What are the goals of OWS?
October 19, 2011 9:16 AM Subscribe
Help me understand Occupy Wall Street?
I was going to post something like this as a metafilter comment, but I realize it's more specifically an open question that I'd like to hear people's ideas on.
I've heard it said frequently that part of the OWS movement is wanting everyone to have a shot at a "decent" career.
Can everyone have a decent career? Can our system really support everyone being paid enough to afford decent housing and quality food and at least the occasional luxury item/eating out/recreational fun activities etc?
If the goal is to do this by making sure everyone has education beyond highschool, what happens to people who are not capable of education beyond highschool? What if some people are really better at lower level jobs like food production or preparation, child care, cleaning and maintenance services etc?
Who will do these jobs that are low paying if everyone is able to get higher education?
However we measure job performance, if there is a scale, then there is a middle and a bottom percent. Is the goal of OWS to get things back where they were, where people in the middle are able to get decent jobs, or is this movement really for "everyone" in the bottom 99%?
If we scale people's grades, or people's levels of motivation, or people's levels of creativity and ingenuity and perseverence--- we will every single time find a bottom percent. It will always be. If we make sure everyone has a college degree, can we employ everyone with a college degree in careers that they want and that pay well? Who gets stuck with the dirty work and who gets stuck with the low paying jobs that need to be done?
If the goal is simply to make sure that all working people can afford basic necessities nd the occasional luxury item-- then wouldn't working for more empowering working conditions and better pay for long term "bottom rung" professions be a better way to serve the lowest working class members-- rather than say every one should be trained in careers that they want and pay well but that there aren't actually jobs for?
Ideas? Thoughts? Just trying to understand what the goals are here.
I was going to post something like this as a metafilter comment, but I realize it's more specifically an open question that I'd like to hear people's ideas on.
I've heard it said frequently that part of the OWS movement is wanting everyone to have a shot at a "decent" career.
Can everyone have a decent career? Can our system really support everyone being paid enough to afford decent housing and quality food and at least the occasional luxury item/eating out/recreational fun activities etc?
If the goal is to do this by making sure everyone has education beyond highschool, what happens to people who are not capable of education beyond highschool? What if some people are really better at lower level jobs like food production or preparation, child care, cleaning and maintenance services etc?
Who will do these jobs that are low paying if everyone is able to get higher education?
However we measure job performance, if there is a scale, then there is a middle and a bottom percent. Is the goal of OWS to get things back where they were, where people in the middle are able to get decent jobs, or is this movement really for "everyone" in the bottom 99%?
If we scale people's grades, or people's levels of motivation, or people's levels of creativity and ingenuity and perseverence--- we will every single time find a bottom percent. It will always be. If we make sure everyone has a college degree, can we employ everyone with a college degree in careers that they want and that pay well? Who gets stuck with the dirty work and who gets stuck with the low paying jobs that need to be done?
If the goal is simply to make sure that all working people can afford basic necessities nd the occasional luxury item-- then wouldn't working for more empowering working conditions and better pay for long term "bottom rung" professions be a better way to serve the lowest working class members-- rather than say every one should be trained in careers that they want and pay well but that there aren't actually jobs for?
Ideas? Thoughts? Just trying to understand what the goals are here.
At this point, OWS means whatever you want it to mean. There is no goal beyond some form of wealth distribution. Ensuring affordable higher education (which is different than ensuring that everyone gets a college education, btw) is one way of rebalancing this, but it's far from the only way. There are also people occupying wherever that are clamoring for a higher minimum wage, a guaranteed minimum income, nationalized healthcare and many other bottom-up supports like you mention in your last paragraph.
posted by modernserf at 9:29 AM on October 19, 2011
posted by modernserf at 9:29 AM on October 19, 2011
In my eyes from what I read, including many comments on the blue, the OWS movement isn't specifically about one thing or a list of things. It's more or less a protest against about the state of our economy, society, and policies. It's an aggregate of wealth disparity, a broken American dream, unemployment, and the middle class being left to dry while companies pocket politicians and make record profits. The media tries to pin it down to specific “goals”, but it’s bigger than a simple list of goals. It’s the collective frustration of the majority.
