the concept of
productive forces as the ‘‘sum’’ of the means of production (an object of work and the means of
work) and working forces or agents. He suggests that the division of classes is rooted, as Marx
said, inside the process of production and the process of work: the division of labor is not a
problem of the technical division of work, but it is fundamentally a matter of class division. This
is true, but in trying to understand what class is, this seems to be a very limited perspective.
Althusser tends to ‘‘jump’’ from his structural definition of the productive forces inside
capitalist production relations*agents here are only tra¨gers of a process by their position in the
mode of production*to the political field without a serious consideration of power,
organization, or the culture of classes. And when Althusser tried to do something like this, he
produced a semifunctionalist theory of reproduction and subjectivity. His theory of ideology
cannot explain agency, political action, or revolution; only subjection and social reproduction
are the focus. Maybe this is a handicap inherited from French structuralism and its
ane´antissement of the modern subject, but its effects are very profound in his theory. Class
is not only a ‘‘structural effect,’’ but it is also a process of action, consciousness, and conflict.
Nicos Poulantzas, who is with E´tienne Balibar the best thinker of Althusser’s school, criticized in
Pouvoir politique et classes sociales de l’e´tat capitaliste the ‘‘economic’’ point of view in the
understanding of social classes. Nevertheless, he thinks that class is a ‘‘structural global effect’’
of all the spheres of the mode of production, not only the economic one, and although he tried
to focus on the political foundations of class, he fails to understand agency and subjectivity
because he thinks about them only as an ‘‘anthropological’’ or ‘‘functionalist’’ problem. Class,
as we have commented in another note, is an agency process involving history, cultural ideology,
and political positions. Above all there is an organization of dissent and indignation through
conflict, which is at the same time economic, political, and cultural. Without the embodiment
of class in actions, organization, and consciousness, it would only exist in theory or an sich. See
Althusser (1995) and Poulantzas (1982, 1978). See also, in a critical way, and near our own point
of view, Meiksins Wood (1982).
12. To see different but complementary perspectives on this matter, see Cano (2012), Sainz
Pezonaga (2012), and Moreno-Pestan˜a (2012).
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democrats or communists. The first step for the movement is to arrive at some
common ground about rights, demands, proposals, and perspectives (as an example:
free public education). Later, this consensus will be discussed and materialized
through the different actors and ideologies, taking finally a more concrete form that
can be legitimized by all. Maybe dissent will arrive into some part of the process, but
this is the way an assembly acts, and this is also the way to create class consciousness
from a dynamic and participatory perspective. In other words, the unification of the
proposal*the common program*cannot destroy the differences of the groups, and
the program is always open to dialogue in an inclusive way. Thus, people do not need
to assume a global identity or abandon their personal or collective dissensions; they
can reopen dialogues to expose their opinions in the assemblies.
When we talk about ‘‘plural and horizontal leadership,’’ we try to point to the
internal dynamics of the assemblies, their participatory articulation. There are only
three different posts in the assemblies, and who fills them may shift from one
assembly calling to another; anyone can perform them. One person gives the word to
those people who want to talk, another records the matters of the assembly, and
another coordinates and synthesizes the different opinions and discussions as
moderator. Those who fill these posts are elected by the assembly as a whole, and
the candidature and the dynamics of participation in the different matters of the
assembly are free. Each one who speaks has to articulate in a reflexive way his or her
proposal, observation, or opinion, sharing it with all the assembly. Every matter is
dealt with in the same way: exposition, discussion, and consensus by deliberative
democracy. This modus operandi allows people to take positions on the matter from a
reflective perspective, reducing exclusion and fragmentation. There are no leaders
but a radical collective democracy with a common production of decisions.
As we have said, the assembly and the movement are the ‘‘political subjects’’ of
the 15M, and the ways they offer to participate in the political and social life of Spain
are very different. The assembly brings cohesion and proposals, but the forms the
results of the assemblies take range from legal reformism (proposing a new electoral
law or a law for adequate housing by the collecting of signatures) to civil
disobedience or collective demonstrations and other forms of social pressure. For
example, there is a collective called PAH (Platform of People Affected by Mortgages)
that opposes the seizure of housing properties. People unite in front of the home and
do not allow the bank’s seizure, even if the police came to the property. This strategy
of civil disobedience has been very effective, and the seizing of many properties has
been stopped. Many people are working for a new law to prevent sequestrations and
create a space of greater equality for families with debts and economic problems.
