Assessing Occupy's legacy

In 2011, activists began an occupation of Zucotti Park near Wall Street, starting a movement that spread around the world and changed the discourse around wealth, inequality, corruption and justice.

At the time (and ever since), critics have dismissed it as a stunt, a flash in the pan, an anarchist boondoggle whose lack of crisply defined demands doomed it to peter out into irrelevance.

But eight years on, Occupy's legacy is alive and well, with Occupy organizers and veterans playing key roles in the Democratic Socialists of America, Justice Democrats, the anti-student-debt movement, and other radical organizations that have changed what is considered "mainstream politics" in America and around the world.

Vox's Emily Stewart does a deep dive into Occupy's legacy, and shows how the Movement for Black Lives' critique of race and politics has merged with Occupy's more class-oriented critique to produce a more inclusive, radical politics.

Occupy's legacy -- the mainstreaming of Fight for 15, Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, AOC, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders -- is the thing that gives me the most hope for our world right now.

Strikes and militancy have deep roots in the labor movement, but as journalist Sarah Jaffe in her book, Necessary Trouble, noted, Occupy had added vigor to labor campaigns throughout New York and had galvanized them to make bigger, bolder demands.

We needed to be more aggressive and direct-action oriented toward how we were going to make our demand and hopefully win, which is not dissimilar from what Occupy was doing in terms of being more aggressive, taking the streets, taking arrests, said Jonathan Westin, now executive director of New York Communities for Change.