For your comments concerning education and “who will do these jobs that are low paying if everyone is able to get higher education.” The goal of higher education is to have the capability for doors to open to a high paying job, if jobs were high paying without the higher education requirement, then more people wouldn’t feel compelled to get higher education. Most people don’t go to college and take 30k of debt because the love class and taking tests. They do it as a stepping stone in hopes of something better.
posted by amazingstill at 9:29 AM on October 19, 2011 [4 favorites]
For your comments concerning education and “who will do these jobs that are low paying if everyone is able to get higher education.” The goal of higher education is to have the capability for doors to open to a high paying job, if jobs were high paying without the higher education requirement, then more people wouldn’t feel compelled to get higher education. Most people don’t go to college and take 30k of debt because the love class and taking tests. They do it as a stepping stone in hopes of something better.
posted by amazingstill at 9:29 AM on October 19, 2011 [4 favorites]
I think the common thread of frustration is less about changing the end (restoring the "Middle Class", or what have you) so much as changing the means. People are fed up with the financial industry not because the banks directly fucked them over, but because they've been able to use their immense wealth to buy enough influence in the government to make them even fatter. Since they heyday of the 90's/00's are over and you can't simply "create" more wealth, it's got to increasingly come at the expense of the needs of working people.
OWS wants, more or less, for government and business to act more like frenemies than bff's.
posted by mkultra at 9:34 AM on October 19, 2011 [2 favorites]
OWS wants, more or less, for government and business to act more like frenemies than bff's.
posted by mkultra at 9:34 AM on October 19, 2011 [2 favorites]
Think about it this way: other countries have much lower indices of relative poverty, health care for the poor and the middle class, hours worked per week, crime, and so forth. More jobs become decent jobs when it's easier to live decently.
posted by Sticherbeast at 9:35 AM on October 19, 2011 [5 favorites]
posted by Sticherbeast at 9:35 AM on October 19, 2011 [5 favorites]
Best answer: Part of your confusion may be coming from the fact that there's a bit of "brainstorming" going on in OWS right now -- they're still in the stage where they're open to ideas from everyone involved, so people down in the ranks are just shouting things out that they're there for. A lot of people will be saying the same thing, but you still have one or two people saying unusual outlying things that only thay care about.
I'm not sure I've specifically heard "everyone deserves a decent career" in the sense of "everyone deserves to be a doctor" or whatever. So I think your concerns about "what if everyone is educated to be a lawyer, because some people aren't intelletually cut out for it" aren't quite being addressed by what's being asked. But I'm not certain the bit about working conditions and better pay entirely get the point either (although, i can say that those are also goals).
However, alongside hoping for better working conditions and better pay, or "training people for careers that they want and pay well but there aren't jobs for," there's also a call for "leveling the playing field in such a way to allow people to CREATE those jobs." In other words: perhaps the reason that there aren't jobs for stage managers isn't JUST because theater is a highly competitive field. Perhaps the reason that jobs for stage managers are decreasing is because the economy sucks so much that theater companies have been folding after many years, simply because they can't keep their own doors open. Perhaps there would be more call for lawyers if more lawyers could afford to start practices in small towns. Perhaps there would be more call for shop tellers if would-be entrepreneurs didn't have to give up on their small business idea because if they struck out on their own, they'd lose their health insurance.
There are ideas out there for more jobs, more businesses, and more infrastructure, but the state of things is so screwed up that a lot of these would-be jobs and would-be businesses never get off the ground because the people who would have been doing then can't afford to. They can't afford to financiallly, they can't afford to physically, they can't afford to mentally. It's HARD to get a startup business going -- but it's NIGH IMPOSSIBLE to get a startup going if you have to sign away eight hours of your day to someone else first because you have to make rent, and you can't get a business grant because the interest rates are so high. If you were able to make that startup happen, though, you'd generate work not just for yourself, but also for support staff, contractors, manufacturers, programmers, import/exporters, and sales clerks, all of whom also seek "decent jobs" in their chosen fields (and now that you've got your business going, they also can do it).
