Christine Neulieb on Wall Street’s new occupants
Commonweal‘s editorial assistant, Christine Neulieb, recently went downtown to see what all the fuss is about. Is Occupy Wall Street really the beginning of a new political movement, an ephemeral sign of a lasting discontent, or Woodstock without the music? The answer seems to be: hopefully, possibly (alas), and no — despite the incense, the sleeping bags, and the relaxed hygiene. Christine writes:
In the past, major protest movements have arisen to counter obvious, visible injustices: institutionalized racism sparked the civil rights movement; the horror of unjust war sparked Vietnam-era demonstrations. Occupy Wall Street has arisen in response to, among other things, a Supreme Court decision regarding a complicated point of campaign finance policy. It’s not the sort of thing one would expect a mob of scruffy youth to understand, let alone be outraged by. Yet they are. In fact it seems to be one of the things that outrages them the most. Many of the signs I saw during Wednesday’s march addressed this issue: “Corporation$ Are Not People!”; “Money talks too much!”; “I’m not allowed to use a blow horn… Why are the corporations protected under the First Amendment & not me?” The protesters have come together because they think strength in numbers and nonviolent civil disobedience is the only way to get their message heard—they don’t have deep coffers to pay for lobbying on Capitol Hill and time on the airwaves. I find it hard to disagree.
You can read the rest here.
For the Tea Party it sort of happened in the right place at the right time, and the right people and organizations came along to encourage and nurture it and leverage it politically – i.e. the stars aligned. It’s yet to be be seen whether the fates will smile on whatever the Occupy Wall Street movement is. It’s a very, very long way from becoming a potent political force. But maybe it doesn’t want to be, or shouldn’t be?
Progressives already have at least one genuine grass-roots movement that has developed itself into a potent and feared political force. It’s called MoveOn.org. Probably, the raise-the-grassrootes-money-and-get-out-the-votes organization that the Obama campaign built in 2007-8, and which the 2012 campaign edition presumably is poised to resurrect, is another instance of this. Whatever this Occupy Wall Street movement is, it won’t exist in a progressive vacuum. How does it position itself against these other, more-established organizations?
The 99% vs the 1% is very simplistic way to look at the problems of our current system and allows for some handy scapegoating necessary in any “cultural revolution.”
In any case, let’s watch these “freethinkers” in action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QZlp3eGMNI
Street protests are reserved for a particularly thick-skinned and arrogant sort of true believer.
And, sure, it helps if you glory in smelling bad.
My wife and I were in Philadelphia this past weekend visiting one of our children, and we took a walk into Center City, where the “Occupy Philadelphia” demonstration has been taking place outside the city hall. I was impressed with how polite the demonstrators were and how they were willing to discuss issues, including opposing views, in a thoughtful manner. It was difficult putting a finger on exactly what is being protested, but I think Christine Neulieb sums it up best with her “plutocracy” assessment of the Occupy Wall Street demonstration. While the Philadelphia demonstrators did not appear to have a set agenda, my wife and I certainly got the sense that they were open to many points of view and genuinely happy to discover that there are others like them who have a real if sometimes inexpressible discontent with the economic and political conditions in the U.S. Whether the Occupy movement can morph into something more substantial is still an open question, however.
“The 99% vs the 1% is very simplistic way to look at the problems of our current system and allows for some handy scapegoating necessary in any ‘cultural revolution.’”
If by “simplistic” you just mean “incomplete,” then no one will disagree with you, least of all the protesters. But if you mean it’s simplistic to express concern about the share of national wealth and income that goes to the top 1 percent, please explain why those figures aren’t as bad as they look. What’s truly simplistic is to assume, as most conservatives do, that whatever’s good for the top 1 percent is also good for all of the other 99 percent. The rising-tide-lifts-all-boats school of thought has been discredited as economic theory and now lives on only as incorrigible ideology.
“What’s truly simplistic is to assume, as most conservatives do, that whatever’s good for the top 1 percent is also good for all of the other 99 percent.”
