I've been watching the Occupy Wall Street events out of the corner of my eye with detached interest and bemusement and had a couple of thoughts:
A large part of it seems to be borne out of an incomprehensible nostalgia for the Sixties. Old professional hippies reliving the good old days and youngsters anxious to experience that time and place when "the whole world is watching!"
In my opinion, their targeting is inaccurate. I see lots of angst and angry waving of iPhones and iPads at capitalism. Free-market capitalism is not the problem since we don't really have free-market capitalism here. We have crony capitalism, corporate welfare, and a government whose meddling in and attempts to control markets have led to the problems confronting us. Lobbyists bribe the thieves and liars in the Senate and Congress who craft legislation which perpetuates waste and fraud.
Occupy D.C. Occupy the White House, the Senate, and the Congress, that's the real root of the problem.
"There is simply no other choice than this: either to abstain from interference in the free play of the market, or to delegate the entire management of production and distribution to the government. Either capitalism or socialism: there exists no middle way.
Mises -
Liberalism, p. 79
Addendum:
After writing and posting this I read a good article by
Lew Rockwell on the Evil 1%. It's worth a read.
"
The State is everybody’s enemy. Why don’t the protesters get this? Because they are victims of propaganda by the State, doled out in public school, that attempts to blame all human suffering on private parties and free enterprise. They do not comprehend that the real enemy is the institution that brainwashes them to think they way they do. They are right that society is rife with conflicts, and that the contest is wildly lopsided. It is indeed the 99% vs. the 1%. They’re just wrong about the identity of the enemy."
Tags:
Current Events,
Economics,
Liars and Thieves,
Occupy Wall Street,
Politics
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