Sound Bites: Professors on the Occupy Boston Movement

CORRECTION APPENDED. See below.

"I share the conviction that inequality in America has been an increasingly serious problem for decades and that the time has come to do something about it. Inasmuch as that sense of injustice drives the protests breaking out around the US, I’m in sympathy with them. I’m glad to see what’s left of the labor movement joining in, since the decline of labor unions since the 1980s has clearly had a lot to do with the declining standard of living of many middle- and lower-income Americans.

It’s much too early for a historian to venture any predictions about whether this movement will grow or flame out.  It’s true that successful social movements start small. It’s also true that unsuccessful social movements start small. I hope this one generates enough support to keep growing in the coming months."

—James T. Kloppenberg

"Movements survive or fail based on how well-organized they are, in terms of structure, whether or not they have an organ to disseminate their ideas, and if they have people who are committed and see it as a vocation, who see it as a sacred vocation. The press isn’t really answering those questions, and it would really require someone to do some serious research. A good journalist should go and interview the leaders and find out the details and the institutional structure.

It’s both a positive and potentially negative thing, the fact that [the movement] appeared so quickly. It kind of makes you assume that it doesn’t have a well thought-out institutional organizational structural support, but there are examples where movements have been silently, behind the scenes, getting themselves established, and to the public it seems to come out of nowhere."

—John Stauffer

Correction:

The Oct. 20 article "Sound Bites: Professors on the Occupy Boston Movement" incorrectly attributed the above quotations. They are here cited correctly.