Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
The Globalization of Protest
NEW YORK – The protest movement that began in Tunisia in January, subsequently spreading to Egypt, and then to Spain, has now become global, with the protests engulfing Wall Street and cities across America. Globalization and modern technology now enables social movements to transcend borders as rapidly as ideas can. And social protest has found fertile ground everywhere: a sense that the “system” has failed, and the conviction that even in a democracy, the electoral process will not set things right – at least not without strong pressure from the street.
In May, I went to the site of the Tunisian protests; in July, I talked to Spain’s indignados; from there, I went to meet the young Egyptian revolutionaries in Cairo’s Tahrir Square; and, a few weeks ago, I talked with Occupy Wall Street protesters in New York. There is a common theme, expressed by the OWS movement in a simple phrase: “We are the 99%.”
That slogan echoes the title of an article that I recently published, entitled “Of the 1%, for the 1%, and by the 1%,” describing the enormous increase in inequality in the United States: 1% of the population controls more than 40% of the wealth and receives more than 20% of the income. And those in this rarefied stratum often are rewarded so richly not because they have contributed more to society – bonuses and bailouts neatly gutted that justification for inequality – but because they are, to put it bluntly, successful (and sometimes corrupt) rent-seekers.
This is not to deny that some of the 1% have contributed a great deal. Indeed, the social benefits of many real innovations (as opposed to the novel financial “products” that ended up unleashing havoc on the world economy) typically far exceed what their innovators receive.
But, around the world, political influence and anti-competitive practices (often sustained through politics) have been central to the increase in economic inequality. And tax systems in which a billionaire like Warren Buffett pays less tax (as a percentage of his income) than his secretary, or in which speculators, who helped to bring down the global economy, are taxed at lower rates than those who work for their income, have reinforced the trend.
Research in recent years has shown how important and ingrained notions of fairness are. Spain’s protesters, and those in other countries, are right to be indignant: here is a system in which the bankers got bailed out, while those whom they preyed upon have been left to fend for themselves. Worse, the bankers are now back at their desks, earning bonuses that amount to more than most workers hope to earn in a lifetime, while young people who studied hard and played by the rules see no prospects for fulfilling employment.
The rise in inequality is the product of a vicious spiral: the rich rent-seekers use their wealth to shape legislation in order to protect and increase their wealth – and their influence. The US Supreme Court, in its notorious Citizens United decision, has given corporations free rein to use their money to influence the direction of politics. But, while the wealthy can use their money to amplify their views, back on the street, police wouldn’t allow me to address the OWS protesters through a megaphone.
The contrast between overregulated democracy and unregulated bankers did not go unnoticed. But the protesters are ingenious: they echoed what I said through the crowd, so that all could hear. And, to avoid interrupting the “dialogue” by clapping, they used forceful hand signals to express their agreement.
They are right that something is wrong about our “system.” Around the world, we have underutilized resources – people who want to work, machines that lie idle, buildings that are empty – and huge unmet needs: fighting poverty, promoting development, and retrofitting the economy for global warming, to name just a few. In America, after more than seven million home foreclosures in recent years, we have empty homes and homeless people.
The protesters have been criticized for not having an agenda. But this misses the point of protest movements. They are an expression of frustration with the electoral process. They are an alarm.
The anti-globalization protests in Seattle in 1999, at what was supposed to be the inauguration of a new round of trade talks, called attention to the failures of globalization and the international institutions and agreements that govern it. When the press looked into the protesters’ allegations, they found that there was more than a grain of truth in them. The trade negotiations that followed were different – at least in principle, they were supposed to be a development round, to make up for some of the deficiencies highlighted by protesters – and the International Monetary Fund subsequently undertook significant reforms.
Protesters believe that capitalism as an economic system has failed the 99%. (Gallo/Getty)
So, too, in the US, the civil-rights protesters of the 1960’s called attention to pervasive institutionalized racism in American society. That legacy has not yet been overcome, but the election of President Barack Obama shows how far those protests moved America.
On one level, today’s protesters are asking for little: a chance to use their skills, the right to decent work at decent pay, a fairer economy and society. Their hope is evolutionary, not revolutionary. But, on another level, they are asking for a great deal: a democracy where people, not dollars, matter, and a market economy that delivers on what it is supposed to do.
The two are related: as we have seen, unfettered markets lead to economic and political crises. Markets work the way they should only when they operate within a framework of appropriate government regulations; and that framework can be erected only in a democracy that reflects the general interest – not the interests of the 1%. The best government that money can buy is no longer good enough.
- Posted in
19 Comments so far
Show AllUsually I refer to the rentiers as beak-wetters (remembering Don Fanucci). It is the myth of capitalism that such allegorical beak-wetters cause water to flow.
