Occupy Wall Street? Discontent Misdirected

What had once been peaceful demonstrations near the famous home of the New York Stock Exchange turned violent this week. The Occupy Wall Street movement, now in its second week of ongoing protest, had thus far proceeded peacefully until a high-ranking police officer administered pepper spray on an otherwise peaceful group of female protestors.

A bystander captured the entire incident on video and though NYPD officials affirmed the use of pepper spray, they have since launched an investigation into the decision of the officer, since identified as Deputy Inspector Bologna.

The unfolding drama has only heightened the media frenzy surrounding the protest, which is characterized both by its continual presence, located just off of Wall Street in New York’s Zuccotti Park, and the message of its participants.  The eclectic mix of signs includes slogans like, “Wall Street is Our Street,” and “Debt Equals Slavery,” which are only matched in their disjointedness by the random assortment of people who bear them.

While pundits have been quick to ascribe meaning to the message of the protesting occupiers, the greatest trend appears to be genuine discontentedness.  The initiating group, Anonymous, formed the movement to protest the strength and greed of Wall Street banks. The only common denominator among protestors, who run the gamut from tattooed adolescent to unemployed middle-aged father, is the view that the current system is unacceptable and someone is to blame.

Yet who is to blame?  The location of the protest would imply that Wall Street greed is to blame.  But its Wall Street that hires people, and Wall Street that makes possible the lavish spending habits that mired people in debt to begin with.  Condemning the greed of wall street bankers for the debt people have voluntarily accumulated is a clear case of guilt displacement — shifting the blame away from oneself (the spender) and to the facilitator (the lender).

Supporters of the Occupy Wall Street movement have likened their struggle to the Egyptians rioting in Tahrir Square. Again, the natural implication is that Wall Street’s corrupting power has tyrannical sway over the lives of the masses.  But the entire point of capitalism, which the protesters claim to be fighting, is that exchange is voluntary, the opposite of tyranny.  A more congruous analogy would compare these protesters to the Grecian mobs that shut down Athens in recent months.  The Greeks weren’t protesting a lack of freedom, they were protesting austerity in governance and the decrease in government benefits.  While the Occupy Wall Street movement does not completely within this model, the sentiment of the protesters is the same.  They object to the economic truths of the real world when they manifest themselves after years of poor governance.

The picture above is a clear illustration.  The protester’s sign says that if the “War on Poverty” was only a real war, then maybe we’d be spending money on it.  But the truth is, we’ve been fighting the war on poverty since Lyndon B. Johnson coined that phrase in the 60′s.  Over 50 years and an innumerable amount of resources have been consumed by that war, yet poverty remains as intractable as ever.  Despite the lack of success, the war against poverty has played a leading role in the debt accumulation that led to the current malaise.  Economic reality is setting in, and the Occupy Wall Street protesters are a clear sign that the transition won’t be pretty.  Years of social engineering can’t be undone with the stroke of a pen.  But it must be attempted, because the cycle of endless debt can only continue for so long before there is an even greater collapse.