Xiaorui Huang
WR121 College Composition I
Essay 3
Grade: A
WR121 College Composition I
Essay 3
Grade: A
Occupy Wall Street: Time to week up from the dream
The Occupy Wall Street (OWS) series of nationwide demonstrations has lasted for 90 days and is expected to continue and expand. Speaking for both middle and lower classes, the OWS gains consents, if not support, from plenty of people and social groups. However, accusation and vilification from the rich and politicians against the protests have never ceased. A well-known example is from Herman Cain, a 2012 Republican presidential candidate. Cain argues about the protestors “Don’t blame Wall Street, don’t blame the big banks, if you don’t have a job and you’re not rich, blame yourself!” While attributing all miseries of those who suffered to their personal responsibilities, Cain based his statement on the ideology of American Dream that everyone has equal opportunity to succeed and those who pay efforts will be rewarded. However, the OWS, what Cain criticizes, unveils exactly the fact that American Dream is merely a myth because the protests show how corporate power makes the society unequal by differentiating people’s life chance by influencing job market, the real estate market and the government policy making.
Cain’s argument is not unpopular. His relentless words earned cheers at the Republicans presidential debates. Those who agree with Cain may argue that the lower classes deserve no more than what they possess currently because that is what their personal efforts and competency can give them. By taking stance with the long-time ethos of American Dream, which defined by writer James T. Adams as a “dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement”. According to this definition, the American playing field is equal; everyone will get their niches according to their competency and efforts. Paupers take drugs and suffer, the wealthy work and earn.
As a national ethos, American Dream has undeniably contributed the prosperity of this country and some people indeed have earned a success through personal efforts, yet, considering the recent social trends, things have deviated since 1970s. According to the Congressional Budget Office, since 1979, the top 1% wealthiest family has increased their average annual pre-tax income by around $700,000, while that of the bottom 90% decreased by $900 (2011). There figures demonstrate that most American people’s lives do not get better and richer as stated in the definition of American Dream.
Also in the American society, the opportunities are not corresponding to personal ability or achievement. On the contrary, the rich buy more opportunities with their money and then gain achievement and the cloak of personal super power. We cannot subjectively judge whether or not Bill Gates is extraordinary smart, but what is certain is that without his wealthy parents buying him into the expensive Lakeside School, he would have no chance to access computers as a secondary school student, to develop his interest and skills, and to trigger his Microsoft empire. Based on the research of psychologist and economist Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel Prize winner, about the capabilities of wealthy people, being wealth does not necessarily correlate to personal competence (2011). In other words, life chance does not accord with abilities or achievements in the American society.
A land in which lives of the majority get worse and poorer, with opportunities for uncorrelated to ability or achievement but money. This is the society what we have, exactly opposite the wonderland in American Dream, yet, this cruel truth has not been publicly acknowledged until the OWS protests. For many protestors, their salaries become increasingly insufficient to afford a living, some lost their jobs and some had their houses foreclosed. This is largely caused by the corporate power that makes the playing field uneven.
The unemployment and welfare downgrade are the results of corporations’ socializing risks and privatizing rewards. On one hand, when economic recession occurs, companies transfer their burdens to employees through layoffs, salary cut, and welfare downgrade. In this way, the rich company owners and high management minimized their loss while employees suffer. For some company, executives even get rewards by “promptly save the company”. On the other hand, during boom period, companies can gain large profits. While the majority of the benefit becomes the bonus of the high management due to their “excellent decision making”, only a small piece of pie is distributed among middle and lower-level employees. In addition, it is because a boom period usually accompanied by some inflation, the slight numerical increase of employees’ wages almost vanishes. In this sense, because of the corporate power, lower classes financially suffer in both economic recession and boom, while the rich accumulate their wealth.
House foreclosure, another serious problem lower-classes confront, is also brought about by corporate power. When bubbles appear in the real estate market corporations continuously encourage people to invest on properties. As price goes unaffordable, corporations lure people to loan from them and the company owners huge earn profit from the mortgage. Then when bubble bust, the loaned house owners suddenly find their houses become negative equity (e.g. the value of the house is lower than the money they lend from bank to purchasing the house). When unexpected financial emergencies come, the house owner can neither continue afford the loan nor sell the house (as no one will buy a negative equity) but to have it foreclosed (anon., 2010). Since lower-classes people much less available contingency fund, foreclosure is much more likely to occur to them than to the rich. Indeed, the bubble also impact corporation owners greatly, yet, their networking with the policy makers can always earn them a bailout. It is clear that corporate power also privileges the rich and exploit the poor in the real estate market.
By putting money in election campaigns of all levels, corporations and the wealthy also extend their power to government policy making, which aggravates the inequality on people’s life chance. Not only a bailout in crises, corporation boards gain benefits from policies very often. A typical example is the policy on tax reduction for business and wealthy. This policy is cloaked by the lie of “trickle-down economics” that the wealth increase of the upper class by tax reduction can trickle down to eventually benefits the whole society. The wealth of the rich never leak downward even for a little bit. This kind of class-biased policy inevitably results in the expanding gap of wealth in this country. The rich get richer because they have money to buy these policies while the poor have to suffer.
Lurking in the myth of American Dream, corporations are encroach on vital aspects of our lives, namely incomes to pay our living expenses, shelter to inhabit our bodies, and governments to regulate our society. The Occupy Wall Street protests make these uneven playing fields visible, which is important but the very first step. With the awareness of these inequalities, it is now the moment to restore the once profaned ideology of American Dream, the pursuit of a society that truly rewards everyone with what they deserve, as the dream of the America. Try to alleviate the social inequalities and eventually make America an even playing field, this is what we should do next!
Reference
Kahneman, D. (2011). Daniel Kahneman: How cognitive illusions blind us to reason - Science - The observer. Retrieved December 8, 2011 from http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/oct/30/daniel-kahneman-cognitive-illusion-extract
(anon) (2010). Why foreclosure happens - Foreclosureradar. Retrieved December 8, 2011 from http://www.foreclosureradar.com/foreclosure-guides/foreclosure-101/why-foreclosure-happens
Whoriskey, P. (2011). CBO: Incomes of top earners grow at a pace far faster than everyone else’s - The Washington Post . Retrieved December 9, 2011 from http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/cbo-incomes-of-top-earners-grow-at-a-pace-far-faster-than-everyone-elses/2011/10/26/gIQAHlVFKM_story.html
(anon.) (2011). Occupy wall street - Wikipedia. Retrieved December 8, 2011 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupy_Wall_Street#cite_note-ref_name-41
(anon.) (2011). American dream - Wikipedia. Retrieved December 8, 2011 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_dream
