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Project Syndicate / Op-Ed
Published: Saturday 5 November 2011
“Today’s protesters are asking for little: a chance to use their skills, the right to decent work at decent pay, a fairer economy and society.”
The Globalization of Protest
The protest movement that began in Tunisia in January, subsequently spreading to Egypt, and then to Spain, has now become global, with the protests engulfing Wall Street and cities across America. Globalization and modern technology now enables social movements to transcend borders as rapidly as ideas can. And social protest has found fertile ground everywhere: a sense that the “system” has failed, and the conviction that even in a democracy, the electoral process will not set things right – at least not without strong pressure from the street.
In May, I went to the site of the Tunisian protests; in July, I talked to Spain’s indignados; from there, I went to meet the young Egyptian revolutionaries in Cairo’s Tahrir Square; and, a few weeks ago, I talked with Occupy Wall Street protesters in New York. There is a common theme, expressed by the OWS movement in a simple phrase: “We are the 99%.”
That slogan echoes the title of an article that I recently published, entitled “Of the 1%, for the 1%, and by the 1%,” describing the enormous increase in inequality in the United States: 1% of the population controls more than 40% of the wealth and receives more than 20% of the income. And those in this rarefied stratum often are rewarded so richly not because they have contributed more to society – bonuses and bailouts neatly gutted that justification for inequality – but because they are, to put it bluntly, successful (and sometimes corrupt) rent-seekers.
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This is not to deny that some of the 1% have contributed a great deal. Indeed, the social benefits of many real innovations (as opposed to the novel financial “products” that ended up unleashing havoc on the world economy) typically far exceed what their innovators receive.
But, around the world, political influence and anti-competitive practices (often sustained through politics) have been central to the increase in economic inequality. And tax systems in which a billionaire like Warren Buffett pays less tax (as a percentage of his income) than his secretary, or in which speculators, who helped to bring down the global economy, are taxed at lower rates than those who work for their income, have reinforced the trend.
Research in recent years has shown how important and ingrained notions of fairness are. Spain’s protesters, and those in other countries, are right to be indignant: here is a system in which the bankers got bailed out, while those whom they preyed upon have been left to fend for themselves. Worse, the bankers are now back at their desks, earning bonuses that amount to more than most workers hope to earn in a lifetime, while young people who studied hard and played by the rules see no prospects for fulfilling employment.
The rise in inequality is the product of a vicious spiral: the rich rent-seekers use their wealth to shape legislation in order to protect and increase their wealth – and their influence. The US Supreme Court, in its notorious Citizens Uniteddecision, has given corporations free rein to use their money to influence the direction of politics. But, while the wealthy can use their money to amplify their views, back on the street, police wouldn’t allow me to address the OWS protesters through a megaphone.
The contrast between overregulated democracy and unregulated bankers did not go unnoticed. But the protesters are ingenious: they echoed what I said through the crowd, so that all could hear. And, to avoid interrupting the “dialogue” by clapping, they used forceful hand signals to express their agreement.
They are right that something is wrong about our “system.” Around the world, we have underutilized resources – people who want to work, machines that lie idle, buildings that are empty – and huge unmet needs: fighting poverty, promoting development, and retrofitting the economy for global warming, to name just a few. In America, after more than seven million home foreclosures in recent years, we have empty homes and homeless people.
The protesters have been criticized for not having an agenda. But this misses the point of protest movements. They are an expression of frustration with the electoral process. They are an alarm.
The anti-globalization protests in Seattle in 1999, at what was supposed to be the inauguration of a new round of trade talks, called attention to the failures of globalization and the international institutions and agreements that govern it. When the press looked into the protesters’ allegations, they found that there was more than a grain of truth in them. The trade negotiations that followed were different – at least in principle, they were supposed to be a development round, to make up for some of the deficiencies highlighted by protesters – and the International Monetary Fund subsequently undertook significant reforms.
