Labels are devices for saving talkative persons the trouble of thinking. – John Morley (1838-1923)
Call them unwashed, naive, incoherent… Misfits, miscreants, and malcontents. The damaged goods of society… oblong pegs in a world of square and circle holes.
Call the Occupy Wall Street crowds, and their organized labor supporters, whatever you like.
Just don’t call them Socialists. They’re not, and should you do so– Should you offer that knee-jerk characterization - one favored by so many middle class wish-they-were-rich Republicans, and Archie Bunkers - all you’re effectively saying is:
1. “I am a tribal thinker;” and
2. “I do not understand, practically, how Capitalism works.”
Because if you understand how Capitalism really works (a thing hardly difficult to apprehend), and if you’re able to think beyond the “Labor organizers and protesters are necessarily Socialists” narrative fed you by the Right Wing, you already see Occupy Wall Street, and any strike by organized labor, for what they are: Capitalists using their capital, as good Capitalists do, to get more capital for themselves.
Consider this question: What is Capital? Capital is an asset. Could be paper currency, commodities, debt, or equity. It could be anything. It’s whatever you’re able to use to create more wealth for yourself. Hence, Capitalism’s essential definition: The use of capital to create more capital.
Labor is just another form of capital. The unions, the protesters… these people don’t have access to large pools of currency, or commodities, or stock, or anything else they can leverage to create gains for themselves. They have only their toil, and the power that comes with being able to shut down another capitalist’s business, or cause enough social upheaval through protests in the street to compel the government to give them more money.
Sound like some of our country’s most successful industries? Of course it does. Defense Contractors, Wall Street, Telecommunications Companies, Big Pharma… Every one of these sectors does exactly what Occupy Wall Street is doing every day of the week – petition the government for stuff. In the case of those industries, for rules and contracts that give them more money, more competitive advantage. The only real difference between corporations requesting Government beneficence and Occupy Wall Street is the former does its bidding on K Street, hiring lobbyists to ply Uncle Sam for favors.*
Read the rest here.
The OWS crowd may be attempting to use their “capital” to encourage the government to give them more money, just like large corporations, but that doesn’t make either one “Capitalism.” Capitalism is the FREE exchange of goods or services. Forcing payments with the threat of harm (i.e. disrupting business) isn’t Capitalism any more than me using the “capital” of my Sig to force the bank teller to give me the money in the drawer isn’t an example of Capitalism.
Now, if all they’re doing is protesting peacefully with the implicit threat of lost votes, that’s Democracy in action; but it’s not an economic exchange.
PL: Capitalism is using the capital you have to create more capital. Businesses sue each other and lobby for regulations to put one another out of business every day. This behavior is indistinguishable from a strike, or a protest, and it is accepted as a form of Capitalism.
There are no limits to Capitalism. To see it defined narrowly is to entirely miss the nature of the thing.
People and organisations act on self-interest. All you’ve done here is labeled that ‘Capitalism’. You’ve broadened the term so much it doesn’t mean anything.
Also, if OWS protesters are Capitalists, then what does it make Tea Partiers? The former ostensibly wants someone else’s money through government force, the latter to keep their own by reducing government force.
PL: The piece is about the artificiality of the labeling used by OWS critics. Of course your initial observation is subsumed in its general message. How couldn’t it be?
Tea Partiers are absolutely Capitalists. Just as much as the OWS people, and the bankers. They are, quite effectively, using their assets to create more wealth for themselves.