If you talk with the hard core Occupiers, you will hear "we are the 99%" to differentiate themselves from the top 1% of wage earners of society. OK, that’s nice – the top 1% do earn the most in our society (but also pay the most in income taxes too). However, following the just pathway that Our Dear Leader Barack "I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money"Obama has placed them upon, they continue the hatred of the "corporate jet owners" and the millionaires and billionaires who have gone making "enough money" in that they do not believe that anyone in that top 1% has earned it fairly and squarely. The OWS believe that the wealth of the 1% can only be obtained by stealing it from others with the willing collusion of Govt (but they rarely blame Govt for their part in crony capitalism).
There is one person there that I would place in the more thoughtful category but is so anti-capitalistic, s/he (I don’t know which) believes that we "99%ers" are mere slaves – we have no alternatives. Nor free will of our own, so it seems, because unconsciously, we are unable to make decisions independent of the dreaded 99%:
The state is being used today by rent seeking classes (including large owners of capital) to allow capital to command the labor of wage earners so they have few alternatives – like being the owners of the means of production themselves.
And in this, "capital" means those that have the bucks. But what I took exception to was the phrasing and premise of the statement – that I, as a wage earner, have no control over my life except what the 1% allows me to think I have. In effect, they believe that the 99% are mind numbed slaves, I guess.
Nonsense, as I wrote:
I can tell that a vocabulary lesson to this ordinary schlub is in order. ANY one in ANY class can be rent seeker – that is simply a person or organization (be it a corporation, a union, or a non-profit) that wishes to enrich themselves by using government (by manipulating taxes, regulations, statutes, or policies).
It is not just the top 1% that do it. My wife and I used to own a small daycare center and we accepted state assisted kids. There were times that my blood would boil when I would hear some of the single moms, standing in my lobby, talking about how they gamed the safety net programs to get more and more free (to them) stuff. And these moms did not work, did not go to school, but looked at me and said "I’m staying home because of my three kids" (that my wife and my teachers took care of during the day on the State dime, even as they admitted that the boyfriends were in one of their garages, sitting around drinking beer).
Yes, there were a few that actually used the services well – went to school, worked part time, and their kids were well behaved and well taken care of). They used it as a hand up instead of the former who used it as a handout.
Rent seeking can work from both ends of the spectrum.
Let me add this –
there are cycles when it seems like employers are in control of labor pricing (like now) and other times when employees are in control of that pricing. If you have ever owned or managed a small biz, you know what I mean. Speaking as having been both, I can tell you that either extreme is not good for either the owner/manager or the employee.
In that case, either side can get arrogant and abrasive – the employer can expect too much, and so can the employee when the pendulum swings the other way. Mind sets changes to a "me! me!" mentality – and when that happens from either side, only trouble can happen when the pendulum starts to swing back the other way. But I digress:
But I think you give employers too much credit for an amount of control they may not have. Not only did I have to compete for the best employees at the reasonable price I could pay, I had to balance that against the price I could charge without losing my customers. And at times, it was a VERY narrow plank to walk, even as I was seen as "the boss" (or as you put it the capital). And having had to rescue that biz from the former owner who had run it way down, there were years before I saw any return on my investment in terms of being able to pay my wife any kind of a small paycheck. And I know that I am not the only biz owner that has had to reach into their own wallet to make payroll just because that plank turned into a thread at times.
Alternatives? Everyone has alternatives but here is a main question that I have not seen ANYONE bring up in this forum – how many "wage earners" have demonstrated the courage to take the risk, to put everything they and their families have, put it all at risk, for that alternative? Or somewhat less risky – go work for someone else’s start up – especially for someone for whom this is their first startup?
Sometimes the perceived lack of alternatives may be an inability to see an opportunity. Or the inability to reach out and grab it due to the unwillingness to take on that risk (even if the upside looks attractive, they are risk averse). This certainly is one good reason for the income inequality we see in our economy.
When my wife fell ill, I tried to sell the biz and sell it quickly (for a daycare can be a very perishable type biz). I first offered it to my employees, and to prove my point above – even though I had finally restored its reputation, replenished the working stock (games, property, toys, educational items, and the like), and it had just gone profitable, none of them wanted to take that ongoing risk personally.
An alternative refused.
Indeed. The Occupier believed that wage earners have very few options. Even in this economy, there are choices to be had (albeit, not easy ones). But I have seen people self-limit themselves because they only see downside risk and one take that step that could result in good things. Refuse enough alternatives, putting yourself in the "stuck in the rut" may keep that downside risk away, but doesn’t give access to the up side either.
It seems that the Occupiers want it both ways (or is it all ways?) in that they want the reward but may well be unwilling to take that risk. And then, maybe, this is a movement that is "projecting" – taking it out on others who have done what they refuse to do for themselves in order to be successful. No, life isn’t fair and someone who has done "all the right things" may not get the brass ring of life – most of us don’t. But that doesn’t justify the class warfare in which they are engaging (and those that have supported and endorsed them – President Obama, Union leaders, Progressives, and the media).
