polis: a collective blog about cities worldwide

Capitalism is Crisis: OccupyLSX

by Melissa García Lamarca



Having heard about Occupy London Stock Exchange (OccupyLSX) and read the recent Polis post on it, I couldn’t resist checking out the action during a short visit to London last week. Despite the fact that St. Paul’s Cathedral closed and several popular media accounts have attempted to discredit the movement (the Telegraph and Guardian, for example), the occupation unsurprisingly continues to be strong and highly organized.


OccupyLSX info tent with information on the movement.


The food tent on the east side of St. Paul's Cathedral.


The legal aid tent on the east side of St. Paul's Cathedral.


The Starbooks occupation library at OccupyLSX.

“Capitalism is crisis” is the simple and clear message of the camp, echoing the motto of Spain's 15-M movement: “It’s not a crisis, it’s the system.” It’s fascinating to see, as reported by Jérôme E. Roos at ROARmag.org, how leading free-market publications like the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, Business Insider and Fortune have all admitted in recent weeks that Karl Marx might actually have been right about capitalism’s tendency to self-destruct.

A poster at the OccupyLSX site.

While battling eviction and police brutality and continuing the important task of organizing non-hierarchically, occupiers around the world are undoubtedly discussing and acting on the question: If not capitalism, then what? And how do we get there?

Credits: Photos from Melissa García Lamarca.

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