The Second Prime Greivance

Grievance 2

In writing this, I now recognize the slight folly in separating Grievance 2 and Grievance 3, as in truth Grievance 3 – that of the freezing, if not decay, of wages for those in the middle and low classes – is but a component of Grievance 2, which I will now elaborate upon in its full infamy.

The second Grievance, that of the crippling of the middle socio-economic class and the threatened return to a labor and capitol relation not seen since the darkest days of the Industrial Age, is the result of a systematic market glitch which (as demonstrated by its repeated manifestation) seems to be one inherent in in the economic system of the United States of America.

Of course, if one seeks to understand this glitch, one must understand the system within which it arises. To put it simply, the economic system is a cycle. Banks lend to corporations or their analogues, allowing them to thus expand their productive capacity and number of employees. Those employees purchase goods, from which corporations derive a profit, with which they repay their loans to their banks, and the cycle begins again with (ideally) all involved garnering more wealth than they previously possessed.

The accessory entities in this cycle are investors, which exist either as private individuals or as commercial entities, which in essence serve as small-scale banks. They give organizations funds in return for future profits. These transactions, itemized as 'stocks' or otherwise, are just one more means by which corporate entities can have their immediate funds bolstered to expand their operations.

As previously stated and should be repeated, this is only the most basic description that can be made about our labyrinthine economic system.

Glitches arise in this system when the transfer of money through the cycle is lessened by market forces. These constrictions, no matter where they occur, ultimately result in corporations receiving less money than is necessary to support them at their present size, thus necessitating either a reduction in productive capacity, amount of supported assets, and personnel wage, or finding other ways to maximize their productivity while reducing costs.

Which has and is now happening at a troubling scale in major economic sectors, to the exclusive detriment of labor. Positions held by the so-called '99%', those which are staffed by individuals in the low- and middle socio-economic classes, are perceived to be the factors targeted first when an organizational budget needs to be reinforced.

Needless to say, growth – in terms of organization size and productivity – halts. The employment of new staff likewise ceases. Significant portions of existing personnel are then terminated, and the remaining staff are thus coerced into performing not only their own labor, but also that of their contemporaries, for longer hours. Wages are frozen, which in the face of rising inflation, results in a gradual and continuous decrease in purchasing potential. Existing employee benefits - such as vacation time, health insurance, and retirement programs – receive less support by the organization.

This is, of course, provided that the economic organization does not outright completely outsource their operations to a different country.

In the face of an economic recession this is to be expected. These actions are oft made in dire necessity in order to maintain the greater entity's existence until the recession ends, at which time it can resume its normal growth.

The grievance lies in the fact that, in the face of crisis for the organization and its present and former employees, the employers are reaping unprecedented rewards. The rise in the leadership's boons in the face of the underpaid and overworked labor's toil is thought of as nothing short of obscene. This is compounded by the 'bail-out' stimulus funds given to failing banks in an effort to keep them functional and maintain the economy, the program's perceived ineffectiveness in restoring the economy, and the bonuses seemingly self-awarded by and to the major officers of those firms.

In essence, the Movement's outrage is sourced not exclusively from corporate greed, but rather from corporate prosperity in the face of the labor's destitution.

The First Prime Grievance

Grievance 1

The observation the representatives of a republican government listen more keenly to those possessing great amounts of wealth than those without is one at least two thousand and eighty one years old. Marcus Tullius Cicero, a Roman statesman who was alive and writing seventy years before the supposed birth of Christ, noted this openly. While this can be a flaw in every type of government, it is most prevalent and arguably most malevolent in representative ones.

The 'Movement' (as I will henceforth identify the disparate groups demanding social reform) is strongly fixated on this fact, and views it as an evil that must be mitigated if not excised completely. However, in order to understand their grievance in this matter, it is first necessary to explain the current relationship between the common citizenry and the government, and corporations and the government.