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:36 AM on October 19, 2011 [4 favorites]
I'm not sure I've specifically heard "everyone deserves a decent career" in the sense of "everyone deserves to be a doctor" or whatever. So I think your concerns about "what if everyone is educated to be a lawyer, because some people aren't intelletually cut out for it" aren't quite being addressed by what's being asked. But I'm not certain the bit about working conditions and better pay entirely get the point either (although, i can say that those are also goals).
However, alongside hoping for better working conditions and better pay, or "training people for careers that they want and pay well but there aren't jobs for," there's also a call for "leveling the playing field in such a way to allow people to CREATE those jobs." In other words: perhaps the reason that there aren't jobs for stage managers isn't JUST because theater is a highly competitive field. Perhaps the reason that jobs for stage managers are decreasing is because the economy sucks so much that theater companies have been folding after many years, simply because they can't keep their own doors open. Perhaps there would be more call for lawyers if more lawyers could afford to start practices in small towns. Perhaps there would be more call for shop tellers if would-be entrepreneurs didn't have to give up on their small business idea because if they struck out on their own, they'd lose their health insurance.
There are ideas out there for more jobs, more businesses, and more infrastructure, but the state of things is so screwed up that a lot of these would-be jobs and would-be businesses never get off the ground because the people who would have been doing then can't afford to. They can't afford to financiallly, they can't afford to physically, they can't afford to mentally. It's HARD to get a startup business going -- but it's NIGH IMPOSSIBLE to get a startup going if you have to sign away eight hours of your day to someone else first because you have to make rent, and you can't get a business grant because the interest rates are so high. If you were able to make that startup happen, though, you'd generate work not just for yourself, but also for support staff, contractors, manufacturers, programmers, import/exporters, and sales clerks, all of whom also seek "decent jobs" in their chosen fields (and now that you've got your business going, they also can do it).
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:36 AM on October 19, 2011 [4 favorites]
In Madison at least, the primary goal expressed has been "get corporate money out of politics." It's not been so much about wealth redistribution as it about the disproportionate influence that corporations/the wealthy have on politics.
posted by desjardins at 9:42 AM on October 19, 2011
posted by desjardins at 9:42 AM on October 19, 2011
Best answer: Can our system really support everyone being paid enough to afford decent housing and quality food and at least the occasional luxury item/eating out/recreational fun activities etc?
Yes.
America is the richest nation in the world. America has the most productive workforce in the world. We have all the resources necessary for every American to have decent housing, quality food, and the occasional luxury item/eating out/recreational activities. This is not in question.
posted by Ptrin at 9:52 AM on October 19, 2011 [9 favorites]
Yes.
America is the richest nation in the world. America has the most productive workforce in the world. We have all the resources necessary for every American to have decent housing, quality food, and the occasional luxury item/eating out/recreational activities. This is not in question.
posted by Ptrin at 9:52 AM on October 19, 2011 [9 favorites]
I think this Venn diagram Occupy Wall Street vs. Tea Party is a good representation of Occupy's goals.
posted by dgeiser13 at 9:56 AM on October 19, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by dgeiser13 at 9:56 AM on October 19, 2011 [1 favorite]
I've been to my local OWS protest, but not OWS itself, so this may not perfectly reflect the OWS proper, but..
People are concerned with a lot of different immediate issues. Cost of education, high unemployment, and a shrinking middle class are some of the big ones. The thread that ties these concerns together is the corruptive influence corporate money has had on politics.
'Normal' citizens no longer have a say in the way their government is run; their voices are drowned out by the rich and corporations. More and more, it is apparent that legislation is no longer designed to benefit the country as a whole, but the small subset of people and organizations who fund the campaigns of legislators. As one example, take the bankruptcy reform of a few years ago. It appears to have been tailor-made to business interests, making it much harder to qualify for bankruptcy.
The financial sector in particular has picked up a lot of the anger because they were completely irresponsible in lending practices with regard to housing, and they knew it. While one division was lending out money to people who had no chance of paying it back, another division was purchasing insurance (that is, default swaps) against the default of these users, and a third was repackaging bad loans into groups and colluding with ratings agencies to get them good ratings. A lot of people's retirement funds picked up these highly-rated CDOs and were left holding the bag when all this came to light.
