1. Analyse the causes and significance of the
“Occupy Wall Street” movement
Occupy Wall Street or as an abbreviation OWS, is a growing people-powered, leaderless
movement. The very first meeting of this action was on 17th September 2011 in the New York City,
based in Zuccotti Park near Wall Street financial district. Inaugural protest was joined by about
1000 people, marching through the streets and protesting ( with colourful and unyielding slogans)
economic and social inequality, corruption, corporate influence over government and mostly
corporate greed. Recently similar movements, inspired by Occupy Wall Street protests have spread
all over the world. On the October15th “ Occupy the world” demonstrations took place in about 900
cities globally. 1This cosmopolitan spread of protests, shows how deeply people are being angered,
how badly they want to be heard and how seriously their lives are being affected by destructive
economic situation. The protesters are supported by hacker group, known as Anonymous, who
helps them in threatening corporation's workers, as a form of revenge for a hundreds of activists
arrested by police officers. They are also largely supported by some of the biggest labour unions in
the nation. 2
The genesis of this movement may sound like obvious, but I assure you that it's
much more complicated. After analysing a few articles about OWS, I came across a really scarce
mention about direct inspiration for this movement. Out of the blue, it turned out, that the Arab
Spring event had a crucial impact on it . Although situations and aims in these areas are totally
different, OWS decided to acquire tactical inspiration from protesters in the Arab countries. As one
of the protester said in the interview: “Guillaume Marceau: The Arab Spring inspired the tactic.
Occupy a public space and hold it for as long as it takes.” Although revolutionary demonstrations
1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupy_Wall_Street
2
http://news.yahoo.com/five-facts-occupy-wall-street-movement-223600817.html

2. in the Arab world were mostly successful ( but required sacrificing of individual's life), like ending
the 42-years of Mummar Ghaddafi autocracy, we can't yet state if OWS will have such a big
impact on changes.3
It’s important to say, that “Occupy” protest was inspired by Canadian activist, anti-
consumerist group, called Adbusters. Primary they had proposed a peaceful occupation of Wall
Street. The Adbusters Media Foundation was created in 1989, in Vancouver British Columbia , by
Kalle Lasn and Bill Schmaltz. They ( Adbusters) describe themselves as “ a global network of
artists, activists, writers, pranksters, students, educators and entrepreneurs who want to advance the
new social activist movement of the information age. Our aim is to topple the existing power
structures and forge a major shift in the way we will live in the 21 st century”. Adbusters publish
their free magazine in which people can read about multifarious thematics, ranging from
genetically modified food to media concentration, but their main concern is enormous impact of
commercial forces on our physical and cultural environment. The circulation of their magazine is
quite astonishing, reaching 120 000 copies internationally. Of course, their existence is not only
marked by magazine, but also campaigns. “ Buy nothing day”, “ TV turnoff week”, “ Digital Detox
Week” and “subvertisements” are only one of the most significant ones. They are supported by
organisations like “ Friends of earth” and “Greenpeace”.Concentrating on OWS, Adbusters
suggested the idea of occupying on their e-mail list and “it was spontaneously taken up by all the
people of the world”. 4Twitter, became a medium for a global protest and together with other
platforms amazingly accelerated the whole process of spreading the information. 5 Adbusters have
invented satirical poster , depicting a dancer on the top of Wall Street’s tremendous Charging Bull,
there was one question on it “ What is our one demand?”. 6
One journalist said, that “it is hard to discern a unified aim for the movement”,
officially the protesters haven't created a list of specified demands yet. However motives which lay
behind it are very explicit. The first and the most significant cause for OWS is widely understood
3
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/arab-spring-inspired-occupy-wall-street-protest/201270-55.html
4
http://www.adbusters.org/campaigns/occupywallstreet
5
http://baas.gr/2011/10/15/social-media-analysis-15october-net-final/
6
http://news.yahoo.com/five-facts-occupy-wall-street-movement-223600817.html

