(Written back in 2013 for a Turkish audience, with Turkish examples, but the reasoning that the examples illustrates, is equally applicable to protests in US, EU, Asia etc)

Why Protests Fail And How To Succeed

I recently tweeted

“Why don’t people get this? That money stuff you hand over in shops - Its political power you’re giving there!”

The fact is, that people do not understand that money is not only something you can use in shops, but is also a unit of political power. In the same way that wattage are units of electrical power — dollars (euros, yen etc) are units of political power.

Every time you transfer money, you are transferring a quanta of political power into an organization. Collectively these payments accumulate into huge political force. Ask yourself, for example, how did Cem Uzan obtain the political force to win 7% of the votes in the 2002 national elections in less than 90 days? This was through the money people had innocently transferred into his companies for products and services. It is these payments which provide all the political power. Today the AKP has its own companies, just as Uzan had, and this is how it came to power and how it stays in power. That is to say, by payments for goods and services, not through the ballot box.

This lack of understanding that the stuff you hand over in the shops is the stuff which pays for police to spray you with tear gas or acid or shoot metal canisters in protestor’s faces – this lack of understanding, is one of the great causes of why protests movements fail, even when they succeed in overturning the government. Even if we overturn the government, if we keep empowering the political strength of the commercial organisations, all we will get is the same corporate-government, with a different political party’s face on it.

It does not have to be like this. There is nothing particularly beneficial about the present arrangement. In fact it is profoundly immoral and incredibly harmful. What is more striking is it’s not even difficult to change it!

Let’s use our imagination to understand our situation better! Let’s imagine for a moment that the government is a giant inflatable man! He stands hundreds of meters tall, he has many arms and heads and eyes. He waves guns and batons and teargas grenades, in every hand. He has ears and eyes on every street. And lets imagine that he kills or hurts or imprisons or scares everyone who tries to stop him from doing what he wants to do.

There are two ways to stop him. The first way is to accept that he has power, and to try to oppose him. This is the usual way of protest. We take to the streets, we gather together, we chant, we carry signs, we resist his police, peacefully or by force.

The second way is to realise that the power to this great and terrifying figure could simply be turned off. We could remember, we do not have to fight with his power, we can turn it off! He is only an inflatable man. There is an air supply. If we turn off the air supply, the figure folds, falls, deflates and becomes a flimsy fabric lying on the grass. Like this he has no power to do anything at all.

This ‘air supply’ is the money each of us transfers between each other, in shops, over the internet, between businesses. It is constantly generating political force in that giant figure. We do not intend to keep stacking up the power when we use money, but it happens nonetheless. The terrifying power that belongs to the government, is in reality, only OUR collective power. It was never in the hands of the government. It was always ours. But as long as we unclaimed it, the government could use it and become a “terrifying giant”. Before you worry that you will have to stop using money, let me assure you, that is not the solution. Its only the political force of the money that needs to be restricted. How we do that, is very simple.

But before we turn to that, we have to understand that if we want government to be democratic, there is NO other choice available, except to stop giving away for free, all this political power. As long as we keep pumping ‘air’ into the figure so long will it be tyrannical, killing people, imprisoning them, making injustices, starting wars. We have to understand (to use another analogy) that our foot is constantly pressing the accelerator of the government-power-car to the floor. The only option is to take the foot off it. Crisis over.

How do we do this?

How do we stop supplying power to the government?

All we need to do, is to put terms & conditions on the use of our money. Money after all, is a contract, an agreement. We forget this, but it is (If you don’t understand this part please ask!). We can easily put Terms and Conditions into that agreement, just by using The Collective Contract when we pay for goods or services.

Restricting the constant flow of power from us, through the corporations into government is the only way to stop the abuses of collective wealth.

All the good and idealistic people, all the children of #Gezi and #Tahir, and #Occupy have to learn this, simple fact if we are to succeed.

WikiTerms 2013