The ninety nine percenters

A protest group has been gathering steam in recent weeks. First in New York, and now in other global financial centres from London to Sydney, Taipei to Johannesburg, the ninety nine per centers have been running a campaign to occupy Wall Street. So what's this all about?

Money. Or the lack of it. Particularly in the United States, there are increasing numbers of working poor, who find that their living standards are continually being driven down. They turn on their television sets to hear that the corporate rich are receiving 20% returns on investment and 50% increases in pay packets, and wonder what’s gone wrong with capitalism.

Unfortunately, the truth is that nothing has gone wrong with capitalism. It’s working as intended. But capitalism in its purest form, as economists seem to want and as the richest parts of society love, is dog-eat-dog, survival of the fittest capitalism. It’s about winners and losers, and there will always be more losers than there can be winners.

Western society needs to stop, take a deep breath, and consider its goals and ambitions. Do we want a society divided utterly between masters and chattel, where the ninety nine per cent barely scrape by while the one per cent are lords of all they survey? Or do we think that all people should be valued for their contributions, and act accordingly?

The situation is not the same throughout the capitalist world. The United States is a paragon of pure capitalism, and its ninety nine percent suffer accordingly. Russia is similar. But few countries seem to be immune from the taint of unbridled capitalism, as even China comes to the party.

To change, and look towards a more equal world that recognises all contributions, requires government will. It requires governments, and more precisely politicians, to be prepared to go against their financial backers to re-establish some ground rules. It requires tax rates that are fair and progressive, increasing based on the ability to pay and without the myriad loopholes that exist in modern tax regimes. Change needs rates of pay for company board members and chief executives to be tied to the rates of pay of their staff. If a chief executive receives a 50% raise, then so should the person pushing levers on the factory floor. Most importantly, change requires guts.

But if nothing is done, then there may come a day that the ninety nine percent turn to violence. That would be a sad day.