Tea Party on Wall Street

As a comment on the thread below observes, the Occupy Wall Street protest is interesting to all but particularly relevant to Boalties working in New York. So, here is a thread on the issue. For unrelated reasons it’s a busy day for me so I’ll kick this off with three very unstructured off-the-cuff thoughts and let it run from there.

1. I don’t understand how – political objectives aside – this protest is meaningfully different than the many Tea Party protests of late. Both are forms of populist rage against what the protester feels is a large, coercive, dangerous institution (the government according to one group, and the business/financial world according to the other). For me, this makes the media coverage of the Wall Street event sort of funny to watch: you can put Jon Stewart’s words about the Tea Party directly into Bill O’Rilley’s recent tirade about Occupy Wall Street, and you can put O’Rilley’s laudatory words about the Tea Party directly into Stewart’s commentary on Occupy Wall Street. All of which shows, or should show, that both are agenda-driven hacks (though only one insists he is a legitimate newsman).
   
   2. That quirky aside shouldn’t distract you from the larger themes at work in both protests. Our country is, and always has been, populated by (1) a relatively wealthy and influential, but small, group of people with the power, and (2) a much larger, poorer, and less influential group tasked with the mundane job of keeping the wheels turning, roads paved, shit shoveled, etc. Sometimes the taskees get (justifiably) pissed off, and now more than ever it makes sense to feel that way. It’s hard not to be angry once you realize that we live in a decade when literally millions of people have lost their homes, retirements, and jobs (all of which contribute to a person’s sense of self worth) while the people who are responsible for causing those losses are enjoying unfathomable bonuses and sipping champagne while looking down from balconies upon the masses.
   
   3. The question I can’t answer is why the protesters believe a protest is the best way to approach the issue. How does a protest change or even bear up on the basic framework at issue: that poor working people spend their lives generating value for wealthy banker types to trade for commissions in the stock market, all while the worker-types insure the banker-types’ losses and the banker-types take home the profits? A protest might make people more aware of the issue, but the social problem here is not that people are unaware of the inequity, pain, and suffering caused by the financial collapse. A protest might make people feel like party of a community, but the social problem here is not that it is lonely on the short end of the stick. A protest ties rather nicely into the values and events upon which our country was founded – i.e., free speech and the American Revolution – but I’ve never been a fan of originalist approaches to contemporary problems. A protest might give oppressed, confused, angry people an opportunity to vent their anger and frustration, but I don’t think anger and frustration is the root of the problem. The root of the problem is that the wealthy are doing what the wealthy, as a group, always do: using political and social institutions to protect what they value, which is their money and status. I can’t see how a protest bears upon willingness, or their ability, to do so.

All of which is rather depressing and negative. Sorry about that. But I really do see this as the flavor of the month in a series of high profile, ineffective attempts to use a public shouting match to address our country’s class issues. Hopefully Boalties in New York have a different perspective.