How Occupy Wall Street Illustrates Left and Right Philosophies

I’ve been trying to decide if I had any thoughts worth blogging about the whole Occupy Wall Street protest thing. The general consensus is that they’re not really sure what their goals are but it’s something about “corporate greed” and perhaps something about the disproportionate influence of major corporations on our legislative process. I don’t feel like picking at the low-hanging fruit of the most hypocritical protestors or digging into whether or not there’s hypocrisy in the news coverage or speculating about whether or not they will become the “tea party of the left” or trying to analyze the nuances of the different kinds of protests and how many people got arrested and how long they were there and all that.

But I do think there are some interesting fundamental differences between the Tea Party protests of a couple years ago and the Occupy Wall Street protests going on now, and I think they illustrate the fundamental differences between the philosophies of the modern left and right.

The Tea Party protests occurred on the National Mall in Washington D.C., the political capital of the United States. The number one enemy of the right is the government. Inefficiencies and corruptions are viewed as inevitable and must be reduced. If individual freedom and prosperity seems reduced, it is the fault of the government for encroaching too much on individual lives and it must be scaled back. The corruption and power of big business tends to be ignored, or maybe it’s expected that the market will take care of that on its own.

The Occupy Wall Street protests are occurring on Wall Street in New York City, the economic capital of the United States. The number one enemy of the left is the corporation. The inherently greedy businessmen are the ones that must be stopped. If individual freedom and prosperity seem reduced, it is the fault of the greediest, wealthiest Americans for stealing that freedom and prosperity from the lower classes, both through capitalistic enterprise and through influencing Congress to keep tax laws in their favor. The corruption and power of government tends to be ignored, or maybe it’s expected that “impartial” regulators are smart enough and pure enough to keep the greedy businessmen in line.

Both coalitions lined up at the headquarters of their respective opponents. The right wanted to reduce the effectiveness of their enemy by becoming part of its process, and the Republicans regained control of Congress in 2010. I’m still not sure how the left want to reduce the effectiveness of their enemy. Often the left wants government to come in and save the day, but their protests are occurring far from D.C. Perhaps they simply want media attention. Perhaps they simply lined up at their opponents’ headquarters because it was a natural, organic outburst of anger, resentment, and injustice that doesn’t really know what it wants yet. It seems unlikely that the protests will go on forever, and it will be interesting to wait and see if the protests are ended by force (e.g. local police), by external conditions (e.g. winter), or by the achievement of some currently uncertain ends.

But it’s interesting and funny how when the government bails out the banks, the right gets mad at the government, and the left gets mad at the banks.