Who are the protesters behind Occupy Wall Street–and what do they want?

[Raskolnikov]

estesbob:

So the solution to the problem no one seems to be able to identify is to restict free speech?

In a word, yes. You can’t yell fire in a crowded theatre. Rights have limits when they infringe upon the rights of others. In the case of corporate campaign fincance, we are not even talking about the rights of citizens, we are talking about the rights of nonhuman entities that exist for the sole purpose of generating profit, one has to take into account several things. One is that corporations have immense concentrations of wealth that can and do significantly effect public elections. Especially today, with the media being so important and getting more important, the ability to finance an election is possibly the single most important factor, and in order to do so, you must have someone willing to finance it. Now, if the right of corporate entities to finance political campaigns, directly or indirectly, is not limited, it is an imminent threat to democracy. You need only see the statistics on the correlation between campaign funding and election results to see that (and contrary to popular belief, it is not because ‘perople vote with their money;’ funding is more a prerequisite to getting support than a result.

So, should we abridge the rights of a select group of entities in order to preserve the integrity of democracy? Yes, absolutely. Hence why I think the Citizens United case a few years ago was a disastrous decision.

 

[Persuader]

As far as I understand it, this organization is primarily worried about the growing income inequality in the US. This is a legitimate economic concern, attested to by a majority of economists. More importantly, this is a moral concern. To narrow the gap in income and wealth, you can at least do three things:

1. Raise taxes on top earners and wealth.
2. Raise wages for low-income and middle-income employees.
3. Lower income for top earners.

The first can be done by the government, the second is more realistically achieved through strong, widespread and powerful unionization, whereas the third is unrealistic. The second strategy combined with somewhat higher taxation is what has worked for the countries with the lowest income inequality (ref: gini index etc.).

If this is what the movement is about, it should be able to garner support in academic circles. There is generally two positions in American academia: liberalism and libertarianism, and the second is in the clear minority. The liberal ideas of John Rawls etc. have won the debate (although the competing ideas of utilitarianism also influence liberalism), and are read in political science and moral/political philosophy all over the world. At the same time, the libertarian counterpoints made by Robert Nozick etc. are mostly kept to the States, where libertarianism has a minor foothold in academia and a larger foothold in right wing think tanks and the media.

Regardless of party, Washington doesn’t seem to be properly guided by any ideas. Obama doesn’t enact liberal policies. There is no universal health care. There is no strengthening of unions. There is no raising of taxes (yet). Instead we have a health care system that is not one or the other, and is therefore unsatisfactory.

 

[bbarrick8383]

As far as I understand it, this organization is primarily worried about the growing income inequality in the US. This is a legitimate economic concern, attested to by a majority of economists. More importantly, this is a moral concern. To narrow the gap in income and wealth, you can at least do three things:

1. Raise taxes on top earners and wealth.
2. Raise wages for low-income and middle-income employees.
3. Lower income for top earners.

The first can be done by the government, the second is more realistically achieved through strong, widespread and powerful unionization, whereas the third is unrealistic. The second strategy combined with somewhat higher taxation is what has worked for the countries with the lowest income inequality (ref: gini index etc.).

If this is what the movement is about, it should be able to garner support in academic circles. There is generally two positions in American academia: liberalism and libertarianism, and the second is in the clear minority. The liberal ideas of John Rawls etc. have won the debate (although the competing ideas of utilitarianism also influence liberalism), and are read in political science and moral/political philosophy all over the world. At the same time, the libertarian counterpoints made by Robert Nozick etc. are mostly kept to the States, where libertarianism has a minor foothold in academia and a larger foothold in right wing think tanks and the media.

Regardless of party, Washington doesn’t seem to be properly guided by any ideas. Obama doesn’t enact liberal policies. There is no universal health care. There is no strengthening of unions. There is no raising of taxes (yet). Instead we have a health care system that is not one or the other, and is therefore unsatisfactory.

Keep your unions as far away from me as possible.

 

[TEPO]

Why are the protesters protesting wall street? Maybe because they feel like Wall street represents free trade, with it’s lack of government interference.

Maybe the protesters hope for a complete wall street collapse, where a more regulated form of “protectionism” could replace our current capitalist / free-trade system, where government control and regulations would rule the markets through tariffs and quotas .

This is a radical idea, and should simply never happen.

What the protesters should be doing is asking for lower taxes and regulations for all the more patriotic businesses, while those companies who outsource their work to the East would be denied the tax breaks that the others get… Like a reward system.