Stigletz , journalists and pundits are perpetuating the myth that Obama's 2008 election was enhanced by the civil rights movement.
Rewind to September 2008 when McCain declared the Iraq surge a success, Obama failing to respond to that claim, followed by polls showing McCain surging ahead of Obama, a surge that would have put McCain in the White House if not for the global financial meltdown that started in late September 2008, thereby assuring that the party in power would lose and whoever was on the Democratic Party ticket would win unless they went out of their way to lose.
The only reason Obama won was because the meltdown occurred in September rather than December.
"The only reason Obama won was because the meltdown occurred in September rather than December."
This only emphasizes just how odd it was that Paulson and Bernanke decided to let Lehman fail in September, ahead of the election. They had to know there were large risks in that. What does that imply? That's not clear ...
At the time (perhaps in an opinion column on Bloomberg.com), I recall reading that the U.S. had no choice in that decision, that Japan had called the Lehman shots. Unfortunately, I do not recall the details of just why Japan would be calling the shots there. But maybe a Web search along these lines would give you your answer.
Keen insights Ray; I think that's pretty close to what really happened. Bush and Paulison, with the help of Bernache blew up the Fed Bank on their way out, making a deal with Obomber, who used to work for the CIA's bank: Bank of International Commerce, which was caught money laundering drug money in Iran Contra, not to investigate and keep the war going for ever.
I mean for Christ's sake: the Walker side of GWB's family and the Bush side of GWB's family both got investigated by the Congress for "trading with the enemy" for building up the Nazi War machine, even after the war started. So, Robbing a bank like Neil Bush did at Siverado and Lincoln Savings and Loan in the early 90's was nothing compared to the crimes of their Grandfathers. Once Goldman Sachs's Paulison (Sole Guardian of the US Treasury) killed Lehman Brothers, the Bankster gang of 2008 had no more use for McSame at that point, so after he kept stumping "the economy is fine" they let him be the Fall Guy.
Now, all of a sudden, when the people have finally figured all this out, all the gatekeepers of the Economic Castle want to climb on and steer the Occupy Movement, play a race card against it, and tell us what it really means (while hawking a worthless book at us.)
Just don't trust anyone from the silver-spooned Ivy-League think tanks and we ought to do alright. Harvard, Columbia and Yale, etc... Maybe Hedges a little bit, but that's it. A Leaderless movement can't be corrupted.
That's what I think, anyway.
TJ
I like Stiglitz a lot. However I don't think he gets the intellectual foundation of the Occupy Movement. This is much more than an expression of frustration. It is the beginning of a revolution.
The Internet facilitates these global revolutions. It is what the oligarchy is targeting.
the Internet should be the starting gun for the Global Start Date on September 22, 2012...
A Senate vote on net neutrality could come as soon as Nov. 9th.
Stiglitz, you waited too long. The train is gone and with it a belief in capitalism.
My thought exactly. We (or a lot of us) don't want a market economy. And we certainly don't want to hear anymore politicians or economists talking about "growing' the economy. We want a sustainable economy; probably small, local, and worker owned in some form of cooperative. That's the only system that has any chance of saving both the "economy" and the planet.
When you "protested" against the IMF it was with a soft landing at Columbia University. When you explained how the distribution of finance was disproportionate to any sense of economic justice, you received royalties. There is certainly a decency and a real sense of integrity about you Prof. Stiglitz. But there is an inherent compromise as well.
Why is that the criminal critique remains largely unspoken? How can economic terminology, with its narrow parochialism and bounded rationality continue to posture itself as neutral? When will you speak for the people instead of talking to the people? Maybe the protest in America really started in Ohio. Maybe the protest in the global spectrum really started with your own resignation from the IMF. It really isn't the point. The point is that a fiat economy can only run on a paper tyranny for so long before it collapses into real politico-military tyranny...and you know that. You may have validated something, but you really don't know what it is...but we had better get this right the first time. One can ride the ivy league soup kitchen, or begin to give us better analysis of the cause and effects of legitimation economics and the political gravy train it services.
It is easy to speak about the protest. but are you ready to be accountable to it as well from the street level outside of the Ivy League? Can you take criticism objectively?
...(correction): your own resignation from the IMF.
Aside from your public critique of the IMF , the correct position that you "vacated" was the World Bank. The point is that it was a result of a strong critique and well within the range of the "everyday" citizen in the street today...a "protest" that had the gravity of position. There was controversy, but it was and to some degree still is...in house dissent. The question remains: ultimately you remain an apologist for the system and entrenched in the system as a loyalist to the megalomania as norm.
