Downtown New York was overrun last night with thousands marching in solidarity with those currently occupying Zuccotti Park, near Wall Street. I was one of them. As a libertarian, I also oppose the corporatism denounced by Occupy Wall Street, and I hoped to make common cause with the protest: especially those that realize that government is an instrument of monopoly and usually redistributes money upward.
To the credit of ‘the movement’, it was a remarkably diverse crowd: all races, all ages, and many languages. The air was electric: bands played; peopled screeched into megaphones; crowds chanted worn-out slogans. The roar of thousands echoing down New York’s skyscrapers and past its hallowed landmarks was exhilarating.
This is the second time I have marched with the Occupiers. The first was with the small bands living in Zuccotti Park, who are mostly young and wedded to a vague notion that they are now ‘part of something’. They are easy to dismiss, but a mass of thousands is far harder to write-off.
But the sad truth is that, for all its noise and spectacle, the crowd suffered the same problems of its smaller counterpart, writ large. Sadly, a larger crowd only appears more absurd.
Most people were there to denounce American capitalism with simplistic phrases like ‘end greed’ or ‘put people over profits’. I was thrilled to see some people waving anti-war signs and even a few with “End the Fed” painted on banners.
But far more than either of these groups were protesters who were, in no uncertain terms, representatives of special-interest groups. Large unions from government or highly-protected enterprises were there, denouncing favors for Wall Street while demanding their own. These were not the organic, mutual-aid unions of America’s past; they were the lobbyist, union machinery that now serves as a junior partner in the American corporate State.
Some of the demands struck me as almost petty. I saw a group of suited, studious old men with signs that read “College Professors Deserve Free Healthcare!” Students near me on the front lines of the march held signs demanding “Cancel All my Student Debt!”
Few things could be more depressing than witnessing perfectly-justified outrage at American corporatism like the bailouts alongside demands for more corporatism. This is not a pro-democracy rally to liken to the Arab Spring, where people live under unspeakable despotism. In a sense, it was the cathartic airing of people with – for lack of a better term – ‘first-world’ problems.
The economic ignorance of the crowd was truly depressing. Many held signs to “Tax Financial Transactions!”: an idea to collect a tiny dividend on each of Wall Street’s stock trades. No one seemed concerned about the economic implications of such a proposal. If the State has done so much to insulate cronies in the past, why would we want it collect more money by raising further barriers in financial markets? People chanted together, “How do we close the deficit? That’s easy, Eat the Rich!” With the national debt as high as it is, and entitlements soon costing unfathomable trillions, basic arithmetic appears beyond many protesters. Some people were advocating for a ‘Vanguard Party’ to impose – without any sugar-coating – a Stalinist, strong-State Communism on the U.S. This is a cheap fantasy for people well-fed and free of the horrors of the Stalinist regime.
Even more embarrassing for those likening the movement to Tahrir Square was how well-behaved the protesters were throughout the march. The march was a stamped-and-approved ‘demonstration’, with posted signs delineating the safe ‘demonstration zones’ along light poles throughout downtown. Thousands of people were crushed (by heavy metal fences that appeared to be straight from the cattle-yard) into zones in the park and into tiny lanes for marching. Many hundreds of police officers lined all sides of the protest and were along the streets at every point, at all times, some even standing shoulder-to-shoulder. Off of each of their belts swung dozens of plastic zip-tie cuffs: for the quick and easy dispatching of a citizen filled with too much revolutionary zeal.
The actual ‘marching’ moved at a glacial pace because we were relegated to walking, probably 3 or 4 across, in ¾ of a lane of traffic for many blocks. This prevented any critical mass from forming. All chanting could only be heard by a few dozen people in the rows ahead and behind. Communication was extremely difficult and groups were split as the police would open and close the metal barriers at random to route people into different directions.
As I departed at the protest’s end I thought that there is something of a grand irony to Zuccotti Park serving as the final resting place for the march. John Zuccotti, whose internal correspondence I have read in the New York Municipal Archives, was a deputy mayor that worked to bring New York from the precipice of bankruptcy in the late 1970’s. The City joined arms with major financial interests that had gambled on municipal bonds to finance New York’s stagnating welfare state. Together, with some government unions, they found a way to, once again, sustain the city. Not long ago, the park used to be known by the name ‘Liberty Park.’
A fitting eulogy for self-proclaimed anti-corporatists, timidly begging for more corporatism.
