Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World

by Adam Tooze

On August 19, 2011, representatives of the New York Stock Exchange met with agents of the FBI for an unusual conference.79 Trawling the Internet for suspicious activity, the FBI had got wind of an “anarchist” network dubbed “Occupy Wall Street.” Its aim was to spread the protest movement that had gained such scale in Europe to the United States. The occupation of Zuccotti Park right next to Wall Street was scheduled for September 17. The US media at first ignored the story. The first to cover it were Agence France-Presse and the Guardian.80 But within weeks the tiny encampment that lodged itself within hailing distance of Wall Street would become headline news around the world.81 Given the scale of the social media storm it unleashed, it is important to put Occupy Wall Street in perspective. It was tiny compared with the gigantic antiausterity mobilizations in Europe. The global Occupy demonstrations that took place on October 15, 2011, attracted perhaps as many as a million demonstrators in Spain, 200,000 to 400,000 in Rome, tens of thousands in Portugal. In New York between 35,000 and 50,000 protesters marched. But the New York occupation had a symbolic significance far in excess of its modest scale. It articulated radical opposition at the very heart of US capitalism. Imitation camps sprang up across the United States, in Philadelphia, Oakland, Boston, Seattle, Atlanta, L.A., Denver, Tucson, New Orleans, Salt Lake City and many other cities. Further afield there were no...