By Seth Richardson
“This thing has to escalate so people see the violence and who is protecting the interests of corporations, said Dwayne Hudson, an Occupy Wall Street protester in Denver, according to the Associated Press story in Friday’s Denver Post.
“It has to be nonviolent, or else it will just end. We won’t get support. That doesn’t mean you can agitate people. But you can’t also be breaking windows and burning,” said OWS protester Bob Norkus in Boston in the same story.
One is a Marxist agitator and one is a useful idiot. I leave it to you to decide which is which, but here’s a little background from Marx himself:
“The abolition of bourgeois [known today as "corporate"] individuality, bourgeois independence, and bourgeois freedom is undoubtedly aimed at… you reproach us with intending to do away with your property. Precisely so; that is just what we intend… The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, … all capital from the bourgeoisie …. Of course… this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois [today, "corporate"] production.” Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto
Protest is an old and honorable right under our system of government. Those who protest “corporate greed” have a right to peaceably assemble and petition their government for redress of grievances. And there are many legitimate grievances that need to be redressed, but they are by and large grievances against the government itself, and specific bad actors in the private sector, not against capitalism generally.
Hudson says that people need to see “who is protecting the interests of corporations,” which is a valid enough demand, but one that doesn’t require violence. It’s society that is protecting the interests of corporations because society, as a whole, and I mean globally, recognizes that corporations are the business form that’s predominately used to create wealth and jobs in a capitalist, free market system. And “corporations” are not, as OWS protesters suggest, some sort of alien being that has infested the planet, they are, in fact, groups of ordinary people banding together in what socialists should laud as a highly democratic form of communal participation.
Corporations are legal entities comprised of shareholders who have voluntarily given “according to their ability” to a collective that is, by law, democratically operated by the shareholders. Corporate law requires that all corporations hold annual meetings at which shareholders may speak and express themselves, and at which they may vote, in person or by proxy, for the Board of Directors who guide the policies of the organization and hire and fire those responsible for the day-to-day operations of creating wealth for the collective.
It’s about as close to Marx’s ideal of the workers “owning the means of production” as you can get, since the shareholders own the corporation and all its assets, collectively.
That some corporations are wildly successful, generating massive wealth and profits for those who own it is a function of capitalism and good business. That successful corporate CEOs make huge salaries is an exercise in highly-socialistic democracy. That shareholders allow such salaries is nothing more than a collective decision to recognize that the purpose of a corporation is not “social justice” it’s to provide to each shareholder in direct proportion to his investment in the company. A successful corporation is not taking anything from anyone that they are not willing to give in return for value exchanged. This includes investors, customers and workers. This is unlike government, particularly socialist government, which inevitably takes from the productive class and gives to the dependent class against the will of those who are being stripped of the fruits of their individual labor.
Both Norkus and Hudson fail to understand that the Marxist dialectical claim that for the wealthy bourgeoisie (corporations and presumably CEOs) to be wealthy, that wealth must be extracted first from the working-class proletarian, and that this is inherently unfair, is utterly false and deceptive. This is what’s known as a “zero-sum fallacy” that claims that there is a limited pool of wealth available, and that the enhancement of one person’s wealth must diminish the wealth of another.
The truth is that wealth, in a capitalist system, is essentially unlimited, and however much wealth one person (like Warren Buffet or George Soros) may have does not negatively affect the ability of anyone else to create wealth of their own, they are in fact limited in their ability to improve their economic and social status only by their own personal limitations and incapacities. And the presence of large corporations, who are enormous consumers of adjunct, support and manufacturing services, actually substantially enhances the opportunity for any individual with a good idea who is willing to work hard to find venture capital investment and create even more wealth.
This is proven by the fact that in the United States, while the rich are indeed getting richer, so are the poor. According to the Macinac Center for Public Policy, citing the Wall Street Journal, “IRS tax return data shows that individuals in the bottom one-fifth back in 1996 experienced income growth of 91 percent by 2005. In contrast, individuals in the highest one-fifth saw their incomes increase just 10 percent over the same period. Incomes of households in the top 5 percent and 1 percent actually declined, by 7 percent and 24 percent, respectively.”