Instead of ruining the whole market, or punishing the so called “big business elites”, lets just reward those who are doing what’s good for America.

 

[mlund]

What the protesters should be doing is asking for lower taxes and regulations for all the more patriotic businesses, while those companies who outsource their work to the East would be denied the tax breaks that the others get… Like a reward system.

Or like reducing our corporate and personal incomes taxes and eliminating our capital gains, SSI, and Medicare taxes would do? Every time a product passes through the hands of an American company all those taxes get factored into the income statements and passed down-chain as mark-up until they end in the sales price the consumer pays - and the consumer has no one left to pass the buck to.

Contrast that with a product made solely in China that’s only taxable interaction with the U.S. market comes from advertising, shipping, and retailing. Their embedded taxes are vastly lower than a made-in-the-U.S.A. product. Shifting some of the burden from Embedded Taxes to Sales Taxes mitigates some of the unbalanced burdens placed on domestic vs. outsourced manufacturing - without starting any nasty international fights over tariffs and currency fixing.

• Marty Lund

 

[Raskolnikov]

Why are the protesters protesting wall street? Maybe because they feel like Wall street represents free trade, with it’s lack of government interference.

Maybe the protesters hope for a complete wall street collapse, where a more regulated form of “protectionism” could replace our current capitalist / free-trade system, where government control and regulations would rule the markets through tariffs and quotas .

This is a radical idea, and should simply never happen.

More likely they’re protesting Wall St. because it symbolizes a segment of the population that makes its living doing speculative trading of pieces of paper and produces nothing of any value to society. Not saying protesting that makes a whole lot of sense, it won’t make any difference, but you’re little narrative seems quite inaccurate. I doesn’t seem to have a whole lot to do with free trade at all. Who’s asking for tarrifs anyway?

What the protesters should be doing is asking for lower taxes and regulations for all the more patriotic businesses, while those companies who outsource their work to the East would be denied the tax breaks that the others get… Like a reward system.

Funny, you were just complaining about protectionism, and yet now you supprt state intervention in the economy to deter outsourcing (that is, the purchasing of foreign labor; how very anti-free trade of you).

Also, if you were familiar with conservative economic theory Milton Friedman’s ideas, you would know that the standard attitude (the one supported by Friedman) is that corporations are not supposed to be patriotic, they aren’t even supposed to be moral; they have an obligation to their shareholders to maximize profit no matter what the expense; pollution, economic slavery, manipulative advertising, whatever the means. The behavior of the typical major public corporation certainly reflects this kind of attitude. Is this the type of structure in which we are to put our faith?

Instead of ruining the whole market, or punishing the so called “big business elites”, lets just reward those who are doing what’s good for America.

“Business elites” are not in the business of doing what’s good for America. They’re in the business of doing what’s good for themselves and their shareholders. Once they start taking the public good into consideration before profit, they quickly befcome ex-business elites.

 

[SamH]

“Business elites” are not in the business of doing what’s good for America. They’re in the business of doing what’s good for themselves and their shareholders. Once they start taking the public good into consideration before profit, they quickly befcome ex-business elites.

And who owns American businesses and where do they spend their money?

 

[Raskolnikov]

And who owns American businesses and where do they spend their money?

Why, the shareholders. I hope you’re not implying that the shareholders (especially the significant ones) are representative of Americans as a whole? And of course, keep in mind that the people who own these businesses live all over the world. There is nothing distinctly American about the typical “American” public corporation. And I imagine most of the shareholders spend their money on Japanese made cars, clothes made in Indochina, and maybe buy their kids toys from China. Why?

 

[estesbob]

Why, the shareholders. I hope you’re not implying that the shareholders (especially the significant ones) are representative of Americans as a whole? And of course, keep in mind that the people who own these businesses live all over the world. There is nothing distinctly American about the typical “American” public corporation. And I imagine most of the shareholders spend their money on Japanese made cars, clothes made in Indochina, and maybe buy their kids toys from China. Why?

Pretty much everyone with a 401K is a shareholder. it is interestning that the soultion we see offered for the currnet crisis is the usual Liberal mantra. higher taxes , more govt regulation, restrict free speech

 

[tvdxer]

Luck? That has nothing to do with it. It takes hard work and setting one’s priorities.

