Fans of Friedrich von Hayek may be surprised to learn that the Austrian economist is the talk of Occupy London. Hayek’s observation that distributed intelligence in a voluntary co-operative is a hallmark of real economy rings true beneath the bells of St Paul’s. Occupy is often criticised for not having a single message but that misses the point: we are committed to incorporating different preferences before coming up with policies. In this sense, it could be said we work more like a market than the corporate boardroom or lobbyist-loaded politics – our ideas are radical but also just and democratically decided.
Occupy London is now over three months old. Our encampments have lasted much longer than those at Zuccotti Park in New York, but there is a clear continuity of thought between us and Occupy Wall Street, as there is with Spanish indignados and the other grassroots movements that spread throughout 2011.
The world faces an economic crisis and problems in our political system have prevented it from being tackled in ways that protect the interests of the majority of its population.