I certainly don’t believe this; there are many Catholic conservatives that are of the “crunchy” variety – localism, subsidiarity, building resilient communities etc. etc.
I do not believe that our current concentration of capital is a good thing; however, many of these so called “radicals” are as much a part of the problem as the hedge fund managers they vilifiy.
Both believe in the destruction of limits of place and tradition in the name of freedom — one (the banker) simply believes in economic individualism and the other (the adbusters radical) in moral/sexual individualism.
It is a distinction without a difference.
David Smith,
I, too, dislike crowds. One of my favorite poems is Les Murray’s three-liner: “Where two or three / are gathered together, that / is about enough.” But such dislike is really not the basis for sound political critique. Martin Luther King was also what you would disparagingly call a street prostester, and he, too, was a true believer. Many at the time, including some in the Kennedy White House, thought he was arrogant. If you’re going to take the young folks participating in Occupy Wall Street to task, you’ll have to do better than saying, “You stink.”
No, Brett, it is not a distinction without a difference, though it may be two sides of the same coin. You’re simply tossing sloppy anathemas from the fastness of your contempt. If the “problem” to which you refer is the “current concentration of capital” you mention earlier in that same sentence, how are those kids down in Zuccotti Park as responsible for it as the hedge-fund managers? Go back to your first-edition Belloc and leave those of us condemned to live in the twenty-first century to try to find common ground with people who are just plain crunchy.
Ha! The contributors at Commonweal are all very temperamental aren’t they?
I am saying that they are both (the banker and the radical anonyous/adbusters type) hyper-individualists — do you disagree?
The “kids” may not be responsible but they have an attitude that contributes to centralization of power that they detest. To understand this all you need to do is look at their solution: they are calling for the centralized power in Washington to deal with centralized capital! Like that will work…they do not want limits on human behavior and desire any more than the capitalists they detest.
PS – you show your own ignorance about Belloc and conservative thought; no one is calling for a return to the past, just simple reduction in the hyper-individualism of the liberals and hedgefund managers. Wendal Berry and localism is a perfect example – but you don’t want a solution with limits – you seem to want to scapegoat those against your ideology.
http://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2011/07/community-and-liberty-or-individualism-and-statism/
Here is a professor from Georgetown to enlighten you on the issue.
I think it was a Kennedy who coined the phrase about a rising tide lifting all boats, so not sure when it’s suddenly what “most conservatives” simplistically think. Mitt Romney doesn’t seem to think that based on what he said last night:
“And so if I’m going to use precious dollars to reduce taxes, I want to focus on where the people are hurting the most, and that’s the middle class. I’m not worried about rich people. They are doing just fine. The very poor have a safety net, they’re taken care of. But the people in the middle, the hard-working Americans, are the people who need a break, and that is why I focused my tax cut right there.”
The biggest criticism I have of the 99% vs. 1% breakdown is that it ignores the complexity of the problems that have created the large income disparity we’re now beginning to encounter, and forecloses any meaningful solutions to those problems. The 99% includes most of the bankers and traders on Wall Street, CEOs of corporations, not to mention upper middle class professionals like the lawyers and accountants (and univesrity professors and NYT editorial writers), and politcians (well except for those like Nancy Pelosi who are married to investment bankers) who are essential for liberal markets to function. And of course many of those upper middle class professionals disproportionately benefit from tax deductions and policies adopted by both Republicans and Democrats that are driving many of the fiscal problems we are facing. Moreover, as David Brooks pointed out yesterday, even if you tax 100% of the income of people who earn over $10,000,000, you only reduce federal debt by 2%. Of course, it also seems ignored by these would-be constitutional scholars that the beleagured unions who are now joining the barricades are also among the beneficiaries of Citizens United; but Big Labor money (collected in most places by state governments directly from workers’ checks) is, I guess, holy money, not like the evil money of banks and corporations. So I suppose what’s “truly simplistic” is in the eye of the beholder.
