Yearender: Occupy Wall Street rings alarm over U.S. inequality
NEW YORK, Dec. 23 (Xinhua) -- They marched, chanted and gave speeches. They started from a private park on Wall Street in September 2011 and promised to carry on into the coming years. They caught attention from around the world and were joined by fellow protestors in Washington DC, in Portland, and in many other cities across the country.
They are Occupy Wall Street protestors, who have sounded the alarm to U.S. policymakers over severe inequality in the country.
"All they are doing is expressing themselves and letting their voices be heard," Doug Chalmers, professor emeritus of political science from Columbia University, told Xinhua. "They are angry at the inequality and impunity of the rich."
ECONOMIC INEQUALITY FUELS THE RAGE
"I think that the OWS movement is still doing a good job of keeping attention on the crucial issue of out-of-control income inequality and not getting distracted by the anti-war, anti-government or working class themes that motivate most movements," Chalmers said.
"The increase in attention in the serious press to the dramatic increases in the income of the highest one percent is impressive," he said.
Statistics show that, between 1979 and 2006, middle-class Americans' annual after-tax income rose 21 percent, while the figures were 11 percent for the poorest and 256 percent for the richest 1 percent.
The share of total income going to the top 1 percent has increased from roughly 8 percent in the 1960s to more than 20 percent today. Income inequality in the United States is higher than in any other advanced industrial country.
Robert C. Lieberman, a political science professor at Columbia University, told Xinhua such inequality revealed the imbalance in the economy.
"Such a level of economic inequality, not seen in the United States since the eve of the Great Depression, bespeaks a political economy in which the financial rewards are increasingly concentrated among a tiny elite and whose risks are borne by an increasingly exposed and unprotected middle class," Lieberman said.
People complain that, while a fiber-optic cable costing 300 million dollars was laid between Chicago Mercantile Exchange and New York Stock Exchange purely to provide high-speed automated financial trades, passenger trains between the two cities run barely faster than they did in the 1950s.
While the richest are getting richer, enjoying growing power, the middle class and the poor are suffering from wage stagnation, national debt and deteriorating infrastructure.
The inequality also breeds political polarization, mistrust and resentment between the haves and the have-nots and hurts the democratic political system due to increasing "money voices". The inequality is what underlies the protesters' rage and has led them on to the streets.
POLICY FAILURE: CAUSE FOR INEQUALITY
Some analysts lay the blame for the inequality on economic forces, including the information revolution and globalization. The transformation from a manufacture-dominated to a service-dominated economy has widened the wealth gap between the elites and low-end workers.
Others disagree, arguing that economic forces are important factors but not decisive ones. In Europe, which has experienced the same changes, the inequality is much lower, they say.
"The decisive factor has been politics and public policy: tax rates, spending choice, labor laws, regulations and campaign finance rules," George Packer, a staff writer at The New Yorker magazine said.
Since the late 1970s, a number of important policy changes have tilted the economic playing field toward the rich.
"Congress has cut tax rates on high incomes repeatedly and has relaxed the tax treatment of capital gains and other investment income, resulting in windfall profits for the wealthiest Americans," Lieberman said.
He said labor policies made it harder for unions to organize workers and provide a countervailing force to the growing power of businesses. At the same time, deregulation of financial markets allowed banks to create more Byzantine financial instruments to enrich wealthy managers and investors.
The explosion of lobby groups also contributed to the inequality. In 1974, there were only 145 businesses represented by registered lobbyists in Washington, but, according to Packer, businesses now spent about 3 billion U.S. dollars per year on over 3,000 lobbyists.
"Not all this lobbying and campaign spending was done by corporations, but they did more and did it better than anyone else. And they got results," Packer said.
This resulted in a "winner-take-all economy" and U.S. society seems to be failing to offer the promised fair opportunities to every citizen.
The recent impasse on debt limit talks, the failure of the so called "super committee" and the deadlock of tax cut extension negotiations revealed Washington policymakers were going through ideological battles and were not capable of correcting policy mistakes, or rather not willing to so.
OWS, CHANGES TO MAKE?
Will OWS succeed in putting its issue on the congress agenda? In the three months the movement has been going, this has remained the top concern for people who care about the protests.
Some occupants, however, are not getting their hopes up. Anne Hufbauer, a yoga teacher, told Xinhua at "Occupy Broadway" she joined the protests because she was not satisfied with the current situation and wondered what could be achieved, but "I don't know what will come out, I just want to have a try."
Packer also saw no significant impact on policy-making. He compared OWS with the 1960s protest movements, saying they were fundamentally different.
"The '60s protest movements were made possible by a new prosperity and they were directed at an unjust war in Vietnam and at a conservative mindset in the generation that survived the Great Depression and World War II," he said.
Chalmers said the media wanted the OWS protests to be like movements in the Middle East and try to seize power, or like the Tea Party that has tried to win elections, or like the movements in the 1960s to reverse some specific policy. Their focus had been and ought to stay on changing public opinion and culture but not policies, he said.
Political scientist Robert Shapiro said the OWS movement so far had been largely underwritten by big labor unions and other supporters of President Barack Obama, who hoped this diversion would aid his re-election.
Would it benefit Obama and the Democratic Party's election prospects in 2012 by engaging voters to support them? Shapiro was not sure.
He said it was also possible the disruption caused by the OWS movement could have a backlash, much like the protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, and thus hurt the Democrats in the elections.
