Occupy What?

A story of the 1% co-opting the 98% and that other 1% (you know, the wealthy?)

In Martin Place on a sunny Saturday afternoon, in the heart of Sydney a crowd gathers. Discontent with the way the western world order sits they have a message… or do they? In New York the catch cry “we are the 99%” actually holds some water, however in Australia it feels more like “we are the 1% that think we are the 99% against the other 1%”.

That’s right, it is the usual suspects, one tweet sums this whole debacle up with more clarity than I can “Yet more speakers from socialist alliance, solidarity and socialist alternative. Literally. In that order. Let others speak! #occupysydney” As is so typical in Australia we are forever hearing the voices of 2%, 1% with wealth and influence, and 1% extreme lefties with their own anti-everything agendas. In fact it almost feels like there is no unified message, as the anti-1% sentiments that are predominant in the USA are quickly brushed aside to bring forth a host of other issues. It seems like the whole movement is merely a basis where they can platform ideas that despite having merit have no place here. To further frustrate any genuine 99% occupiers is the presence of every union under the sun. A plethora of un-unified and discontent voices drowning out a legitimate message

So what message should we be hearing then? The predominant message in the USA is one of the power and influence which 1% of the population have over the remainder, one of inequity in wealth, influence, opportunity, and social justice. So let us explore how that fits the Australian context.

The first point I will raise is wealth equity, as a simple symptom of unbridled capitalism wealth will forever continue to concentrate on the few. The old adage holds true, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. In Australia we can already see a widening gap between the working class and the elite, and though not quite so pronounced as in the USA it still exists. One of the principles I can’t actually understand for instance is how pay structures work. It sometimes feels like the rich in this country do very little for their money, while the poor work their asses off to make ends meet, in a supposed meritocracy, merit is often ignored. As someone who is intrigued by aspects of anarcho-syndicalism I find the ideas that all workers should benefit from a businesses success have merit, not some sugar daddy who owns it, paying his workers little of the results of their labour, it could even be argued that we are well on the way to what is known as “wage slavery”.

The next aspect of the Australian context is that of influence. In Australian politics we have two major parties, Liberal and Labor. The Coalition speaks for corporate Australia while Labor speaks for Unions. Now Unions you might say could be regarded as the voice of the working class, but I will argue to disagree. Unions may have been relevant 100 years ago, but today they are more like self serving intuitions, more interested in their own survival than actually representing workers. An interesting fact to note is that union participation had spiralled to an all time low in 2008, picking up some in 2009 and 2010. The only real reason why you could argue for this drop is a perceived view that unions are largely irrelevant.

If our two major parties answer chiefly to these two sectors who answers to the Australian public at large? When was the last time you felt you could gain the ear of your local member, let alone the Prime Minister. So often the public are piped through aides and assistants before we can be heard, but if you are a representative of say, the mining companies, you can get your own private audience with the PM, have a chat, and tell them to drop the mining tax (http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/2869942.html). This influence over politics that corporations hold is further seen in the privatised media as well as the massive spending on advertising campaigns. Recall the ad campaign launched by miners to oppose the mining tax? It aimed at creating fear in the public, and fear it did, giving weight a swing in the polls in the Coalitions favour and eventually forcing the Labor powerbrokers to out then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd for Julia Gillard. On top of the obvious media influence is the subversive influence of the media. People form and shape opinions based on how they are informed, and seeing that Australia’s most consumed news sources are all privately owned by rich media moguls it makes you wonder how much of what we believe is really our own reasoning.

Lastly I want to talk about transparency in democracy. As you are probably aware, Julian Aasange, founder of WikiLeaks is being held in the UK on extradition charges from Sweden. There is a lot of holes in the cases which have come against Assange, and some people go so far as to point to the US reaction to the publishing of a multitude of cabals by WikiLeaks as the cause for his current plight. You would think that in a democratic country, where governments are supposedly elected by the people for the people, then the people would know about, or be entitled to know about everything the government does. This is not the case quite clearly, as we are well aware that governments often have secret and classified information, which gets released only well after events to which they were relevant. If I elect a government, I would at least expect to be able to go in and see what they are doing.

Democracy has a long way to go before it truly is democratic, and capitalism is a system that works, but is as suspect to human greed and corruption as any system. Occupy Sydney has failed to address any of these issues; instead it has been hijacked by political activists flogging their same messages they always have. They are just 1% of the 99% who have failed to actually recognise the other 98% which they claim to be a part of, and as long as they keep pushing their messages instead of ones pertaining to the misrepresentation of the 99% the movement will remain insignificant here. It is sad, but Occupy Sydney has been co-opted by the protesters themselves.