Brett:
Yes, Wendell Berry is a perfect example of something very valuable, and you would find many admirers of Berry down at Zuccotti Park if you dug a little deeper than You Tube. (Wonderful, by the way, to see a self-described “crunchy con” building his case against OWS on a few You Tube clips. I’m not sure Mr. Berry would approve.) Do I disagree with your broad claim that both bankers and OWS radicals are “hyper-individualists”? Well, yes, as a matter of fact I do. Hyper-individualists are libertarians, and not all bankers or OWS protesters are libertarians, though some are. Some are any number of things: the folks downtown have many different ideas, not all of them compatible with one another. You’re in no position to speak so confidently about “their” ideology, just as you’re in no position to speak so confidently about mine.
I’ll try not to speak confidently about yours, but from what I can gather from the third paragraph of your last comment, you’re of at least two minds about the wisdom of limits. You fault all non-crunchy-cons for not wanting “limits on human behavior and desire,” but you find it patently absurd that state-imposed limits on the human behavior of derivatives trading and the desire for maximal profit could ever be effective. Sorry, but there’s no logical inconsistency or intellectual hypocrisy in thinking centralized state power can and should be used to correct the excesses of centralized capital. If you dismantle the modern state, modern capitalism won’t simply surrender.
“Sorry, but there’s no logical inconsistency or intellectual hypocrisy in thinking centralized state power can and should be used to correct the excesses of centralized capital.”
It is not effective, Matthew, simply because these two centers of power are so very intertwined. It is D.C. and Wall st. VS main street, so to speak. Even a quick look at Obama’s donors and you see Goldman Sachs at the top and a long line of bankers in line behind them.
In any case, my simple point is that a strong, fair economy does not come from Washington or NYC – it comes from strong communities and strong values and families…and, yes, such things require limits on human desire in both economic and moral/sexual terms.
This may be a generalization, but it is not too far to say that both the modern liberal protester and the investment banker are against such foundations because of the very limits they impose on desire and profit.
It is easy to point blame and demand action, but much harder to get to the real root of these problems which are as much about sociology and religion as they are economics and politics.
Jim P. is in first with, “Tea Party it sort of happened in the right place at the right time, and the right people and organizations ;
Let me do it with less words.. ‘White suburbanites who have income’
PS – I read Adbusters magazine – which started “occupy wall st.” and that is where part of my critique comes from, not just youtube.
“The very poor have a safety net, they’re taken care of. But the people in the middle, the hard-working Americans, are the people who need a break”
C’mon – Mitt didn’t really say that, did he?
I was somewhat amused by the roundtable at the very end of last night’s debate, in which the Republican candidates competed to show who came from the most hardscrabble roots (‘I’m from a single-parent household’, ‘I’m from Paint Creek, TX’, ‘I was “po’” before I was poor’). Mitt unaccountably glossed over that part of it :-)
While I’m on the debate digression, I do believe there was a noteworthy and salutary solidarity, and genuine concern for, the poor by a number of the GOP candidates last night.
I thught the author of the thread was objective and fair.
I thought David’s coment on the stinky crowd was obnoxious and stinky in itself.
Bil colier’s observation also struck as objective.
I find the defense of conservatives here to be tedious.
Brett –
Someday I’d really like to see a thread on those such as the distributionists and Wendell Berry which explains how the extraordinarily complex world we actually live in can be run efficiently using economic principles that reduce the system of production to such simplicities as family farms.
About the possible effects of the Occupiers –
This afternoon I saw a TV add with a lot of old folks in it (I think it was from AARP) which said: “Eliminate WASTE and LOOPHOLES, not our benefits”. (Emphasis mine.) I’ve never seen that complaint — about loopholes — in a political ad until today. (The complaints about waste go back several generations.)
Look out conservative politicians if AARP gets on your case.
I especially liked Catholics United “golden calf”,the false idol parodying that awful Wall Street Bull statue at Bowling Green. It’s nice to see the faith leaders out there now.
