6 ms·

People tend to assume that in today's era, progress is inevitable. The is a dramatic illustration to the contrary. Progress depends on a stable, pro-business sy

by javert 15y ago

People tend to assume that in today's era, progress is inevitable. The is a dramatic illustration to the contrary. Progress depends on a stable, pro-business system of government. Which, in turn, depends on a certain kind of underlying culture. (This is why I find Occupy Wall Street threatening.)

martythemaniak 15y ago
OWS is a protest movement, the core of which is against corporations buying laws. The corporations do this because they want to protect their inefficient business models by enshrining their way of doing things into law. For example, content owners wish to censor the internet so they can keep selling consumers crap, while banks wish to tax everybody when they make a loss on their trades. OWS is not anti-business, it is anti-corruption, and there's few things more damaging to progress than corruption.
- AJ007 15y ago
  You would never know that based on the signs being waved and the t-shirts being worn.
  - gee_totes 15y ago
    There wouldn't be the protests and signs being waved if corporations couldn't buy laws.
  - jacoblyles 15y ago
    Yeah, I thought it was about "End Capitalism Now!" and "Bail out students", or something like that.
- brc 15y ago
  I think I can agree with your points, however, the images of OWS protestors have failed to get this across. In the worldwide spread of the OWS theme, the further you get from Manhattan, the muddier the statements. My local occupy demonstration is a rag-tag collection of the usual suspects with signs calling for socialism. I guess this is the problem with any protest movement - you have no top-down control, and so any good messages can get lost in the noise. I think the occupy 'brand' is pretty much damaged beyond repair for now, but if the core of the people believes what you say, then it's possible to create a new organisation and leverage from occupy before it's forgotten. But a new organisation would have to be top-down and control the message to get the point across. For my part, I agree with the points about regulatory capture and corporatism. Large businesses pretend to like capitalism, but in reality, they get terrified of smaller startup companies stealing their lunch money and rendering them irrelevant in a decade or less. Too big to fail is indeed too big to exist. The role of governments must be to prevent monopolies from forming, not to legislate them into existence.
  - sp332 15y ago
    Even the statements in Manhattan are extremely muddy. That's because the "Wall Street" types have pissed off a huge swath of the populace. It's not just one coherent group that's angry. Lots of unrelated people have come together against a common enemy.
jseliger 15y ago
(This is why I find Occupy Wall Street threatening.) I do not think OWS, to the extent it has a coherent set or ideas or ideologies, is anti-business per se; I think it is opposed to the zero-sum thinking that characterizes much of Wall Street and political life right now. See, e.g.: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_reckoning/2011/11/21/it_s_the_politics_stupid_.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_reckoning/2011/11/21/it_s_the... : <blockquote>In fact, blame for the failure of the congressional super committee belongs with every American who failed to vote in the 2010 midterm election. Nothing encapsulates the dysfunction of American democracy better than the fact that we abdicate responsibility for governing our country (and running our economy) to a radical minority every four years out of laziness and, to a smaller extent, deliberate efforts by both parties to depress turnout they know will favor their rivals.</blockquote> Or, from HN, http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/11/18/clayton-christensen-how-pursuit-of-profits-kills-innovation-and-the-us-economy http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/11/18/clayton-... (Clayton Christensen: "How Pursuit of Profits Kills Innovation and the U.S. Economy.") Notice how people are not saying "Occupy tech firms in Silicon Valley," and I think they aren't because it's pretty clear that Apple, Google, etc. are generating real value that improves lives; it's not at all clear finance and many parts of government are doing so at the moment and it may be that they're actually destroying value while taking advantage of an insider's feedback loop that prevents market forces from actually acting on them in any serious way. If anything, I suspect OWS, to the extent it has a coherent ideology, would be pro-business, as long as that business isn't doing things to hurt people, institutions, or government.
- peterb 15y ago
  OWS is not against capitalism, it is against corporatism. It wants the same laws enforced weather you are rich, poor, an individual or a corporation.
  - noahc 15y ago
    Perhaps I'm nitpicking here, but I believe they don't actually want the same laws for individuals and corporations. They don't want corporations to have the same rights as individuals.
adolph 15y ago
No, you just have to avoid bad luck.
lolcraft 15y ago
There is no such pernicious myth today as the "right-wing pro-business" government. An example: progress requires, above anything, a rentier class not hell bent on furthering their greed at the expense of everyone else, via shadow banking, obscure contracts and general, short-sighted stupidity. Regulated, if you will. I don't see many "pro-business" governments doing anything to solve that. I see many of them giving their corporate friends cool, undeserved subsidies under the pretense of "industry being of national interest".

by javert 15y ago

martythemaniak 15y ago

OWS is a protest movement, the core of which is against corporations buying laws. The corporations do this because they want to protect their inefficient business models by enshrining their way of doing things into law. For example, content owners wish to censor the internet so they can keep selling consumers crap, while banks wish to tax everybody when they make a loss on their trades. OWS is not anti-business, it is anti-corruption, and there's few things more damaging to progress than corruption.

