One of them, a 25-year-old
ex-Marine named Brian Phillips, told me he quit his job in Washington
state and hitchhiked to join the protest in New York. "We want to start a
new way of living," Phillips said. "We want to start a new society. We
want to destroy a system that benefits only the 1 Percenters. It's not
working for us. It's putting us in poverty. No more making laws that
benefit corporations and banks."
The focal point, however, is
specific: Manhattan. The capital of the finance corporations whose
speculation, chicanery and outright fraud have produced havoc and pain
for so many Americans. It sets the model nationally for a metastasizing
economic regression: the maldistribution of wealth into the hands of the
few.
Out of the 25 largest cities in the U.S., New York is the most unequal
when it comes to income distribution. In New York, the top 1% of
households claimed 44% of all income during 2007 (the last year for
which data are available). That's almost twice the record-high levels
among the 1 Percenters nationwide, who claimed 23.5% of all national
income in 2007. During the housing bubble that ended in our current
calamity, the average income for the 1 Percenters in New York went up
119%.
Meanwhile, the number of homeless in the city rose to an all-time high
last year, with 113,000 men, women and children retreating night after
night to municipal shelters. The real hourly median wage in New York
between 1990 and 2007 fell by almost 9%. Young men and women age 25 to
34 with a bachelor's degree and a year-round job in New York saw their
earnings drop 6%. Middle-income New Yorkers — defined broadly as those
earning between $29,000 and $167,000 — saw a 19% decrease in earnings.
Almost 11% of the population in New York, about 900,000 people, lives in
what the federal government describes as "deep poverty," which for a
four-person family means an income of $10,500; the average 1 Percenter
household in New York makes about that same amount every day.
It's not surprising, then, that more than 700 New Yorkers and fellow
travelers, chanting "Whose streets, our streets," got arrested on the
Brooklyn Bridge over the weekend, or that several hundred white-faced "corporate zombies" staggered by the
New York Stock Exchange
on Monday. The Teamsters announced their support. So did the postal
workers union, teachers, nurses and transit workers.Thousands marched
Wednesday, swelling the protesters' ranks.
U.S. history teaches us that the politics of peaceful disruption has
been an effective way to prod the establishment toward greater social
and economic justice. Consider the suffragists in the early 1900s, who
fought for a woman's right to vote; or labor's long history of strikes
and rallies that finally led to mass unionization. Consider the civil
rights marchers and martyrs, and the antiwar demonstrators of the 1960s.
They shut down factories, took to the streets, braved freedom rides.
They made noise and made news.
But perhaps the closest historical parallel is with the Populist movement of the 1890s, which, like
Occupy Wall Street,
was a broad, economics-driven revolt that targeted a predatory class of
corporate capitalists — the robber barons of the Gilded Age.
The Populists drove the Progressive era of reform of the early 1900s.
They sought to dismantle the centralized power of corporations in the
economy and return economic liberty to individuals and small business.
They envisioned a graduated income tax, the secret ballot, the
regulation of banks. It remains to be seen if today's 99 Percenters will
be as successful at transforming the political discourse.
The Populists formed a political party with a specific platform — the
People's Party. They ran candidates who won office; they formed
real-world banking and agricultural cooperatives to challenge the
hegemony of corporate capitalism.
In Liberty Square, the protesters say that they have no intention of
disbanding; that they're preparing for a long, cold winter. But will
their numbers increase, or will their resolve fizzle in the histrionics
of street theater? Will they organize or merely proselytize? Most
important, can they move enough of today's silent majority — 99
Percenters all — off the sidelines and into the fray?