(Xinhua reporters Rong Jiaojiao, Annie Bao also contributed to the story)
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2011-12/23/c_131324112_2.htm
They are Occupy Wall Street protestors, who have sounded the alarm to U.S. policymakers over severe inequality in the country.
"All they are doing is expressing themselves and letting their voices be heard," Doug Chalmers, professor emeritus of political science from Columbia University, told Xinhua. "They are angry at the inequality and impunity of the rich."
ECONOMIC INEQUALITY FUELS THE RAGE
"I think that the OWS movement is still doing a good job of keeping attention on the crucial issue of out-of-control income inequality and not getting distracted by the anti-war, anti-government or working class themes that motivate most movements," Chalmers said.
"The increase in attention in the serious press to the dramatic increases in the income of the highest one percent is impressive," he said.
Statistics show that, between 1979 and 2006, middle-class Americans' annual after-tax income rose 21 percent, while the figures were 11 percent for the poorest and 256 percent for the richest 1 percent.
The share of total income going to the top 1 percent has increased from roughly 8 percent in the 1960s to more than 20 percent today. Income inequality in the United States is higher than in any other advanced industrial country.
Robert C. Lieberman, a political science professor at Columbia University, told Xinhua such inequality revealed the imbalance in the economy.
"Such a level of economic inequality, not seen in the United States since the eve of the Great Depression, bespeaks a political economy in which the financial rewards are increasingly concentrated among a tiny elite and whose risks are borne by an increasingly exposed and unprotected middle class," Lieberman said.
People complain that, while a fiber-optic cable costing 300 million dollars was laid between Chicago Mercantile Exchange and New York Stock Exchange purely to provide high-speed automated financial trades, passenger trains between the two cities run barely faster than they did in the 1950s.
While the richest are getting richer, enjoying growing power, the middle class and the poor are suffering from wage stagnation, national debt and deteriorating infrastructure.
The inequality also breeds political polarization, mistrust and resentment between the haves and the have-nots and hurts the democratic political system due to increasing "money voices". The inequality is what underlies the protesters' rage and has led them on to the streets.
POLICY FAILURE: CAUSE FOR INEQUALITY
Some analysts lay the blame for the inequality on economic forces, including the information revolution and globalization. The transformation from a manufacture-dominated to a service-dominated economy has widened the wealth gap between the elites and low-end workers.
Others disagree, arguing that economic forces are important factors but not decisive ones. In Europe, which has experienced the same changes, the inequality is much lower, they say.
"The decisive factor has been politics and public policy: tax rates, spending choice, labor laws, regulations and campaign finance rules," George Packer, a staff writer at The New Yorker magazine said.
Since the late 1970s, a number of important policy changes have tilted the economic playing field toward the rich.
"Congress has cut tax rates on high incomes repeatedly and has relaxed the tax treatment of capital gains and other investment income, resulting in windfall profits for the wealthiest Americans," Lieberman said.
He said labor policies made it harder for unions to organize workers and provide a countervailing force to the growing power of businesses. At the same time, deregulation of financial markets allowed banks to create more Byzantine financial instruments to enrich wealthy managers and investors.
The explosion of lobby groups also contributed to the inequality. In 1974, there were only 145 businesses represented by registered lobbyists in Washington, but, according to Packer, businesses now spent about 3 billion U.S. dollars per year on over 3,000 lobbyists.
"Not all this lobbying and campaign spending was done by corporations, but they did more and did it better than anyone else. And they got results," Packer said.
This resulted in a "winner-take-all economy" and U.S. society seems to be failing to offer the promised fair opportunities to every citizen.
The recent impasse on debt limit talks, the failure of the so called "super committee" and the deadlock of tax cut extension negotiations revealed Washington policymakers were going through ideological battles and were not capable of correcting policy mistakes, or rather not willing to so.
OWS, CHANGES TO MAKE?
Will OWS succeed in putting its issue on the congress agenda? In the three months the movement has been going, this has remained the top concern for people who care about the protests.
Some occupants, however, are not getting their hopes up. Anne Hufbauer, a yoga teacher, told Xinhua at "Occupy Broadway" she joined the protests because she was not satisfied with the current situation and wondered what could be achieved, but "I don't know what will come out, I just want to have a try."
Packer also saw no significant impact on policy-making. He compared OWS with the 1960s protest movements, saying they were fundamentally different.
"The '60s protest movements were made possible by a new prosperity and they were directed at an unjust war in Vietnam and at a conservative mindset in the generation that survived the Great Depression and World War II," he said.
Chalmers said the media wanted the OWS protests to be like movements in the Middle East and try to seize power, or like the Tea Party that has tried to win elections, or like the movements in the 1960s to reverse some specific policy. Their focus had been and ought to stay on changing public opinion and culture but not policies, he said.
Political scientist Robert Shapiro said the OWS movement so far had been largely underwritten by big labor unions and other supporters of President Barack Obama, who hoped this diversion would aid his re-election.
Would it benefit Obama and the Democratic Party's election prospects in 2012 by engaging voters to support them? Shapiro was not sure.
He said it was also possible the disruption caused by the OWS movement could have a backlash, much like the protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, and thus hurt the Democrats in the elections.
(Xinhua reporters Rong Jiaojiao, Annie Bao also contributed to the story)
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2011-12/23/c_131324112_2.htm
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