A Former banker's articulate comment on OCCUPY -its origin, process and outcome
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A Former banker's articulate article comment on OCCUPY - its origin, process and outcome
John Fullerton Founder and President Capital Institute
I'm a former banker, a one percenter, and I'm mad as hell too.
Let's
be clear. The Occupy movement is not a product of frustration, as
President Obama, Treasury Secretary Geithner, and now Eric Cantor have
suggested. Frustration is passive; anger is active. Martin Luther King
was not frustrated. But beyond my anger is a real concern for democracy,
for America, for the people of the world, for the planet upon which we
all depend, and for my children's future. It's why I do what I do. It's
the inspiration for Capital Institute.
This
concern led me to Liberty Park Plaza last week to listen, show my
support and empathy for the peaceful demonstrators, and learn about the
occupation first-hand. I wanted to see if I could build a relationship
with some of the organizers -- which I did -- and find out if the
prominent media narrative of disorganization and unclear goals was
accurate.
I
learned that OWS is first and foremost about restoring democracy in
America, and that I was right to be concerned about the media's
portrayal.
Since
the beginning of the protests, leading politicians and members of the
media have been asking the question "What does OWS want?" This is the
wrong question. Policy priorities are for interest groups, working their
battle plans within the system. Proposals are what the media and
politicians of the left and right want so they can put the complex
issues that led to the occupation into pre-existing boxes before they
are fully understood.
OWS
as I understand it today, is building a movement of everyday people who
are fed up with Wall Street's corrupting influence on our democracy. Wall
Street does not mean capitalism, although capitalism's critics are on
hand at OWS. It means the socialized losses and the unchecked power,
greed, speculative excess, violence, and theft from fellow citizens that
has gone unchecked by our bought and paid for government -- Democrats
and Republicans alike.But it also means the dominant influence of Wall Street culture on short-term corporate behavior and misbehavior,
from Enron's derivatives-enabled fraud to the Koch Brothers' and
Exxon's funding of climate change denial, to the health insurance
industry's power over lives and affordable health care, to McDonald's
and Coke's impact on childhood obesity, all to further short-term
corporate and financial interests no matter the cost to "we the people."
This
is different from "We are the 99 Percent," a divisive, although clever
phrase that has not been formally adopted by the OWS General Assembly.
Wall Street's culture is the target because money has corrupted the
Republic. Through this power lens, John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Harry
Reid, Nancy Pelosi and the rest are mere tools in the system, not worthy
of protesting against. Instead, the right question we should be asking
is, "what is emerging at OWS?"
I
engaged with one of the many experienced organizers at OWS during my
trip. He was unusually calm, articulate, experienced (a Seattle WTO
alum) and well informed -- he had read much of the leading alternative
economics literature. He
explained that the General Assembly that meets every evening to
deliberate the course of the movement had determined explicitly not to
develop a set of demands at this time. Instead,
he shared, OWS is focused on setting up a governance system for the
movement, expecting to be around for the long haul. As of today, any
list of demands that you may hear, therefore, are unsanctioned by the
governing General Assembly of OWS.
The
emergence of the practice of participatory democracy as the movement's
only initial priority says everything. OWS is about taking back
democracy.
Don't be fooled by their clothing, drums, or hand signals. There is
something serious afoot here that is organic, influenced by experienced
social movement organizers, and yet uncontrolled. Whether it can last is
unknowable and not yet determined. It will depend upon how we all react
-- politicians, business leaders, police, and most importantly, we the
citizenry. Their strategy is to build the power of the movement before
seeking to use that power. A million demonstrators speak louder than ten
thousand, just like a trillion dollar balance sheet speaks louder than a
hundred billion dollar one. Right out of Goldman Sachs' playbook I'd
say.
So
far, OWS has established working groups, in areas like media,
de-escalation (there is an explicit commitment to non-violence -- let us
hope there is a discipline to match), the kitchen, first aid, security
(they have adopted strict no alcohol and drug use rules), sanitation,
and more. The day I was there, they were organizing to create a phone
book for the community. There is a library and groups working to promote
new economic thinking. OWS's next and overdue priority is how to be
better neighbors to their immediate downtown community.
William
Blake cautioned that abstraction without the particular becomes
demonic. As a society, we became intoxicated with the pursuit of money,
and then in our stupor, allowed forces emanating from Wall Street to
layer abstraction upon abstraction in the name of innovation. This
morphed into nothing but leveraged speculation at best, and into
manipulation, conflicts of interest, cynicism, cheating, and fraud. I
know because I was there at the creation in the 1980s. Back then, these
tools were innovative, purposeful and productive. But they have since
metastasized into a cancer. Free market fundamentalism blinded us to a
timely diagnosis, and continues to do so today.
It
is time for finance to resume its proper and humble place as servant
to, not master of, the real economy -- an economy that promotes a more
equitably shared prosperity while respecting the physical limits of our
finite planet. Such transformation is the Great Work of our age; work
that drives the Capital Institute and many other organizations fostering
the emergence of a new economy. The restoration of our democracy OWS
seeks is an essential step, which may be at hand. It's still a long
shot, but we shall see. One thing is for certain: OWS has started a
national conversation long overdue.
John Fullerton is the Founder and President of theCapital Institute,
whose mission is to explore and effect economic transition to a more
just, resilient, and sustainable way of living on this earth through the
transformation of finance. ///////////////////////
"Deny the wisdom of ending usury and the eco-system dies" Buchan