Sunday, October 30, 2011

Occupy Wall Street: Why the French Revolution Analogy Really Can't Work in Practice and Globalization & Devaluation as the Silver Lining in the Cloud


If there was ever a case of blatant revisionist history and media it is the current analogy  of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement and the French Revolution (FR).

There are numerous blogs out there comparing and contrasting the attributes  between OWS and FR.
Fundamentally, the true difference between the two, is that the French lower class mistakenly believed that simply removing the monarchy would solve the wealth and sociological differences that existed between the classes. In the years following the Revolution, the revolutionaries found out the hard way that implementing a government and maintain infrastructure essentially replaced one type of bureaucratic institution and corruption with another.

Now if the supporters and activists of the OWS keep this in mind, they must remind themselves that the leaders that can effect the change that they seek are also under the influence of the institutions that the OWS wants changed. Even if extreme political actions and martyrdom were undertaken, ultimately the lobbying practiced behind the scenes in the House and Senate, would ultimately water down any perceived gains from such action. (see the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Controversy)

The instantiation of global capitalism and outsourcing that is a key underlying job issue of the OWS movement has dictated the jobs growth for the past few years. It must be remembered  that the credit market issues are also a rallying point for the OWS. This issue is more of an lobbying institutional issue that will be difficult to change because of the Catch-22 situation explained earlier.

Ironically, globalization and shifts in international currency markets which may devalue the dollar may force lobbyists and corporation to recognize the normalization effects of globalization to the point where manufacturing and jobs are potentially created. This benefit has drawback in that a devalued dollar ultimately increases the price of certain consumables and imports. Obtaining credit will be difficult, but if the institutions and lobbyists play it smart in reforming the credit market to accommodate the potential incomes created in the wake of increased employment as well as address other credit market issues, the OWS may get a victory although it may be a Pyrrhic one.

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