Occupy and Negative Externalities

 “Hold corporations accountable for negative externalities”

                                              - sign at Occupy Toronto protest

 I had no clue what the quote at the top of the page meant or what a negative externality actually was so I was forced to look it up. I didn't really believe there was such a term but I was wrong (as difficult as that is to believe). There are both positive and negative externalties apparently but let's deal with the negative because it is what was quoted. A negative externality is something that costs the producer nothing but which is costly to the general society. It would appear then that this particular Occupy protester was not only economically literate but that he was protesting what he perceives as corporate greed that generates personal wealth at the expense of others. It's an understandable concern although not much of a slogan to stir the troops and get a good chant going down Bay or Wall streets.

Back in the'60s we used less complicated slogans like "Make love not war" and "The whole world is watching". They were easier to pronounce and remember although probably no more effective.

My interest in the Occupy movement is less about what it stands for than it is about what it represents. The global protest has been criticized frequently by media commentators and the intelligentsia for it's lack of central themes, solutions to specific issues and apparent lack of organization and leadership. Those commentators miss the point.

Occupy is something between a mob and a revolution. It might better have been called The Disenfranchised because that is what Occupy is all about.

Occupy is not a collection of union members or anarchists or middle class folks worried about taxation or students worried about being saddled with high debt after graduating. It isn't the homeless or the poor or members of the environmental movement or people who no longer vote because they feel voting has become meaningless. It isn't the tragically curious or those who will show up at anything so that they can claim  they were a part of it. And it isn't the young,  the middle aged or the elderly. Occupy is all of them and much more. It is a wide swath of unrelated parts of society that are connected by the feeling, that our system is broken. Many do not fully understand how or why and even more have no solutions to offer but they're tired of feeling disenfranchised by the privileged few who seem to make the rules for their own benefit.

This doesn't make Occupy illegitimate or a waste of time. In fact, it legitimizes it.

People don't have to have the answers to understand that something is broken or wrong. When our hot water heater stopped working, I had no idea why or how to fix it (although I didn't admit that to my wife). Not knowing what was wrong didn't make me less aware that something wasn't working nor prevent me from doing something to get it fixed. That is what Occupy is about, an attempt to draw attention to a broken system and get those who can do something about it to fix it.

Too many critics of Occupy fail to understand that simple premise.

Nowhere is criticism more strident or more biased than in the mainstream media. Pardon me folks, but your biases, lazy opinions and lack of objective analysis are betraying you.

Too many media colunmists and commentators have been quick to comment on the lack of leadership, the lack of a cohesive messaging and the lack of organization behind Occupy. They use this to justify the position that Occupy is pointless and self-indulgent yammering by the terminally lazy, the unemployed, anarchists, malcontents and the ill-informed. It would be more productive if those same media bypes were to put their opinions aside, quit talking only to each other and get out and down on the street where the people are protesting. They need to quit looking at what is happening the way they look at too much else, as only the issue of the day to be commented on before moving along to the next issue. They need to actually do a little homework and research (byeond talking to each other) to try and place what is happening in a broader context.

As an example, one columnist recently tweeted on Twitter that the modern day Occupy movement was like Occupy Judea might have been in protest of the Romans bringing ordered government, viaducts and indoor plumbing to Jewish society. It was a satrical comment trying to point out how ill conceived the Occupy movement is. It was a clever tweet but terribly misinformed both about ancient Judea and modern-day Occupy.

Along with some infrastructure refinements, the Romans brought tyranny and an approach to government that stifled any form of dissent. The punishment for most infractions was death, usually by crucifixion, a slow and agonizing way to die. After initially allowing religious freedom, Rome declared its emperor divine and moved to enforce that religion on Jews who defended their God and their faith with their lives. Later it was Christians who were thrown to the lions and murdered in the thousands.

A viaduct and indoor plumbing don't actually compensate much for that level of oppression as the people at Masada proved. They died to oppose Roman tyranny, not by acts of violence, but by occupying the mountain fortress of Masada in protest and when all else failed, took their own lives. Every man, woman and child died that day in protest of what a newspaper columnist considered good government. It was good government but only if you were a Roman.

Perhaps the modern-day Occupy movement isn't quite as noble as Masada or quite that committed but it is just as discontent and not without reasons.

Politicians hold elections in which they make promises they don't keep once elected. The intelligentsia then blame the disenfranchised for turning away from the election process rather than those who disenfranchised the electorate with their lack of integrity.

Corporate greed is out of control. According to a recent study released by the New York State Comptroller's Office on the\securities industry, the average salary paid to executives working in the financial sector is more than five times higher than the average salary of all other private sector employees. (thirty years ago it was only a two to one ratio). .

This has caused a widening gap both in terms of social priorities and wealth. Fully 33% of the total wealth of the United States is owned by 1% of the population (In Canada, apparently, the gap is even higher) and it is that 1% who successfully coerce government in their fight to prevent increased bank and securities regulations or higher taxes on the wealthy and the corporations they own. It is this same 1% that receive bailouts for their mismanagment and greed from government and pay themselves obsene bonuses for failing at the same time that government has neither the will nor the ability to come to the aid of citizens losing their jobs and their homes.

It isn't just the poor that feel disenfranchised although there is something wrong with a society that feels it is more important to fund sports teams, unproductive and hugely expensive summits, handouts to special interest groups and ongoing protection of the privileged rather than establish solid programs to end poverty, have fair taxation policies and policies that treat all citizens equally. 

Greed breeds corruption and corruption breeds discontent. When there is enough discontent it breeds anger and anger breeds revolt. Revolt can lead to revolution and while the end result of many revolutions can be positive, they are messy things and don't always end positively. Sometimes they only replace one tyranny with another,.

Occupy is not a revolution and it may fizzle and die out as winter gets closer. Nobody wants to protest in 20 below weather after all (where is global warming when you need it most?) But the seeds of discontent have been sown and taken root and not just in the U.S. and Canada. It has become global. It follows no particular political ideology and we're seeing discontent in democracies and monarchies and dictatorships all around the world. There is a message there that goes far beyond the trivial commentary of many in the mainstream media. It is discontent with the privileged who have run the world like it is theirs alone. It is not a revolution yet but is revolutionary in its fervor and it is connected by the web in a way never seen before.

A well-known and successful Canadian business woman recently tweeted a question on Twitter. She asked if the wealthy had the privilege of being honest. Wrong question. She should have asked if the wealthy have the responsibility to be honest.

The answer is yes and they also have the responsibility for much more but until they realize that, the gap between the haves and the have-nots will continue to widen. It is a strange dichotomy that those who have the most wealth are those who have the least understanding of what a society really is or what is happening in that society.

Occupy may not understand economics or politics but the people who are Occupy understand that young or old, poor or middle class, citizens of a democracy or a tyranny, the world belongs to all of us, not just a privileged few. It was a lesson Marie Antoinette never understood even after it was too late. Like the fellow who recently tweeted that if it came to a shootout between the rich and Occupy, he'd put his money on the rich,  she never understood a simple fact. The mob can be more than just a mob, sometimes it is "the people" and when they are angry enough they always have more power than all the privileged in the world. We can continue to deny it, continue to pretend it isn't true but there have been too many revolutions by the people over the centuries that prove otherwise. We've seen it before and we're seeing it today in Libya, in Yemen, in Egypt and in Occupy.

It is a lesson that many in the so-called 1% and the wannabes, might consider trying to learn, if not to be socially responsible, to at the least, protect their own future self-interest.

© 2011 Maggie's Bear
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