Occupy Wall Street’s Values Will Destroy the Middle Class

Occupy Wall Street's Values Will Destroy the Middle Class:

There's a distinction between high-paid executives who earn their profit in a free market, and high-paid executives who earn their profits due to government subsidies and bailouts, or other subtle or overt government favors. I can understand the middle class being angry at government favors and handouts to business. But let's be clear here: Leaving businesses alone to do their thing, and make a profit at it, is not a handout. It's a freedom and a right, no less than freedom of speech or freedom to choose one's religion is a right.

They clearly don't want capitalism, but they don't want socialism either. They're confused and lost -- most of them, anyway. They seek capitalism in the abstract and socialism in practice. In other words, they seek guaranteed security and continuous growth at one and the same time. Most of them want the benefits of taking risks, but don't want there to be any risk or upset.

This is not the spirit that founded America in frontier times, and this is not what built up the American economy in its first one or two centuries. The death of this attitude will spell the death of America more than any politician could ever hope to achieve. However, politicians and groups like Occupy Wall Street stand ready to exploit the fears of a mostly contradictory and lost people. They won't get very far, because people who are wrong don't have reality and facts on their side.

Without capitalism, including even the hampered capitalism we have known, there would be no middle class. Blaming the problems of the middle class on capitalism is like blaming disease on oxygen. "Why, if we couldn't breathe, there would be no possibility of catching disease."