If you’ve read any of my previous op-eds for The Badger Herald, you’ve probably come to the accurate conclusion that I have liberal tendencies. I don’t trust free markets. I believe that labor unions and government regulations do more good than harm. Thus, my ambivalence toward the Occupy Wall Street movement should come as a surprise.
The Occupy Wall Street movement just leaves me wanting more. Granted, I haven’t been to Zuccotti Park or any of the Occupy protests, but I understand that the Occupy Wall Street protesters are angry over the concentration of wealth in the hands of a select few. I identify with that anger. I also like the proponents of Occupy Wall Street. I support labor organizations, like the AFL-CIO, and activists like Michael Moore, the movement’s biggest supporters.
However, I can’t help but feel that Occupy Wall Street’s rhetoric is a bit too simple. One of the first things that I noticed when I logged onto occupywallst.org is this sentence: “The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%.” The whole sentence is filled with assumptions and rhetorical flourishes.
I take issue with the claim that the 99 percent, a term which is inherently problematic, “tolerate[d] the greed and corruption of the 1 percent.” I’d say that the 99 percent actively supported and perpetuated this “greed and corruption.” I don’t want to make mass generalizations about the 99 percent of Americans who aren’t CEOs or investment bankers, but a majority of the 99 percent did elect presidents committed to maintaining the pro-business status quo; Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama.
Also, where were the mass protests when former President George W. Bush cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans, or when Congress repealed the Glass-Steagall Act? It seems when times were good, the 99 percent was happy to have the 1 percent hold the reins of power. Now that things have taken a turn for the worse, the Occupy Wall Street protesters are looking for someone to blame when they should be questioning the choices of America’s vaunted middle class.
What troubles me the most about the Occupy Wall Street movement is its underlying message that “We’re all in it together against ‘the man.'” The problem is we’re not all in it together and many of us are “the man,” even if we don’t run a multinational corporation or have a trust fund. American society is highly stratified, and it was that way long before our current depression (and yes, it is a depression). Yet, while many of us in the middle class were sharing in the wealth, we did not want to address the structural inequalities that left the homeless, the migrant workers, and the custodians barely able to scrape together a living. We wanted low taxes and easy-to-access mortgages.
Perhaps it’s human nature to not question the establishment when we are satisfied with our conditions. However, now that we realize that America can’t continue down this path, we can take responsibility for some of our own corruption and greed. Otherwise, Occupy Wall Street and this depression will come to naught.
Jeff Schultz ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in history.