3. ‘wealth inequality” or “wealth gap” in the United States of America. By wealth, of course, we
understand not only the substantial form of it, like money, but also real estate and personal
property. While “wealth” mainly refers to “possessing”, the “income” is specifically what people
receive through work, retirement, or social welfare. Economic inequality is both, combination of
wealth and income inequality. The slogan “ we are the 99%” is the political manifestation and
economical claim. It occurs very often in protesters statements not without reason. 7Since the late
1980s, citizens are being of the opinion, that United States nation is divided into two groups, the
“haves” and “not haves”. 8This points out to the fact, that the class analysis is back to politics.
Protesters call them selves “ the 99%”, which means, the majority of working citizens, who have
almost no impact on financial, governmental rules, in contrast to the “1%” tiny minority who has it
all, and sometimes is even dictating the rules! They bring up the theme of social injustice, which is
omnipresent in everyday life.
Many competent surveys prove, that since 1970, there is an increased concentration of
wealth in the hands of 1% wealthiest Americans, which affects widening the “wealth gap” between
the 1% “richest „ and the 99% “others”. Analysing from the historical point of view, there were
a lot of causes, why this gap was extending. The average pre-tax income since 1979 for the bottom
90% has decreased, while for 10% has increased, because the federal taxation became less
progressive. Then in the period of 1992-2007 the wealth become wealthier, because taxation rate
was reduced by 37%. After the Great Recession in 2007, there was a drop of 36,1% in median
household wealth, but for the wealthiest drop was only of 11,1%. In the several next years the
income of the most prosperous grew 10 times faster, than this of the bottom 90%. It this period,
amazing 60% of total income fell into the wallets of wealthiest ( largest share of total income since
1928). Today the top 1% account for 24% of all national income.9
7
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_United_States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_are_the_99%25
http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
8
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/10/18/the-psychology-of-occupy-wall-street/occupy-wall-streets-
taps-into-longstanding-concerns
9
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_United_States

4. But not only taxation is to blame. The creation of financial, banking services, which are not
treating people from different social classes in the same way, indeed they're being more lucrative
for the wealthy . Higher rates of savings for wealthier, higher net rates of returning to assets, lower
credit costs and lower credit rates. It may seem, like the whole bank functioning system was
created to help wealthiest to produce more and more profit. Since it is hard for poorer people to
deal with banking services, rich are accumulating more assets, and working classes are just getting
by ( in a particular good cases) or barely making ends meet ( in particular bad cases).
Another reason is the financial sector, which broke away from the real economy and
is living in his own world. It is estimated, that the value of derivatives market ( in which 15 largest
banks in the U.S. and Europe are involved) is several times higher than the GDP income for the
whole world! Bank players are reaching without any difficulties for client’s money, for deposits of
population and concerns. They are doing it to keep up with their competitors and to gain money on
Stock Exchanges, however it's very risky. The whole banking ignorance of the risk has even
moved to traditional banking services. Banks started to offer mortgage, different credits for all
eager, without paying attention to their incomes. It is now resulting in bank insolvency, people
being left behind with colossal debts and no houses, graduates with no perspectives of a dreamed
job and no money...10
Nowadays, we are observing, that the corporate profits are at an all- time high
( accounted in dollars and share of the economy). CEO's pays and corporate profits have escalated
11
over the 20 years, comparing to production worker, who's pay has risen only by 4%. What is
more banking institutions in other countries on the model of Wall Street banks, started to pay
enormous bonuses to it’s presidents and managerial staff. For instance, Bob Daimond, the
Managing Director of British Barclays, has earned in previous year 14 mln pounds, other
Managing Director from Deutsche Bank Josef Ackerman earned 9 mln euros. 12 Contrarily average
1
0 Newsweek Polska 44/2011, 31.10-06.11.11 ,article title: „Śmierć spekulantom”, p. 56-60.
1
1 http://www.linkedin.com/news?
actionBar=&articleID=844191998&ids=0UdzcMcPATd3wId3oTdzoQd3gUb3wVej4VcjgQe2MRc3kSd30MdjwIczsP
cz4PejcU&aag=true&freq=weekly&trk=eml-tod-b-ttle-68&ut=2vP9_50sRHskY1
1
2 Newsweek Polska 44/2011, 31.10-06.11.11 ,article title: „Śmierć spekulantom”, p. 56-60.

