Suture XIV: Fall 2024

SUTURE Issue XIV

Suture is a student-run academic journal associated with Hamilton College that showcases insightful and eloquent critical essays in the humanities, arts, and social sciences. Suture is a peer-edited journal grounded in the belief that access to incisive, original criticism is essential to anyone’s development as a reader, scholar, and appreciator of the creative arts and humanities.

SUTURE

Issue XIV, Fall 2024

EDITORS-IN-CHIEF Alison Isko Katie Cristiano

EDITORIAL BOARD Ally Feisel Morgan Hodorowski Sami Flaherty Julia Wright Grace Fogarty Luke Davis Paige Hescock Ava Cargan

CONTENTS EDITORS’ STATEMENT

ANNA RICHARDSON Political Mega-Identities and Democratic Decline

ANNABEL PEARSON

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An Alternate Vision of Urban Community

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Utopian Socialism: An Adaptable Approach to Global Reform

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SAMI FLAHERTY

Occupy Wall Street, Machiavelli, and The Ciompi Revolt: The Stalemate of Social Change and Human Nature

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EDITORS’ STATEMENT Dear Readers, It’s been a long few months for many of us, but with the semester wrapping up, it’s time to take a breath, relax, and prepare for the holiday season. As we approach the end of 2024, we encourage you to reflect upon your own lives and this issue’s lessons.

We believe that the collection of essays contained within these pages is a reflection of the varied viewpoints present in our community, whether they intersect or contrast.

While putting this issue together, we wanted to facilitate open conversation.

Written on topics ranging from art to politics to history, each narrative will inspire you to think differently about the past and future. Anna Richardson’s “Political Mega-Identities and Democratic Decline” teaches readers about the repercussions of the two-party system and suggests methods of reforming our electoral system.

Annabel Pearson’s “An Alternative Vision of Urban Community” uses Danny Lyon’s “Abandoned Artist’s Loft, 48 Ferry Street” as a case study for how art can shine light on hidden aspects of society and bring communities together. Her second essay, “Utopian Socialism: An Adaptable Approach to Global Reform,” examines how the pursuit for a utopian society ultimately threatens individual identities and practices. Sami Flaherty’s “Occupy Wall Street, Machiavelli, and The Ciompi Revolt: The Stalemate of Social Change and Human Nature” connects “failure to triumph” revolutions throughout history.

We are also excited to announce that, as of our upcoming Spring 2025 issue, Suture will be renamed Collections. We hope that the name change encourages you to think of this issue as an overarching collection of essays that are interconnected but each exemplary in their own right.

Happy reading!

Alison and Katie

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Political Mega-Identities and Democratic Decline

ANNA RICHARDSON

In today’s political environment, a voter’s party membership is almost synonymous with their religion, race, and hometown. The limited two party system, coupled with the rise in social sorting, makes it such that the Democratic and Republican parties essentially reflect respective members’ identities, a phenomena known as social sorting (Mason 18). Ezra Klein, political analyst and host of The Ezra Klein Show, a New York Times podcast, coins these overlapping identities that are now enveloped by political parties as political mega-identities (Klein 70). Athough social sorting is not inherently problematic, it raises the stakes of political disagreements. A political loss now not only threatens policy preferences, but also a voter’s complex identity (Klein 71).

With non-political identities competing in elections, losing becomes “catastrophic,” threatening democracy by making parties less likely to accept defeat (Levitsky and Ziblatt 22). The resistance of multiple Republican voters and leaders to accept the results of the 2020 election exemplifies this antidemocratic side effect of political mega-identities. Mega-identities further contribute to Congress’ dysfunction, as all votes have high stakes and the two parties cannot find common ground, debilitating the federal government’s ability to pass legislation. To strengthen U.S. democracy, the reform of electoral systems, such as through ranked choice voting for the House and Senate and changes to the Electoral College for the presidency, could mitigate the influence of political mega-identities on the elected branches.

Electing the House of Representatives through single transferable voting encourages overlaps in voter identity across partisan lines, ultimately increasing the efficacy of the House. The House “is not meant to host the meeting of two parties but of 435 districts” (Klein 209). Political mega-identities cripple the House by consuming local identities, eliminating opportunities for cooperation amongst districts with similar demographic, geographic, or economic challenges but different party representation. The focus on mega-identities forces the House to address national issues, a function not in its original design, thus rendering the House unable to pass meaningful legislation for both localities and the nation (Howell and Moe 120). Single transferable voting in the House most obviously supports democracy by creating more choice, but it also breaks up mega-identities, enhancing democracy through the provision of shared identities.

Multi-member districts create parties that, at the minimum, represent voters with a shared geographic identity. Simultaneously, ranked choice voting incentivizes candidates to appeal to a broader range of voters, as they want to be voters’ secondary choices (Parks). Both elements of single transferable voting promote parties composed of 3

voters with overlapping identities. These overlaps can serve as a powerful bridge over political divides, reducing the likelihood part-isan gridlock in Congress (Klein 71).

The increased frequency of complete and partial government shutdowns illustrates the extent to which the House cannot successfully balance the competing interests of two mega-identities. Less gridlock permits the electoral winners to actually govern, strengthening democracy by giving meaning to voters’ choices (Levitsky and Ziblatt 142). The dispersal of political mega-identities through single transferable voting thus creates a House that is less representative of national politics and better able to meet the needs of Americans.

Furthermore, implementing ranked choice voting in Senate elections shifts the focus of elections from symbolic to operational party ideology, making senators responsible for crafting effective policy rather than protecting identities. A key component of many rural residents’ identities is their allegiance to the Republican Party (Hochschild 154).

The Senate’s “small-state” bias, which gives all states two senators regardless of their population, grants disproportionate power to the interests of these rural mega-identities, which typically represent white, Christian, and working-class males (Levitsky and Ziblatt 171; Howell and Moe 76). The rural mega-identity can thus derail the Senate through a filibuster while only representing 11 percent of the population (Levitsky and Ziblatt 2023, 175). Electing Senators through ranked choice voting, with the option for parties to run multiple candidates, refocuses parties on policy rather than identity. Symbolic ideology emphasizes party identity, meaning voters select the party they identify with even if they do not agree with the party’s policy proposals (Mason 22-23). However, voters given more choice within their party must focus on the operational differences between candidates, creating variance within the current mega-identity groups. With this reform, senators no longer represent “multiple identities all playing for the same team;” instead, they represent policy stances, lowering the stakes of losing (Mason 19). Altering the responsiveness of senators from identity to policy additionally makes the filibuster less alluring. Senators voted in on policy must achieve their policy objectives to earn re-election, meaning both parties must find strategies to compromise and actually pass bills. In this way, ranked choice voting for Senate elections addresses both of the antidemocratic effects of political mega-identities by lowering the stakes of losing and disincentivizing congressional gridlock.

