Before you look away in disgust over my title, I beg your attention for just long enough for me to make my case. I am not, nor do I plan to be, a banker, a Wall Street executive, nor any other kind of financier. I do wish to speak out as a student of economics and history in their defense.
While we may agree that the rich are richer by a larger proportion, we must ask, “Are the poor proportionally poorer?” According to a recent study by the Heritage Foundation, the average poor household has a car, air conditioning, two color televisions, cable or satellite TV, a DVD player and an Xbox. While they have a smaller percent of the nation’s income than they did in 1973, poor people today live, on average, much more comfortably than before.
As bad as income disparity can be, it does not matter as long as there is class mobility. America was founded on ideas of equality before the law, not with equality as the purpose of the law. There is nothing wrong with “aristocracy” if a man can be born poor and die rich. A survey done by PNC Wealth Management concluded that among those who had $500,000 or more in disposable income, 69 percent did not inherit, but earned it, a shocking blow to those who said that the American Dream was dead.
You may be wondering why I am writing this. MU strives to be a tolerant place: we do not accept hatred based on race or cultural differences, so why should we accept class hatred? It seems to me just as wrong to hate wealthy people for their wealth as it is wrong to hate poor people for their poverty. While the “Occupy” protests have thus far been peaceful, massing large numbers of disaffected people against a scapegoat has historically not produced the most pleasant of results. Even now, actress Roseanne Barr, who has become an outspoken advocate for Occupy Wall Street has called for the beheading of various financiers. While I am sure her remarks were meant humorously, and do not represent the opinions of many of the movement’s followers, they conjure chilling images of revolutionary France and the Soviet Union.
I am not a wealthy man myself, but some day, through hard, honest work, I aspire to be, and would be saddened to see this process demonized. The protesters have some legitimate arguments but I cannot say that this makes them right. I implore anyone who reads this to carefully consider what this movement stands for before offering it your unqualified support.