After it all came crashing down, they proceeded to blatantly abuse TARP funds for their own profit. The entire point of TARP was to keep banks loaning to small/medium businesses to keep the economy moving. The bank heads smiled and agreed, took the money, and then promptly sat on it. Small business lending went way down, and is still way down, and the ensuing credit crunch has seriously affected the middle and lower class. The richest Americans (the "1%") have acquired massive wealth throughout all this, to the point where the wealth disparity in American now resembles that of a third-world country.
In short, the rich have rigged the government system to benefit the corporations they control to get even richer, while everybody else suffers.
posted by zug at 9:57 AM on October 19, 2011 [6 favorites]
People are concerned with a lot of different immediate issues. Cost of education, high unemployment, and a shrinking middle class are some of the big ones. The thread that ties these concerns together is the corruptive influence corporate money has had on politics.
'Normal' citizens no longer have a say in the way their government is run; their voices are drowned out by the rich and corporations. More and more, it is apparent that legislation is no longer designed to benefit the country as a whole, but the small subset of people and organizations who fund the campaigns of legislators. As one example, take the bankruptcy reform of a few years ago. It appears to have been tailor-made to business interests, making it much harder to qualify for bankruptcy.
The financial sector in particular has picked up a lot of the anger because they were completely irresponsible in lending practices with regard to housing, and they knew it. While one division was lending out money to people who had no chance of paying it back, another division was purchasing insurance (that is, default swaps) against the default of these users, and a third was repackaging bad loans into groups and colluding with ratings agencies to get them good ratings. A lot of people's retirement funds picked up these highly-rated CDOs and were left holding the bag when all this came to light.
After it all came crashing down, they proceeded to blatantly abuse TARP funds for their own profit. The entire point of TARP was to keep banks loaning to small/medium businesses to keep the economy moving. The bank heads smiled and agreed, took the money, and then promptly sat on it. Small business lending went way down, and is still way down, and the ensuing credit crunch has seriously affected the middle and lower class. The richest Americans (the "1%") have acquired massive wealth throughout all this, to the point where the wealth disparity in American now resembles that of a third-world country.
In short, the rich have rigged the government system to benefit the corporations they control to get even richer, while everybody else suffers.
posted by zug at 9:57 AM on October 19, 2011 [6 favorites]
> Can our system really support everyone being paid enough to
> afford decent housing and quality food and at least the
> occasional luxury item/eating out/recreational fun activities etc?
If other countries can do it then we can do it.
posted by dgeiser13 at 9:57 AM on October 19, 2011 [1 favorite]
> afford decent housing and quality food and at least the
> occasional luxury item/eating out/recreational fun activities etc?
If other countries can do it then we can do it.
posted by dgeiser13 at 9:57 AM on October 19, 2011 [1 favorite]
Who will do these jobs that are low paying if everyone is able to get higher education?
I can't speak for OWS specifically, but I think the general leftist idea is not that there shouldn't be any janitors, but that janitors should make a respectable wage that you can raise a family on. Even if higher education were free, there will always be people who have don't have the interest or ability in academic work.
Put another way, there will always be income disparity (which I personally don't think is a bad thing), it would just be nice if the income distribution curve was linear rather than exponential.
posted by auto-correct at 10:06 AM on October 19, 2011 [9 favorites]
I can't speak for OWS specifically, but I think the general leftist idea is not that there shouldn't be any janitors, but that janitors should make a respectable wage that you can raise a family on. Even if higher education were free, there will always be people who have don't have the interest or ability in academic work.
Put another way, there will always be income disparity (which I personally don't think is a bad thing), it would just be nice if the income distribution curve was linear rather than exponential.
posted by auto-correct at 10:06 AM on October 19, 2011 [9 favorites]
I think OWS is more a general expression of frustration about social class in America, than a specific set of policy proposals. It is a *protest* -- a way of challenging the status quo -- NOT a policy implementation program.