Hello, Mr. Stiglitz, please check out freedomfriends.com. It's only a concept site right now, but with a little help we could integrate it deeply with the Facebook Social Graph and make it the Meeting Place in cyber space for "friend-to-friend globalization." Give us a try!
Joe, you're going to have to pedal harder to stay ahead of this evolution...
http://rwer.wordpress.com/2011/11/07/toxic-textbooks-part-i-%e2%80%93-mankiw%e2%80%99s-neo-platonism-is-anti-science/
"No discipline has ever experienced systemic failure on the scale that economics has today. Its fall from grace has been two-dimensional. One, economists oversaw, directly and through the prevalence of their ideas, the structuring of the global economy that has now collapsed. Two, except for a few outcasts, economists failed to see, even before the general public saw, the coming of the biggest economic meltdown of all time. Never has a profession betrayed the trust of society so acutely, never has one been in such desperate need of a fundamental remake."
FROM:
Toxic Textbooks: Part I – Mankiw’s Neo-Platonism is anti-science
November 7, 2011 Edward Fullbrook
from Edward Fullbrook
http://rwer.wordpress.com/2011/11/07/toxic-textbooks-part-i-%e2%80%93-mankiw%e2%80%99s-neo-platonism-is-anti-science/
Corporation, noun. "An ingenious device for obtaining profit without individual responsibility." ~Ambrose Bierce 1842-1914
@ Joseph E. Stiglitz:
.
The monetary grid moves currencies in bulk and coordinates a progression as well as a form of money laundering by assessing it in percentages rather than real changes. Up until the bailouts a billion dollars seemed like a great deal of money. Now we speak of trillions as the playing field in question. When money moves along discrete and specialized markets it is completely out of reach from the public and perhaps should be considered separate realities. As nested and vested interests work the status quo of hierarchical control, another influence invades based upon capturing not only a share of that free floating finance but also to capture the positions that command controlling decisions. The idea that there is only one breed of money managers working a business market is not just wrong, it is misinformation at the very least. The speculators have managed to outmaneuver the real asset money because they are, much like short sellers, at a total advantage over the real economy. The transgression of supply side is that it moved monetary control out of the hands of commerce and production into the hands of swindlers in finance. In Globalization and its Discontents, you noted in the opening pages of the preface that you witnessed "firsthand" the devastation that these progressive exploits had on developing countries. You must know darn well that this is precisely the same mechanism that is having a similar devastating effect upon our own domestic infrastructure and general economy. The process makes a few people very wealthy and does not return any true proportions into anything that sustains the foundations it is exploiting. Lets get real together. The Economic mumbo jumbo applies to a very narrow bounded rationality on a teleological grid. Explanations become tautologies in a rigged grid of proportionate coordinates. Externalities are not included as is ecological concerns or real people. In the bottom line inventory they are collateral damage and the corporate focus is not only justified but considered mandatory. As the myth of a single market field theory is preset and propagated, hierarchical tree blind markets become service industries to predator specialists in a floating broker/client relationship that is outside of any common ground interest of social integration. Markets are created and destroyed and the multiplex of markets become a battle field of competitive exclusion. Predator service market managers seat themselves in a socially nested hierarchy of connections and class specific markets now become a Socio-economic Darwinism as it seeks advantage in the political arena through every spectrum of enlistment practice it can muster. Once these political finance markets become regimes of their own they network for collateral survival and, not rent seeking, but power control seeking that has only a survival instinct as its guide. Path dependencies intermesh and the rest becomes normative realism among the rationed elite who share an unstable hold on the power grid under their control. Predator service markets emerge to sustain the growth and whole countries now go down as their representatives sell out their countries real assets to fuel this inferno.
if I am wrong than this can be dismissed as just another posting from an irate citizen. If I am right, than the "epiphany" you say you had through empirical observations from the vantage point of the World Bank raises the question: Why have you not warned us directly that the very economy is being sacked...and why do you continue the pretense of it just needing a correction. It can't be fixed. It is running as designed. It must be dismantled and completely reconstructed and there are economists in this country had better clear their throats and voice the truth. The economy is not broken...it is simply a mass killing machine and has come home to roost!
"The US Supreme Court, in its notorious Citizens United decision, has given corporations free rein to use their money to influence the direction of politics. But, while the wealthy can use their money to amplify their views, back on the street, police wouldn’t allow me to address the OWS protesters through a megaphone."
...................Our U.S. Supreme Court only defends the voices of big money interests. To allow the voices of "The People" to be amplified would compete with the vested, powerful elites whose ultimate goal is to control everyone and everything; the very same "intellectual and moral midgets who think that the world ends if their particular plans for the world are scrapped".
...................Eternal debt-serfdom with the majority living in poverty is not going to prevail in this country. There will be total chaos if these idiots believe otherwise.