So it’s not that the poor are actually getting poorer, they aren’t. It’s just that the rich are getting richer faster than the poor, and Marxists don’t like this because they think it’s unfair that the rich aren’t being taxed “according to their ability” to absorb the demands for dependent-class support and equality of outcomes that Marxists insist is “fair.” This Marxist canard ignores the fact that it is the rich who provide the companies and the jobs that the poor use to improve their economic status, and that without those corporations, the poor would have no opportunity to share the American dream or prosper.
So when Norkus and Hudson rail against “corporate greed” they are in fact railing against their own inadequacies, incompetence and fears, not any inherent flaw in capitalism. Pogo’s famous declaration “we have met the enemy, and he is us” has never been truer than when applied to the ignorance of OWS protesters, who largely have the leisure to sit in a park somewhere and complain because Mommy and Daddy went about the business of creating wealth for their scion so that they could attend Marxist propaganda-dominated universities and take time off from their studies to protest that which they only dimly understand in an unfocused and ill-defined manner that insults even Karl Marx and the Communists, who at least were open about their intentions and clear in their message.
And they are all useful idiots that the true hard-line Marxists are using as dupes and shills to advance the plan of violent revolutionary overthrow of the United States and capitalism worldwide that has been the agenda of Marxists all along, as Marx himself said.
Fortunately, most hard-working Americans know that capitalism is not to blame for our economic crisis, government overreach and corruption are, and that Marxism and socialism are not viable alternative sociopolitical systems that can, or should replace free-market capitalism. This is why mainstream America is increasingly marginalizing and ignoring the OWS protests and is beginning to insist that if we are going to tolerate the OWS protests, which we certainly should, we should only do so as long as the useful idiots of OWS behave themselves, obey the law, and don’t constitute a public nuisance.
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Just for the “tax the rich” crowd of uninformed groupies such as “Occupy”.http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=JY8LKII_MNA&feature=youtube_gdata_player
My name is Joel Aigner.
I am an Capitalist and an Occupy Supporter.
I am philosophically opposed to Socialism.
In that I include Corporate Socialism.
This isn’t about a hand out.
It’s about an inherently unstable and dishonest fiat currency created out of this air by the Federal Reserve.
It is about $16.1 Trillion in undisclosed (aka secret) Bail Outs by the Federal Reserve to not only American institutions such as BofA, Wells and JP Morgan but to foreign banks such as Royal Bank of Scotland, Deustch Bank, and BNP Paribas.
It’s about Accountability for Moral Hazard and Ethical and Legal Malfeasance. In other words it’s about prosecuting White Collar Criminality.
It may be about prosecuting for treason.
It’s about manufactured wars that only benefit the shareholders of companies like Lockheed and SAIC while sending my fellow countrymen to die and be exposed to depleted uranium.
It’s about a Fractional Reserve Banking System that ensures there WILL ALWAYS BE MORE DEBT THAN CURRENCY, which is unsustainable to say the least.
this is about the erosion of our civil liberities and our Constitution under the guise of “Keeping America Safe”.
I can keep going if you want.
The fact of the matter is that there has been a financial coup de tat in this country that has manifested itself as a political one and the American Citizen, the American Tax Payer has been sold down the river.
I believe if you work hard, work smart, take risks and invest you should be able to reap all that you sow.
I’ve run businesses and hate to pay 6 figure tax liabilities while wondering how many people could I have hired or new projects could I have invested in.
I’m sick of seeing companies go out business because the same banks who got my son’s future tax dollars won’t lend it back to us at interest even so that we can make it through our pay cycles.
So simply put, you can take your ‘Marxist” broad brush and place it in the corner, away from the sun.
If you think OWS/OCS for that matter isn’t addressing issues that affect every American, regardless of polarity on the political spectrum, then I invite you to practice some critical thought and ask yourself this.
“If welfare for single moms is bad, then why is it ok for banks?”
If you don’t believe that is ok for banks to receive welfare, to steal our children’s future tax dollars, while failing the American people than I invite you to make a sign and come down and join us.
Cause believe me, you’ll be among friends.
Don’t even get me started on the derivatives.