5. wages, as a percent of the economy, are at an all-time low and haven't increased in 50 years... But
this is a result of a low-cost China workforce, which is bombarding our global market.13
People are getting irritated not only by enormous earnings but also by financial
scandals. Greedy brokers are investing tremendous amounts of money and because of their
imprudence also loosing a great part of it. Some of them are already behind the bars, but some
hadn't faced the justice yet.
According to December 2005 questionnaire “ Big businesses have too much power
in Washington”, another one, forthcoming done by Pew Research Center report will show large
majorities saying that “while the government does not do enough for both the middle class and
14
poor people, two in three think it does too much for the wealthy” Let me quote one of the first
official statements of the “Occupy”: “ We come to you at a time, when corporations, which place
profit over people, self-interest over justice and oppression over equality, run our governments.
This leads us to defining another flash point for the OWS, the corporation influence over
government. In everyday life I wasn’t even aware, that world’s biggest corporations might have
such a big impact on government and use a wide range of methods, until I read different articles
explaining that problem. As it turn out, this concern was deeply rooted in American history. In fact,
for the past centuries big business relied on big government for support. Today, there’s no
difference, only this influence is more complex and protected. In general, corporations influence
government through campaign contributions, through lobbying, and through captured regulatory
agencies. There are many different ways to support the campaign: campaign founding, soft money,
independent expenditure, issue ads, public financing, non-decisions, ect. When it comes to
lobbying, the main point is to meet with representative, senator, legislator, persuade them to your
point of view and get them to act in your way. Captured regulatory agencies or regulatory
commissions, are the last component of the Washington Triangles. It’s a governmental-
corporational chain, in which basically, corporations influence government through lobbyist,
1
3 http://www.linkedin.com/news?
actionBar=&articleID=844191998&ids=0UdzcMcPATd3wId3oTdzoQd3gUb3wVej4VcjgQe2MRc3kSd30MdjwIc
zsPcz4PejcU&aag=true&freq=weekly&trk=eml-tod-b-ttle-68&ut=2vP9_50sRHskY1
1
4 http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/10/18/the-psychology-of-occupy-wall-street/occupy-wall-
streets-taps-into-longstanding-concerns

6. congressional committees make profitable decisions, executive agencies give out contracts, finally
regulatory commissions adopt regulations, which are beneficial or restrictive. If each link of the
chain works properly, than everyone benefits. Although society is the one who suffers. 15There is
no wonder, why people are excluding theirselves from the mainstream politics, they believe, that
it's a rich- persons club, which is totally impermeable for them. What is more, they are frustrated
by political debates, campaigns, protests, because they are carried on a level of abstraction talks,
not a real citizens' problems.16
As the “Occupy” are a still ongoing protests, spreading all over the world their
consignment, and further protesting, it is hard to talk already about their significance. But if we
take a closer look at their actions and responses from different people, commenting their efforts,
we can state some.
Firstly, we have to emphasize again, that the Occupy movement has reached truly
global perspective. Mainly, by social media like Twitter, Facebook and web pages of organizators.
BaaS has done a monitoring on social media about the Global Change action. Although their
research tools were limited ( only some keywords and only in English), they proved a lot of
interesting points and gave us a little sample of which we could analyse the whole situation.
Twitter was the main platform of the protesters and of course majority of mentions were made in
the USA. But that's not the main point, because as we analyse further, we can observe a whole
range of other countries on different continents were also concerned about situation- from Sweden
to Democratic People's Republic of Korea. If we look at the content tone survey, we can state, that
most of the mentions were neutral and the negative ones were only 100 more than the positive one.
The main emotions, which users expressed, were of course the social emotions, then money was
proven to be the main cause of their sufferings. But living out the virtual world, in the real one,
there were global protests, accounting for 951 cities in 82 countries. The Noble winning price,
Elias Cantetti, compared spreading of such a movement to a forest fire of flood, that becomes even
more powerful and difficult to control, which is true. 17
1
5 http://www.polisci.ccsu.edu/trieb/InfluGov.html
1
6 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15326636
1
7 http://baas.gr/2011/10/15/social-media-analysis-15october-net-final/

