Over the last several weeks, angry and disgruntled Americans have been protesting the Obama Administration’s economic policies, the widening gap between the rich and the poor, and the dissipation of the middle class. The movement, known as Occupy Wall Street, has been gaining steam in the media and in the minds of many Americans. The 14 trillion dollar question is what will be the result of this discontent and whether or not passive social uprising is a pragmatic option for inducing change?
photo by: Azureon2
Occupy Wall Street is a social phenomenon born of frustration. Hunger, frustration and little confidence in the country’s leaders, has stirred strong emotions in the populace. High levels of unemployment mean that free time to vent is available to many. However, over the course of human history, very few passive revolutions have garnered the desired results. Only when violence and mayhem have been added to the recipe, has social and economic reform taken place. Unlike the Greeks, the Americans have yet to resort to violence to achieve their goals.
The main reason that non-violent protests rarely work, is because politicians who support central economic planning, known as Keynesianism, predominantly win elections, while sound money economists, also known as Austrian economists, rarely do. People protesting don’t want to hear ‘we have to live within our means’, or ‘a lot of people will lose their jobs when we allow the market to make the correction.’ Protestors would rather hear ‘we will give you jobs’ and ‘we promise that the cost of housing will decrease’. These are empty promises however, and they are the main reasons for the current global economic crisis.
Did You Know?
Unemployment in the United States is the highest it’s been in the last 17 years.
