The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > Why the Occupy Wall Street movement hates business > Comments

Why the Occupy Wall Street movement hates business : Comments

By Peter Shergold, published 17/10/2011

Something serious is going on. It was the Harvard Business Review, no less, that earlier this year published an article premised on the prescient view that the 'capitalist system is under siege'.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. All
...Capitalism is “never” under siege. Capitalism is the system most resembling nature and the evolutionary cycle and is the most fundamental and compatible “bed fellow” of humanity.
As nature uses up the vast store of human energy for its own purposes, likewise does Capitalism; we are simply on earth to be “used and to use”, it’s the “Great way”.
Posted by diver dan, Monday, 17 October 2011 7:19:29 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
No we don't hate businesses just corportate excesses.http://www.secretofoz.com/ L Frank Baum In "The Wizard of Oz' had a serious message for us back in the 1890's,but we missed the point.

It is the fractional reserve system of banking that is robbing us all blind.
Posted by Arjay, Monday, 17 October 2011 7:22:39 AM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Capitalism is the best of a bad bunch but it is like any other system, man-made and it can easily be manipulated to its worst excesses or managed well to ensure greater benefits to society and not just for a small minority. Just look to history when Marie Antoinette said eat cake, the punters started throwing it.

It is not about being anti-business but anti-fraud as Arjay has already written.

There is nothing wrong with tweaking a capitalist framework to ensure the benefits of the system are more widely distributed. A social democracy allows the best of Left/Right principles to cohabitate within the mix of personal and individual freedoms, incentives and collective benefits. The other aspect is the idea of continual growth and the effects this has on other aspects of 'living', not all economists buy the perpetual growth paradigm.

I can see these protests already being labelled as the loony Left without deeper thought and analysis. It is a pity as this is part of the problem.
Posted by pelican, Monday, 17 October 2011 7:42:28 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
RJ:

...Try to observe the game as a whole. If I can offer you criticism, it is your fixation on the "batter only" causing your anxiety.

...The greatest impediment to Capitalist evolution, (that is in simple terms, the rich getting richer while the poor grow poorer), is the law of man. One of the greatest impediments to progress was (past-tense) the moral law implanted in religion. God is now well and truly dead in the west, along with his moral codes for life which acted as a break on the consuming progress of Capitalism.

...The moral way has no duty in law and as a consequence has no duty in a society of capitalism; beat your chest all you like, the march of capitalism is moving exponentially towards a conclusion of total domination and will achieve its aim by conquering the influence of morality totally.

...Without the argument of "morality" anything goes. Atheism is the Capitalists lieutenant
Posted by diver dan, Monday, 17 October 2011 8:02:20 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
The "analysis" of this phenomenon will take a while, methinks. In fact, I venture to suggest that it will substantially outlast the events themselves, which are bound to disappear up their own fundamental inconsistencies fairly quickly.

The Porter/Kramer article is a profound and honest piece of work. It takes a very clear-eyed view of the problems that unfettered greed (let's not be lazy, and call it "capitalism", shall we folks?) has created over the past fifty years or so. The knee-jerk reactions to it in the comments at the end of the precis show how much it hit home:

"Shared Value is nothing more than 21st century cheerleading. Good corporate citizenship…blah, blah, blah. Business has only one requirement. That requirement is to make a profit. Business is not in business to save the environment or create jobs."

That has at its heart the essence of capitalist logic, based upon Adam Smith's famous "invisible hand", that is supposed to ensure that the market self-regulates, and all will come out in the wash of our being rational human beings.

What would have surprised Smith, of course, is the manner in which his logic has been perverted to justify obscene amounts of money being paid to executives, despite the fact that these payments bear no relation to performance. And how technology has enabled even more obscene amounts of money to be made from financial transactions that, in and of themselves, create no economic value.

Which is of course the problem with the "movement". It is super-easy to point fingers at the causes of resentment. But without dismantling capitalism itself, the only solution is to address the greed of individuals who work entirely within its financial "rules", but are oblivious to the fact that those rules lack an entire human dimension.