There is no *one* way to solve these systemic issues. As such, the request for a specific proposal is a straw man. If a simple policy proposal were presented, the mainstream media would find a way to tear it apart, and justifiably, because there is no one proposal (or even set of proposals) will solve it.
posted by 3491again at 10:08 AM on October 19, 2011 [2 favorites]
There is no *one* way to solve these systemic issues. As such, the request for a specific proposal is a straw man. If a simple policy proposal were presented, the mainstream media would find a way to tear it apart, and justifiably, because there is no one proposal (or even set of proposals) will solve it.
posted by 3491again at 10:08 AM on October 19, 2011 [2 favorites]
We have all the resources necessary for every American to have decent housing, quality food, and the occasional luxury item/eating out/recreational activities. This is not in question.
Yes it is. I question it. Many people question it. If you're not aware that anyone even disagrees with this, then you don't understand the debate and thus don't even understand your own position. You're making the typical leftist, non-reality-based fallacy of assuming that the existing amount of wealth is a given. If you redistributed wealth so much as to guarantee that everyone is comfortable in all aspects of life (and then some luxuries!), this would have enormous and messy consequences that would make the world very different from how it is now: (1) Many people would give up on working at all, since there would be no need to since they can't possibly fail. (2) Less wealth would be created in the first place. You might end up with more "equal" distribution, but that would be equal slices of a tiny pie. The size of the pie is not a given. You can't assume we'd continue to have the same amounts of wealth and innovation if we gave up on capitalism and market-based economics. I understand that it's often more enjoyable to confidently assert that you know how to make everything all better, but reality is more complicated and unpredictable.
People are also ignoring the problem of unintended consequences. Increasing the minimum wage doesn't require employers to keep hiring as many people as before, or to retain all the existing employees. When the government tries to help people by increasing the minimum wage, it hurts low-income people by dissuading employers from hiring, because hiring people becomes more expensive. This not only makes sense in theory but has also been shown empirically: countries with lower minimum wages also have lower unemployment. I'm not saying the minimum wage shouldn't be increased. Maybe it should. But no one should take that position without first thinking carefully about the problem of unintended consequences. Whatever position you take, it still doesn't make sense to assume that government policy can just make everything more equal without any side effects of shrinking employment and economic growth.
OP, if you want more fact-based answers, I recommend, instead of asking an open-ended question on a far-left forum that's overwhelmingly sympathetic to OWS, that you read Thomas Sowell's Basic Economics (4th edition). You don't need to read all 750 pages or agree with everything he says (I don't); just reading the first few chapters will clarify some basic economic principles that many people (on the left and right) can't seem to understand. Scarcity -- the fact that there aren't enough resources to give everyone what they want -- is a fundamental principle of economics and fact of life. Changing "want" to "need" won't do much good, since there's no clear definition of "need" and the standards for "need" keep rising along with general standards of living.
posted by John Cohen at 10:22 AM on October 19, 2011 [4 favorites]
Yes it is. I question it. Many people question it. If you're not aware that anyone even disagrees with this, then you don't understand the debate and thus don't even understand your own position. You're making the typical leftist, non-reality-based fallacy of assuming that the existing amount of wealth is a given. If you redistributed wealth so much as to guarantee that everyone is comfortable in all aspects of life (and then some luxuries!), this would have enormous and messy consequences that would make the world very different from how it is now: (1) Many people would give up on working at all, since there would be no need to since they can't possibly fail. (2) Less wealth would be created in the first place. You might end up with more "equal" distribution, but that would be equal slices of a tiny pie. The size of the pie is not a given. You can't assume we'd continue to have the same amounts of wealth and innovation if we gave up on capitalism and market-based economics. I understand that it's often more enjoyable to confidently assert that you know how to make everything all better, but reality is more complicated and unpredictable.
People are also ignoring the problem of unintended consequences. Increasing the minimum wage doesn't require employers to keep hiring as many people as before, or to retain all the existing employees. When the government tries to help people by increasing the minimum wage, it hurts low-income people by dissuading employers from hiring, because hiring people becomes more expensive. This not only makes sense in theory but has also been shown empirically: countries with lower minimum wages also have lower unemployment. I'm not saying the minimum wage shouldn't be increased. Maybe it should. But no one should take that position without first thinking carefully about the problem of unintended consequences. Whatever position you take, it still doesn't make sense to assume that government policy can just make everything more equal without any side effects of shrinking employment and economic growth.
