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I paid you back, so what's the problem?

One of the most common chants at Occupy Wall Street protests is, “Banks got bailed out; we got sold out.” Critics of OWS (Erin Burnett of CNN, for example) have been quick to point out that the banks paid back the bailout money they received, and they expect we will find this to make things all right again.

Why doesn’t it make things all right? To me, it is kind of like having a brother in law who is also a gambling addict. When he can’t cover his bets, he comes looking for a loan to cover him just for a few days, you know. You give him the money, because otherwise he will destroy your entire family, and you sister and her children may end up homeless or living with you. To avoid absolute disaster, you cover his bets knowing it is no long-term solution to the problem. You hope he will get help. You hope he will change, but you know he won’t change until his own world collapses or he goes to jail, but you still feel trapped.

 

So, you pay, he puts it all down in a big bet and makes a huge winning. He pays you back and gives you a little extra for the trouble. He even suggests that you invest a little of the extra in some risky bets of your own. After all, you won’t really be losing anything. In the meantime, he continues to take even greater risks on long-shot bets. You continue to live frugally in order to protect the family when the next crisis comes, but you are really starting to get fed up.

This is the scenario we have, except our situation is worse. Taxpayers covered the bets for the banks, but taxpayers were not kept afloat. Many people lost their jobs, and even more lost their homes. The global economy was severely damaged, but the people who caused the damage did nothing to repair it. They repaired their own bank accounts but made no reparations to the rest of the people who were affected. People who have expressed their outrage at this injustice have been beaten, pepper sprayed, and put in jail. When will the people who caused this crisis be held accountable?

We are flawed. Redemption is possible.

This week a proposal to discredit the Occupy Wall Street movement was leaked to the public. The consulting firm (Clark, Lytle, Geduldig, and Cranford) would charge the American Bankers Association $850,000 to develop a campaign to destroy OWS. Included in this service is a search of OWS “leader’s” civil and criminal histories, including bankruptcies, tax liens, judgments, litigation history, and “other associations.”

Many people support the OWS movement because they have lost their homes, are bankrupt, have lost their jobs, and face a multitude of financial and social problems. Discovering that they have such problems should not take much work. All one has to do, really, is read the heart-breaking stories on We Are The 99 Percent. We are all leaders of this movement, and I hope we will continue to embrace the imperfect, the vulnerable, and the tarnished.

Everyone has problems, and everyone has a past, and everyone is human. As long as we are human, dignity is possible. As long as we are free our voice matters. I read a column today expressing sadness for Lt. John Pike, who pepper-sprayed students at UC-Davis. Indeed, he is a human being, and anyone one of us may have acted the same way in his circumstances. If he can speak as a human, flawed and vulnerable, I feel sure he will be forgiven and embraced. It may take him years to be able to face what has happened to him and express it.

Oddly enough, the CLGC proposal also paid a compliment of sorts to the OWS protesters. It says, “It may be easy to dismiss OWS as a ragtag group of protesters, but they have demonstrated that they should be treated more like an organized competitor who is very nimble and capable of working the media, coordinating third party support and engaging office holders to do their bidding.” They are certain that OWS is much like the ABA, a centralized and powerful organization looking out for its own interests. They don’t imagine that citizens may be motivated by a sense of justice and fairness. In their amoral world, they cannot imagine people who operate within a moral framework.

Also in the proposal, they mention that both the Tea Party and OWS supporters are angered by the bailouts of banks and the irresponsible behavior of the financial industry. It says, “This combination has the potential to be explosive later in the year when media reports cover the next round of bonuses and contrast it with stories of millions of Americans making do with less this holiday season.” No suggestion, of course, that executives should perhaps hold back on bonuses. Rather, they will simply find ways to manage public anger over their own greed, rather than curbing their greed the least little bit.

I said any human is worthy of dignity and respect and that redemption is always possible. It is clear that the financial industry is nowhere near redemption. They are not even near recognition that their own behavior is immoral and intolerable. They do not have a sense of shame. It is our job to show them that we have a sense of justice and a sense of honor. We must let them know we find their behavior shameful.

The High Cost of Occupation: The High Cost of Injustice

According to various reports, the Occupy Wall Street movement has cost cities upward of $10 million. As the protesters are angry at the diversion of public funds away from public services (I know people say no one knows what they want, but they are really quite clear about what they want), it might seem that this wasteful spending is only making things worse. The more cities spend on police, the less they can spend on libraries, public parks, infrastructure, and all the other things that make society work. We might ask whether military ordnance such as Tampa Police Department's tank (no, armored rescue vehicle) is a good use of money, but policing protests takes a few pennies either way.

Somehow, it seems cities always have enough money to deploy an army to suppress a non-violent protest but not enough money for basic services. The cash tin for security is bottomless. But surely, even those in power would rather not have to spend all this money on security if it can be avoided. No one wants to have to live with barricades everywhere. And no one wants to live with the inconvenience of constant protests.

And that is the point. Protests are intended to create a situation that everyone would rather avoid. As Martin Luther King put it, "Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored." This is what this movement, and any other political movement, seeks to accomplish. It is obvious that $10 million is not enough to create a crisis for the current established order.

