“The constant and necessary distinction between the rules and the ruled, however, prevents us from calling representative democracy a ‘real democracy’. A real democracy, according to Hardt and Negri can only exist when there is no distinction between rulers and ruled.”

Thomas Decreus

This document is a 2011 political theory essay by Thomas Decreus analyzing the Occupy and Indignados movements as experiments in direct, horizontal democracy and critiquing their rejection of traditional political representation. These movements were incredibly disruptive as they challenged the foundations of democracy and the functions of political representation and preservation of economic inequality. Occupy rejected representative politics- they didn’t lobby leaders or propose reform, they argued for the creation of the unbridgeable divide between rulers and the ruled. They occupied public spaces, assemblies, and disrupted urban life while simultaneously experimenting with alternative forms of democracy based more directly on public participation and collective decision making and deliberation. Occupy exposed the limits of a representative democracy and demonstrated that these protests themselves could function as a form of democratic practice rather than merely a demand for reform.