If we're to believe the mainstream media, the Occupy movement came out of nowhere and represents a new kind of politics. But we should be skeptical of such claims. Social movements scholar Barbara Epstein was a participant in the nonviolent direct action movements of the 1970s and '80s. She describes how they incorporated consensus-based decision-making, radical egalitarianism, and prefigurative politics. And she examines how their strengths and weaknesses have been passed down to Occupy.

It's been the strongest current of radical politics to emerge in North America since the early 1990s. Anarchist organizer and scholar Chris Dixon discusses anti-authoritarian, anti-capitalist, and non-sectarian politics, exploring the sources of its strengths and the problems that beset it.  He also talks about how anti-authoritarian ideas and practices have shaped the Occupy movement.