When the current order is threatened, it will of course blame the dissenters for a new sense of crisis and chaos. This blame is misplaced. It is a breakdown of order that provokes civil disobedience in the first place. Mass movements are made up of people who want a just and civil society. As John Rawls, another great American philosopher, said, "If legitimate civil disobedience seems to threaten civil peace, the responsibility falls not so much on those who protest as upon those whose abuse of authority and power justifies such opposition."

Which brings us to the final point. The purpose of protests is to make the cost, financial and otherwise, of injustice greater than the price of justice.

Tea Party Fights Corporate Abuse

The East India Company, chartered in 1600, was the first corporation in the modern sense. Members would invest capital, management would conduct the operations, and investors would receive repayment in proportion to their investments. For the first time, investors and mangers were separate persons. At this time, it was unclear who would be responsible for wrongs committed by the corporation.

As this and similar ventures developed, investors were increasingly separated from the actions of the corporations, and limited liability (investors could only lose the amount they invested in the corporation) became the norm by the end of the nineteenth century. This also made corporate immortality possible as corporations could outlive their owners.

The British East India Company (BEIC) rapidly gained economic power and exerted global influence. It formed the largest standing army in the world at the time, gained control of India and the surrounding islands, controlled the opium trade in China, and managed slave trading out of Madagascar. One-third of British parliament members held stock in BEIC, 10 percent of British tax revenues came from tax on BEIC tea, and the King depended on loans from the company. In exchange for these benefits to the British government, BEIC was granted many favors, including monopoly rights.

The company conscripted thousands of British for forced labor in Jamestown, a colony set up in America by BEIC. Eighty percent of these laborers died before completing their seven-year tenure. Because of its rapid expansion and competition from small colonial business, though, BEIC was almost bankrupt. It was able to overcome this setback with more favors from the British government, which expanded its monopoly and led to the 1773 Tea Act, lifting tariffs on tea and enabling BEIC to flood the market with cheap tea and destroy its competition.

This was the catalyst for the Boston Tea Party. During the Boston Tea Party, protestors dumped more than 90,000 pounds of tea into the harbor, which was then closed for more than a year and a half. This led to the battles of Lexington and Concord; as a result, America’s founders vowed to protect the United States from corporate power and corruption.

The Boston Tea Party is an enduring symbol of America’s popular resistance to the collusion of corporations and government against the interests of the people.

Information for this blog came from:

1. Christopher D. Stone, Where the Law Ends: The Social Control of Corporate Behavior (New York: Harper & Row, 1976).

2. Shelley K. White, “Corporations, Public Health, and the Historical Landscape that Defines Our Challenge,” in The Bottom Line or Public Health: Tactics Corporations Use to Influence Health and Health Policy, and What We Can Do to Counter Them, ed. William H. Wiist (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2010).

When should corporations be treated as people?

I recently attended a conference on business ethics, and one of the presenters asked what human rights corporations had. When some scoffed at the notions that a corporation could have any human rights at all, the presenter asked whether corporations did not have the right to buy property. Indeed, the earliest laws regarding corporations dealt with just such problems.

Lawyer Christopher Stone described some of the history of corporations in his 1976 book, Where the Law Ends: The Social Control of Corporate Behavior. The earliest corporations arose from the need of some organization, such as the church, to own property. It did not make sense to say that the abbot owned the property, could buy or sell it, and pass it on to his heirs. Rather, the property belonged to the church, and the congregants were responsible for it. When the abbot died, the church would still control the property.

And property was the primary function of the early proto-corporations. As you may know, some people, especially libertarians, assert that all human rights are property rights (see Murray Rothbard). If all human rights are, indeed, reducible to property rights, then the corporations, having the right to hold property, also are entitled to all the rights any human might reasonably demand. This is what free-market thinkers mean when they say corporations are people without the slightest pause.

The earliest commercial corporations were entities such as trade guilds. Although these guilds operated as one organization, when harm was done, individuals, not the guild, were held responsible. If you got bad meat from a butcher, you would blame the butcher, not the butcher’s guild. Stone points out that this system had its own drawbacks. It may be that a guild created a culture or corruption or failed to create a culture of safety. In this case, you may want to hold the corporation responsible rather than seeking out individuals.

You may demand that the corporation lose its charter, which was once the threat the public had against corporations. To withdraw a business charter would be the death penalty for a business. If such things still happened, perhaps we could better handle the equation of corporate rights with human rights, although it still does not sound right. But just imagine how life would be different if corporations could effectively be sentenced to death for wrongdoing. Well, they can, but it will take a great deal of political will to reinstate the death penalty for corporations.

Camus on Wall Street

As a young man, angry as I was, Albert Camus spoke to me. Many described him as an existentialist who focused on the absurdity of life, which was true, but I think it missed the point. At the very least, it missed the main point I took away from his work. After going through some periods of despair, I found “The Myth of Sisyphus” to be uplifting and inspiring. Camus offered the surprising revelation that Sisyphus could be happy. Actually, Camus said we must imagine Sisyphus happy. If Sisyphus is happy, surely anyone can be.