On a national scale, allocating states’ Electoral College votes in proportion to their popular vote incentivizes candidates to broaden their electorate, lowering the stakes of presidential elections. The aggregation of Electoral College votes, coupled with its winner-takes-all system, permits a candidate who receives a minority of popular votes to win (Levitsky and Ziblatt 173). This framework, in a polarized political environment, encourages candidates to appeal to their bases instead of undecided voters (Klein 173). This campaign strategy amplifies the influence of mega-identities on the presidency, as the base represents the most sorted and extreme party members (Klein 178-179). This connection between the presidency and the party’s ultra-sorted base makes the stakes of presidential 4

elections dangerously high, as the January 6 insurrectionists demonstrated. States allocating their Electoral College votes in proportion to each candidate’s share of the popular vote maintainsthe framework of the Electoral College while requiring candidates to appeal to a wider range of voters. Although this system does not eliminate voters simply voting along party lines, it incentivizes candidates to appeal to as many voters as possible since they are no longer guaranteed all of a state’s electoral votes with a simple majority. Candidates who appeal to more voters break down mega-identities by building “diverse coalitions” and thus remove the extremist mentality generated by political mega-identities (Levitsky and Ziblatt 236). A candidate with connections to a wide range of identities weakens the party’s sense of a specific “in-group identity,” making the candidate less threatening to more voters (Mason 49-50). Candidates may still threaten the identities of some voters; however, the percentage of these voters decreases as candidates appeal to more voters, guarding against the rejection of election results. Importantly, this reform works in conjunction with electoral reforms to the House and Senate. A more effective Congress limits the need for a strong president, further lowering the stakes of the presidency.

While these solutions may appear minimal in comparison to constitutional reform or amendment, they are politically achievable and hold long-term effects. Critically, all three reforms fall within the existing constitutional framework. Americans “[do not] just admire their Constitution, they worship it,” making any constitutional amendment or reform difficult (Howell and Moe 146). Substantive change, then, likely needs to be accomplished without constitutional reform. The power to make these electoral changes already resides in the Constitution; Article I, Section 4, Clause I, the States and Elections Clause, gives state legislatures the power to determine how they elect representatives and senators. Article II, Section 1, Clause II directs states to appoint electors. In this way, reforms to national elections require state-level movements. Although states may not all adopt these changes simultaneously, this reform process strengthens democracy in and of itself as citizens become involved in their local and state legislatures. Upon implementation, these reforms will immediately alter how candidates campaign, with a subsequent effect on how much power mega-identities have over the electoral results. Encouraging different behavior from politicians has a more immediate effect than altering voter behavior through social programs, which, due to widespread inequality, is difficult to both implement and enforce.

Action at the state level also does not eliminate the possibility of constitutional reform to adopt changes made across several states (Levitsky and Ziblatt 249). Thus, reforming electoral systems to minimize the role of political mega-identities represents an available and meaningful path toward a stronger democracy.

Political mega-identities weaken U.S. democracy through their creation of ultrahigh stakes, disincentivizing cooperation and incentivizing antidemocratic behavior. The elected branches, as a result, cannot adequately address the needs of Americans, making democracy itself less appealing. The U.S. has already experienced a significant decrease in support for democracy with the election of President Trump, a populist “strongman” who 5

openly challenges basic democratic principles, including the rule of law and the legitimacy of elections (Howell and Moe 112). To prevent further democratic backsliding, the elected branches must learn how to implement policy rather than simply represent identities. Yet Americans cannot expect elected leaders to govern effectively when the electoral systems by which they gain power give mega-identities an outsized influence. Elections are at the heart of democracy and they need to elect leaders who act in the interest of the people, not parties. Reforming elections so that they deconstruct political mega-identities promotes a policy-driven, effective and, ultimately, stronger democracy.

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Works Cited

Hochschild, Arlie Russell. Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right. The New Press, 2018.

Howell, William G., and Terry M. Moe. Presidents, Populism, and the Crisis of Democracy. The University of Chicago Press, 2020.

Klein, Ezra. Why We’re Polarized. Avid Reader Press, 2021.

Levitsky, Steven, and Daniel Ziblatt. Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point. Crown, 2023.

Mason, Lilliana. Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity. The University of Chicago Press, 2018.

Parks, Miles. “Ranked Choice Is ‘the Hot Reform’ in Democracy. Here’s What You Should Know about It.” NPR, December 13, 2023, https://www.npr.org/2023/12/13 /1214199019/ranked-choice-voting-explainer.

“Proportional Ranked Choice Voting Example.” FairVote, November 30, 2023, https://fairvote.org/archives/multi_winner_rcv_example/.

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An Alternative Vision of Urban Community

ANNABEL PEARSON

Lyon in Lower Manhattan When Danny Lyon was born in Brooklyn in 1942, nearby neighborhoods in downtown Manhattan were on the precipice of massive postwar economic growth. Lyon grew up in Queens and then attended the University of Chicago, where he worked as a staff photographer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (“Danny Lyon”).

After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in History, Lyon joined the Chicago Outlaws Motorcycle Club, taking photographs of his fellow riders as they traveled. This project marks the beginning of Lyon’s career-long engagement with the New Journalism movement, which told stories from the perspective of their subjects. By embedding himself into his subjects’ lives, Lyon removed scrutiny and judgment from his relationships with subjects, generating honest, sympathetic photographs that communicated his human character.

Lyon moved back to New York City in 1967 but soon learned that his downtown Manhattan neighborhood was scheduled for demolition. The condemned sixty-acre block below Canal Street had once bustled with production and trading in the leather, printing, lithography, and produce industries, but after World War II, the area mainly contained boarded up buildings and loft residences (Campbell). Believing that the land would be more valuable as civic and corporate space, developers arranged an urban renewal project, with a ramp to the Brooklyn Bridge in the East and the World Trade Center in the West (Sholis 97). At this time, the United States was several years into a period of economic growth fueled by tax cuts and post-World War II infrastructure investments.