That will take a while. And the time and energy currently being expended in a load of hot air about the demise of capitalism will only entrench resistance, and make the journey longer.
Posted by Pericles, Monday, 17 October 2011 8:31:06 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Dan,
God isn't dead in the West, it's just that the widespread apostasy within church hierarchies is rendering them ineffective as a counterpoint to materialism.
Globalists love universal ideologies, especially the ones with a concept of revelation and debt at their core. There are only two main ideological forces which could operate as agents of global social change, for better or worse, Roman Catholicism and Islam.
Globalists long ago gained control of the Vatican and their "moderate Islam" still totters along, both faiths could play a role in ending debt slavery if they were returned to their true path.
Given that the "south" is now the focus of Christendom it's more than likely that Third World Christians will lead the way in this regard, we're already seeing a schism in global Christianity between the Apostate West and the literal intepretations favoured in Africa, Asia and South America.
Posted by Jay Of Melbourne, Monday, 17 October 2011 9:58:49 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Nice article, but the only "shared value" the kleptocrates don't want to share is the PUBLICLY-GENERATED economic rent. That's the only value we need to share--equally--and that's the value largely stolen by the 1%.

Rudd, Gillard and Swan have discovered that the people of Australia have a rightful interest in the nation's mineral assets, but Australians as a whole haven't also woken to the fact there's $370 billion in our land rent, of which we capture only $32 billion, and the big rent-seekers receive most of the remaining $338 billion.

Michael Porter should just about be waking up to this by now, too.
Posted by freddington, Monday, 17 October 2011 10:04:25 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Come on Diver, you're going a bit over the top mate.

The only morality I have ever been able to find in religion would have bee in the dying last gasps of the christian church. Just possibly that is what killed it. Religion can not be benign, & survive as any mullah could tell you.

The thousands of years of people being ruled by the fear of god, as proscribed by prophets & priesthoods have been far from benign or moral.

Church leaders appear to be on a par with business leaders to me, in their lack of efforts to enhance their subjects lives. Religious organisations in particular being very likely to demand complete obedience & even the sacrifice of their subjects lives in the glory of whatever was the god of the moment. Capitalists on the other hand seem to be quite happy with simply taking peoples wealth, & even give some product in exchange for that wealth.

If morality is the question, I can not find religion anywhere in the answer.
Posted by Hasbeen, Monday, 17 October 2011 10:40:20 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
I think Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi has the right idea:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/my-advice-to-the-occupy-wall-street-protesters-20111012
The larger any organisation is, the more tiers there are and the greater the difference between those at the bottom and those at the top. This only benefits those at the top, so naturally they would like to be 'too big to fail'. This problem isn't only corporate; witness the amalgamation of councils in Qld and resultant pay rises for Mayors and councilors, already the envy of NSW councilors.
What is needed is simply to apply the same rules we accept in society to the marketplace. It's ridiculous that the very behaviour we despise most in society, -bullying, ganging up and egregiously predatory practices- we accept and even applaud in the market.
Stop treating corporations as if they were living individual entities. Stop corporations from owning other corporations, and bring in some genuine anti competition laws.
It's high time we realised Economic diversity is every bit as important -to humans- as Bio diversity.
Posted by Grim, Monday, 17 October 2011 10:49:01 AM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Pericles:

# (let's not be lazy, and call it "capitalism", shall we folks?) #

...The misnomer “unregulated greed has destroyed the Capitalist system” is designed to capture sympathy by the lie it is, you have fallen into the trap.

...You criticise the subordinate, Adam Smith, as deficient in outlook by acknowledging his reference to balance, but a balance there is; with no social conscience when morals are removed, as they are now in the west, equilibrium rests in a void of the moral-less morass of increasing social incohesion; you surely make yourself a target of scorn to be ignored by the same posturing, but then try to redeem your position by imagining his outrage to capitalist greed by lamenting the immorality of executive salaries; but the real point is, capitalism is the antithesis to morals. How can supporters of capitalism stand steadily in two camps, one a boundless horizon of atheism excluding morals (as society has become), and the other with expectations of capitalism conforming to a social conscience built on morality? You simply cannot have it both ways!

...My comment lamenting the decline of religious influence in the West with its steadfast moral direction, so dismantled with unrelenting persistence by the apocalyptical black horse of atheism, and so fearful of a moral renaissance from the pockets of ancient religions still practicing is she, a war machine of unprecedented fury is unleashed from the gunnels of wall street (euphemism for capitalism) against all such, now branded with the mark of the beast as terrorists (God help them).
Posted by diver dan, Monday, 17 October 2011 12:05:00 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
(Cont).,

...Little wonder then, now smoke and gunfire in the streets pitted against capitalist “might”, (the edifice Wall Street has come to symbolise), as Government largess grossly exaggerates their need for salvation, a largess affectively plundered from the lives of little people with unconscionable crushing arrogance of greed and inconsideration, clawing back the very freedoms it masqueraded as reward.