But Camus does not tell us to choose to be happy in spite of our circumstances. He does not tell us to turn inward in a meditative trance to achieve happiness. He does not tell us to live in the moment. No, it is a defiant spirit that keeps Sisyphus happy. Sisyphus has the misfortune of not only having a dreary existence but also of being all too aware of it.

Many people appear to go through life without ever realizing they are living a pointless and dreary existence that would be torture if they thought about it for one second, but they do not think about it. Or they try not to, but Sisyphus does think about it. Camus says, “The lucidity that was to constitute his torture at the same time crowns his victory. There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.” It is scorn for his masters that gets him through the day. Even if he cannot change the situation, his hatred for his masters is a victory over them.

So some of us continually rail against the state of the world, and we are counseled to accept our reality, count our blessings for what we do have, be productive, and live in the moment. Our rage, we are told, prevents us from being happy, but I think our rage, our scorn, our repudiation of injustice is what sustains us and gives us meaning. It gives us happiness.

Our scorn and anger sustain us because they declare that we are something of worth, even if we are worthy only to ourselves. In The Rebel, Camus says, “In every act of rebellion, the rebel simultaneously experiences a feeling of revulsion at the infringement of his rights and a complete and spontaneous loyalty to himself.” Rather than being a negative, rebellion is a positive expression of one’s humanity. To do otherwise is despair, which is silent. Camus says, “To remain silent is to give the impression that one has no opinions, that one wants nothing, and in certain cases it really amounts to wanting nothing.”

Bewildered pundits, reporters, political observers, and sedated citizens ask what the protesters on Wall Street hope to accomplish. They have already accomplished something important. They have said, “no.” They have begun to live. They have chosen to want something.

Brooks and the Milquetoast Revolution

In today's New York Times column, David Brooks mocks the Occupy Wall Street protesters for offering only mild and ineffective solutions to the country's problems, rather than radical changes that would significantly alter the American system. It's funny, but I haven't seen or heard any OWS protesters claiming to be radicals or to want to overthrow the American system. Rather, I have seen people who love their country and want to let their leaders know they are not expendable. This should not be radical; in fact, no one should ever have to assert this position. We should assume all Americans are of value and that repairing our nation will require shared sacrifice.

He says, "They will have no realistic proposal to reduce the debt or sustain the welfare state. Even if you tax away 50 percent of the income of those making between $1 million and $10 million, you only reduce the national debt by 1 percent, according to the Tax Foundation." I happen to think that removing the Bush-era tax cuts, ending corporate subsidies for corporations making huge profits, and closing tax loopholes that enable rich individuals and corporations to pay taxes at an exceptionally low rate or not at all, you will have an impact on the national debt.

But what if I am wrong? I am a humanist and not an economist, after all. I don't have the solutions for the economic problems of the country, but I do feel that everyone should be subject to the same laws, same punishments, and same regard. After the financial collapse in 2008, we were told that banks were too big to fail and that we must rescue them. Taxpayers bailed out the banks only to see them become even larger through mergers and continue the same dangerous behaviors that caused the economic failure in the first place. We rescued them, rewarded their bad behavior, and are now being treated as if our voices do not matter.

If the banks are too big to fail, and the government won't break them up, we must make them smaller ourselves by moving our money to credit unions and smaller banks. We must hold corporations accountable for their crimes. We must ask them to pay their share of rebuilding our country. Mr. Brooks is correct; this is not radical. He may also be correct that it will not solve all the financial problems of the United States, but it will be fair.

It is more important for me to live in a fair and just society than it is to live in a prosperous society. We should not need a revolution to achieve this.

Occupy Wall Street

For more than 30 years, I have mourned my country’s decline. When it comes to generating capital, the United States remains a leader, creating wealth at unprecedented rates. This meteoric rise in wealth, however, is accompanied by equally steep increases in indifference, poverty, and environmental degradation. Anyone who expresses concern or even sadness is mocked and rebuked. In an Orwellian turn, “compassion” is now “hating America.” Concern for declines in education and employment is now “liberal fascism.” As a nation, we have forgotten our humanity.

Like many in this country, I had given over to despair and resignation. Corporations are allowed to fund our elections as well as write and enforce our legislation. How can one resist a power that comprises the global economy and the governments of the developed world? Perhaps, it is still not possible, but the Occupy Wall Street protesters have sent one clear message: “By virtue of being a human being, you deserve a modicum of respect.” This belief, that people do matter, is common to every religion known to me. It is also common to every philosophical approach to ethics and morality that I can name. Even Ayn Rand’s exhortation to “selfishness” recognizes the demand that no one has a right to trample the needs of others. To pursue your own happiness entails concern for promoting good relations with others.

America has become a nation of talking points and PowerPoint lectures. When people ask what the protesters want, specifically, they are really demanding a “study sheet” for a humanistic movement. What do the protesters demand first? That humanity be recognized as something of concern. People must be treated as persons, first and foremost. From this assumption, policy decisions will flow. No simple solution exists, so no one can articulate it. Life is complex. Economies are complex. Legislation is complex.

If we can once again affirm the value of our humanity, however, we will live in a better, if imperfect, world.