Income inequality had also risen, though, with twenty percent of Americans classified as poor (“War on Poverty”). This led President Lyndon B. Johnson to spearhead a reformist agenda called the “Great Society,” which provided aid to municipalities to revitalize “blighted” areas (“Thematic Window”). Like many urban renewal projects across the United States, the development of Lower Manhattan was designed to uplift “down and out, dark, and dangerous” neighborhoods with profitable buildings that attract wealthier populations (Fernandez 6). In her landmark book The Life and Death of Great American Cities (1961), activist Jane Jacobs argues that this method of displacing constructive communities instead of encouraging them fails to ameliorate hardship for existing residents. In his series The Destruction of Lower Manhattan, Lyon goes one step further by highlighting the loss, not just lack of gain, felt by displaced residents of the Lower East Side.

Challenging developers’ economic definition of Lower Manhattan as a blighted 8

space, Lyon saw historical value in the condemned buildings, as some predated the American Civil War. He acquired funding from the New York State Council on the Arts and began photographing demolition sites, often capturing these “fossils of a time past” just days before their erasure. The Destruction of Lower Manhattan blended architectural and human subjects to narrate the transient relationship between departing residents, demolition workers (whom Lyon called “housewreckers”), and the buildings (“The Planning Debate”; Campbell). Once again engaging directly with his subject matter, Lyon portrayed the convergence of history and ephemerality experienced by urban communities.

Signs of “Blight” “Abandoned Artist’s Loft, 48 Ferry Street” (1967) provides a personal view of the neighborhood’s demolition, depicting a high-ceilinged room which is empty of people but smattered with signs of its departed residents. In the foreground, a white half wall displaying three sketched portraits separates a small, cluttered kitchen from the rest of the room. Behind the kitchen, a large, multi-paned window casts soft, bright light onto a water-stained, white wall and rough, hardwood floor. The delicate portraits contrast the disarray of the abandoned loft, conveying Lyon’s poignant argument that the social and economic development of Lower Manhattan has not simply filled an empty space but has destroyed a historic and dynamic community.

This photograph looks toward a far corner of the Artist’s loft, encompassing a large space in its careful composition. A white half wall dominates the foreground, stretching out of the right edge of the photograph, back into the center of the room.

The half wall supports a dark countertop which appears old and hastily constructed, with gaps between the wall and countertop. The wall is speckled with smudges of dirt and drawing medium, dark scuff marks, and spots of mold. The condition of the half wall is impossible to ignore in Lyon’s frame, and it clearly communicates that maintenance was not or could not be prioritized in this space. Developers addressed the neighborhoods postwar economic decline by replacing, not refurbishing, buildings, demonstrating urban scholars’ finding that economic growth often fails to preserve the usefulness of a space for the majority of low-income inhabitants (Logan and Molotch 98).

American Studies research on New York City neighborhoods suggests that working-class residents, cultural and commercial infrastructure, and historical built environment gave Lower Manhattan economic potential in the eyes of urban planners and companies (Chronopoulos 294). The attractiveness of urban renewal overwhelmed the existing value of the neighborhood in terms of financial productivity, given that its industry and infrastructure had not been reinvigorated since post-WWII economic decline.

Smaller signs of structural disrepair throughout the artist’s loft indicate that the landlord could not afford frequent repairs or did not consider investment in upkeep valuable long-term. Focusing on longstanding financial and physical inadequacies makes urban 9

renewal seem a rational, even positive, response to the condition of Lower Manhattan.

Urban scholars state that “gentrification actually goes beyond displacement and includes the replacement and exclusion of certain populations from a neighborhood” (Chronopoulos 296). To justify this replacement, developers appeal to the common good, measuring the benefits of transportation infrastructure and corporate spaces against the less visible good of small communities. By defining this urban development project as The Destruction of Lower Manhattan, Lyon argues that planned replacements will not adequately compensate for the displacement of vibrant individual lives and rich communities. He shows that the demolition project did not uplift a “blighted” vacancy but rather erased its existing value.

Individuality Before Erasure The farther, left end of the half wall holds a rectangular wooden pillar coated in chipped white paint, which extends out of the top of the photograph. A metal box, possibly a thermostat, sits two-thirds of the way up the pillar. The artist has drawn curling ornamentation around the box, mimicking metal frames or wood carving found in more opulent spaces. The clear signs of use but lack of human subjects give the loft a still, quiet, abandoned appearance.

Most intriguing are two portraits sketched onto the half wall. The portrait on the left is half the height of the wall and clearly depicts the thin face and shoulders of a figure with short hair and dark eyes. The portrait on the right is larger, vertically spanning almost the whole half wall. It depicts a broader face with large eyes and a mustache. The artist framed this face with two ghost-like faces defined by curved lines instead of detailed features. A white, rectangular piece of cloth with a third portrait lies on the worn hardwood floor directly in front of the half wall, in the bottom left corner of the image. Loosely fastened staples along the top of the cloth suggests that it was once hung on a wall, furthering the idea that the artist once integrated their work into the loft but has since had to abandon the space due to urban development construction. These sketches are the centerpiece of the photograph, imbuing the space with the identities of its inhabitants and marking it as an “Artist’s Loft.”

The different faces drawn in close proximity, in a similar style evoke a sense of community, leading the viewer to imagine the artist and subjects in the space themselves as the portraits were done. Physical evidence of previous inhabitants conveys absence, not emptiness, illustrating Lyon’s perspective that Lower Manhattan was losing its identity.

Urban sociologists assert that elites use a “growth consensus to eliminate any alternative vision of the purpose of local government or the meaning of community” (Logan and Molotch 51). Lyon provides that alternative vision through photographs, a vision of historic buildings that may have kept standing and people who may have kept working and living in them. His dissent shows that gain requires loss and that growth does not always serve the whole city, particularly excluding marginalized communities from the benefits.

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Group Identity Persisting The words “Latin Hustlers Warrior” are scrawled down the half wall just to the left of this drawing. The letter “L” with “HU” just below it is visible on the wall above the stove, presumably another “Latin Hustlers Warrior” mark running out of frame. This phrase reflects multiple marginalized communities living and working in Lower Manhattan at the time the neighborhood was condemned. According to New York’s Department of City Planning, the city’s Hispanic population increased from 733,000 in 1960 to 1,279,000 in 1970 with an even greater increase in concentration in the Lower East Side (“Hispanic population” 6-8). Although the Hispanic population of this area continued to grow after World Trade Center and Brooklyn Bridge projects began, demolition disrupted a burgeoning community.