The assemblies have a different range of influence and act on a different scale:
there are local (towns, districts) and big city assemblies as, for example, the Sol
assembly of Madrid. There is no hierarchy: all the assemblies coordinate themselves
with autonomy while seeking common objectives. Dissent is allowed and, as I have
said above, it is the source of the movement. However, all the assemblies have
participated in the national demonstrations, understanding that it is necessary to
have a strong front to achieve common objectives. Some of these objectives are
securing public education for all people, establishing a public healthcare system,
reform of the electoral laws, the application of the Laws of Historical Memory,
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formation of a true secular state, establishing a participatory democracy, recovery of
privatized companies and services, reduction of the power of the European Central
Bank and the International Monetary Fund in Spain, and adding strong limits to
financial capital; all of these would be in the program of a social-democratic party,
but the way the different collectives understand the sense of ‘‘participatory
democracy’’ allows them to create a productive tension, going beyond the classical
institutions of the state.
Conclusion: Limits and Challenges of the Spanish Revolt
As Marx said, talking about Spanish institutions in the time of Bonaparte, it seems that
the Spanish state, involved with capital and indebted, is dead while the multitude is
alive on the streets ‘‘overflowing with powers of resistance.’’ The emergence of the
Indignados in these times of crisis has suggested a hope for the majority of the
Spanish people and the possibility of a democratic regeneration of the country. The
actual acceptance of the 15M as a part of Spanish society is very significant, having
increased since the beginning of the movement. Even so, there are many conflicts and
contradictions inside the 15M, and some of these could be a problem for the future. I
will talk about these contradictions, challenges, and possible difficulties at my own
risk, knowing that maybe I do not have enough reflective distance to do it.
I will divide my schematic observations among three different spaces: limits,
challenges, and perspectives. First, limits: until now, the demands of the movement
have followed a very reformist path. This has been a good strategy to create cohesion
among many social groups on the Left but is insufficient to overcome the roots of the
Spanish crisis: capital and liberal democracy. While the dynamics of immediate
democracy within the movement are a way to transcend the formal limits of Spanish
political institutions, until now we have not seen alternative institutions that can
compete with actual state apparatuses. The assemblies need increased popular
support and participation to create a shift in power relations; fortunately, it seems
that people are reacting.
Another limit of the 15M movement has to do with the term ‘‘political.’’ Obviously,
the Indignados have a political project, but their unwillingness to participate in
classical representative ways is at the same time an advantage and a handicap. We
have seen the advantages mentioned by their radical critics, but the movement is
handicapped, for example, in its ability to be traditionally legitimized by the people
and to have a known discourse in Spanish society, and thus in its ability to lead in
towns, cities, or the country. Likewise, parties and trade unions (although many of
them are corrupted) have powerful organizations, and if the movement is politically
blind to them, it will be a serious problem to create a strong front of struggle. The
difficulty here is in achieving common ground because these institutions have been
criticized from the first day by the movement, and there are inevitable suspicions.
But this effort has to be made or there will be insurmountable limits.
As I have mentioned before, one of the main challenges is the creation of a
hegemonic bloc with parties that support 15M’s objectives, a support that will be
conditioned by pacts, elections, and maybe concessions in the radicalism of the
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movement. This last element might be problematic because concessions and
‘‘cohesion programs’’ to congregate the multitude could lend themselves to
forgetting the roots of the crisis, and the strong criticism put forth by the movement
could perish, absorbed by the bureaucratized parties. Still, many ‘‘party people’’
believe this has to happen at the end: a regeneration of institutionalized democracy.
We will see. Maybe political radicalism will triumph over traditional institutions.
If I turn to perspectives, the only thing I can say is that we will experience a rise in
social conflict in the next years because of the conditions of the Spanish debt and the
neoliberal politics of the PP government. The 15M is a good way to articulate
protests, but the movement is in need of allies to generate a powerful opposition to
capital. Pacts*not concessions*with several parties could be one answer, but we
have to know that many of these pacts will be poisoned, like democracy in Spain. A
new hegemonic bloc has to be created on the left; the problem is how to do this?
Reform or revolution?
Acknowledgments
To He´kate Garcı´a and the Assembly of Ciempozuelos and Titulcia, for a revolutionary
summer. To my brother Rau´l de Pablos and to Ian Seda-Irizarry for their great
generosity and friendship.
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