Wall Street protest and its message

The protest in Wall Street that started three weeks ago spread to Boston, Los Angeles and Washington last weekend, and has apparently further spread to Canada and other countries. The demonstration was neither big nor had a clear goal at first. Jobless young people and students were busting their stress with a pillow fight and face painting at a park near Wall Street. They then began to criticize the large gap between the rich and the poor and Wall Street’s "casino capitalism." Then, the protesters chanted “Occupy Wall Street,” attracting more people via Twitter and other social networking services.

The protesters expressed anger by saying, “One percent of the people have 99 percent of the money,” and “Bankers are greedy in good times but pass on debts to the government on the brink of bankruptcy and make people jobless.” As celebrities including film maker Michael Moore, actress Susan Sarandon and trade union members joined the protest, the number of protesters increased to thousands in New York alone last weekend.

The protest in Wall Street is different from those of immigrants in France and the U.K., the austerity strike in Greece, and the protests for democracy in Arab countries. The Wall Street demonstration lacked looting and militant marches. It had no bullets in the air like a pro-democracy protest. Only some 700 protesters were arrested because they marched on the road despite a police warning that asked them to go only on the sidewalk.

The Wall Street protest, however, is prompting reflection on the weaknesses of capitalism. Though anti-capitalism that the protesters claim cannot be bought, it is true that extreme selfishness of banks and companies have created distrust and dissatisfaction. The protesters are asking banks whether they passed on the risk to society and took away profits and companies if they made only management and largest shareholders wealthy instead of caring for their employees.

Capitalism and democracy go hand in hand. Democracy prevailed over communism in that the former corrected itself through a democratic process. Capitalism has always changed in times of crisis. The Great Depression in the 1930s was overcome by Keynesian economics and Beveridge-style welfare state, and inflation in the 1970s was conquered by Reaganomics. Now is the time for the world’s governments, companies, banks and capitalists to read the protesters’ message and think seriously about how to respond.