ABSTRACT
Complex societies are vast and intricate arenas of social struggle— of politics in that term's most fundamental meaning— over the distribution of the scarce resources of class, status, and power. There are three fundamental strategies of struggle in this eternal contest for wealth, prestige, and influence, each with distinctive and implementing forms of social organization. Protest struggle stands between polite and violent struggle, a kind of "middle force." The symbolic nature of the protest resides in the social response to it and not only in the act itself. As Gene Sharp mentions, compared to symbolic protest and noncooperation, "methods of intervention pose a more direct and immediate challenge." An appreciation of protest occupation history, waves, and variations in the relation of occupation to demand, helps us now to see a number of ways in which these episodes are also similar despite their manifest differences.