I wouldn’t say “luck” but rather a combination of providence and structural factors. Regardless of the way you look at it, those who are wealthy often do NOT become that way through hard work and setting priorities correctly alone. Well-off families tend to produce well-off children. Think of the doctors and lawyers and other professionals you know, and think about their adult children. They may have had to work hard to attain their success, but there are many who had to work equally as hard or harder than them yet make a fraction of what they make.

Why? They may lack the connections, the intelligence, the academic pressure placed on them by parents, or the simple experience of growing up in a well-off background that prepares individuals for entry as adults into the upper middle or upper class. All things equal, a person who comes from a working- or lower-class background and rises up into the upper-middle-class as a first-generation college graduate will probably have had to work much harder than a son of a doctor mother and a lawyer father.

Other things are fully out of the control of the individual. For example, a cancer diagnosis as an otherwise healthy young adult can cause major disorientation and medical bills.

This is NOT to say that we should engage in any redistribution scheme from the so-called “lucky” to the “unlucky”, but rather to demonstrate that the various achievements people have made can not be chalked up to “hard work” or things within the person’s locus of control. The force of external circumstances also has to be taken into account.

 

[louis91766]

And I imagine most of the shareholders spend their money on Japanese made cars, clothes made in Indochina, and maybe buy their kids toys from China. Why?

People buy Chinese goods because the cost of the item is low. Why is the cost low? Because China has played dirty and kept the value of its currency artificially low. And American fat cats on wall street play the dirty game with the Chinese and go along with the artificially low value of the currency. They take advantage of this dirty business and send a large portion of american manufacturing to China and give jobs to the Chinese who have smiles on their faces since these American fatcats care only about their million dollar bonuses and doing business with Chinese labor. They don’t care one iota about the good hardworking American worker who is made to suffer and feel worthless because of this unfair business practice.

 

[tvdxer]

The replies in this thread are the replies I’d expect from this forum, which is strongly tainted with a U.S. right-wing point of view (after all, because the Republicans are the pro-life party, shouldn’t all of you take on the rest of their views?) Recent college graduates (in the past 1-3 years) DO have good reason to be disenchanted. I am one myself (graduated with a B.A. in 2010), so let me explain:

Most kids of the 1990’s - in other words, the protestors now - were constantly pushed by adult authority figures (teachers, parents, etc.) to go to college when they were children and teens. They were promised that college was the sure path to financial success. And it appeared to be - college graduates had a much greater income, on average, than people who only graduated high school.

So the greater part of my generation went to college right after graduating high school. They took out student loans not so they could party non-stop, even though some of them did. They took them out because TUITION IS EXPENSIVE. It has increased at a rate twice that of general inflation over the past two decades. Those who graduated in 1980 or 1990 have little right to compare their experience paying off college debts with those of recent graduates.

Now they find themselves 1) graduated, 2) out of work, and 3) with little hope of well-paying (as in enough to raise a birth-controlled family) jobs in their field. This is mostly due to the economic downturn, which many believe the rich are culpable for. I don’t completely agree with the “blame the rich” sentiment - the middle- and working-classes are much to blame for it too (after all, they were who the sub-prime loans were often made out to!). But when the federal government bails out banks and corporations (who, as it turns out, have their executives fly in private jets for negotiations), when the financial sector is rife with greed and corruption (or at least appears to be), when certain companies have billions upon billions of dollars in the bank but are not hiring, and when the wealthiest Americans have seen a much larger increase in their income than any other group in our society provide some of the basis for their targeting of the rich.

About the health care issue: Although most people my age are healthy, they still often struggle not only with student debt but also with medical debt accrued from a hospital stay or even visit to the ER. Even routine medical care carries with it tremendous expenses - again, due to inflation at rates much above general inflation. And those lucky enough to be insured through their work still often have to bear the cost of deductibles and co-pays. You’ll still end up paying $4,000 for a $4,000 visit to the hospital on a plan with a $5,000 deductible - and expenses like these are extremely difficult for a person making $20 or $25,000 a year with car, rent, and student loan payments to bear.

 

[Pirate_Talker]

I wouldn’t say “luck” but rather a combination of providence and structural factors. Regardless of the way you look at it, those who are wealthy often do NOT become that way through hard work and setting priorities correctly alone. Well-off families tend to produce well-off children. Think of the doctors and lawyers and other professionals you know, and think about their adult children. They may have had to work hard to attain their success, but there are many who had to work equally as hard or harder than them yet make a fraction of what they make.