Officially, the current system is thus: private citizens as an aggregate vote for an official who has either nominated themselves or has been nominated by their respective political party. It thus follows that a candidate would need to advertise his political platform (what laws, values, and ideals one seeks to uphold while in office), and since the most effective means of communication require funding to access, these candidates are allowed to be funded by their supporters. Ideally, this would ensure that candidates of a specific platform supported by their community would garner the most votes, and subsequent funding to better broadcast their platform and further receive more votes, creating a positive feedback loop that supports the candidate to election.

What the movement views as the de facto scenario is that private interests with wealth well beyond that possessed by individual citizens are able to, through the channel of campaign contributions, use their funds to either significantly benefit candidates with a platform beneficial to their agendas or influence a candidate with a non-conducive platform to benefit their agendas in office while operating contrary during the election. It is by this means that private interests with massive financial resources can wield political influence greater than the sum of their composite citizenry.

The influence exhibited by these wealthy private entities waxes greater when additional terms are taken into consideration. The former candidate, now representative, is further incensed to legislatively support their agendas in return for further 'campaign funding' for when they are the incumbents in a re-election.

Of course the question of “to what harm?” arises, which while I believe to be immediately salient, may require a brief summary.

In short, the influence these organizations exert over congress bends it towards favoring the high-level, managerial, and leadership positions more often than the labor comprising them and the public existing around them, often to the labor's and public's expense.

The Prime Grievances: Preface

At present time, the 99%, Occupy Wall Street, and other social movements are an aggregate of individuals who believe, to put this as broadly as possible, that they have been or will be subject to an injustice and that the origin of this injustice is not from a misdeed, inadequacy, or failure on their part, but rather result from the cultural, political, economic, social systems that are components of the civilization known as the United States of America. These words deliberately focus on the USA as the observations they are based on are limited solely to that country, the individuals living within it, and the policies and norms (legal and by-legal) which prevail in its sovereignty. I believe that I would be supremely disingenuous if I attempted to pontificate about the plights of those fellow humans in separate sovereign states.

Nearly every person who identifies themselves as part of the 99% possesses difficulties, either past, present, or (they believe) future, which imperil their current standard of living and socio-economic standing, or if their standard and position are already precarious at best, threaten to reduce their current situation to destitution. Even if there are people within the movement who are not imperiled by such difficulties, those exempt individuals are nonetheless sympathetic to the plights of the former category and operate in solidarity with them.

The specific and proximal reasons behind each individual's plight would be, while not impossible, supremely impractical to properly enumerate. Just so, the beliefs concerning the systemic origin of their plights and possible means of correction are likewise as numerous as those claiming to be a component of the movement. However, after observing the movement as an aggregate of various complaints, philosophies, and solutions, there has so emerged a collection of issues which have ascended above all others by being shared by a majority of the movement, in some fashion or another.

While by no means definitive in either number, content, or presentation, at least five issues transcend all others by being not only the most broadly observed topics of discussion, but also by being the sources of so many people's plights.

These I have so dubbed: the Prime Grievances.

Grievance 1: The grossly disproportionate influence corporate entities posses over the political system of the United States of America, specifically that of the Representative and Executive branches, which results in..

Grievance 2: The prevailing economic trends resulting in the collapse of the American 'middle' socio-economic class, resulting in the swelling of the 'low' socio-economic class and the prevalence of poverty if not outright destitution, which is exacerbated by...

Grievance 3: The ongoing and systematic decrease in wages, either directly by deliberate and apparent wage cuts or indirectly by wage stagnation in the face of magnifying monetary inflation;

Grievance 4: The binding of universities, colleges, and other institutions of higher learning directly to the market system as opposed to having them be a public service. Having these organizations, which are vital to the training and improvement of American citizenry subject to market forces ensures that they will likewise be subject to the turbulence inherent in market systems, most tellingly in their real and imminent danger of economic collapse;

Grievance 5: Likewise, Healthcare and the acquisition of which being subject to market forces.

These are the Prime Grievances as I have identified them and understand them. In the coming days, I will not only elaborate in depth upon each of these, but will according to reader input add to and/or revise these listed points in addition to adding new grievances entirely. After each of these have been sufficiently elaborated upon, they will be organized and collated into a final draft to be accessed as needed.