So, too, in the US, the civil-rights protesters of the 1960’s called attention to pervasive institutionalized racism in American society. That legacy has not yet been overcome, but the election of President Barack Obama shows how far those protests moved America.
On one level, today’s protesters are asking for little: a chance to use their skills, the right to decent work at decent pay, a fairer economy and society. Their hope is evolutionary, not revolutionary. But, on another level, they are asking for a great deal: a democracy where people, not dollars, matter, and a market economy that delivers on what it is supposed to do.
The two are related: as we have seen, unfettered markets lead to economic and political crises. Markets work the way they should only when they operate within a framework of appropriate government regulations; and that framework can be erected only in a democracy that reflects the general interest – not the interests of the 1%. The best government that money can buy is no longer good enough.
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ABOUT Joseph E. Stiglitz
Joseph E. Stiglitz is University Professor at Columbia University, a Nobel laureate in economics, and the author of Freefall: Free Markets and the Sinking of the Global Economy.
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19 comments on "The Globalization of Protest"
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If you wrote an atrclie about life we'd all reach enlightenment.
November 06, 2011 3:08pm
I fully support the Occupy movement……what I don’t support is the polarization that is being played up here. I everyone to be thinking of how we can solve this disparity that has happened, one we have all been watching over our lifetimes. I know that there are many people with wealth in the world who are working and spending their lives doing good, world changing things with their wealth……….what about them? Not all people of wealth have the morals of the Koch Brothers and we shouldn’t lump all people with money into that basket. Can we stop this please, Mr Stiglitz? We are an intelligent people who can figure this out………….let’s quit trying to polarize people………..that where war comes from and you’re playing right into the hands of the military industrial complex. How can we take this amazing movement and make something really world changing out of it? This is the question we need to be asking.
November 06, 2011 11:18am
The people that are protesting "Wall-Street", are the very same people who make wall street; by buying and using expensive "toy" phones. Also wasting fuel and goods and charging what they cannot afford! www.hope05.org
November 06, 2011 11:13am
We have to start to stop the old myths and face the facts. www.hope05.org
November 06, 2011 10:57am
Occupy London, November 12. Take the political power from the Lord Mayor on this day of election.
Support OCCUPY LONDON, NOVEMBER 12
Humans either:
1. Eat to Live
2. Live to Eat
3. Eat and are alive
Why is category 3 in complete control? Occupy London, November 12.
The Vatican, London, and Washington DC fit into this mold, and this protest coming up in London is central to dismantling all of it,
http://www.truth-out.org/medieval-unaccountable-corporation-london-
ripe-protest/1320336191
What we are fighting against, Guantanamo,
http://www.truth-out.org/death-guantanamo-suicide-or-dryboarding/1320182714
a comment of mine appended to the first article above:
The late Saul Bellow in his book called More Die of Heartbreak, talked about just this possibility in 1997, amphictyonies of mafia like order larger than Chicago Families, and just before he was poisoned like Pope Ganganelli-Clement XIV in the late 1700s. It is time for the 40th abolishment of this order, http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardtruth/blackpope.htm, but since evolution is substitution, we must make sure our steps are in time with evolution, which means learning. I would suggest Lindisfarne Association scientists become a preservation principle as we relieve moral relativity from the walls of time, plus a working knowledge of world justice related to following the money, thus Indira Singh's incredible contribution. Bring her evidence to world court, TheHague 2012.
Search for Singh in relation to interviews in 2005 on Guns and Butter with Bonnie Faulkner, and on A Closer Look with the late Michael Corbin, murdered about the time Singh comes up missing in 08. Also, this is the time she began communication with Richard Andrew Grove. Avoid the cosmic in the process. Like Peter Falk, just the facts. Tommy Tamm's interview on NPR w/r his involvement with the FBI is very significant to understand how to feed data to parallel processing equipment used to launder money and finance worldwide crime. Finally,www.RemberBuilding7.org
This is beyond the cause of nations.
