Every time one of those Occupy Wall Street (and their lesser known cousins, like Occupy Salt Lake) tweet their status on their iPhone, I am struck by the irony. Steve Jobs was a capitalist, and were it not for Wall Street, there might not have been a Steve Jobs or that iPhone. It was the access to finance that Wall Street represents that made Steve Jobs’ ideas, creations, and innovations possible. Says Edward Hudgins:
Steve Jobs was a capitalist hero. He had a vision of computers for everybody in 1976, at a time when it was assumed that only the most prosperous businesses and the most advanced and well-funded research labs would ever need or be able to afford them. He built his first computer in his garage with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, and they marketed it from his bedroom. Good thing that local government regulators—the kind who shut down children’s lemonade stands today—didn’t arrest him for operating a business without a license and against zoning regulations!
[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/occupy_slc/status/122018828799574016″]I know. You can’t make this kind of stuff up.Hudgins goes on.
Jobs, with his Apple colleagues, pioneered the home computer market, came out with the first commercially available system with a graphic interface, and introduced the iPod, iPhone, and iPad. Jobs himself founded Pixar, which brought a new and exciting look to movies. The result was a transformed communications and information world. Today, Apple Inc. has annual revenues of $65 billion, nearly 50,000 employees, and a market capitalization of $300 billion, second in publicly-traded companies only to Exxon. Wall Street loves Apple!
[Awkward moment as Occupy Wall Street looks down at their iPhones for a status update and realize that the update, be it on Facebook, Google+, or Twitter, was funded by…Wall Street.]
It is one thing to protest government policy, to donate to and join the campaigns of reform minded politicians, and to lobby elected officials to refuse donations, change regulatory laws, or lead out in pushing back against corporatism. It is another thing altogether to protest Wall Street and what it represents–investments in the American free market by investors both large and small, both tycoons and brokers and the moms and pops who live next door. (In the interest of full disclosure, my stock portfolio earned 5% yesterday…and lost .38% today). What exactly are these “occupiers” protesting? Success? The free movement of capital? People who have jobs?
Do the protesters even realize what they are protesting?
Investment bankers direct funds—called capital—to promising enterprises. While many start-up companies rely on the personal savings of their founders or funds borrowed from their friends and family, the expansions of enterprises are fueled by financiers. Commercial ventures are usually risky and many investments are lost. But that’s how the system works. Because no one—certainly not government functionaries or politicians—knows ahead of time which companies will succeed or fail. For example, most investors in the ’70s thought the idea of a personal computer on every desktop was crazy.
But who would call the iPad crazy? You want one, I want one, even the protesters want one. Heck, half of them are probably updating their status on one.
One picture made me chuckle. The woman in the picture, which is from Salt Lake City, bemoans the loss of the “middle class” and it’s imminent posting on the endangered species list. She is holding an umbrella in leather gloves and while wearing what appears to be a fur or leather coat. Perhaps it could be faux leather, but I have a hard time associating how she looks with the end of the middle class. If this is politics, and politics is perception, then she’s giving of mixed messages. Instead of a beleaguered middle classer, I see an entitled woman with time to protest in the middle of the day while the rest of the middle class is at work.
This brings us to another difference between Jobs and the anti-capitalist protestors. Jobs in his work needed to be ruthlessly rational and reality-oriented. He couldn’t just dream of personal computers or devices that no one could imagine. He and his colleagues had to figure out how to create those products and at such a low cost that millions of consumers could purchase them.
The anti-capitalist protestors are the ultimate irrationalists, living in a mental fantasy land. They simply vent emotions and frustrations, which are often the result of their ignorance and refusal to understand the capitalist system they damn. Needless to say, most have nothing to offer resembling a practical alternative.
The ugly and unthinking spirit of these protestors is manifest in the comments of unfunny comedienne Roseanne Barr. She said, “I am in favor of the return of the guillotine.” She would confiscate much of the wealth of “guilty bankers” and for those who couldn’t live on what she would allow them to keep, “they should … go to the reeducation camps and if that doesn’t help, then [they should be] beheaded.” The soul of a killer versus the soul of a creator!
In this life, you can transcend by killing and destroying or by building and creating. People have often mocked Ayn Rand for her myopic devotion to capitalism and the almighty dollar, but for all her short comings Rand got one thing–building is hard, and we all owe what we have to them. This republic may have been founded with the right to dissent, but it was headed and begun by people who wanted the right to build and create and own what they created.