At the time of the photograph, “Hustlers” was commonly used to refer to male prostitutes but had a broader, more flexible use in the gay community. While this term had a negative connotation in 1960s American public life, the unknown writer identified as a “hustler” strongly enough to write it repeatedly in a space. Like the drawings on the wall, “Latin Hustlers Warrior” represents a clearly defined personal identity, and the imminent demolition of the artist’s loft symbolizes a destruction of Lower East Side communities based on these identities.

These two identities may converge in the title, “Warrior.” Lyon’s photograph does not reveal who etched their community-based identifier on the walls of the artist’s loft, but the series’ narrative that existing communities lay in opposition to the development project paints the “Warrior” as defending themselves from institutional or cultural limitations. “Latin Hustlers Warrior” likely represents a group identity found in the neighborhood, developing Lyon’s message that Lower Manhattan was not empty despite its industry having declined. Lyon’s neighborhood still held various rich communities, and the photographer ensured that their existence was preserved after their spaces were abandoned.

Liminal Abandonment before Destruction A crumpled piece of paper, two empty glass bottles, one Coca Cola and one Canada Dry, and a short plank of wood with nail holes have been left on the rickety countertop. The loft’s kitchen space is wedged behind the half wall. The stove and a pan left on top of it are just visible over the edge of the counter. One dial is turned on, suggesting that someone attempted to use the fuel after it was disconnected for demolition. The refrigerator, which stands directly to the left of the stove, has been pulled away from the wall and turned away from the kitchen and the camera; the smudged door has been left open. The scattered objects give the impression that the loft’s resident, the artist, left suddenly, not in a planned move, but out of necessity.

Lyon juxtaposes the disarray left by the resident artist’s rushed departure with the deliberate, intimate portraits to emphasize that urban renewal in Lower Manhattan expelled constructive communities instead of enriching or reconstructing them. By 11

showing the loft between abandonment and destruction, the photograph conveys the experience of displaced residents that is not highlighted in images taken long before or long after urban renewal. Urban scholars claim that, along with severing of historical roots, fear of displacement dominates residents’ sentiments toward gentrification, outlining a painful narrative that starkly differs from developers’ optimistic promises of opportunity (Freeman 59). The forced abandonment of Lower Manhattan buildings removed the Artist from new financial growth and transportation infrastructure as well as their existing communities. Lyon offers a mournful view of a human experience that has already been displaced, adding another layer of loss to physical displacement.

Conclusion: A Complete View Beyond the kitchen alcove, two walls make up the background, visually divided by a wooden pillar. On the left, a smooth, white wall stretches up to the loft’s high ceiling and out of frame. Water stains and horizontal lines of discoloration show its age and suggest that the tenant did not or could not repaint frequently. Nail holes run in a straight, horizontal line across the wall, possibly from artwork that has been taken down. A large rectangular piece of plywood, about the height of the counter, leans against the white wall; it also shows discoloration and water damage. To the right of the pillar is a brick wall painted white with a large window in its center. There are scuffs in the white paint, and one of the window panes has been covered with cardboard or plywood, suggesting that it was broken but could not be replaced. The window casts soft, bright light over the room, showing that broken glass, chipped paint, and other debris are scattered across the floor panels.

Taken as a whole, the “Abandoned Artist’s Loft” conveys the complex condition of Lower Manhattan immediately before urban renewal. Visible markers of economic struggle and disrepair, such as water stains and splintering wood panels, present developers’perception of the condemned sixty acres as blighted, having no future without intervention. These markers are overpowered, though, by remnants of individuality, community, and humanity.

Lyon identifies the unknown resident as an Artist, emphasizing through the sketched portraits that inhabitants once improved their own quality of life with the same creativity and productivity that developers aimed to bring into the neighborhood. Empty and white, the background starkly contrasts these signs of life, highlighting the quiet loss that comes with forced abandonment.

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Works Cited

“Abandoned Artist’s Loft, 48 Ferry Street, from ‘The Destruction of Lower Manhattan.’”

Results | Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center | Vassar College, https://emuseum. vassar.edu/objects/22595/abandoned-artists-loft-48-ferry-street-from-the-destruct.

Accessed February 21, 2024.

Campbell, Max. “A Revered Photojournalist’s Chronicle of Lower Manhattan on the Brink of Transformation.” The New Yorker, 15 May 2018, www.newyorker.com/ culture/photo-booth/a-revered-photojournalists-chronicle-of-lower-manhattanon-the-brink-of-transformation.

Chronopoulos, Themis. “African Americans, Gentrification, and Neoliberal Urbanization: The Case of Fort Greene, Brooklyn.” Journal of African American Studies 20, no.

3-4 (12, 2016): 294-322. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s12111-016-9332-6.

“Danny Lyon.” International Center of Photography, December 15, 2023. https://www. icp.org/browse/archive/constituents/danny-lyon?all%2Fall%2Fall%2Fall%2F0.

Fernandez, John E. “A Brief History of the World Trade Center Towers.” Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, n.d.

Freeman, Lance. Essay. In There Goes the ’Hood, 59–94. Temple University Press, 2006.

Hispanic population New York City 1910 - 2010 - nyc.gov. Accessed April 9, 2024. https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/planning/download/pdf/data-maps/nyc-population/his torical-population/hispanic_2010_presentation.pdf.

Logan, John R, and Harvey Molotch. “The City as a Growth Machine.” Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place, 50–98. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2007. Sholis, Brian. “The Destruction of Lower Manhattan/The Transparent City.” Print 63, no. 2 (April 2009): p. 97.

“Thematic Window: The Great Society.” PBS, https://www.pbs.org/johngardner/chapters /4c.html. Accessed February 21, 2024.

“The Planning Debate in New York (1955-75).” PBS, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/ americanexperience/features/newyork-planning/. Accessed February 21, 2024.

“War on Poverty.” Encyclopædia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/topic/War-on- Pover ty. Accessed February 21, 2024.

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Utopian Socialism: An Adaptable Approach to Global Reform

ANNABEL PEARSON

In 1516, Thomas More conceptualized the first utopia as a purified, faith-driven community that was antithetical to English life under King Henry VIII. When individualistic competition and extreme class inequality arose from the Industrial Revolution, many thinkers responded, like More, with utopian plans. In the second half of the nineteenth century, businessmen like Jean-Baptiste André Godin and writers like William Lane designed utopian socialist communities in pursuit of revolutionary democratic and egalitarian ideals.

Utopian socialism is a global phenomenon because it pursues a widespread goal of equality through social reform. This goal makes it an applicable form of resistance to societal ills in various contexts, including colonial settlements. By standardizing living conditions for workers, limiting community membership, and prioritizing secular morality, planners of Le Familistère de Guise and the Colonia Cosme demonstrated that utopian socialism could be adapted to communities around the world in response to universal struggles.