OP, if you want more fact-based answers, I recommend, instead of asking an open-ended question on a far-left forum that's overwhelmingly sympathetic to OWS, that you read Thomas Sowell's Basic Economics (4th edition). You don't need to read all 750 pages or agree with everything he says (I don't); just reading the first few chapters will clarify some basic economic principles that many people (on the left and right) can't seem to understand. Scarcity -- the fact that there aren't enough resources to give everyone what they want -- is a fundamental principle of economics and fact of life. Changing "want" to "need" won't do much good, since there's no clear definition of "need" and the standards for "need" keep rising along with general standards of living.
posted by John Cohen at 10:22 AM on October 19, 2011 [4 favorites]
Best answer: You can't assume we'd continue to have the same amounts of wealth and innovation if we gave up on capitalism and market-based economics.
This is a false dichotomy. You can have capitalism, as well as a more efficient, sensible health care system and a stronger safety net, as well as restoring and improving more stringent regulations on certain sectors of the economy. It is not a binary switch between capitalism and the fearsome hordes of the Red Army, or the bombed-out wasteland of the Mad Max films.
posted by Sticherbeast at 10:29 AM on October 19, 2011 [15 favorites]
This is a false dichotomy. You can have capitalism, as well as a more efficient, sensible health care system and a stronger safety net, as well as restoring and improving more stringent regulations on certain sectors of the economy. It is not a binary switch between capitalism and the fearsome hordes of the Red Army, or the bombed-out wasteland of the Mad Max films.
posted by Sticherbeast at 10:29 AM on October 19, 2011 [15 favorites]
To your point, John Cohen, I don't think this is about the problems of *capitalism*, so much as the problems of *corruption*. The Wall Street bailout was not capitalism. It was corruption.
posted by 3491again at 10:33 AM on October 19, 2011 [9 favorites]
posted by 3491again at 10:33 AM on October 19, 2011 [9 favorites]
It also helps to consider how much pesky things like market volatility, wealth inequality, income stagnation, unemployment, and bankruptcies due to health insurance have tracked in America through the years. The response that we cannot try to fix these things, because to do so would be either a) impossible or b) some form of Socialism™, is an opinion based on faith or ideology, not reality. If, in the past, many of these metrics were better, then it stands to reason that they could get better once again. It obviously wasn't impossible to have incomes for the working and professional classes grow - that happened, once upon a time. It also wasn't anti-capitalist in any meaningful sense for there to have been government works projects, financial regulations, and programs meant to protect citizens, unless we redefine "capitalism" to mean "Rothbardian anarcho-capitalism" and we redefine "socialism" to mean "any time the government does anything of importance."
posted by Sticherbeast at 10:38 AM on October 19, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by Sticherbeast at 10:38 AM on October 19, 2011 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: "Scarcity -- the fact that there aren't enough resources to give everyone what they want."
Scarcity exists, however some degree of scarcity in the US appears to be manufactured in that we have mastered food production to the degree that reasonably we could ensure food access to everyone. Also scarcity regarding housing-- when there are houses/apartments that are empty-- it is not actually a matter of the housing not existing but of some people not being able to pay for the housing.
I've read the first chapter of basic economics texts and I also got that while economics is based in the principle of scarcity, government is based in protecting the haves from the have nots. The reality of how these principles intersect involves the basic truth of scarcity but the reason that some people are artificially paid exponential tinier wages for their labor is much more complicated then that principle alone.
We have the idea that conditions for the minimum wage employee need to be bad enough that it will stimulate motivation to work up. Some degree of allowing these conditions to be "bad" in comparison to the pay scale of other professions is a simple matter of market economies, but some degree is artificially contrived by the notion that standards of living and pay are not goals for all employees because some employees are not as worthy of such standards as others.
I thanks for you thoughts John Cohen, because I'm a fan of multiple perspectives on any given issue. Thanks to everyone who'se responded, there's a lot of reading and interpereting to do on the OWS movement itself, but of course really solving all of these issues is rather huge and complex.
posted by xarnop at 10:43 AM on October 19, 2011
Scarcity exists, however some degree of scarcity in the US appears to be manufactured in that we have mastered food production to the degree that reasonably we could ensure food access to everyone. Also scarcity regarding housing-- when there are houses/apartments that are empty-- it is not actually a matter of the housing not existing but of some people not being able to pay for the housing.