…But alas I must confess, and based upon comparisons to the theory of evolution, grudgingly accept the inevitability of capitalism to remain standing upon the “FIXED” twin cornerstones of greed and market-forces, to the polynomial end of humanity itself. What must be fought for is the return of the moral compass to a society on the verge of cataclysmic change, before the looming attack on social welfare, a moral vestage still remaining, the loss of which will leave us to dwell in a purer capitalist world of “kill or be killed”.
Posted by diver dan, Monday, 17 October 2011 12:05:18 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
We have a $1.8 trillion economy.Our average growth + in flation of 6% increases our money supply by $108 billion pa.We used to have Govt banks that created some of this debt as debt free infrastructure.Now nearly all this money is created as debt.Who should own our increases in productivity? A private group of banks or all those who produced it? Our own RBA can create new money for increases in productivity and reduce our foreign debt.This is the crux of the matter.Kevin Rudd did not have to borrow $40 billion from China for the NBN or stimulus,the RBA could have simply created it in their computers just like the Chinese Govt does.

The more growth we have in the West,the more debt we incur.Our total debt in 1976 was just 3% of GDP,now it is 53% of GDP.Our Govt debt is far less than the USA or most European countries but the Carbon Tax will soon see our economy get much worse since the CO2 tax is designed to destroy production.Hence there will be less tax and Govts will have to borrow more.
Posted by Arjay, Monday, 17 October 2011 12:10:06 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Sorry, diver dan, don't understand a word you wrote.

>>Pericles:... The misnomer “unregulated greed has destroyed the Capitalist system” is designed to capture sympathy by the lie it is, you have fallen into the trap<<

I don't believe I wrote that "misnomer", so I couldn't have "fallen into the trap". My point was that you should not confuse greed with capitalism. One is a human failing, the other is an economic system.

>>You criticise the subordinate, Adam Smith, as deficient in outlook by acknowledging his reference to balance, but a balance there is<<

In no way did I criticise Adam Smith ("subordinate" to whom?), I simply made reference to his valid theories about the behaviour of markets. The fact that he had no idea that people would become so incomparably greedy, that they brought the concepts themselves into disrepute, is hardly his fault.

>>...the real point is, capitalism is the antithesis to morals<<

Absolute nonsense. Capitalism has a very moral foundation - Smith's own speciality was moral philosophy, his first book was entitled "The Theory of Moral Sentiments", and his "Wealth of Nations" was underpinned by his position on the "nature of morality... Propriety, Prudence, and Benevolence."

And when in thrall to purple prose, make sure you get your metaphors in order...

>>unprecedented fury is unleashed from the gunnels of wall street<<

Anyone attempting to unleash fury from gunnels will find it very tough going, as they are a species of rather small fish.

But if you actually meant gunwales, any boat owner will tell you that unleashing any level of fury from them - let alone the unprecedented variety - is likely to capsize the craft.

Happy fulminating. I'm sure it must be good therapy for you.
Posted by Pericles, Monday, 17 October 2011 3:11:58 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Diver Dan
"The moral way has no duty in law and as a consequence has no duty in a society of capitalism; beat your chest all you like, the march of capitalism is moving exponentially towards a conclusion of total domination and will achieve its aim by conquering the influence of morality totally."

Perhaps you should revisit the first two laws of thermodynamics.

Then you should consider that in the end the only thing that drives corporate success, wealth creation and the economy is cheap energy.