French blacksmith turned industrialist Jean-Baptiste André Godin incorporated the utopian socialist commitment to egalitarianism into Le Familistère by standardizing housing across socioeconomic classes. Inspired by philosopher Charles Fourier’s Phalanstery––a theoretical structure housing a community of 1620 people, apartments, workshops, and social spaces in three connected enclosures––Godin created a “social palace” in the French town of Guise for workers at his nearby iron foundry (Benevolo 56-64; Schuman 23). Le Familistère, which was built between 1857 and 1870, included three four-floor housing blocks; each apartment had the same base format of two rooms and one bathroom but could be adjusted for changing family size and closed off from the rest of the community for privacy (Adda). By repeating one apartment model throughout Le Familistère, Godin ensured that the spatial needs of each worker were met and eliminated the possibility of extreme health and status inequalities based on finances. While Fourier envisioned a society totally unencumbered by commercialism, Godin used Le Familistère to pursue egalitarian harmony within an industrial, capitalist context. He used the utopian socialist principle of standardized housing to raise living standards for his working-class employees, joining a global effort to combat class inequality that was exacerbated by industrial production.

While journalist William Lane did not replicate a theoretical plan as Godin did, he demonstrated equally careful commitment to standardized housing as a conduit of egalitarian living in his plans for the Colonia Cosme, an 1894 Australian settlement in Paraguay. Because Lane settled in a rural area with significantly fewer monetary 14

resources than Godin, his dwelling designs comprised grass and slab huts clustered along the edge of a hill instead of an elaborate apartment structure. In the Handbook of General Information on Cosme, Lane asserts that, because all members have access to communal savings, they should forgo “special personal outfitting” of their dwellings and contribute surplus resources to the community (“Illustrated Handbook” 13). Without the finances to equalize living standards through architecture, Lane relied on residents to standardize their own housing. He appealed directly to the socialist idea of shared resource management reducing inequality, demonstrating that, because utopian socialism is founded in the universal goal of egalitarianism, planners were able to adapt it to dramatically different physical circumstances. Godin and Lane pursued the same end––standardized housing––by different means, united by a global movement toward universal harmony.

By limiting membership in their communities to individuals with common financial interests, Godin and Lane demonstrated their commitment to the utopian socialist concept that quality of life depended on scale, and they rejected a global shift toward capitalist competition and individualism. Le Familistère housed only 860 tenants who lived, shopped, learned, and played inside the compound. Tenants were already financially connected by their employment at Godin’s foundry, but the idealistic industrialist reinforced their interdependence by issuing stock certificates in his company with the long-term goal of worker self-management (Schuman 23). In Le Familistère, Godin established a scale that provided all residents with sufficient quality of life by limiting membership to his employees, and then he encouraged tenants to maintain this equality by giving them monetary stock in community well-being. Godin’s “enlightened corporate version of utopia” inverted the mainstream capitalist tenet of unchecked population and financial growth and illustrated how utopian socialism could achieve equality and harmony in industrial societies (Schuman 24).

Lane also used financial interdependence to cultivate unity, but again appealed to members’ ideological commitment over their financial interests to obtain a smallscale, cooperative community that provided for all members equally. Cosme’s terms of membership required physically, mentally, and morally healthy applicants who demonstrated their commitment to utopian socialism through a trial period (“The Cosme Agreement” 9). Upon gaining membership, residents relinquished any commercial interests outside of Cosme and agreed to contribute all acquired wealth to the colony (“Illustrated Handbook” 2). With these requirements, Lane ensured that incoming members would balance the resources they required from the community with manual labor and assets, tying the size of the colony to the communal labor that supported it. While Lane did not establish a population limit for Cosme, he understood that the colony’s survival depended on scale and, in a more fundamentally socialist way than Godin, encouraged mutual responsibility for members’ quality of life. By limiting membership to individuals with common financial interests, Godin and Lane reframed work and wealth, common sources of rivalry, as cooperative tools for sustaining a healthy, egalitarian community.

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By encouraging the development of virtuous character through secular moral education, Godin equalized the accessibility of moral teachings and broadened the applicability of utopian socialist social reform. Instead of a church, as Fourier planned, Godin placed a theater across from the central housing block of Le Familistère, between the older children’s schools and opposite the younger children’s nursery. As its placement along the “educational axis” connecting the children’s nursery to the adult’s educational theater suggests, the theater was the location Godin used to lecture adult residents on morality (Adda). By prioritizing a common understanding of morals over specific religious practices, Godin made the utopian socialist tenet of behavioral reform through education equally achievable for all adult residents, who were united by employment, not necessarily religion. In addition to equalizing residents’ opportunities for moral development, distilling ideals of working-class behavior into secular teachings enabled Godin to directly address social ills he observed in a society consumed by industrial-age commercialism. Le Familistère thereby embodies the adaptability of utopian socialist resistance to geographically and temporally pertinent issues.

Lane extended this connection between moral education and egalitarianism from widely accessible teachings to an explicit prioritization of residents’ responsibility to one another over their responsibility to a designated god, highlighting that the central tenets of utopian socialism could be applied regardless of physical circumstance. In the Handbook, Lane explains that, instead of a church or even a common place of moral teaching like the theater of Le Familistère, morality in Cosme revolves around the “uplifting of man’s moral nature in everyday tendencies of living” (“The Cosme Agreement” 6). The overwhelming focus on agricultural work shown on the Plan of Camp Cosme, with a small cricket ground as the only designated recreation area, as well as Handbook outlines of work expectations, shows that “everyday tendencies” in Cosme revolved around communal labor and ownership (“Illustrated Handbook” 2). Lane recognized that members’ fellowship was essential to sustain such a community, so he framed morality as peaceful, cooperative action. Almost forty years after Godin implemented formal moral education in a community of industrial workers, Lane adapted social reform to an already financially egalitarian colony, indicating that social reform and universal harmony depends on change in thought, not just practice. Because change in thought does not require a specific physical environment, utopian socialists attempted to spread the ideology around the world.