I've read the first chapter of basic economics texts and I also got that while economics is based in the principle of scarcity, government is based in protecting the haves from the have nots. The reality of how these principles intersect involves the basic truth of scarcity but the reason that some people are artificially paid exponential tinier wages for their labor is much more complicated then that principle alone.
We have the idea that conditions for the minimum wage employee need to be bad enough that it will stimulate motivation to work up. Some degree of allowing these conditions to be "bad" in comparison to the pay scale of other professions is a simple matter of market economies, but some degree is artificially contrived by the notion that standards of living and pay are not goals for all employees because some employees are not as worthy of such standards as others.
I thanks for you thoughts John Cohen, because I'm a fan of multiple perspectives on any given issue. Thanks to everyone who'se responded, there's a lot of reading and interpereting to do on the OWS movement itself, but of course really solving all of these issues is rather huge and complex.
posted by xarnop at 10:43 AM on October 19, 2011
Response by poster: "there's a lot of reading and interpereting to do on the OWS movement itself"
meant *for me* to do.
posted by xarnop at 10:45 AM on October 19, 2011
meant *for me* to do.
posted by xarnop at 10:45 AM on October 19, 2011
It bears mentioning that Thomas Sowell (recommended by John Cohen) may be a well-educated and articulate economist, but is also far from an unbiased source of economic "facts." He is strongly conservative and a staunch libertarian, which as far as I am concerned, means that he is just as divorced from reality as those he aims to discredit. Not to mention that he compared Obama to Hitler; regardless of your political views, that should give you pause.
posted by Chris4d at 10:48 AM on October 19, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by Chris4d at 10:48 AM on October 19, 2011 [1 favorite]
The idea that people who work just as hard or harder than anyone -- whether that's programming or flipping burgers, honestly, and anything in between -- should be able to afford to pay rent and buy groceries seems to be a radical one at the moment. Anyone working 40 hours a week should be able to support themselves in this country, but the way it is now, there are people who work three jobs and still can't keep their head above water. "Minimum wage" and tip-supported jobs are an outrage.
That seems like the basic impetus for Occupy Wall Street -- the specific issues (criminal behavior by financial institutions, crippling student debt, unemployment/underemployment) are all the icing on that crap cake.
posted by fiercecupcake at 10:48 AM on October 19, 2011 [4 favorites]
That seems like the basic impetus for Occupy Wall Street -- the specific issues (criminal behavior by financial institutions, crippling student debt, unemployment/underemployment) are all the icing on that crap cake.
posted by fiercecupcake at 10:48 AM on October 19, 2011 [4 favorites]
First i think i should point out that Occupy Wall street is not Occupy "Wall Street" or Banks or American for that matter. There are offshoot protests for Occupy Seoul, Greece you name it.
Proof ( Big picture archive)
The protests I think largely are a protest from economic fallout from the 2008 financial crisis and the resulting global financial hit. Since protests more often take organization, planning etc and not a spontaneous outburst of people marching on streets.( look at arab spring example).
But now it has come to encompass a large variety of issues which people are not happy about which decreases the effectiveness of a people united under a single cause.
posted by radsqd at 11:10 AM on October 19, 2011
Proof ( Big picture archive)
The protests I think largely are a protest from economic fallout from the 2008 financial crisis and the resulting global financial hit. Since protests more often take organization, planning etc and not a spontaneous outburst of people marching on streets.( look at arab spring example).
But now it has come to encompass a large variety of issues which people are not happy about which decreases the effectiveness of a people united under a single cause.
posted by radsqd at 11:10 AM on October 19, 2011
Mod note: Folks, please stick to the question being asked, answer the OPs question and do not start a side debate about OWS generally. Thank you.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 3:18 PM on October 19, 2011
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 3:18 PM on October 19, 2011
By my lights, the main concerns of the Ocupados are wealth inequality and the resultant inequality of political power.
The richest 1% control a quarter of the nation's wealth.