By the way, the TV clips I saw yesterday of the New York City Occupiers were quite charming. They weren’t allowed to use bull horns, so they were using the hand signals of the deaf to communicate. They’d all say the same thing at the same time, e.g., Yes! Very pretty, actually.
And there had been no arrests. Not a mob, I’d say. Couldn’t tell from TV if they smelled or not. (Is that what “a mob” means to some people — people who smell bad?)
Raber will be chaperoning (somewhat reluctantly given the weather report) several high school students who want to attend the Occupy Lansing event this weekend.
It has been interesting to listen to Our Young People talk about their various concerns which were, at first, somewhat amorphous, but seem to be coalescing around concerns about parents who have lost jobs and about cuts to their school. What I find heartening is that there is a flurry of activity on the Internet as the kiddies look at the Web pages of their state legislators and begin to be interested in how taxes work.
We plan to make sure everyone showers before we go.
Anne, I am not saying it is a simple thing or a solution for everyone to become farmers; however, we certainly must learn to become more resilient and I completely reject the infantilization that says the world is too complex for us to understand or change and that we must rely on “experts” and “economists to dictate policy on high.
Human problems are not caused by sheer complexity, but by age old sins: hubris and lust and greed etc.
Perhaps we are afraid to open our minds beyond paradigm of top down solutions of government or wall st.? Perhaps we are afraid of getting our hands dirty in physical labor? Or in returning to Christian morality for a community rather than liberal individualism.
Brett –
My problem with the Berry and Belloc people is that they talk AS IF simplicity is the solution. Yes, no doubt simplification of many things would be a great advantage in solving many problem. My favorite example of over-complexification was the increase in the size of colleges (at one time the U. of Maryland had 60,000 students, and some may have more), followed by mammoth high-schools and even grammar schools. They can only alienate. Such settings simply are not conducive to human binding, and therefore not conducive to rational discourse. And I”m sure that there are other examples of over-complex institutions. But simplifying for the sake of simplification will not solve necessarily complex issues.
Obviously, the big question today is the problem of our version of capitalism. Unfortunately, too many people think that if you criticize it you must be a GASP!!!!!! socialist/communist/control freak. What rot!
I don’t know who (if anyone) will invent an adequate econ. system, but I’m quite sure that unless both sides are willing to stop the insults and take some hard-eyed looks at *all* the facts we’re never going to get one. And the assumption that an economic system is a machine (largely a metaphoric assumption, but real to that extent) has got to go. Economic systems are not a machines, not so long as their integral parts include human beings.
right on ;)
We’re never going to get a technical “silver bullet” for this problem — I’d say reducing to a slightly more human scale is a good start (i.e. away from strip malls and big box), along with a hard look at the moral component of economics and human behavior.
The problem is that both sides want “freedom” at all cost – we are looking at the cost of that freedom/connivence/profit right now and the protesters are just as guilty as the rest of us.
Historically, the Rich and the Middle Class have been aligned in a mutually protective union. The rich seriously breached that contract by exporting jobs to gain higher than normal profits. To add insult to injury, more often than not, that tech person who took away a middle class family person’s job is able to enrage the middle class person who calls for help discovering that it takes twenty minutes for her replacement to get her name straight. We might therefore, say that we are in new territory historically. The extraordinary greed might have united the middle class more than any other factor. Labor may get a boost it would have never got before with happy workers.
As far as I can see we are in decidedly different times with Occupy Main St. There is palpable rage in the middle class and this may well be the tip of the iceberg. Let alone this ows movement can be quite effective. Unless some malevolent force plants violence in the midst to discredit the movement and nip it in the bud. Already you see subtle ways to discredit the movement.
I wasn’t trying for sound political ctitique, Matthew – just expressing an aesthetic bias. I’m allergic to people who are into telling other people how to think and live.