In his adherence to utopian socialism in every aspect of Cosme’s organization, Lane showed disdain for Paraguayan ways of life, revealing how the goal of resolving social problems sometimes evolved into paternalism that fueled colonialist impositions. Utopian socialists adapted the oppositional ideology of More’s Utopia to what they perceived as the most egregious social ills at the time. In the nineteenth century, Lane saw “free and healthy English homes” as one resolution of his quest for higher standard of living; he considered interracial marriage between Australians and Paraguayans as well as “inferior” Paraguayan animals used for labor to be obstacles to achieving his utopia (“The Cosme 16

Agreement” 5, 13). As he pursued a perfect society, Lane strayed from the utopian socialist principle of universal equality and harmony that he espoused in Cosme’s plans. This misinterpretation represents a widespread use of utopian ideals to justify the imposition of planners’ ideals on people they sought to help with inadequate respect for existing practices, from Godin lecturing to his “big children” (employees) to Lane criticizing indigenous wildlife (Adda). By designing communities in pursuit of specific ideals and in resistance to existing conditions, utopian socialist planners offered a widely applicable and adaptable approach to the universal problem of inequality that fueled other global phenomena.

Godin and Lane pursued equality of physical and moral well-being through utopian socialist guidelines for the management of space, resources, and behavior.

They standardized housing, limited membership based on shared financial interest, and promoted secular moral education in an industrial French town and rural AustralianParaguayan colony, respectively. These features showed Godin and Lane’s common commitment to the pursuit of equality and converse resistance to Industrial-Age wealth disparity, demonstrating that utopian socialism is global in action and intent.

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Works Cited

Adda, Catherine. Le Familistère de Guise - Une cité radieuse au XIXe siècle. Directed by Catherine Adda. 1999; Paris, France; Les Films d’Ici, 2011. YouTube.

Benevolo, L. “Nineteenth Century Utopias (Fourier),” in The Origins of Modern Town Planning (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press), pp. 56-64.

“Cosme and New Australia colonies.” National Treasures from Australia’s Great Librar ies. New Library of Australia, 2012, https://archive.fo/zQNl#selection-33.0-33.32.

Accessed 7 May 2024.

“Cosme Co-Operative Colony (Paraguay), Illustrated Handbook of General Information.”

Cosme Colony Collection. The University of Sydney, 2 July 2008, https://ses.li brary.usyd.edu.au/handle/2123/2553. Accessed 7 May 2024.

“Cosme Co-operative Colony, The Cosme Agreement, Information About Cosme, Membership.” Cosme Colony Collection. The University of Sydney, 25 June 2008, https://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/handle/2123/2544. Accessed 7 May 2024.

“Les Chiffres du Palais.” Le Familistère de Guise, https://www.familistere.com/fr/decou vrir/une-architecture-au-service-du-peuple/les-chiffres-du-palais. Accessed 7 May 2024.

Schuman, Tony. “Utopia Spurned: Ricardo Bofill and the French Ideal City Tradition.”

Journal of Architectural Education (1984-) 40, no. 1 (1986): 20–29. https://doi. org/10.2307/1424844.

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Occupy Wall Street, Machiavelli, and The Ciompi Revolt: The Stalemate of Social Change and Human Nature

SAMI FLAHERTY

Generation Z has a reputation for being muckrakers, shirking institutional convention with newfound ideologies of gender, self-driven career paths, and an ever-increasing emphasis on social media as primary communication. Ongoing whispers of a Twitter revolution beg the question as to whether physical presence is necessary for social change; however, answering this question requires discovering if physical action ever did influence an effectual reformation of societal structure and human functioning. Discovering whether reform can occur virtually requires defining the necessary components for a revolution, analyzing the success of physical revolutionary behavior, and ultimately, determining whether popular perceptions of successful revolutions truly fulfill those criteria. Analyzing the effectiveness of social movements requires stripping away the baseless claims of their incendiary leaders and uncovering the underlying motives and foundational bases, often leading to the disappointing conclusion that protest is misguided and ineffectual in producing societal change. By conforming its operations to present societal structure, protest creates an illusion of reform rather than catalyzing genuine social change because its incendiary leaders perpetuate existing dominance relations by appealing to the human desire for subjugation and incite futile mass action with no underlying substance.

Human nature is the most stabilizing yet limiting aspect of being. Acting within human nature is inherently unavoidable, which makes resisting human nature all the more difficult. Acting within and beyond societal constructs entails the same relationship. Given his evaluation of the eternal motion of the political cycle, Niccolò Machiavelli argues fortune is seized through any means necessary, and effective usurpations of political power necessarily entail some extent of physical force. When the political cycle ebbs in their favor, leaders must capitalize on the opportunity without moral infringement, committing violence because leadership presupposes it. Ensuingly, by promoting using force from necessity, Machiavelli develops an oppressor-oppressed dichotomy between the ruling class, often the nobility, and the subjugated class, the plebeians, that underscores their behavioral patterns and the inherent conflict between social classes. In The Prince, he posits that the nobility is marked by a desire to oppress and the plebeians are marked by a desire to not be oppressed. In this regard, the plebeians appear as victims within society’s foundational dominance relation, wrongfully subjected to the nobility’s oppressive nature despite themselves having a pure, egalitarian sentiment.

Though Machiavelli seems to insinuate the poor have wholesome intentions in The 19

Prince, his inclusion of an anonymous speech in the Florentine Histories regards the oppressor-oppressed dichotomy as a cycle that fuels all human reaction, granting no group more innocent intentions than the other. In her analysis of this anonymous speech and the revolt’s context, Yves Winter determines that both the nobility and the plebeians share the human desire to subjugate. The plebeians seek to invert the current oppressor-oppressed roles (becoming the oppressors themselves), whereas the nobility seeks to maintain the current roles (remaining as the oppressors) because ultimately all human desire seeks to oppress.

In this case, the violence that Machiavelli promotes for assuming political power seems to be an equalizer within the political cycle, given its accessibility to both groups and its effectiveness relies upon physical exertion rather than social standing.

Despite Machiavelli’s claim that leaders must use violence when the opportunity for power arises, successful usurpation requires supplementing fortune (chance) with virtú (individual initiative). Though violence is necessary to start a revolution, overextension of violence warrants a fruitless revolt just as a complete lack of violence would. In regard to inciting the Ciompi Revolt, the aforementioned anonymous speaker falls victim to the belief that violence can be the sole driving factor of a successful revolt. His call to arms merely inflames passions to incite mass violence, neither confronting the underlying issues of the Ciompi’s condition nor defining real solutions to cease their oppression: “We must have two ends in our deliberations: one is to make it impossible for us to be punished for the [evils] we have done in recent days, and the other is to be able to live with more freedom and more satisfaction than we have in the past….When many err, no one is punished, and though small faults are punished, great and grave ones are rewarded…. All those who come to great riches and great power have obtained them either by fraud or by force….[Good men never rise] out of poverty unless they are rapacious and fraudulent. For God and nature have put all the fortunes of men in their midst, where they are exposed more to rapine than to industry and more to wicked than to good arts, from which it arises that men devour one another and that those who can do less are always the worst off. Therefore, one should use force whenever the occasion for it is given to us; nor can a greater occasion be offered us by fortune than this one….As a result, either we shall be left princes of all the city, or we shall have so large a part of it that not only will our past errors be pardoned but we shall even have authority enabling us to threaten [the nobility] with new injuries….Now is the time not only to free ourselves from [our superiors] but to become so much their superiors that they will have more to lament and fear from you than you from them (Machiavelli 122-123).

