The Arab Spring reaches Washington

"We don't want to replace the government, but to do more than that. We want to change the rules of the game."

This statement captures the mood among protesters in the spontaneous demonstrations that have erupted in New York, and now reached Washington.

But in fact, they were spoken by an organiser of the protest tent-city that has cropped up in Jerusalem - the same protest which has drawn inspiration, as have many American protesters, from the Arab Spring.

Whether the origin can be traced back to the Tunisian demonstrations that started nearly a year ago, protest movements are drawing energy from one another as they communicate across the Internet. In India, anti-corruption protests challenge the government. In Spain, Greece and Portugal, huge crowds are mobilising against austerity programmes. In Israel, middle-class citizens are protesting the high cost of living.

And now, starting as a small, inchoate demonstration that has spread virally across the country, they have come to the United States. The Occupy Wall Street movement has New York as its epicentre, but it is rippling quickly throughout the country.

A common feature running through all these movements is that they are largely spontaneous. As such, they challenge the expectations of old-fashioned activists, not to mention the theoretical toolbox of students of social movements. Virtually leaderless, the demonstrations coalesce around fluid nuclei of activists - themselves networked with activists abroad - who rely on social networks to communicate with the followers. For their part, the followers drop in and out, responding to real-time calls for their support at various initiatives.

Disappointed obama voters

By and large, these demonstrations also reject formal politics. They do not support one political party or the other. Whereas the US's Tea Party rebels have managed, at least for now, to find a home in the Republican Party, the Democratic Party will struggle to accommodate those coming from the left.

Compromised by its ties to big business and union interests, having thrown its lot in with the banks and picked its economic team from Wall Street, the Obama administration is seen as being as much part of the problem as left-wing parties in several other countries. Indeed, many of the protesters, some of them driving a thousand miles to join the action, describe themselves as disappointed Obama voters.

In any event, what the protesters are after is more than a change in policy, or even a change of government. They want a change of the system. A democracy in which governments rotate in and out, but bankers remain in charge, is one that is starting to look more like an aristocracy.

Ill-defined goals

In one respect, Occupy Wall Street differs from the Arab Spring or European austerity protests. The latter two waves of protests had clear and relatively simple goals: an end to autocracy in the first, an end to austerity in the second. In contrast, the American protesters, angry though they may be, have ill-defined goals.

Some criticise this, saying that they are doing little more than letting off steam and so will peter out. But if you see a fire in the house next door, you don't need the ability to put it out before you scream fire. You leave that to the folks with the fire truck.

So it can be with Occupy Wall Street. If highly paid modellers with PhDs in theoretical physics created this mess, then say "give us more money," it's perfectly reasonable for ordinary folk to cry enough. They leave it to their political leaders, and a new generation of economists, to come up with better answers. And at the moment, the latter are coming up with precious few.

It goes beyond selfishness in the face of austerity. Citizens in democracies have shown a remarkable tolerance for difficult measures, if they feel they are spread evenly and are laying the ground for future progress. The problem with the financial bailouts that motivated these protests is that taxpayers are footing the bill, and bankers are getting the money.

The tacit social contract has snapped. People have a right to take to the streets.

John Rapley is a research associate at the International Growth Centre, London School of Economics and Political Science. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and rapley.john@gmail.com.