They took the risk to make their money, they have a right to not have it taken by a totalitarian state as that sign was implying.

Clearly, there are lots of political viewpoints, but it's naive to say that they should not be able to have their money. 'Privilege' depends on how you class it - if it's merely because of spending money, that's their right to as someone competent enough to become rich, while if it's from having money, that's something entirely different.

Many billionaires get their money either from selling inherited stocks or property or by inheriting a mass fortune. That isn't fair on anyone else. There are people who have gotten sacked from jobs that they have had for ages and have been living in their cars, whole families even. That wasn't because "they took a risk to make money". You are making sweeping assumptions.

Of course it's fair - they inherited it from someone who made it. Would you also class giving someone else money as 'unfair' then?
Many billionaires did not inherit it anyway, that's more in the range of millions.

So freedom to take others' freedom should be allowed?

Money is a more powerful means than what you could imagine.

Any case, and replying you (HNM), my point is that you can't be rich on your own only. There's always people behind you making all the things you don't have time to do or don't know how to do. People who exchange their time and effort for your money.

Imagine these people have such a small income that they are having no treatment for their diseases, not enough money for their families' basic needs and no time since they have to work in three different places to earn a living. (yea bull****)

Yeah, they would be pissed off.

Libertarianism would be fair if we were self-sufficient, glass-caged individuals; but the reason why any human society has been built is: we can't live on our own. We are linked and bonded to thousands of people who are affected by what we decide to do.

That you can't see the consequences of what's happening (or rather, what is not happening) after people do what they want with their money; it doesn't mean everything is all right. You could say none of it is your but their business, blame the others for being "lazy"; but they are still there. And you depend on them (hence one of the reasons why economy keeps getting better and better since 2008).

State intervention is fair when its actions are fair. It's not about being an absurd egalitarian saying everything has to have exactly the same as anyone else; but rather about protecting the people from disease, hunger and overexploitation; and have a common, public project. Living in society should mean helping each other live together and not having the others as a means to make your living.

That is a fair society.

Either way, and whether it's the State or the enterprise, taking from the rich is far better than having to take from the poor to sustain a system.

^Exactly.

Again, it shocks me how you are so hostile to this movement, HNM. What ever happened to Seeing? I thought you used to want societal changes, remember back to the beginning of AF and ToS? Now you're defending an economic status quo that has screwed millions out of their hard earned money and livelihoods (why are people so quick to defend the fortunes of the rich but not the fortunes of the everyday man?), and a government status quo that turns a deaf ear to the people who elected them, a government that only represents the rich. This kinda thing might be an Ayn Rand wet dream, but Ayn Rand wasn't part of the 99%!

Things are bad for the working class in this country, and unless people are willing to stand up and say NO to this cronyism, things will only continue to get worse, and people who sit back and defend banksters and rich execs are part of the problem, not the solution.

Damn, well said Zenit. Anyone have an alternative to this movement & the changes proposed they'd like to suggest other than to do nothing? :P

There's no alternative I'll put forward. To be honest I like seeing these large groups of citizens using their right to assemble and speak up as opposed to doing nothing. Who am I to forbid them from doing that. I can't help but feel for a lot of people on that tumblr.

Look I(we...uh people) aren't mad that they made money. Bully for them they succeed in this utter crap hole of a world we inhabit. What most of these people are unhappy about is how those with money decide to "use" it. They continue to only utilize their wealth to obtain more wealth, keep others down, and enact political change that they want. As a Catholic I see that if you have more to give you should give more. Most of the 1% continue to pursue goals that do not help humanity as a species. Instead they pursue short term goals that only help themselves. I don't want their money taken from them, I want them to see that we must work together to change this screwed up ball of rock we call home.


Why is it that things like this make my much vaunted "cynicism" vanish? I think I need my head examined...me....ME...talking about humanity coming together to do good?!? I need a drink.

I find it strange that hnm is defending the billionaires/millionaires and not the average people and the poor in the USA who have had everything turned upside down because of the greed of both the financial industry and the billionaires. I concur, what has happened to "seeing"?

I'll just say that if the '99%' want to change things around, they should be demonstrating outside the White House, not Wall street. The economy won't move for anyone but the government and the military.

They are. There's an Occupy Wasington DC, as well. Along with Occupy Chicago, LA, and dozens of other cities.

Many billionaires are also pretty nice people. More than a few are giving away from half to 90% of their fortunes to charity.


Its those god damned millionaires that are mostly *******s.

