Solidarity: Can the Tea Party and Occupy Wall St find common cause?

Many libertarians will point out that the definition of “liberal” has changed. What used to be a philosophy of small government and economic freedom is now the hallmark busy-body regulations and central economic planning. To elucidate this distinction many call themselves, “classical liberals.” What’s less often discussed is the history of “Solidarity.” Today “Solidarity” is often used to mean unity among international socialists and communist organizations. Although at rallies they espouse massages of peace, diversity and freedom, which I stand behind, their literature usually preaches a kind of class war, and big government solution. 

The history of “Solidarity” is quite different however. The term comes from the Polish “Solidarność” which was a non-governmental trade union, or more accurately a black market resistance movement operating within the Soviet-bloc in the 1980s. Solidarity was a non-violent, anti-communist movement that was instrumental to the fall of the Soviet Union, and it could easily be described as a “classical liberal” movement. In 1986 free market economist Murray Rothbard visited Poland with warm reception from Solidarity, and the movement was flush with translations of Mises and Hayek, which were contraband.

One lesson to be learned from this is the folly of Utopianism. Prior to the Solidarity movement many anti-Soviet groups held the belief that an activist must hold a Utopian ideal to keep them motivated. The result was infighting between groups who shared the same goal. In short, Utopianism made them easy to divide and conquer. Solidarity proposed a different strategy whereby the emphasis was not on what activists favored, but instead a broad agreement on what they opposed. This was equally motivating, but without the divisiveness.

Fast forward to today and the world is erupting in dazzling explosions of populist movements. Tunisia, Egypt, London and now Wall Street. They all have different goals, but they all oppose the same thing, which is entrenched power structures. I view them all as the natural emergent order resulting from the proliferation of the Internet. Cyberspace is rabidly recreating Meatspace in it’s own image. Old strategies are being told to adapt or perish, and one of those strategies who’s time has come is Utopianism.

There are arguably two populist movements in the US right now, Occupy Wall St and the Tea Party. Most first wave Tea Partiers readily acknowledge that it’s already been hijacked. During the Bush administration the Tea Party had two goals, to end the war in Iraq and to abolish the Federal Reserve. Both of these could easily rally bipartisan populist support, but once Obama was elected they flipped the script and it became about opposing Obamacare, or the Ground Zero Mosque, or Illegal immigration or whatever. Similarly, Occupy Wall St began like all populist movements, as an attempt to confront entrenched power structures. They specifically aimed, “to separate money from politics” and “take to task the people who perpetrated the economic meltdown.” Reports indicate that the End the Fed movement is included in their ranks.

It’s clear, at least to me, that both of these movements contain both a Solidarity and a Utopian wing, in the classic Polish sense. If you look at the demands recently published by OccupyWallSt.org they seem ripe for hijacking by Utopians. They want, among other things, to raise the minimum wage to $20/hour, to institute a universal heathcare system by banning all private insurance and forgiveness for all debt from national debt to personal credit cards. But there’s also an Occupy the Federal Reserve Banks call on the same site, which both movements could embrace.

Imagine this:

What would happen if the Tea Party crowd and the Occupy Wall St crowd came to a general consensus that the system itself is broken, and that the people are no longer in control of this government? What if they agreed that the government was no longer a public servant but a mercenary? Can they both agree that avoiding Plutocracy takes precedence over all their pet issues? If so, do these movements have the discipline to reexamine their own platforms, and when they disagree to set those issues aside as Utopian for now, and instead form a Solidarity on the issues where they agree?

I guarantee you that nothing is more terrifying to the entrenched power structure than a broad Solidarity between the populist movements of the left and the right. And I guarantee you that they work long nights devising ways to hijack these movements and pit them against each other. The slogan of Occupy Wall St. has become “We Are 99%.” Will they restrict themselves to those issues upon which 99% of us agree?