November 06, 2011 10:10am
You aren't V. You aren't even close. Your idea is good to a point, but who will feed the out of work little guy who has those jobs?? Not you! Perhaps you need to see the truth of how much your Government uses you like right now. Clinton Okayed free trade and a free market and you all screamed Hurray! Not a decade later it's someone else's fault? The Rich? the corporations? The Republican? The Banks? be careful what you wish for my friend. I'd be more respectful of you if you were proud enough to use your name, then I know you have conviction. To hide behind fakery doesn't give me any compassion for your cause.
November 06, 2011 9:55am
The fairest income tax system would be a progressive tax with NO DEDUCTIONS. Every time you give some entity a deduction, everybody else has to make up for the loss of tax income. My proposal would be to have people making $5,000 pay 1%, and people who make over 1 billion pay 99% of everything over a billion. Let the experts figure out what everybody else pays. You would be able to pay based on a chart on a postcard. Say you want to have 4 or 5 children, childless people now pay for your deductions. People with house mortgages are subsidized by renters to pay their mortgage interest. No matter how good it sounds, in each instance everybody else is subsidizing the deduction. Why should Congress decide who pays and who doesn't. This is a capitalist system, let the market (people) decide. A side benefit would be the elimination of a lot of lobbyists, and a huge bureaucracy (IRS arbiters, tax lawyers, accountants). All income should be taxed at the same rate. Why should capital gains on investments be taxed at 15% when wages can be taxed at a high rate of 35%. People who work pay more than people who invest. Is that fair? Why should hedge fund managers, some of whom made over a billion dollars last year, be taxed at the capital gains rate. Our legislators decide (based on high priced lobbying), who pays what.
November 06, 2011 4:20am
The language of compassion as taught and spread throughout the world by Marshall Rosenberg is being used. The roots of violence are judgment, blame and the hate that follows. A focus on universal human feelings and needs with respectful discussions, based on clear requests, encourages mutual understanding and sharing. Compassionate communication will bring in the new epoch of survival as we design ways to promote sustainability. See, cnvc.org, compassioncourse.org, theexercise.org and more. The culture of competitive innovation has brought us a long way. Now we are shifting to a culture of respect, consideration and sharing---as must happen if life, as we know it, will continue on this planet.
November 05, 2011 6:57pm
As long as our federal legislative process is dysfunctional and our financial big boys flaunt reality .... then change will come. "An oppressed people WILL revolt", indeed, they must for their own sake and sanity. We've been living down the proverbial rabbit hole in a nether world of insanity and silliness -- time to be done with that. Those who have created it will be the most unhappy but they have only themselves to blame.
November 05, 2011 5:48pm
All these protests are centered around the theme of economic inequality. They are all about the equitable sharing of national pies – there is not even an attempt to conceptualize an equitable sharing of the global pie.
Moreover this movement for a more equitable sharing of the national pie translates into a demand for more money and in the absence of any clear indication of what this money is to be used for it must be assumed that it will be used for business as usual which is to say it will be used to increase consumption.
How this makes sense within a context where we are faced with 1. Rapid Resource Depletion(RRD) 2. Pollution and Global Climate Change (P&GCC) 3. Global Monetary Collapse (GMC) and 4. The increasing incredibility of the Growth Model of Development (GMD) is something that is not clear – at least to me with my obviously feeble mind. I suppose it would be asking too much to expect Joseph Stiglitz to explain the sense of this ‘more equitable sharing of the national pie’ to me.
To call this call for more money in order to continue with consuming our environment ‘evolutionary’ is I think a mistake. Evolution has come up with some complex structures and has successfully generated ‘autonomy’ and it has proved itself capable of maintaining fine balances and dynamic equilibria. This sense of ‘autonomy’ evolved within human life has still not learned how to maintain anything like these equilibria. It hardly perceives this equilibrium as drunk with its apparent to do as it pleases without consequences it continues on a mad binge of consumption. Neither has the human species learned how to structure its relationships as networks –found in most if not all organic structures - and instead continues to follow the model of the hierarchical pyramid with its absolute power concentrated at the apex and inherent corruption and oppressiveness that results. Joseph it seems would place himself in the service of the continuity of this orgy of consumption, corruption and oppression.
