The following is a tranlation of the text “Qué puede una acampada. Hacia la nueva Comuna de Madrid” written by Pablo Carmona for Zona de Estrategia.

The encampment at Puerta del Sol is overflowing. Comparisons to the 2011 movement of the squares are multiplying. Now, as then, the goal is to transform this surge into a political change that sweeps away, across both the right and the left, the institutional political order and opens space for new possibilities for struggle.

The nights of September 27th and 28th have confirmed this. What had started as an encampment of a couple of hundred people now brings together thousands. Yet beyond comparisons with the past, this movement has its own characteristics that must be analyzed.

There is no doubt that there exist many similarities to what unfolded before. Once again, a young generation is in crisis, this time with housing as the primary space of struggle. We also see a repetition of specific organizations—then “Democracia Real Ya (Real Democracy Now),” and today the tenants’ union and housing movement—striking the initial spark. And of course, the encampment returns following a massive demonstration that in only two days has overcome all expectations and now carries us to a new point.

However, there are also novel elements of the context. For example, the crisis of inflation and public debt have not yet exhausted themselves. Furthermore, there exists a broad institutional field to the left of the PSOE that complicates the situation. All together, the economic crisis that surrounds the situation is vastly distant from the situation of 2011.

Beyond Housing

The mobilizations hide an open secret: the housing problem is not going to be solved in our country. Neither the government’s decree nor the more radical measures proposed by the housing movement can resolve it alone.

No matter how much prices are frozen or rental contracts made to be indefinite, even if prices were to drop, housing would continue to remain inaccessible. This is what is dictated by the system of private property and the precarious labor market upon which Spanish capitalism operates.

But at the same time we should not be naive. Of all these proposals, the most radical measures will benefit those who have to pay rent, but not those who can only afford to rent a room or those who cannot afford to do either. In any case, the most ambitious measures would partially and fleetingly alleviate some problems, while also making clear that organizing ourselves and struggling remains worthwhile. But we must consider how to go further.

Most workers make around €1,376 per month. A room in Madrid including utilities now costs more than €600. This is the key of the situation: if the housing market is unstable and precarious, the labor market is more so. The rising prices of food, energy, utilities, and housing collide with low wages and, above all else, a labor market characterized by temporary work with high rates of turnover. Which is all to say, we could legally guarantee indefinite rental contracts, but sooner or later we would not have the money to pay for them.

In the end, only those with steady employment and stable incomes could indefinitely afford to pay rent or a mortgage. For the rest in Spain, the housing crisis will turn into a crisis of delinquency. As a result, halting all evictions will only be possible through the political organization of those who face them or, in other words, through a system of self-defense, organization, and disobedience capable of stopping the more than 25,000 evictions expected this year regardless of whether a decree is in place.

The Commune of Madrid

If we accept this truth, we are obligated to break free from the logic that subordinates us to the policies of the State, to move beyond a logic that situates the movement of the squares merely as a movement that proposes laws for parliament, subject to the logic of association with and dependency on the parliamentary Left in government.

In this way, the encampments, the new movement of the squares, should shake off their original mantle, tied as it was to particular objectives or organizations, and begin to challenge the monopoly on politics held by the professionalized representatives, not to emerge as a new electoral option but to topple all existing ones.

In 2011, the massive encampments at Sol were nicknamed the “Madrid Commune,” recalling the Paris Commune of 1871. This shifted the focus toward destituent practices, aimed at the demolition of the entire political system including left-wing parties, in order to compose a new horizon built upon mass disobedience and the taking of the squares.

It is no longer a question of being the best engineers of public policy or of possessing a magic wand to wave over this or that political party. The movement must be capable of making the entire parliamentary spectrum tremble and, in particular, making its left flank fear for its survival. At a minimum, the protests must be pushed as far as they can possibly go.

To this end, we must mobilize every form of political agitation and debate, as well as make use of our tools of civil disobedience, occupations, strikes, and demonstrations. The Madrid Commune must haunt every conflict in the city until it puts an end to the process of fascistization that had seemed unstoppable and that had bound us to the progressive Left as our only means of salvation.

Now, there is no other banner or allegiance than that of the self-organization of the public squares and their potential to expand. That surely frightens those who believed that any qualitative leap in history would arrive, like children going to the park, led by the hand of a specific organization or group. The Madrid Commune will be composed of everyone, or it will not exist at all.