SparrowHawk
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- Nov 30, 2009
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Is Occupy Wall Street Bringing Back “Real” Capitalism?
Modern capitalism, as we know it, is a sick and distorted perversion of its true origins. Since the 1980s, the form of capitalism that has dominated western economies has been one where large corporations and most financial institutions are able to privatize their gains whilst socializing their losses. The recent Occupy Wall Street movement, as such, isn’t so much as a retaliation against capitalism, but rather against its modern incarnation.
Amidst The Clutter Reported In The Media, What Occupy Wall Street Protesters Really Want Is Political And Financial Reform
There may be a good few Maoists, Trotskyists, Anarcho-Syndicalists and even the odd deluded benefit scrounger among them, but it is simply wrong to characterize the Occupy Wall Street protestors who are camping out in 1,500 cities worldwide as wanting to overthrow capitalism, in the same way the sans-culottes toppled France's Ancien Régime in 1789 or that the Tahrir Square protesters toppled Egypt's president Hosni Mubarak.
The movement is more nuanced than that. As I tried to explain in my blog, 'Democracy for sale', what the protesters really want is political and financial reform. They want to replace the corroded crony capitalism that has predominated in the West since the 1980s – as well as the corrupt political and financial system, rigged in favour of the rich and powerful, that underpins it – with a saner version of capitalism and a more inclusive democracy.
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Modern capitalism, as we know it, is a sick and distorted perversion of its true origins. Since the 1980s, the form of capitalism that has dominated western economies has been one where large corporations and most financial institutions are able to privatize their gains whilst socializing their losses. The recent Occupy Wall Street movement, as such, isn’t so much as a retaliation against capitalism, but rather against its modern incarnation.
Amidst The Clutter Reported In The Media, What Occupy Wall Street Protesters Really Want Is Political And Financial Reform
There may be a good few Maoists, Trotskyists, Anarcho-Syndicalists and even the odd deluded benefit scrounger among them, but it is simply wrong to characterize the Occupy Wall Street protestors who are camping out in 1,500 cities worldwide as wanting to overthrow capitalism, in the same way the sans-culottes toppled France's Ancien Régime in 1789 or that the Tahrir Square protesters toppled Egypt's president Hosni Mubarak.
The movement is more nuanced than that. As I tried to explain in my blog, 'Democracy for sale', what the protesters really want is political and financial reform. They want to replace the corroded crony capitalism that has predominated in the West since the 1980s – as well as the corrupt political and financial system, rigged in favour of the rich and powerful, that underpins it – with a saner version of capitalism and a more inclusive democracy.
MORE