He would better serve the human species and indeed all forms of life on earth, if he employed his talents in the task of conceptualizing transformative processes that can guide us from this self destructive global civilization that has no objective other than the consumption of our environment at as fast a pace as possible to a new and sustainable civilization that has as its objective the facilitation of life’s evolution through and beyond human being and its universal spread.
November 05, 2011 5:49pm
All these protests are centered around the theme of economic inequality. They are all about the equitable sharing of national pies – there is not even an attempt to conceptualize an equitable sharing of the global pie.Moreover this movement for a more equitable sharing of the national pie translates into a demand for more money and in the absence of any clear indication of what this money is to be used for it must be assumed that it will be used for business as usual which is to say it will be used to increase consumption.How this makes sense within a context where we are faced with 1. Rapid Resource Depletion(RRD) 2. Pollution and Global Climate Change (P
November 05, 2011 12:24pm
HEY 99%! Are you angry? Use it!
We have POWER! “Buying Power.” And, it’s about time we used it. Here’s how.
STOP BUYING THINGS. STOP BUYING…EVERYTHING.
WE CAN INSTANTLY STOP THE FLOW OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS.
STRANGLE THE COMPANIES THAT ARE KILLING US!
Companies want our money, but they don’t want to help America get back on its feet?
We are being starved, now let’s starve those greedy corporations who took our money.
We want companies to hire us, politicians to vote for us, and this is how to force it.
We have an incredible mobile army of millions and millions and millions of people!
Let’s combine the power that we all have. VOTE, by NOT spending.
Stop buying as much as you can. Stop buying from ALL of the big corporations, retailers and banks; Wal-Mart, Walgreen’s, CVS, Rite Aid, Kroger, Costco, Target, Home Depot, Best Buy, Sears, Lowe’s, Supervalu, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Georgia Pacific, RJR, Brown & Williamson, Kraft Global, Sara Lee, Tyson, BP, Shell Oil, Exxon Mobile, Hewlett-Packard, AT&T, Sprint, Dell, Microsoft, Dow Chemical, Chevron, Kimberly-Clark, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, J.P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Capital One, Ford, Chrysler, GM, Disney, Macy’s, Kohl’s, The Gap, Penny’s, Colgate, Nike, Staples, Office Depot, Lilly, Johnson & Johnson, Avon, Starbucks, McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, Kellogg’s, Dean Foods, General Mills, etc., etc., etc. All of them!
Add your own companies to our list and pass it on.
Don’t use global banks. Move your money from a big bank to a neighborhood bank.
Don’t use your credit cards or ATM’s…at all.
Don’t shop any retail chain stores. Shop local, or mom and pop shops.
Don’t buy gasoline. Walk, take a bus, car pool, or ride a bike.
Don’t buy any extras like music, movies, electronics, or toys…nothing.
BUY AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE, FOR AS LONG AS POSSIBLE.
STOP SPENDING OUR BILLIONS OF DOLLARS AND WATCH WHAT HAPPENS.
Greedy global companies will be left in shock and not knowing what to do.
Wall Street, the oil barons, corporate fat cats, stockholders, executives, marketers, retailers, politicians, and President Obama, will be asking us, the 99%, what we want!
“WE” WILL FORCE WALL STREET AND CORPORATIONS TO HELP AMERICA!
We have already started.
V
November 06, 2011 10:11am
You aren't V. You aren't even close. Your idea is good to a point, but who will feed the out of work little guy who has those jobs?? Not you! Perhaps you need to see the truth of how much your Government uses you like right now. Clinton Okayed free trade and a free market and you all screamed Hurray! Not a decade later it's someone else's fault? The Rich? the corporations? The Republican? The Banks? be careful what you wish for my friend. I'd be more respectful of you if you were proud enough to use your name, then I know you have conviction. To hide behind fakery doesn't give me any compassion for your cause.
November 05, 2011 10:48am
Orwell warned in Politics and the English Language that rather than words being used to clarify and to be exact, they would be twisted to obfuscate. The brilliance of the Occupy movement is their restraint NOT to "write-up" a list of demands. Sometimes numbers 1% vs 99% speak the more damning truth.
Above I did not post herein Rev Johnson's Huffington Post article as I am not that familiar with any of the Post's recopy rules - however, I refer your readers to a compassionate analysis that puts forth ethical questions and a spirit of care not just for the 99% but the police (tasked with a most difficult task) as well as the 1%. In caring out his ministry, perhaps therein lies his real message, he is addressing the 100%.
November 05, 2011 10:38am
When does one stop being human? Asked in a Huffington Post by the Rev Earl Johnson "Occupy Wall Street No Poverty of Spirit 11/12/11
To highlight, the shared prosperity or Utopian dream/promise of globalization was high jacked almost at its infancy when it left the realm of the academics, the theologians, the philosophers: the thinkers. Just like the dream of the early Internet, long before it's "corporatization" coup, a forum for a sharing of ideas - a free market of the best research, engineering, medical, economic theory and it's close brother sociology etc. Long before the monetization of All.
Today we stand with a CDO/swaps market estimated at $600 Trillion, dwarfing the annual world GDP of roughly $60 Trillion. A 10x or tenfold leverage. And only an "estimate" since these deals or instruments are birthed in the shadows, along with other dark instruments that bring total debt to staggering heights only expressed exponentially. The 1% hiding their dirty toils and bending the laws of justice to also "earn" them impunity and immunity and the generational enslavement necessary to pay off such debts will be recorded by historians as crimes equal to that of Hitler and Stalin. For warfare it indeed is: the "shadowy" works manifest themselves in the cover of night in the dark alleys or streets of Calcutta or an obscured corner or crevice in a Rio favela where destitute women deposit their now orphaned offerings to the world in the gutter.
We reap what we sow.
Understood at the highest level or vantage point. From the shadowy boardroom machinations at Goldman Sachs to the black box algorithms inside Deutche Banks flash trading computers to the defenseless abandon children - all linked. Though some refuse to see. "They know not what they do" - indeed.
So today we see just how corrupt and distorted this interlaced financial "system" is when fears that Greece ($320B in GDP, not even 1% of global GDP) if it had voted to secede from the "union" would bring the whole house of cards down. How can that kind of system make any sense? Economically or otherwise?
The first "Big Lie" was the promise of a global economy, (how could such really not be corrupted without global governance?) global prosperity, democratization of wealth. Half the world lives on less than $2 per day, 40% has limited or no access to clean water. The only economic strata's that have experienced double digit growth are the lowest rung or poor and the 1%.
The second "Big Lie" was that world wide diversification would reduce, minimize or mitigate risk. The dark instruments couched in Orwellian speak words like "securitization."
So I asked myself your question again "when does one cease being human?"
Pessimistically, I see today's stripping Greece, the birthplace of democracy, of its democracy, (blackmailing them to tow the line/fall into formation), quite ominously.
On the other hand, your compunction to pen another Huffington Post "post," my own attempts or need to share thoughts, articles, give meaning to what I "see" with my circle of "thinking" beings and likewise my circles increased conversation and awakening, coupled with the Occupiers of the World, and all the other million forces, compunctions (the need to right a wrong, our conscience compelling us to take action) seeking to shed light on those toiling in the shadows, the dark.
This, this gives me hope.
November 05, 2011 10:25am
It is going to take violence to clean up this mess, just like it will take violence at this point to put it down.