The movement being referred to here is the ‘occupy WallStreet’ movement. This movement started in the month of September,2011 at the WallStreet, and its major purpose was to occupy WallStreet which is the country’s financial capital. The pioneer behind this movement was a Canadian group and magazine called Adbusters, which made the initial call for people to protest. It was largely aided by Workhorse, which is a public relations firm, which assisted Adbusters to draw immense media and public attention to the movement. Indeed its contribution to this cause was acknowledged by industry publication PRNews, which awarded the firm its Platinum Award (Haidt, 2012). There are, however, particular faces behind the Adbusters organization who are credited with making the original steps towards this cause. Kalle Lasn registered the movement’s website under the name OccupyWallStreet.org on June 9. Micah White made his contributions to this movement through a series of blog posts. On July 13th, Adbusters posted a blogpost in which it called for the citizens to occupy WallStreet in protest of the influence and increasing influence of the corporate world on democratic decisions of the nation. It also was against what it perceived as impunity of those responsible for the great recession, whose cause heavily points towards WallStreet. Monetary insolvency and a very large and increasing disparity between the rich and the poor were also cited by the post in its call for protests. In September 17, 2011, the movement officially began in Zuccotti Park which is in the WallStreet financial district of New York (Haidt, 2012).
Moral and Economic Implications
Fairness
The movement was a protest from people who categorized themselves as the 99%, demonstrating against the actions of a group termed the 1%. The 99% are the ordinary citizens of the nation. They do not have a lot, they can only manage to put food on the table yet they pay heavy taxes. The 1% are banks, business corporations and insurance companies, who operate majorly from WallStreet, which is the financial capital of NewYork. This 1% group, however, controls everyday life of the 99%. They make financial and even influence the democratic choices of the nation. The movement questioned how the 1% got their wealth in the first place. It was by exploitation of the country’s resources. Taking from the public without giving anything in return. Worse still, the 1% messed themselves up because of greed, consequently causing the economy to spin in to a recession and the 99% were forced to bail them out of it. Taxes were raised and the hard hit by this move were the 99%, putting further strain on their economic health (Haidt, 2012).
Income inequality
Income inequality is an issue affecting most democratic and capitalistic countries. Mostly, the government would put in place measures to curb further disparity. Failure to do this inevitably leads to class wars. In the united States (U.S), income inequality had consistently risen over the period of the past fourty years. There had, however, been no public protests about it, nor had the media mentioned income inequality often enough. The 2007 recession changed everything. The government was perceived as not taking or not being able to take any action against the corporations that caused the recession. Those in the 99% category felt that their was a huge gap in the distribution of income between labour and capital, largely caused by corruption and insensitivity from those who occupied the 1%. It was time for them to rise up and draw needed attention to income inequality in the U.S. It worked because the term income inequality, was mentioned approximately four times more after the movement began than before (Haidt, 2012).
The movement wanted student loans, for those who were unable to repay, be forgiven or the government to bail them out. They argued that unemployment levels were rising (infact companies were laying off employees) and that even those who landed jobs were not paid well enough to be able to repay the loans (Haidt, 2012).
Utilitarian, Kantian, and Virtue ethics
These three fall under moral philosophy, which is about actions, intentions and outcomes. Their difference is what, of the three mentioned variables, is important. Utilitarian ethics puts emphasis on the outcome of an action. The motives or intentions of the action do not matter at all. Kantian ethics is the exact opposite of utilitarian ethics. Here, motive is what determines if an action is just or not (Quinton, 1989). The end results do not matter. Virtue ethics is about the person, whether he/she is expressing good character or not. It’s not about the action or the end of the action (Darwal, 2003).
Fairness
As explained in the first implication, the movement was after fairness. The movement wanted the 1% group to start giving back as much as they had taken from the 99%. The movement did not care about whether they were following the right channels for example legislation, rather, they decided to occupy WallStreet in the hope of forcing the financial corporations to start giving back. This falls under utilitarian ethics. Virtue ethics is ruled out because in the first place, occupying WallStreet without the consent of the authorities is wrong. Kantian ethics is also ruled out because the means of getting the corporations to start giving back was wrong, but it did not matter.
Income inequality
The call for income inequality falls under virtue ethics. It is only right that those who fall in the 99% group were the ones calling for income inequality. Kantian ethics is ruled out because the means of addressing the issue was wrong. Utilitarian applies only to the extent that they were focused only on their desired outcome.
This call falls under the virtue and utilitarian ethics. The movement only concentrated on the desired outcome, without even thinking that forgiving loans would be perceived as morally wrong, by the taxpayers. The 99%, however, make a majority of the taxpayers and so they are justified to call for the forgiving or bailout of the loans defaulters.
Income inequality and wealth distribution in the U.S
Businesses and corporations are responsible for income inequality in the U.S. The government has the responsibility of ensuring income equality and fair distribution of wealth, yet it is controlled by these corporations so playing to their tune. The government is , for example, reluctant to enforce minimum wage legislation, because they depend on these corporations for campaign resources. This is something that has build up over time as more and more corporations make more money (Tenebrarum, 2011).
An acceptable outcome from the movement would be legislation. Laws should be passed to make it mandatory for the big corporations to pay more taxes, as well as pay their employees more. wallStreet should also be open to independent audits.
In my opinion, the movement will not go away, but it will turn into something else. Once the movement has achieved its goals, maybe through legislation, it will stick around to guard the achievements as well as represent all other issues facing the public.
References
Darwal, S. (2003). Virtue Ethics. Wiley.
Haidt, J. (2012). The Moral Foundations of Occupy WallStreet. reason.com. Retrieved from
http://reason.com/archives/2011/12/30/the-moral-foundations-of-occupy-wall-str/1
Quinton, A. (1989). Utilitarian ethics. Duckworth
Tenebrarum, P. (2011). Wealth and Income Inequality in the U.S. ACTING MAN. Retrieved