Why? They may lack the connections, the intelligence, the academic pressure placed on them by parents, or the simple experience of growing up in a well-off background that prepares individuals for entry as adults into the upper middle or upper class. All things equal, a person who comes from a working- or lower-class background and rises up into the upper-middle-class as a first-generation college graduate will probably have had to work much harder than a son of a doctor mother and a lawyer father.

Other things are fully out of the control of the individual. For example, a cancer diagnosis as an otherwise healthy young adult can cause major disorientation and medical bills.

This is NOT to say that we should engage in any redistribution scheme from the so-called “lucky” to the “unlucky”, but rather to demonstrate that the various achievements people have made can not be chalked up to “hard work” or things within the person’s locus of control. The force of external circumstances also has to be taken into account.

I agree. Many times it is not what you know but who you know. It’s been that way for a long time. You don bring up many issues to consider. THank you.

 

[Bill1940]

Leftist “Tea Party”, occupation of public spaces, vandalism and mass arrests with violence acts.

Conservative “Tea Party”, civil obedience and public areas left cleaner than they were found. Only violence is perpetrated by democrat counter protestors and union thugs.

Not a tea party, more a pity party. I also suspect the occupations are orchestrated by surrogates of the Obama Administration for the purpose of reviving the enthusiasm of the left-wing base. Could Soros and Van Jones be involved? If so, the Administration is taking a great risk. Left-wing crowds seem uninhibited and prone to obstreperous behavior. On the other hand, the protestors are quite candid about being sympathetic towards Marxism and antipathetic towards free enterprise. They are open, about an attitude the Administration seems to share but hides. All things work together for the good of those who love God. Let us watch these events with good-natured detachment.

 

[tvdxer]

I agree. Many times it is not what you know but who you know. It’s been that way for a long time. You don bring up many issues to consider. THank you.

I think it was even more that way in the past. Even in many societies today, people stay in their social caste. Nowadays it’s more merit-based (and one’s “merits” often include their hard work), but there still exists inequality - and economic inequality will always exist. The post was made not to support ending that inequality. It was made to counter those who say that the rich earned their wealth through hard work alone, without taking into consideration their circumstances, and also that the poor became poor through their poor choices and laziness alone, again without accounting for their circumstances.

 

[St_Francis]

And who owns American businesses and where do they spend their money?

Well, let’s see. The largest group of stockholders is …'pension funds. The 300 largest pension funds in the world hold $20 TRillion. And it looks like one of the world’s 10 largest pension funds is… the pension fund for California state employees. Is there a connection with CA SEIU?

 

[bbarrick8383]

The replies in this thread are the replies I’d expect from this forum, which is strongly tainted with a U.S. right-wing point of view (after all, because the Republicans are the pro-life party, shouldn’t all of you take on the rest of their views?) Recent college graduates (in the past 1-3 years) DO have good reason to be disenchanted. I am one myself (graduated with a B.A. in 2010), so let me explain:

Most kids of the 1990’s - in other words, the protestors now - were constantly pushed by adult authority figures (teachers, parents, etc.) to go to college when they were children and teens. They were promised that college was the sure path to financial success. And it appeared to be - college graduates had a much greater income, on average, than people who only graduated high school.

My brother and I graduated HS and went to college, me in 1997 and him 7 years later. We grew up middle class to two extremely frugal parents(2 television channels my whole childhood). I got a small scholarship and I think they helped him pay for his. He’s only a few credits away from graduating but went to work instead. Since he’s so close he will probably just finish it up here in the next couple of years. I’m still in debt with student loans and a degree I have hardly used.

I’m sorry, don’t mean to be uncharitable, but it just sounds like a bunch of whining to me. I’d dug ditches if I’d had to. Just me though.

 

[Pirate_Talker]

I think it was even more that way in the past. Even in many societies today, people stay in their social caste. Nowadays it’s more merit-based (and one’s “merits” often include their hard work), but there still exists inequality - and economic inequality will always exist. The post was made not to support ending that inequality. It was made to counter those who say that the rich earned their wealth through hard work alone, without taking into consideration their circumstances, and also that the poor became poor through their poor choices and laziness alone, again without accounting for their circumstances.

Yes, I understand what you meant, and I know I was not clear in my post. I agree with your thoughts posted above. I have seen this in play.

 

[louis91766]

These protests and demonstrations are popping up all over the world. Perhaps there is a common thread that runs through them.

 

[estesbob]

These protests and demonstrations are popping up all over the world. Perhaps there is a common thread that runs through them.

No common thread at all. The idea that the brave protestors in the Arab States have anything in common with these clueless kids is specious.