Joel
I’m a useful idiot? You’re an irrelevant, pretentious robot. The Occupy Movement must remain non-violent in order to reclaim the American democracy for the 99%. I have the “leisure” to sit around the park because I’ve been unemployed for close to a year, and I occupy not to revive your dead dogma, but to bring real, substantial change to the world. If you don’t agree with the stated principles of the movement, perhaps you and the 0.0001% should go back to the pedantic mutual masturbation you’ve been practicing for the last 50 years. “…and still something’s happening, but you don’t know what it is…do you Mr. Jones.”
I don’t know, are you? Or are you a Marxist?
And yet the Occupy movement is not remaining non-violent, nor is there such a thing as “American democracy” to begin with.
The United States is a Constitutional Republic that utilizes very limited democratic processes, it’s not a democracy, and it never was, and through the determination of patriots and those who understand the evil that is democracy (which is nothing more than the tyranny of the majority, which is what you seem to want), the United States will never be a democracy, but will remain a nation where individual rights and liberties are not subject to the whims and caprices of useful idiots, dependent class proletarians, or Marxists.
As for your employment situation, I’m very sorry you don’t have a job. I understand that there are many jobs available in Alabama right now due to their new immigration regulations.
I suggest you stop sucking at the public teat, pack up your troubles in your old kit bag, and hit the dusty trail for the fields of Alabama…or California, or Florida.
Or are you unwilling to do the work that is available because it’s beneath your dignity and desired pay grade?
Real, substantial change is brought to the world when people accept responsibility for the consequences of their own actions, for their own lives and prosperity, and resolve to work hard to be successful even when it means doing things they don’t want to do without demanding that other people labor for their benefit.
This is something that is lost on the useful idiots of the Occupy movement.
Seth is right, whether you want to admit it or not.
Based on your “math”, I assume you’re version of “equality” is —- everyone gets $40k/year! Everyone drives a black chevette. Everyone lives in the 40×12 trailer. That’s what this country needs!
Naw. I’ll take the capitalist formula please for 200 Alex.
Hoarding what, Zen? Unlimited wealth? And the wealthy do not “hoard” their money, as I said, they circulate it in the economy, both by consuming and by using it to create wealth, which creates jobs, like cleaning pools and mowing lawns…for a negotiated fee. Why a kid who has agreed to mow a lawn for five bucks expects a tip is beyond me. Perhaps it’s a mindset that holds that you are owed something more than what you worked to gain.
Your complaint is one of economic inequality, not repression of economic opportunity, and that is a Marxism-based zero-sum class-warfare argument, which I reject.
Say no to Marxist greed and redistributionism. Say yes to individual responsibility, accountability and the right to enjoy the fruits of one’s own labor without being forced to share it with others who have not labored to improve their economic condition.
First of all, percentages are deceiving. Look at real numbers. A 90% gain on $10,000 is still less than a 10% gain on $100,000. Second of all, it is true that in the Clinton years, and those few years after, the top percentages did lose income & the middle class gained … the first time since 1980. Thank you Bill Clinton for bringing some sensibility back to fiscal policy. Finally, nothing exists out of a vacuum. If there’s class warfare brewing, the hoarders and gluttons have only themselves to blame. They checked out of this United States and made it all about themselves long ago.
Fact is the greatest middle class gains this nation ever saw was in the 1950s when top tier tax rates were approaching 90% and the top .01% (aka the super rich) made approximately 150 times that of the bottom 90% average. Today it’s 900 times.
This is about hoarding, Seth. Period. And if you grew up around that kind of money as I did, you’d understand what that means. No kid wanted to mow the lawns and clean the pools in the rich neighborhoods because they were the worst tippers. The cheapest Halloween candy too. Greed is a psychological dysfunction. Whether you’re hoarding cats or hoarding cash, it’s the same thing.
You defend it on ideological grounds, but you have no idea what you’re talking about. Because to be honest, the people that live in that bubbleland of obscene wealth don’t even know (or care) that you exist. What matters is the stability of this nation, and right now it is so top heavy, the entire edifice threatens to fall over. Say no to the hoarders. Trickle down is a joke.