An OWS Protester and a Communist Walk Into a Bar

I've commented a little on some of my thoughts about the Occupy Wall Street movement. As someone who values personal freedom and liberty, I'm at odds with many of the OWS ideas, natch. Still I can empathize on many of their complaints and desires to make our nation better. However recently someone made the statement to me that to describe OWS as class warfare was laughable. I don't think that was a very intelligent statement. Sure many Republican pundits like to use the term class warfare way too much, but that doesn't mean the term is always invalid.

So is class warfare applicable to OWS? Well let's imagine a hypothetical OWS protester and a hypothetical modern Marxist. Why a Marxist? Because class struggle is a key component to Marxism. What would a Marxist think of statements like "We are the 99%" and "we are getting nothing while the 1% is getting everything"? I think the Marxist would agree with these statements. Once the Marxist realized that proletariat was an outdated term with a lot of negative connotations, I think he would be quick to switch over to saying "the 99%" instead. Who would be more likely to say "capitalism has failed democracy", the OWS protester or the Marxist? Seems like both. Who would encourage participation in general strikes? Who would be more likely to say "Join the global revolution?" Ok maybe that's too easy and meaningless. Who would favor using the force of the government to take from one group (the 1%) to give to the other group (the 99%)? Now don't get too angry about that statement. I'm not saying that this should or should not be done, just that it is a statement that I think both an OWS protester and a Marxist would agree upon.

My point is that on many issues, it is impossible to distinguish between an OWS protester and a Marxist. Does that mean that OWS protesters favor class warfare? No, it does not. However it does suggest that there is plenty of room for a reasonable person to think that OWS does indeed favor class warfare. Of course OWS is notorious for its fractured message, but I've tried to pull all of the above from its main websites and events. It seems to me that everything I've quoted would be things that the majority of OWS protesters would agree with. Those just happen to be the same things that a Marxist would agree with.

Occupy Wall Street and The Tea Party

The Occupy Wall Street movement is an interesting one to me. I have a lot of empathy for the people involved in the movement. They make a lot of great points. They are correct that the wealthiest 1% have an incredible amount of influence with our government. This is particularly true of corporations in the top percentile. The amount of influence (control) wielded is obviously disproportionate and flies in the face of a country that has a republic style of government.

The Tea Party movement is also interesting to me. I have a lot of empathy for the people in the movement. They make a lot of great points. They are correct that the government is too powerful and in so many cases does much more harm than good. The amount of power wielded by the US government flies in the face of a limited government as described by The Constitution.

Both of these groups are outraged by the status quo and for good reason. However these two groups seem to be at opposite ends of the political spectrum. Most consider OWS to a be "radically progressive." I've heard some people call them communists or anarchists. On the other hand, the Tea Party is considered to be "radically conservative." I've also heard people call them anarchists.

As you've probably guessed by now, I think both groups have way more in common than they would care to admit. Now demographically they are probably quite different, but that doesn't have to matter. However we have seen the Tea Party get eaten up by the Republican Party. Similarly we are already seeing the Democratic Party eat up the OWS group. President Obama wasted no time getting in on this, just as an incumbent President coming up on an election year should.

So in the end these two groups will be consumed by the very powers that be that they oppose. This is part of how the two party system works. In the end both of these groups just become instruments of the divisive, "rally the base" politics that have been the norm for decades.

I'd love to see an alliance between the two groups, which would be a nightmare for both the Republican and Democratic Parties. Of course there is a fundamental difference between the two groups. As I see it, the OWS folks think that government can be fixed and can "do the right thing." They seem to want to use the very instrument of their misery as its own remedy. The Tea Party philosophy is that the government cannot be fixed, so the only way to lessen the damage that it inflicts is to limit its powers. One could say that the OWS folks are optimistic and the Tea Party folks are pessimistic.

Personally I don't totally agree with either group (surprise surprise!) My philosophy certainly leans toward the Tea Party. I think that in a republic or representative democracy, those with the most wealth will yield more influence. I don't think this can be prevented without either undermining democracy, freedom of speech, or freedom of the press. So you are best off by limiting that power. Further, I think that if you make the power of government less attractive (eliminate corporate taxes, subsidies, tariffs etc.), you will also decrease the corruption. It's sort of a chain reaction. Government is corrupt, so make it less powerful. A less powerful government in turn attracts less corruption. It doesn't solve the problem because this problem can't be solved.

However I don't prescribe to the "no new taxes" mantra of the Tea Party either. I do think that taxes are too high, and no I don't care that taxes were once higher or that taxes are higher in other countries. Both of those argument are logical fallacies. However we have built up a huge debt. If we don't pay down that debt, then our children will have to. We splurged, it's our debt. We should pay it down. And please don't tell me that I can pay extra taxes if I choose to. That's a classic prisoner's dilemma, only on a much larger scale.