Considering the speech within its immediate context, as the plebs become increasingly wary of each new malice deed they commit, the speaker’s persuasion is crucial to maintaining their participation in the revolt as its only hope for success requires adhering to its foundation of unrelenting mass violence. The speaker’s endorsement of mass violence necessarily underlies his ensuing motivations to his wary audience. Assessing the speaker’s motives 20

for continuing the revolt, his primary goal directly addresses the pleb’s present worry: punishment. He argues that employing further mass violence will allow the plebs to evade punishment for their previous and ensuing “evils,” theorizing that if more people suffer, less people will be capable of punishing their deeds (Machiavelli 122). To assuage their hesitation, he defends perpetual violence as merely playing by the rules of a corrupt game, claiming that the plebs must necessarily act moralessly against the nobility because such behavior is the surefire path to attaining a better life. As the nobility have proven, corrupt means are the only means that lead to power; thus, the speaker aims to sever the plebs from any remaining goodness, so they can come to power in the same way as their current oppressors. He poses an ultimatum that “good men” stay impoverished unless “rapacious and fraudulent” to scare his men into further compliance with the revolt, positing that they can either choose violence now or misery forever (Machiavelli 123). He makes the choice for them, though, by construing domination as inherent within human nature. His declaration that “men devour one another” frames human existence as survival of the fittest, in which society functions as a food chain rather than a civilization (Machiavelli 123). It follows: the stronger man preys upon the weaker and necessarily subjugates him; being the stronger man is the only way to not be subjugated; thus, being violent is the only means to become stronger and attain the second end of his speech: freedom.

In comparison to his primary goal (i.e. escaping punishment), attaining greater “freedom” seems directly correlated to performing greater evils (Machiavelli 122). This definition of freedom is far from disbanding the existing oppressor-oppressed dichotomy of the nobility and the plebs but rather functions within the same structure responsible for current oppression. To gain freedom, the plebs’ must oppress the nobility. Indeed, as Winter suggests, the speaker’s indication of human dominating nature suggests that the plebs’ revolt seeks to invert the oppressor-oppressed roles in their favor rather than reform the oppressive societal structure and definitively cease oppression. The anonymous speaker’s sentiment for mass violence merely perpetuates the oppressor-oppressed dichotomy, evinced by his comments that the revolt’s success will enable the plebs to be “princes of all the city” with authority not only “to threaten” but to usurp the role of “their superiors” (Machiavelli 123). By persuading his followers to act upon a corrupt means to attain a corrupt end, his message promises freedom at another’s expense and emulates the conviction of the Ciompi’s oppressive predecessors. The speaker’s nonrevolutionary ideas entail zero intent for reforming the cycle of oppression and, ultimately, reveal his lack of virtú, foreshadowing the Ciompi’s unsuccessful attempt to gain power.

Ironically, the revolt itself responded to an ephemeral economic issue rather than the underlying source of the Ciompi’s persisting oppression, such that its dramatic flare and violent demonstrations were misguided means for the Ciompi’s minimal demands. Despite having endured long standing “economic and political grievances” via their inability to join guilds and hold any stake in the wool manufacturing process, the Ciompi revolted upon experiencing a “series of cripping crises” that triggered “a rapid fall in wool production” 21

(Winter 741). Though the anonymous speaker potrays this economic injury as an “[occasion] offered us by fortune,” founding the revolt upon an immediate economic circumstance rather than a reflection of ongoing oppression neglects the severity of the Ciompi’s oppressed condition, rendering their reaction more akin to a temper tantrum than a message against injustice (Machiavelli 123). Further, as Machiavelli attests, great “fortune” must be met with even greater virtú; and, given their guiding strategy of perpetual mass violence, those conditions are not met by the Ciompi’s response (Machiavelli 123).

Evidently, the Ciompi’s lack of virtú enabled the revolt’s demise. Their excessive violence proved disproportionate to their ultimate “political and social demands”: “the right to form a guild” and “production increases for the wool industry” (Winter 742). Even if granted, these demands “remained well within the medieval corporatist system” and would still render the Ciompi as fodder for the production moguls. Their lackluster petition begs the questions: why fight for a consolation prize when given the opportunity for justice?

And, why build a platform to conform rather than reform? The problem attributes itself to the movement’s baseless foundation, and its leader’s unrevolutionary ambition to cause oppression to attain freedom. The Ciompi’s call-to-action responded not to their lifetime of oppression, whose underlying cause is ingrained much deeper within societal structure than its manifestation via the wool industry, but to one fleeting economic issue, which was bound to subside on its own when the political cycle revolved once again. Indeed, the political cycle did just that: the oppressor-oppressed dichotomy re-favored the nobility, the Ciompi’s wool guild was “disbarred,” and Florentine political power returned to the “elites” (Winter 743).

Confronting the oppressor-oppressed dichotomy is an ongoing societal battle in contemporary politics; the Ciompi Revolt is not alone in its failure to triumph. One modern manifestation is observed by the Occupy Wall Street movement of 2011. Similar to the Ciompi Revolt, a current oppressed class experienced a crisis that worsened their existing oppression, prompting them to finally resist their oppressors on the grounds of one immediate issue. The conditions for each movement parallel each other on three major planes, necessitating the same futile result in the contemporary as in the historical. First, New York City’s economy mimics the medieval Florentine economy, marked by an emerging “commercial capitalism” with an emphasis on “[trade] and banking” that led to the rise of “an industrial and financial elite with unprecedented power” (Winter 739). Second, the wool industry, fueling Florentine economic growth, parallels Wall Street, fueling the American economy, with each playing a lead role in the prosperity of its citizens (Winter 739). Third, within the oppressor-oppressed dichotomy, the Ciompi and the Occupy protestors assume the same role of the oppressed, subjected to their respective production systems and the elites who maintain them. Seemingly, Machiavelli’s sentiment to seize fortune to attain power is largely applicable to the Ciompi and the Occupy protests’ reactive responses to their respective economic crises. However, Machiavelli’s emphasis on the role of virtú in coming to power equally reflects the fruitlessness of the movements as both their leaders 22

lack the virtú to make lasting impacts on society, evinced by their followers’ re-subjugation to the wealthy elites and reinstated oppression.

