Demands for the Ninety-Nine Percent

One of the biggest criticisms of the "Occupy Wall Street" movement and its analogs in other cities is that the protesters don't have a "clear message" or a "list of demands."  I find that every time someone tries to propose a clear message, it's more or less dismissed based on the assumption that it's already implicit.  Basically, the message, as is implied, is this:  "Rich people are too rich, and that sucks."  It doesn't really suggest a course of action to resolve this issue, other than to ask the upper 1% to acknowledge that they do in fact suck, and possibly for somebody, somewhere, in some unknown corner of existence, to think of a way to make the world not suck.

I think there's a reason why the protesters are favoring vagueness.  I think that many of them are afraid that if they focus on a clear and specific demand, that the movement might lose support or splinter, from groups who have the same complaint, but a different solution.  As long as the ideology is that we should have a system of "something other than oligarchy," but not specify which something other we want to use, the anarchocapitalists and the socialists can be on the same team.

Unfortunately, the elitists LOVE when the capitalists and the socialists fight with each other.  As George Carlin said, the rich know that as long as the rest of us are busy fighting with each other, they can keep going to the bank.  I say it's unfortunate, because the only way this protest can stay together is by remaining so completely disorganized, that it never accoplishes anything.  The moment it chooses a direction, it loses support.  Also, once it has a specific goal in mind, it becomes predictable, and the elitists can compensate for its presence.  Just look at the way the politicians adapted and integrated the Tea Parties.

So there are our options.  We can either have a disorganized protest that can't accomplish anything, but be a hugely widespread movement, or we can have a few small, but highly organized social factions, which start out by getting in each other's way, and end up becoming assimilated by the corporate-political machine.  I'd choose the former just based on principle, if I thought the world situation was truly hopeless.  However...

As the technological evolution takes us further from the world of television and radio, and more integrated into the world of electronic media, the need for financial backing for mass communication is diminished.  As a result, the people become more equal in terms of power of speech, and thus, political influence.  When Steve Jobs introduced the idea of home computers back in 1984, he made a big production (literally) of the idea that he was in some way taking down Big Brother.  Now, just after his death, twenty-seven years later, I start to get the feeling that he had a better idea of what he was doing than any of us realized.  Just think, through the power of the internet, a political candidate can run an entire campain online for almost no money.  When (not "if") television comes to its end, there will be absolutely no need for a politician to receive donations, which means that the upper 1% will have no power over any politician.  (Consider the impact that the internet had on the campain of Ron Paul, who was often deliberately ignored by conventional media.)

Okay, so in the not-too-distant future, the politicians will be subject to the will of the populus, rather than the elites.  Well, how are the politicians going to know what the people want?  How are the people going to educate ourselves on the political, social and economic issues?  How are the people going to make our voices come together and be heard by the people elected to represent us?  The most effective way, as far as I can see, is to come together into large angry-yet-peaceful mobs, outside where we can't be ignored (not sitting lazily behind some keyboard, like me), and shout out what we like and what we don't like.  Well, we're doing that now.  So in this case, a clear message, even though it could risk splintering the movement, will prepare us for when that tipping point when a moble app reaches more people than the six o'clock news, and every politician turns his attention away from his financial backers and toward the voters.

So what are our demands, specifically?  I can't speak for everyone, so I'm not going to try.  I'll just speak for myself, and tell you what changes I want to see:

• No one shall ever by considered "too big to fail."  All corporations will have the same opportunity to fail as any poor private citizen would.
• No subsidies for companies that the Government happens to like, regardless of how the politicians "think" they will be able to help our economy.
• Criminal act will be punished the same regardless of income status.  If any extremely wealthy person commits theft, fraud, tax evasion, etc., they will be treated exactly the same as anyone else.
• Revise the tax codes.  Ideally, I'd like to see the income tax abolished, but for the time being, I'm willing to settle for closing the tax loopholes which allow corporations to avoid paying the same taxes as the rest of us.
•  Remove regulations which force private companies to maintain stock prices.  This will allow competition from more consumer-friendly companies, forcing larger corporations to adapt their own policies similarly.  Also, it will allow investors to start thinking long-term.
• Because a lack of public insurance limits health care to the wealthy, and a public health option allows pharmacutical companies holding monopolies on particular drugs to extort arbitrary prices from public funding, and thus, the taxpayers, it is important that the Government does not support these monopolies.  Therefore, patents on perscription drugs should not be enforced.
• Any regulations on companies with regards to working conditions or environmental impacts should continue to be applicable to American companies which set up production overseas.  This way, such regulations would not be driving employers out of the country.
• No one should be punished for being rich.  This demand is directed more at the protesters.  We must remember that we are motivated not by envy of others' success, but by a desire for equal opportunities to succeed.  Some say "We are the 99%."  I say, "We are the 100%!"

I've got a LOT of ideas about reforms I would like to see, but these which I have listed apply directly to the general goal of the Occupy Wall Street movement.  Sure, I'd like to see drugs and prostitution legalized, amnesty for illegal immigrants, government staying out of marriage, and so on.  However, I do not want to divert this movement from its objective.  A protester who tries to attatch his ideology to an existing social movement is no better than a politician who attatches pork to a bill.  So if I want drugs legalized, I'll start my own protest, but I won't bring up the topic at someone else's.  I think that's a very important distinction.  The Occupy Wall Street movement is for the purpose of addressing the problem of unfair economic advantages for corporations, so all of the specific demands which I have suggested above, are designed toward those ends.

I do realize that a lot of people would like to see a socialist, or possibly even communist solution to the problem of the upper 1%.  I disagree.  I think that unilaterally taxing the super-rich would only discourage companies such as McDonald's or Microsoft which get rich by producing products, and allow non-productive companies such as Goldman-Sachs to simply cover the costs of their higher taxes by inventing new ways to rip people off.  Besides, taxing the rich would be kind of like solving the problem of a burglary by sending a second burglar to rob the first one.  I support real capitalism, but I don't stand in the way of anyone who wishes to be a communist.  In fact, I applaud them for taking such a clear position.

In conclusion, I believe we are on the edge of a new age.  As much as the wealthy elite wish they could maintain the status quo indefinitely, they must realize that change is inevitable.  Let us work together to make sure that change is for the better.