We are at the end of growth and corporate greed is going to take us all down together, and for what reason? who seems to know?
Posted by Geoff of Perth, Monday, 17 October 2011 5:35:42 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
hopefully protestors are a 'informed' lot...see where things are heading, and trying to do something...anything...which is better than rest of us...continuing with same old...until we start hurting by which time things have gotten out of control...and the people who caused it are no where in sight, then new 'obamas' appear promising to 'fix it up'...but never happens...

than protests rooted in fear...then it becomes a blunt force, and who knows where it will head and effect it will cause...

for a start...basic cause here...this piece of paper we have in our pocket with number on it...that says its worth $10, and you can, and have been buying $10 worth of 'real' goods for your use for so long you take paper to be worth the number written on it...

following is a reasonable explanation of how paper became used as representative for 'real' asset. The author leaves out a lot, but presents enough facts to help one understand where we are...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXt1cayx0hs

so...this 'money' is what corporations\wall-street\banks are craving for, and its value? nothing but what its given by YOU...as a promise of 'work' you will do(driving a truck all the way to using babies as easy life ticket)...for which you will get pieces of paper with numbers on it...of which a part MUST be paid as TAXES...which is SECURITY the CENTRAL banks of I think by now all countries in the world DEMANDS(now you know are PRIVATE corporations whose sole purpose of existence is to make a PROFIT...yes!the reserve bank of Australia is private, like US federal reserve)LENDS the country paper money on interest...to use as an intermediary for buy\sell...

until we the common man recognize that our LABOUR is the only REAL assert here...that creates real things...and that is what the 'controllers' NEED and have to keep demand up for us to 'WANT-TO-WORK'...and nothing like boosting the 'our-want' to work like causing some hunger, yes, as in no food for lack of money...(American depression-which led straight into world war11...voila, everybody was happy to work albeit killing other humans...this will not end...but it must...

sam
Ps~note key words...
Posted by Sam said, Monday, 17 October 2011 10:45:02 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Pericles:

I enjoy the confusion created from “comprehension over-aim”.

…What subordinate indeed!
Adam Smith = subordinate to capitalism!

…Your claim = A two part capitalism:
Capitalism has no “Siamese twin”, it is one morphic mess, inclusive totally and fundamentally of the human species, and his money! = “How beautiful the woods”!

…Ah: the sentence (linguistic, Law or mathematical logic)?
The English sentences do not embody the information that a processor requires to make common sense out of it! You did manage though? I admit to being my own editor! “See, how dangerous are Wales, even when outgunned”! OR, “another Gunnel-do cried Wyatt Earp to “Doc” Holliday”.
Motive is also an interesting concept: My time on OLO is for entertainment not education fortunately; and very entertaining it is too.

Tip: Diver-Dan will only appear on these pages during bad weather
Posted by diver dan, Tuesday, 18 October 2011 2:17:54 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
In considering the contribution of the ruling class to the well-being of the world we would do well to follow the biblical advice "by their fruits you shall know them"!

What have they delivered since 1914?

Amongst others here is a short list :-

(1) Two world wars with millions killed
(2) Communism with millions of victims
(3) Capitalism with millions of victims
(4) Sales of arms to over 100 countries
(5) Two Significant Global Depressions
(6) A hyperinflation which destroyed Germany
(7) Inability to control dictators and genocide
(8) Young people sacrificed in Iraq and Afghanistan
(9) Alliances with corrupt dictatorships

Isn't it time for all politicians, economists, bankers and journalists to re-apply for their jobs, with only the best chosen?

The ruling class are paid excruciatingly unjust amounts to bring havoc to the majority. They have succeeded in concentrating their wealth while demonstrating their total incompetence

Everything they claim to have achieved could have been achieved without their damaging interference, incompetence, negligence and promotion of violence.

They were incapable of predicting the economic downturn and appear to have no vision for a better future, let alone a short term fix.

There are two professions with which we entrust our lives :-
(1) Engineers who build safe bridges
(2) Doctors who perform safe operations

A panel of trusted professionals should re-hire a minimum number of administrators from the huge pool of incompetents provided by the ruling classes. I doubt whether more than a handful would be found with enough integrity to regain their former authority.

Best Wishes and Life's Blessings

Friar Hilarius
Posted by Friar Hilarius, Tuesday, 18 October 2011 4:04:08 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Hello everybody, Actually it started here with these guys http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQ_vOhg3wB8&feature=like-suggest&list=UL the other 98%, the middle classes or formerly silent majority, if you talk to them the figure comes from the 1% filthy, stinking, super rich, international banksters + the 1% of loony left, international socialists who conspire with them, to destroy us all, 1%+1%=2%.

Globalisation was invented by the loony left, trots, SWP, etc so they could foment the glorious revolution.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gc5E6pvDv2Y&feature=channel_video_title

http://www.mailstar.net/xTrots.html
Posted by Formersnag, Tuesday, 18 October 2011 6:32:11 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy