Movement “Let’s occupy the Wall Street” aimed against “the despised capitalist banks and corporations” irresistibly imposes the comparison between the fate a famous Georgine and capitalism – while she cannot give birth, it cannot die. Although even Karl Marx had foreseen his certain death and made him a coffin so many years ago.
Since the time of K. Marx up to the present day many opponents (and some of them were very serious) often held funeral services to the society of private property, competition, free markets and entrepreneurial freedom, and send it to the dustbin of history by claiming that it has reached death’s door. But this society has outlived all of them. And it has been lasting for two hundred years now. Capitalism is constantly dying but cannot pass away, as opposed to socialism that somehow died without much effort.
Upon missing the numerous opportunities in the past, including the one from 1929/1933, the opponents got the last big chance to lay capitalism to rest in 2007. and 2008. when the global economic crisis expanded, arguing that the free market does not function and should be changed. Of course this argument was not valid as the cause of the crisis was not an ontological defect of free market, but the absence of regulation, so capitalism is still alive and well, as we can see. The disadvantage of those who wanted to bury the global crisis together with capitalism was the fact they could not offer a better alternative. Such is the current case with the movement “Let’s occupy the Wall Street”, it seems lively and interesting, just as the movement of “flower children” from the late sixties. Its actors will probably end up just like the participants in Woodstock – on the Wall Street.
The lack of alternatives is not a big flaw of the current opponents of capitalism, because the fact is that in history bears no alternative that has done more for the average citizen in regards to free market. Undoubtedly, the free market did not eliminate poverty, but has reduced it in comparison to all other alternatives. All major indices show a correlation between the free market and living standards – an increase of the free market in one state leads to a better life for the people of that country.
Although announced as inevitable, the collapse of capitalism (and the end of the world) is again postponed into the distant future. It was not really possible because the recession (which affected the United States and a part of the Western world) was not the diagnosis of a final collapse, as the opponents wanted. History has shown that recession is a completely normal and natural phenomenon in capitalism and the same capitalism would always regain its strength – there are periods of progress and investment when mistakes are made, and they should be eradicated during the period called recession.
After all, a famous businessman Warren Buffett said the other day that he saw nothing that would make him concerned about a possible new recession.
History shows that the recession has always been a good chance to open a debate “what to do know” within the society of private property and free markets. The ruling political elite in capitalist countries are currently facing the dilemma of whether the crisis of 2007. and 2008. should be resolved by the state’s active participation in dealing with economic problems, or it should be left to free markets. The policy of U.S. President Barack Obama that the state should intervene in the economy was seen among the part of global public as the burial of capitalism, and an American union leader even said that USSA (United Socialist States of America) is being created in the USA. Weak level of confidence among the enterprises and the incredibly low ratings of Barack Obama among the people, show how bad was the attempt of the state to decide how much money it needs to take from those who earned it (and to whom this money belongs) and to give it to whoever the state wants to. Why is this bad attempt? Because the political distribution of additional values in a society gives negative incentives to entrepreneurs in regards to their future production. For example, at the beginning of the crisis the state has given money to GM to get out of bankruptcy, but this carmaker hastily rushed to give it back so that it would no longer be in bad company with the state.
The fact that state intervention is a bad solution is proved by the example that U.S. companies keep the accounts of three trillion dollars in cash and do not want to invest because they do not know what measures the state will bring. This uncertainty is detrimental to the economy, not to mention the fact that this money could solve the problem of the entire unemployment in the United States. Entrepreneurs and economic experts of the United States are almost convinced that the recession in the U.S. would already have been completed if only companies had a clear and stable rules established by the state which should afterwards stay away from economy. That is why U.S. companies are fleeing to other markets and investing there. So this year, Coca Cola is investing four billion dollars in China, after it has already invested three billion dollars so far.
The opponents of government intervention to save capitalism are accusing the government of causing the crisis by politics of low interest rates and by tolerating the corrupted subsidies to mortgage banks. It might even be said that the lowering of America’s credit rating (AAA from AA + to) was actually the score of the government’s policy of Barack Obama, and not American capitalism.
An almost paradoxical impression becomes evident – the liberal economists are very close in their viewpoints and almost share the same beliefs with the supporters of the Movement “Let’s occupy the Wall Street” – both of these groups are blaming Wall Street bankers of being very happy while they were able to make millions (and the state did not make a good regulatory framework), and now when the crisis arose they turned to State to ask taxpayers to get them out of trouble.
The key difference between the defenders of capitalism and the supporters of “Let’s occupy the Wall Street” movement remains invincible – while first groups considers that the crisis would already be gone if only the state has not interfered and that Wall Street should be left to the laws of supply and demand as “capitalism without bankruptcy is like religion without hell”, the other group believes that both Wall Street and the market should be abolished as a prerequisite for the death of capitalism.
One more interesting detail for the end. Those who constantly long for the demise of capitalism did not “pick up the crumbles” and ran away from it to a place where the state is a key partner in the creation and distribution of social wealth.
The occupation of Wall Street and Serbia