Just as Machiavelli’s anonymous speaker urged collective action for mass impact, the Occupy Wall Street leaders sought to unite all who felt disparaged by the wealthiest elites with the slogan, “We are the 99 percent” (Volle). The protest was originally conceived

by Kalle Lasn and Micah White, two crucial editors of the “anti-consumerist magazine Adbusters,” and announced via White’s tweet “#OCCUPYWALLSTREET” (Volle; “Facts about Occupy Wall Street”). Because of growing participatory interest and the founders’ lack of further instruction, planning the protest fell into the hands of The New York General Assembly, “a group of veteran organizers” (Volle). Being self-identified “anarchists,” the leaders’ and planners’ political biases question whether the movement intended to reform the oppressed state of its followers or to advance their own government-destroying agendas (Volle).

Akin to the Ciompi Revolt’s dramatic actions yet anticlimactic result, Occupy Wall Street failed to ameliorate “corporate law [corruption]” and “economic inequality” because its platform centered on surface-level tensions rather than total societal reform (Volle). Incited by the “financial crisis of 2007-08” and the “Great Recession,” the Occupy Movement was inspired by a disadvantageous turn in the political cycle rather than longstanding grievances (Volle). Though ever-present, the pre-crisis wealth gap was accepted as the norm, requiring a shock in the economic system to inspire public consciousness of a wealth disparity. However, by directly refuting the in-crisis condition, the movement disregarded and excused pre-crisis oppression. The protests were motivated by current resentment for the failure of the market, which, though made the wealth disparity more apparent, was not the driving force of that disparity’s existence in total. One period of recession is not comparable to a lifetime of oppression; therefore, choosing to protest when all classes except the richest are negatively impacted by the economy fails to encompass the severity of the poorest citizens’ oppression. The movement’s emphasis on situationally shared economic unrest undermined the persistent economic struggle of the poorest class precrisis by grouping them with those only suffering during the crisis. By coining themselves as “the 99 percent,” protestors oversimplified their issue, disregarding that oppression occurs on a spectrum and diluting the severity of the most gravely oppressed (Volle). Observing the crisis, i.e. the pinnacle of public consciousness, as the root cause of wealth disparity confuses the real cause of economic inequality: the societal structure that permits disparities to be treated as the norm. A more apt representation of the disparity would reflect a less abnormal public condition, in which most citizens are profiting from the economy but the poorest continue to suffer at its expense. Reformative solutions, if ever on the radar, were sabotaged by the protest’s confusion of situational and ongoing suffering that blurred the line between unrelenting and ephemeral oppression by the elite. Ultimately, the failure of Occupy Wall Street and the Ciompi Revolt ascribes itself to their performative but fruitless pursuits fueled by their leader’s emotional appeals rather than concrete platforms for 23

reform. No reform could manifest from either movement because their sentiments conformed to present societal structure. The Ciompi were blinded by the human desire to subjugate and believed mimicking their superiors would allow them to take their place; but, no revolution occurs from unrevolutionary ideas. Machiavelli’s anonymous speaker only grants the illusion of freedom and a better life to the Ciompi because he promotes employing the same corrupt tactics to attain power as their present oppressors did. By keeping the oppressor-oppressed dichotomy in-tact, the Ciompi leave themselves at risk to be unfavored by it again. The only way to permanently end their oppression is to seek solutions that fight with the oppressive force rather than within it and contrive a platform where freedom is sought for all, not at another’s expense. Similar to the Ciompi speaker’s misguided agenda, the Occupy movement leaders’ lack of agenda neglected to establish a definitive path for reform. Perhaps the spearheading anarchists had the right ideology for resisting current institutions; however, their distaste for all institutions leaves undefined how their ideal society would function. As evinced by the haphazard nature of the protest, a disorderly free-for-all is not a viable solution. Though the demands of the Ciompi are too modest and the demands of the Occupy protests are too abstract, both extremes attribute themselves to a shared flaw in the movements’ foundations. The movements’ unsubstantial agendas are effects of allowing emotional appeals to motivate their resistance, i.e. the Ciompi leader turning fear of punishment to hate to encourage violence and the Occupy leaders using financial unease to prompt public resentment. Though garnering high, fervent involvement, the negatively-charged sentiments hinge on hate and fear, the driving forces of oppression. Thus, the movements’ abilities to bring change are stunted by their regression to the human desire to subjugate.

Effective social change must be fueled by the right intentions and find a balanced medium for its demands, wherein it poses a process to reach its end rather than proclaiming finite, immediate terms or infinite, ambiguous notions. If leaders fail to act purposefully and establish a clear outline for social change, protest is bound to be fruitless in resolving and reforming oppression. Further, so long as the forum for supposed reformative action operates within the confines of capitalist society, no resistance will eradicate the underlying, all-encompassing oppressor-oppressed dominance relation. Instead, uprisings of the oppressed will ephemerally invert the roles of the oppressor-oppressed dichotomy, granting them an illusion of success until the political cycle revolves again, plummeting them back into their oppression until their next misguided uproar.

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Works Cited

“Facts about Occupy Wall Street.” Occupy Wall Street, 28 Oct. 2019, occupywallst.org.

Accessed 12 May 2024.

Machiavelli, Niccolò. “Book III, Chapters 1-29.” Florentine Histories. Translated by Laura F. Banfield and Harvey C. Mansfield, Jr., Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1988, pp. 105–145.

Volle, Adam. “Occupy Wall Street.” Encyclopedia Britannica, 3 Apr. 2024, www.britannica.com/topic/Occupy-Wall-Street. Accessed 11 May 2024.

Winter, Yves. “Plebeian Politics: Machiavelli and the Ciompi Uprising.” Political Theory, vol. 40, no. 6, 2012, pp. 736–66. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41703099. Accessed 11 May 2024.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We, the editors, would like to thank the Hamilton College Print Shop for their work printing this issue and for their advice and expertise. As always, thank you to the writers for submitting their work and collaborating with our editors throughout the editorial process and thanks to you, dear reader, for sticking with us to the end.