It's going global. Occupy movements are in Australia, UK, Iceland, Japan, Middle East, Greece and Spain, even Sweden. :) I'm going to the one in sydney this weekend.

Bankster protests go global, as

Point taken.

This saturday, the 15th October, there almost certainly is a city near you where there will be protests or gatherings in solidarity and/or about the same general topics.
I certainly will be there!

Indeed - this is a problem I try to mention always. It is not about some Tony Hayward getting millions for killing the gulf of Mexico or some bankers playing the system to collect a lot of money. The problem is the system itself. This is also why it is next to impossible to change anything fundamentally with the means provided by the system. The change may have to be outside of the system. The change has to be as radical as the change from monarchy to democracy. No single person or political party is "the cause"...

No we have not. You think you know what it is and dismiss it. As I said, there never was communism within the last 200 years on a large scale anywhere int he world.

Haha, together with a saying that "the US is a state with only one political party that has a right and a center wing" - this describes the US as a communist state :P

But really the definition of communism is very different. In fact it is a socioeconomic system that prevents people from opressing others. Quite simple. Everything else follows from that. What good is all the money in the world if no one is willing to be your servant, what if that money cannot be used to make someone do something he'd rather not do but that benefits the one who has money. Why should someone clean your pool or yacht or destroy his own land for extracting oil if no one can tell him that he has to do to have a decent life (or to survive at all)? Why would anyone but a few work 60 or 80 hours a week if it was not for them being opressed by the current economics that demands them to pay so much money for just living (and repaying student loans)?

Communism does not mean that no one can have a bit more of this or that than someone else, it means however that one person cannot make other people work for him in a way that gives him all the profit while the workers get just enough to live.

While you seem to call many of the great thinkers of the 19th and 20th century "naive" (which is quite arrogant, I daresay that Marx, Engels, Fromm and many others certainly have spent more time and brain cells on this topic than any of us freetime-political theorists here), I would say that it is actually the other way round. Zenit mentioned it already - the money these people "made" was not actually made by them. The profit, work, innovation, surplus was generated by others. The only thing most of the rich do is to take some of their money and "invest" it which means they pay some people a bit of money but cash in on the much greater value of the products these people create. To me that sounds a lot like parasites.
A common argument then is "well who is going to build the factory and buy the machines if not an investor - without the investor, there would be no factory and thus no one would have anything". This is however self-referential as this is only true within capitalism. In a society that has wealth more equally distributed, the workers could form a cooperative and build or buy their own factory and then reap the full benefits of their production.
The only thing the rich people are good in is luck (becuase they inherited some money) and risk management or simply playing chance games. That certainly is a quality and a talent or profession, but I see no reason why this specific talent or profession should be rewarded so much more than any other profession. Yet the current economic system is set up in a way that it is! And this is IMO the thing that has to change. The priorities have to change. Who really deserves the highest reward in a sane society - the ones who plunder the earth and its inhabitants to make more money or the ones who actually help the Earth and its people? Why does a banker deserve a higher reward than 100 social workers or nurses? What is more important - the economy or the people?

One thing that especially the US people but others as well do not understand anymore - and that is in itself very understandable as reality has drifted away from theory so much - is that in a true democracy, "the state" is in fact the people. This is what democracy means. State intervention is the intervention of the people, of the majority of the masses and thus is perfectly justified. Only because none of us live in a democracy anymore, because governments and politics are not really representing the opinions and will of the people, only because of that, we see state intervention as something external, as something "someone else" is putting forth.

Re taking from the rich - in the german constitution there is a rule. It says "Ownership/Property is an obligation. All property/ownership shall also contribute to the wealth of all people". So it is even there in the very basic legislature of this country that actually the ones who own a lot, the rich, the corporations, the banks have an obligation to contribute more than those who dont have much at all. Of course the rich are the ones that have to pay more - what other benefit would this society have from allowing people to become rich?

... and destroys this beautiful planet.
I dont get it either. What happened?

my personal opinion - she was maybe a psychopathic, but most definitely an antisocial person, maybe with some form of autism. There is nothing wrong with autism, which places individuals into their own universe, separated from the rest of the world and causes them to think of the world as a place in which everyone is like that - seperated individuals all living in their own little worlds. But to make a philosophy, a sociaoeconomic system and global politics from that is maddening!

Yes - there are no "solutions" yet. I think one reason for these assemblies and the groups forming there and the discussions held there is to create a forum to find these solutions. We NEED solutions - otherwise we are so fvcked...