15-M and social rights: Territorializing the mobilization in Catalonia

In the early 80s neoliberal economists asserted that any dramatic and regressive change in the socio-economic model equired a crisis (if non-existent, it could be created). Thirty years later, echoes of these premises resound. The pillars of the Welfare State, born out of the pact between capital and labor in the democratic countries of post-WWII Western Europe, are these days shaking. To start with, the Keynesian economic policies, the struggle for social cohesion, or liberal and social-democrat values themselves -which were the bases for the thinking and political action in the old continent so far- are being put into question. In this context, traditional transfotmative political actors are paralyzed (political parties, trade unions and classical organizations). The15-M movement emerges as an embodiment of the process of disaffection with the political class, not with politics, and a vindication of emancipatory proposals in a moment of epochal change. This article carries out an analysis of the mobilization taking a structured perspective and territorializing observation from the Catalan case. The movement in this country deepens more rapidly becoming the 15-M: the extensión of the social movements in the country and the fact that the Catalan government is a pioneer in implementing austerity plans.