A sober view from the Old Left, Dissent Magazine:
“the uprising has many causes, but no cause. Although the movement is making no unified demand, its many components are. Indeed, the only way to keep people together is to avoid specific, shared demands. This gives OWS permanence but also limits its effectiveness.”
http://dissentmagazine.org/atw.php?id=573
And an early survey of the occupiers:
http://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/topic/occupy-wall-street-2011-10/
OWS, for being a non-starter, sure has scared the spit out of politicians, conservatives, and the librul media. Good for the 99.
If you really want to understand what is going on down there ideologically, I suggest reading the mag that started it. http://www.adbusters.org/
“Occupying wall st.” is not a real solution to the problems and anomie of modern civ.
If they “occupied” themselves with Christ now that would be a revolution!
David Smith:
You said, “I’m allergic to people who are into telling other people how to think…”
Me too. Allergic, for example, to people telling me how to think about those who take part in street protests: “Street protests are reserved for a particularly thick-skinned and arrogant sort of true believer.” Simple as that. And, remember who said that? You.
When Bill Collier and his wife went to one of the protests, they should have found – according to you — “thick-skinned…arrogant…true believers.” He says they found something very different:
David, I’m not saying that there was no arrogance at the protests. I’m saying that your sweeping judgment is unfair.
“If they ‘occupied’ themselves with Christ now that would be a revolution!”
Jesus is the reason for the season! God answers knee-mail, not e-mail!
Abe, get a bullhorn and get over there! :-)
From Neulieb’s piece:
“Another near-universal grievance worth mentioning had to do with student-loan debt. This complaint is perhaps easier than the others to criticize. After all, if people chose to borrow money for school that they now cannot repay, that is unfortunate, but it’s their own fault: they signed the paperwork and must live with their decision. But there’s a bit more to this issue than at first meets the eye. A significant number of protesters believe that school officials and lenders used deceptive tactics to get them to go deeply into debt when they were young and vulnerable, and that powerful lenders like Sallie Mae continue to treat them in a predatory manner while their elected representatives look the other way. Over the past fifteen years, student loans have gradually been stripped of even the most basic consumer protections. If a private citizen or business owner makes a bad investment in good faith or even racks up irresponsible credit-card debt, the bankruptcy process affords some opportunity for a fresh start. Student loans are the only noncriminal debt that cannot be discharged in bankruptcy: there is literally no escape.”
Sounds like a genuine injustice to me. If this thing, whatever it is, wants to turn into a real Movement, why don’t they start with this? I agree with Neulieb – this issue is energizing. I’d think a lot of middle-class parents might get on board. Heck, Tea Partiers (at least some of whom have kids in college) mght even get on board for this one. What if this turned out to be something that actually cuts across current political divisions and redefines the landsape?
When I was in college a degree from a public college wasn’t free, but it didn’t cost a great deal. Few if any did. I don’t remember anybody taking out loans, they just worked part-time to make it. So I’m appalled by the amount of money these kids and their families have to borrow.
So what’s different now? Well, professors in my day typically didn’t make as much as a good mechanic or electrician. That has changed, thank God, so those costs have one up. But it is also true that in those days not everyone was expected to get a four-year degree. The system was smaller. It was assumed that there are varying abilities out there and college is for the superior students. Not today. Colleges are expected to educate everyone who comes. Most graduates of any certified high school will be admitted to 4-year colleges regardless of ability. They might not get into their state’s flagship university but they will probably get into some college. Havin to geta 4-year degree is particularly hard on the slower students who have to work plus take out loans. They don’t have time to study the extra hours they desperately need. (This, I think, is a major cause of the deterioration of college standards.) Solution for them: more two- or three-year programs.
But the whole system needs rehauling — and the general population needs to be willing to pay for it. (Same old story — lots of Americans are plain cheap — i.e., willing to let the other guy pay for what benefits them.)
Ann, I agree. My view, admittedly seen through the prism of the State of Illinois, is that the states are in such poor financial shape that moving more state support into secondary education means taking it from somewhere else, and a whole host of interests would line up against the move.