Recently we have seen growing in several cities public protests against measures that the governments are taking to overcome the economic crisis. What do the people claim? How big are these protests ? Are they effective? Justified?. In the three categories T.H. Marshall set to discuss we can observe three kind of rights: civil, political and social rights. The question we should ask ourselves is: have we passed the three phases?.
In 2008, the worst economic crisis that has affected mainly developed countries in the last 50 years of history erupted. This economic crisis has been accompanied by exorbitant rates of unemployment, increasing poverty levels, continuous migration in search of work, bank bailouts, cuts in public spending, decreasing level of pensions, discrimination against immigrants and, in fact, a lack of legitimacy of political institutions to respond the social needs that affect all citizens unfairly.
This lack of legitimacy was highlighted in 2011 when several social movements took the streets to protest. Inspired by the Arab Spring -Egypt began in 2010- and also demonstrations in Portugal (March 2011) and Spain’s movement called Indignados 15M (May 2011 ), the Occupy movement started in the city of New York. A protest movement that quickly spread itself all over the world from New York to Brazil, France, Canada, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Ireland and other countries. But who are they and why are they protesting for?
Civil rights protests in United States in the late 50s were carried out by the African American population who demanded equal rights and the abolition of racial segregation and later protests in favor of gender equality. While these movements were easy to identify, recent new social movements are global. More often converge different nationalities, different social classes and generations. As defined Sidney Tarrow, a social movement responds to collective challenges that includes people with similar interests. What moves the new social movements is the desire to improve the quality of life rather than old issues such economy or labour conditions (Calhoun, 1995: 187).
We could say that the New Social Movements are demanding a better quality of life. However, the quality of life through reforms or material values. This means, for example, that we can considere again that we are facing worker protests when they claim not to implement neoliberal policies in favor of large fortunes at the decrease of workers’s rights. We can also consider feminist protests in Spain when people protest against the new policies on abortion. These are issues that we got over but now they come to light again. This is why I wondered if we had passed the three phases T.H. Marshall explained
There is an aspect in what we can agree with Greg Martin when he claims that NSM have the risk to diverge on preferences and therefore a collective identity is important because it allows them to convey a consistent message. We can say that NSW do transmit a consistent message despite the different issues that purpose.
We not just see in NSM demands in oorder to preserve their rights but also a change on political regime. It is an alliance between 99% of the population against the remaining 1%. A protest against the government and banking fortunes that have more power than politicians. For these reasons, and joined the new era of information technologies that enable instantaneous global and horizontal communication, it makes the NSM be called NEW. However, as mentioned above, NSM also have a bit of the most ancient demands.
Recall that the traditional social movements focused their demands on redistribution: fight against inequality, wage increasing, improvements in education, rates for large fortuntes. NSM demands, on the other hand, focus their demands on representation. “They do not represent us”. Lately and slowly alternatives have grown. Few days ago we saw a new political party, PODEMOS, which surprisingly has obtained high electoral results. This political party claimed to be the voice of 15M’s Indignados. So, now that they are relatively already represented, what are they asking?. What is different between these older demands and newer demands that currently collectives such as 15M require?.
Probably they are asking the same demands our grandparents did years ago which we have already mentioned above: taxes for the richest, improvements on education, labor rights etc. Because the times are different but the principle rights are the same. And they will be the same for some more decades and so that we must protect them from the power of the ambition in any possible way.
Bibliography:
MARTIN, Greg. Social movements, welfare and social policy: a critical analysis, SAGE, 2001.
KING, Mike. 2011, The Vacancies of Capitalism, (consulted 03/06/2014), http://www.counterpunch.org/.
ADAMS, Jason. 2011, Occupy Time, (consulted 03/06/2014), http://critinq.wordpress.com/2011/11/16/occupy-time/
Social Policy UPF 
I’m agree with you, but I see this situation as a circle. The thing is that some years ago, the claim for a free and good education, as a example, had a lot of support from the citizens. Throug this they arrive to a better degree of education. Twenty years after, we don’t accept changes to have a below degree of this education, so we claim again, and this time we claim for a high degree of education, we can’t accept the one we already have. But this claim it’s not the same one, it is another one which is modernized by the needs of our presents lifes.
Interesting article that, in my opinion, highlights an important debate we should take into account when talking about the relationship between social policies and the improvement of our rights: to what extent have the population’s demands changed eversince the establishment of our political systems.
If I understood correctly your article, Ignasi, I understand that you’re arguing that, to a certain extent, the demands of the population haven’t changed as much as we ought to think. I understand this, plus I’d like to talk about the issue.
In my opinion, the reason fow which our social, political and civil demands haven’t changed during the course of time is capitalism and the unefficient and incorrect way this economic system has implanted democracy. As we all know, the promise of democracy has been intrinsically linked to the concept of a free market. Eversince the contemporary concept of democracy was established, the contemporary concept of global market was born. Thus, both concepts have developed hand by hand during many years, establishing a system where political, social and civil rights are linked to the economic freedom.
This economic freedom, is in my opinion, is opposed to the concept of giving rights to the citizens. A liberalization of the market is the worst way of trying to give a better life to the citizens of a political system as it will remove any kind of social culture to establish a capitalist culture where competitivity between citizens will be the only true basis we will find. We will also find situations of social inequality, exploitation and, resuming, social injustice. Why? because the global market tends to be the most important actor due to its unlimited source of power (the capital).
Thus, once we have entered in this economic order and once the citizens have noticed that their rights have been denied, social unrest will always focus to the same issues: the loss of their own rights due to the establishment of a free market. Therefore, if we study all social movements and their demands, we’ll observe that they all have the aim of trying to take power to the economy to try and provide themselves with those rights which have been denied during so many years. Thus, social struggle is understood nowadays as the citizen’s attetmpts to try to level the balance in favour of their social, political and civil rights. As the capitalist system tends to obey to the economic principles, all kinds of social movement opposed to the capitalist hegemony demand a political change and a more equal power balance in favour of citizens and their rights.
Therefore, in such debate, it doesn’t matter if we’re talking about the american Civil Rights movement, the feminist movement, the trade union’s demands or a non.austerity movement as long as this movement solely wants to change the current power balance in our society. Therefore, although these movements tend to be seen as different, they always have some basic aspects in common: the review of the liberal democratic system and the search of improving the decision-making mechanisms to create a renewed democratic society where the basic principles will focus to the citizens and not to the economic system.