Friday Tunes: We Are The Many

This week’s installment of labour these in popular culture is Makana’s We are the Many, a song that became popular during the occupy movement. While it is tempting to dismiss the occupy movement, the discussion of the 1% and the 99% recurs with surprising frequency and injects an unexpected (and perhaps sometimes unconscious) class critique into everyday discourse.

The song talks about exploitation and wages (“to steal from us the value of our wage”) and the growing hopeless of the waged class (“Our nation was built upon the right/Of every person to improve their plight”). The more important theme, though, is how growing corporate influence over the state sits uneasily with (or in opposition to) the basic premise of political democracy and, over time, undermine the legitimacy of the state.

You enforce your monopolies with guns
While sacrificing our daughters and sons
But certain things belong to everyone
Your thievery has left the people none

The notion that contemporary economic and political systems lack legitimacy is a potentially explosive one because society is basically a shared social construction. We all agree to be bound by certain rules and conventions and norms (e.g., currency has value, possessions can be owned, we ought not to kill the rich). Until, one day, we don't agree to that any more. Then all bets are off and numbers (e.g., 99 v 1) suddenly count.

One of the more interesting experiences of working with workers is the moment they realize that, while employers have immense power, employers are also out numbered and vulnerable to (and are indeed scared by) collective action. This is the point that the song ends on: “We are the many/You are the few.”



Ye come here, gather 'round the stage
The time has come for us to voice our rage
Against the ones who've trapped us in a cage
To steal from us the value of our wage

From underneath the vestiture of law
The lobbyists at Washington do gnaw
At liberty, the bureaucrats guffaw
And until they are purged, we won't withdraw

[chorus]
We'll occupy the streets
We'll occupy the courts
We'll occupy the offices of you
Till you do
The bidding of the many, not the few

Our nation was built upon the right
Of every person to improve their plight
But laws of this Republic they rewrite
And now a few own everything in sight

They own it free of liability
They own, but they are not like you and me
Their influence dictates legality
And until they are stopped we are not free

[chorus]

You enforce your monopolies with guns
While sacrificing our daughters and sons
But certain things belong to everyone
Your thievery has left the people none

So take heed of our notice to redress
We have little to lose, we must confess
Your empty words do leave us unimpressed
A growing number join us in protest

[chorus]

You can't divide us into sides
And from our gaze, you cannot hide
Denial serves to amplify
And our allegiance you can't buy

Our government is not for sale
The banks do not deserve a bail
We will not reward those who fail
We will not move till we prevail

[chorus]

[chorus]

We are the many
You are the few

-- Bob Barnetson