ABSTRACT
Bartleby's efforts at erasing the marks of hierarchy and subordination at the office run parallel to those of the 99" and the disenfranchised from the economic and political system. Just as Bartleby challenged the rigidly organized patterns of work in the office, Occupy Wall Street (OWS) questioned a legal system based on inequality. The heavily dominated and striated space of Wall Street, with its physical and ideological verticality, became imbued with Bartleby's blankness, with a feared and despised vacuum. Union leaders often like the limelight, while OWS is largely leaderless. Like Bartleby, OWS refused to follow the rigid political itineraries assigned for political action. For a variety of commentators, critics, and politicians, OWS needed to be accommodated, contained, domesticated, and properly administered into political action. The problem is that any pragmatic approach to achieving demands requires the mediation of the political system, which radically contradicts the distrust of political representatives.
