Occupy Wall Street Movement

Occupy Wall Street Movement

Overview of the Movement

The Occupy Wall Street Movement was started on 17 September 2011 in Zucotti Park, the financial district of Wall Street, New York. The purpose of this movement was to raise social and economic injustices influenced by big corporations on the government. The reason for this movement is that the overall wealth of the United States lies in the hand of 1 percent of the population. The growing inequaliy and distribution wealth was the main motive that led the people to protest against the current system, The slogan for the movement has been that the protestors are the 9 percent. After the famous Tahrir Movement in Cairo this movement was deemed to achieve its goals with the public's backing. The movement lost its momentum on 15 November 2011 after the protestors were forced out of Zuccotti Park, but the purpose of the movement is still there.

Ethical and Economic Implication

The movement is bringing the issue of economic injustice into the spotlight and the need for an economic system that works for the benefit of the society. A number of studies have shown that in the U.S, income gains have been dominated by the wealthiest. An example of this is provided by a report by the Congressional Budget Office which states that real incomes of the top 1 percent by 275 percent between 1979 and 2007. In comparison with less than 40 percent growth for the middle 60 percent of income distribution (Levine, 2011, p.6). These figures describe the huge gap that was there in the incomes of the elites and the common people. The only purpose of the capitalism is to make profits, at any costs, the cost here being the lost to society.

Young people that enter the job market in the past decade have faced the burden of student loans. Due to this the students have not been able to have a real growth in their incomes despite the fact that there has been a growth in productivity of 20.2 percent between 2002 to 2010 (Dean, 2012). The finance sector of the economy has grown rapidly, with the profits being more than the output. This trend shows that the cost of intermediary services to the economy is much higher than it should be. The young people were contributing to society only to pay off debt, a percentage of which went to the financial institutions.

The economic system has become such that it has concentrated the wealth in the hands of few individuals. This is because of practices such as creating bubbles in markets such as the stock market where small time investors lose to big ones because of manipulations in the mechanism sof the markets. Banks charging excessive interest from the people increases their cost of living and also causes companies to cut out jobs that lead to unemployment. Corporations grew so strong and financially powerful that they started dominating governments. Due to the unemployment there are social consequences such as the ...