The richest 400 Americans control more wealth than the bottom 50%.
Nearly 100% of income growth in the last three decades went to the richest 10%.
These extreme disparities, which have exploded since the Reagan era, have resulted in a world where the vast majority of Americans are working harder for less money. Where political leaders and their media allies openly argue for raising taxes on the poor while slashing them massively for the rich when taxes on the rich are already at their lowest levels since the Great Depression.. And then using the resulting budget shortfalls as an excuse to dismantle programs that safeguard and enrich regular people or restrict the powerful, from healthcare reform and the post office to environmental regulations and public radio.
In short, the wealthy are so wealthy that they are disconnected from the concerns of the 99%, and see no problem with gutting the public sector that they personally derive no benefit from. Such a thing would never fly in the United States of fifty years ago, but the wealthy are so wealthy that they are able to buy off the political class and pay for a media complex that distorts and obscures what's really going on.
Every other concern of the protestors is rooted in this central problem of the extraordinarily wealthy using their extraordinary wealth to bend economics and politics to their benefit at the expense of everyone else.
posted by Rhaomi at 4:18 PM on October 19, 2011 [3 favorites]
The richest 1% control a quarter of the nation's wealth.
The richest 400 Americans control more wealth than the bottom 50%.
Nearly 100% of income growth in the last three decades went to the richest 10%.
These extreme disparities, which have exploded since the Reagan era, have resulted in a world where the vast majority of Americans are working harder for less money. Where political leaders and their media allies openly argue for raising taxes on the poor while slashing them massively for the rich when taxes on the rich are already at their lowest levels since the Great Depression.. And then using the resulting budget shortfalls as an excuse to dismantle programs that safeguard and enrich regular people or restrict the powerful, from healthcare reform and the post office to environmental regulations and public radio.
In short, the wealthy are so wealthy that they are disconnected from the concerns of the 99%, and see no problem with gutting the public sector that they personally derive no benefit from. Such a thing would never fly in the United States of fifty years ago, but the wealthy are so wealthy that they are able to buy off the political class and pay for a media complex that distorts and obscures what's really going on.
Every other concern of the protestors is rooted in this central problem of the extraordinarily wealthy using their extraordinary wealth to bend economics and politics to their benefit at the expense of everyone else.
posted by Rhaomi at 4:18 PM on October 19, 2011 [3 favorites]
I don't know who wrote this or how "official" it is, but here's the "99 Percent Declaration" that outlines a list of demands.
posted by desjardins at 5:42 PM on October 19, 2011
posted by desjardins at 5:42 PM on October 19, 2011
I don't know who wrote this or how "official" it is, but here's the "99 Percent Declaration" that outlines a list of demands.
Just a caveat for this document-- it's a proposed declaration from a working group. I was at the GA this past Saturday where they announced it, but (even after asking around) I couldn't get my hands on a copy (hard or digital) until the HuffPo somehow got its hands on it and it went viral. It's by no means a finished or even consensus-based document.
posted by oinopaponton at 5:53 PM on October 19, 2011
Just a caveat for this document-- it's a proposed declaration from a working group. I was at the GA this past Saturday where they announced it, but (even after asking around) I couldn't get my hands on a copy (hard or digital) until the HuffPo somehow got its hands on it and it went viral. It's by no means a finished or even consensus-based document.
posted by oinopaponton at 5:53 PM on October 19, 2011
(Which is not to say that there aren't some good, well-stated ideas in there)
posted by oinopaponton at 5:54 PM on October 19, 2011
posted by oinopaponton at 5:54 PM on October 19, 2011
This thread is closed to new comments.
That said, what you're describing is not at all what I understand to be the OWS goal, inasmuch as you can pinpoint one (I've been to several events and General Assembly meetings, but am by no means in charge of anything). What most people agree on is that the financial sector is influencing the rest of the country in a way it should not, especially in terms of influencing politics through campaign donations and lobbyists. Most OWS protesters agree that an unregulated financial sector is crippling the rest of the economy by refusing to lend to small businesses, by pushing for legislation that benefits only the richest companies, and by actively cutting jobs.
posted by oinopaponton at 9:26 AM on October 19, 2011 [15 favorites]