7. Public opinion research centres started to conduct a surveys, whereas we are approving this
manifestations or disapproving them. Study, which was realised on October 12 th by NBC/ Wall
Street Journal, found out that 37% of voters tend to support this movement, while 18% have a
negative impression of it. However, the supporting impression consolidates, last survey done by
Quinnipack University in New York indicated, that 67% of voters support the movement, while
23% do not. The results also proved, that 87% of New Yorkers find it OK, that people are
protesting.18 Such a growing percentage, might point to the fact, that people are becoming aware of
factors impacting on nations( their) economic problems. Economic obstacles, which are not only
affecting commercial institutions, large banks, international corporations but also, above all,
society. To name a few: the biggest unemployment rate, since the Great Depression ( some sources
state that:14 mln people only in America!), unequal distribution of income, big profits for banks
and corporations, insufficient control on consumer services and debts, enormous influence of
corporations on government... People are realizing, that global capitalist system is immoral and
irrational. It creates a large disproportion amongst minority obscenely rich oligarchs and majority
of poorly-paid workers or even worse- unemployed. Majority has a lack of influence over the
growing economic crisis and is forced to pay for it. This hierarchical discrimination is creating a
lot of anger. Developing a controlled capitalism, which is operating within limits defined by public
goods, is one way to solve the problem. Ending economic dominance of corporations
( decentralization), supporting small businesses and creating economic law equality is another
solution.
Another significance of this movement, is affirmation of the possibility of the Social
Act. It is negation of the “(TINA)There is no alternative ” ideology. Contrarily there is an
alternative, because the OWS movement itself symbolizes one.19 Realization of fact that the voice
of ordinary people isn't left with no response. Maybe that because of fact, that this time it is a real
massive demonstration and that protesters are really angry and resistant ( The Arab Spring tactic). I
hope this is the global change of fact, that the small unelected minority dominates the economic
1
8 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupy_Wall_Street
1
9 http://www.truth-out.org/significance-occupy-wall-street/1320080395

8. system, and great majority has no democratic voice. There is a great response on protests from such
an important institutions and people as: The White House, Congress, Politicians, Unions, Business
leaders, Individuals representing “ The 1%”, celebrities, authors, academics and of course
international representatives. It means, that all of these people are concerned about this situation.
President Obama said “(...) I think people feel separated from their government. They feel that their
institutions aren't looking out for them”, even New York city mayor Michael Bloomberg isn't
criticising the protests “People have a right to protest, and if they want to protest, we'll be happy to
make sure they have locations to do it." Although most of the oligarchs comment on this movement
with disapproval, some of them are trying to empathize with protesters, as Fadrad Ebrahami
wearing t-shirt “ Tax me. I'm good for it”. Celebrities, authors and academics so as international
representatives are mostly on the “Occupied” side. As of academics, prof. Paul Levinson from
Frodharm University, states that OWS and similar movements symbolize the rise of direct
democracy- the one that people are making decisions for themselves without having elected
leaders. Because, as I wrote earlier OWS is a leaderless movement. 20
So far, the voices of the Occupy Wall Street movement aren't neglected in the big
political world. In the G20 summit in Cannes (France), head of the United Nations Ban ki Moon,
has supported some demands of the protesters and has asked to consider protesters concerns about
the global state of economy. French President Nicolas Sarkozy has challenged the second richest
man in the world- Bill Gates to propose some solutions to G20 leaders, how to raise founds to meet
needs of the poorest. Amongst Gate's suggestions: a small tax on trades of stocks, derivatives, and
other financial instruments, also known as a financial transactions tax. In Bill Gate's opinion, there
are a few solutions, which were creating significant improvements in countries where they were
implemented, raising 1,5 million dollars per year. 21
While we are already in a political theme, let me compare two movements. There
are various opinions, whether the Tea Party Movement and Occupy Wall Street have anything in
common. As I was reading different comments, presentations and information I found some
2
0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupy_Wall_Street
2
1 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sarah-anderson/gates-backs-the-wall-stre_b_1073741.html