AJ007 15y ago
You would never know that based on the signs being waved and the t-shirts being worn.
- gee_totes 15y ago
  There wouldn't be the protests and signs being waved if corporations couldn't buy laws.
- jacoblyles 15y ago
  Yeah, I thought it was about "End Capitalism Now!" and "Bail out students", or something like that.
brc 15y ago
I think I can agree with your points, however, the images of OWS protestors have failed to get this across. In the worldwide spread of the OWS theme, the further you get from Manhattan, the muddier the statements. My local occupy demonstration is a rag-tag collection of the usual suspects with signs calling for socialism. I guess this is the problem with any protest movement - you have no top-down control, and so any good messages can get lost in the noise. I think the occupy 'brand' is pretty much damaged beyond repair for now, but if the core of the people believes what you say, then it's possible to create a new organisation and leverage from occupy before it's forgotten. But a new organisation would have to be top-down and control the message to get the point across. For my part, I agree with the points about regulatory capture and corporatism. Large businesses pretend to like capitalism, but in reality, they get terrified of smaller startup companies stealing their lunch money and rendering them irrelevant in a decade or less. Too big to fail is indeed too big to exist. The role of governments must be to prevent monopolies from forming, not to legislate them into existence.
- sp332 15y ago
  Even the statements in Manhattan are extremely muddy. That's because the "Wall Street" types have pissed off a huge swath of the populace. It's not just one coherent group that's angry. Lots of unrelated people have come together against a common enemy.

jseliger 15y ago

(This is why I find Occupy Wall Street threatening.) I do not think OWS, to the extent it has a coherent set or ideas or ideologies, is anti-business per se; I think it is opposed to the zero-sum thinking that characterizes much of Wall Street and political life right now. See, e.g.: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_reckoning/2011/11/21/it_s_the_politics_stupid_.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_reckoning/2011/11/21/it_s_the... : <blockquote>In fact, blame for the failure of the congressional super committee belongs with every American who failed to vote in the 2010 midterm election. Nothing encapsulates the dysfunction of American democracy better than the fact that we abdicate responsibility for governing our country (and running our economy) to a radical minority every four years out of laziness and, to a smaller extent, deliberate efforts by both parties to depress turnout they know will favor their rivals.</blockquote> Or, from HN, http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/11/18/clayton-christensen-how-pursuit-of-profits-kills-innovation-and-the-us-economy http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/11/18/clayton-... (Clayton Christensen: "How Pursuit of Profits Kills Innovation and the U.S. Economy.") Notice how people are not saying "Occupy tech firms in Silicon Valley," and I think they aren't because it's pretty clear that Apple, Google, etc. are generating real value that improves lives; it's not at all clear finance and many parts of government are doing so at the moment and it may be that they're actually destroying value while taking advantage of an insider's feedback loop that prevents market forces from actually acting on them in any serious way. If anything, I suspect OWS, to the extent it has a coherent ideology, would be pro-business, as long as that business isn't doing things to hurt people, institutions, or government.

peterb 15y ago
OWS is not against capitalism, it is against corporatism. It wants the same laws enforced weather you are rich, poor, an individual or a corporation.
- noahc 15y ago
  Perhaps I'm nitpicking here, but I believe they don't actually want the same laws for individuals and corporations. They don't want corporations to have the same rights as individuals.

adolph 15y ago

No, you just have to avoid bad luck.

lolcraft 15y ago

There is no such pernicious myth today as the "right-wing pro-business" government. An example: progress requires, above anything, a rentier class not hell bent on furthering their greed at the expense of everyone else, via shadow banking, obscure contracts and general, short-sighted stupidity. Regulated, if you will. I don't see many "pro-business" governments doing anything to solve that. I see many of them giving their corporate friends cool, undeserved subsidies under the pretense of "industry being of national interest".