9. similarities and differences between those two people-powered protests. Let me start from
parallelism. Both are frustrated with a government and institutions, which are minding their own
interests and not serving society. Secondly, both have gathered in a huge groups of people, to be
visible and heard by others. TPM and OWS are speaking on behalf of a larger part of society, they
were loudly commented by the media and politics. Moreover, both have support from politicians,
celebrities, entrepreneurs, religious leaders, authors and academics. Let me consider differences
( which are mentioned more often). The most significant difference is ideology, from American
political point of view, while the Tea Party bends strong right, the OWS crew leans mightily to the
left. Tea Party have had a more concrete aims and objectives to reach, contrarily OWS has a plenty
of ideological perspectives, which are not so well defined. What is more, OWS seems to be much
more younger and more ethically and socially diverse than TP ( hypothetically). Taking all into
consideration OWS has more aggressive tactic ( almost 3000 arrested), is much more unilateral and
does not forget any financial mistakes.23
Taking all into account, I must state that before the start of the Great Depression
America was surviving similar situation. However, Americans did manage to handle it in 15-20
years period. How it would be handled now( on a global scale)? No one really knows, but such
movements as „ Occupy Wall Street” and „Occupy” globally, point out to the fact, that something
needs to be done. They are calling for the Global Change, which should be operating on many
spheres of life. Social, economic, political even cultural, to make world more „human” one. They
make people aware, of global problems affecting everyday life. What is significant, is the unity of
all people all over the world. Apparently mistakes were made in different governments,
corporations, decisions , not just in the financial heart of the world, as the Wall Street remains to
be. However this statement, may be put into the question, because 47% of Americans say that
Wall Street hurts the U.S. Economy, more than it helps. 24Of course, we can't state that Wall Street
shouldn't exist more, but some sort of regulations should be implemented, to make financial
situation stabilized again. As of nearly two months of existence, OWS movement did achieve some
2
3 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-reyeschow/tea-party-occupy-movement_b_1062824.html
2
4 http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/10/18/the-psychology-of-occupy-wall-street/occupy-wall-
streets-taps-into-longstanding-concerns

10. goals: it reduced debit-card bank fees, affected the national conversation, took attention of workers
of financial institutions, emerged as a threat for corporations. Supreme Court blocked restrictions
on the amount of money corporations could devote to political campaigns. Although their actions
weren't always responsible, act of violences, abusing small businesses around Zucotti Park , they
were dictated by large feeling of anger, which simply bursted out. 25 Still protesters should realise,
that anger isn't helping them, but destroying their efforts. Just as Mohamas Ghandi stated „ anger
and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding”. So far, as the newest information
present, occupying part of the movement may come to the end. Police is warning to shut down
demonstrations cities in most of the towns. Most resistant protesters still come to the park to
express their solidarity, but they must to go home at night, because it is banned to occupy any
longer. As most of the protesters claim, it's not about the location or camping out, but it's about the
message of the movement and movement itself. There is another “Occupy” action planned, but this
time it will take place outside the Congress. Protesters announced on their Facebook page, that
such an action will make the scene on the 17 th of January and announced to bring with 1 million
tents.26 As well as protesters are assured that they must to protest as long as it takes, I am assured
that their global action will try to bring world on a good road of peace, justice and humanity.
Maja Trifunović
International Business 1st year
Wrocław Uniwersity of Economics
2
5 http://finance.yahoo.com/news/occupy-wall-street--the-income-gap-debate-occupy-wall-street-after-2-
months--a-scorecard.html
2
6 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2816568/posts