Steve Jobs is an example of what the free market capital system can create and support in the human spirit. As we mourn his passing and celebrate his life, perhaps the protesters would be wise to take a few minutes to pull up a book on their iPads or iPhones and start learning what the capital system they are protesting is, how it works, and why they are, in so many ways, barking up the wrong tree. The problem is not the folks who work on Wall Street, or the people who invest there, either. The problem is in Washington, in how people deal with the problem, and how we think about our problems.
If there is one thing Steve Jobs taught us, it was to change how we think and our results will change, too. If the protesters would recognize their role in the economy, in their own lives, and destiny, and that they are not powerless pawns for the wealthy, they might spend more time moving forward and less time shouting at things they cannot change.
[VIA]
Related articles
- Key dates from the life of Apple’s Steve Jobs (sfgate.com)
- R.I.P. Steve Jobs, an Insanely Great Capitalist (blogs.sfweekly.com)
- Steve Jobs’ story an American success to the core (sfgate.com)
About Daniel Burton
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Good post. Sorry for being late to comment.
You and I have sparred a bit around this issue a number of times, but I think we agree more than we disagree. While I sympathize with the OWS crowd to an extent, their rhetoric and protests are unproductive. There needs to be some reigning in of Wall Street (as if that term had any real use) vis-a-vis 2008, but it should be carefully structured to prohibit misconduct, not to penalize wealth.
Curt, I’ll ask you the question that I ask everybody: WHO IS WALL STREET?
I don’t know who they are, precisely, but since you press me on the matter, I would say the equities and investment banking industries.
I don’t know if that is how the OWS people perceive things or not. I suspect not. In fact, Now that I consider things, I think it’s pretty clear that, to the OWS protesters, “Wall Street” means the super wealthy, i.e., the top 1 percent of income earners in the USA.
See, here’s the thing: I own stock on Wall Street, a lot of it, and I do well when “Wall Street” does well. The incentives there are not the product of Wall Street, but of elected officials. Why should individuals be penalized for following the law? Why should individuals not be allowed to keep what they earn, or pass on their property to their children?
But see, here’s the real thing: the “top 1%” already pay taxes that fund 35% of all tax revenues in America. At what point is the amount that the so called “Super Rich” are sufficiently “sharing” their wealth? And how is that equal under the law?
The Occupy Wall Street crowd are not people who are hard on their luck; they’re people who want to redistribute wealth. They want a bigger piece of the pie. You didn’t see them in the streets when the country almost defaulted on its debt–because they don’t understand or care. They assume that when that time comes, the government will just take it. Never mind that the result of “taking it” is that we can expect diminished economic growth, fewer opportunities, fewer jobs, and less prosperity, not to mention higher costs for education, healthcare, and consumables. Economics 101 is not a course required to support a protest.
Meanwhile, when Wall Street does well, I make money. I have invested money I’ve saved in companies that I have researched and studied and that I want to see grow. Over the last week, for example, one of my investments has netted me a 5% growth in assets. Why would I want to redistribute that gain to someone else who has done little more than camp out in a tent on Wall Street for a few weeks?
I am Wall Street. It is MY money that they are attacking, my success, and my opportunities for greater success. I may not belong to the so called 1%, but I believe that you don’t have to take from Peter for Paul to succeed. Paul can succeed along with Peter.
I get your point, Dan, we’re all Wall Street in the sense that everyone has a stake in how the equities and investment banking industries perform.
But even though we all have a stake, we shouldn’t fall into the trap of believing that whatever is best for the 1 percent is best for the rest of us. That’s the other side of the equally untenable belief that whatever is bad for the 1 percent is best for the 99 percent.
Similarly, we shouldn’t ever forget that a very good number of these tremendously important, transcending, Randian creator/builder-type companies ran, hat in hand, to the government asking for *massive,* immediate redistribution of wealth when they got in real trouble as a result of their own poor economic decisions. In fact, they held their size, importance, position, and wealth over the people and politicians of this country as a bludgeon, demanding to be saved at the threat of taking this country down with them. Maybe you took to the street to protest that? I know I did.
I can understand where the OWS people are coming from. How insulting is it to have even *some* of these same people throw the principle of “fairness” back in your face when you suggest they do more to help pay down the national debt? There’s a decent number of these people who deserve to be villified and who deserve to be prosecuted — not because they are rich, but because of what they did.
It’s 100 percent clear what’s really going on here. When a Fortune 500 CEO is about to lose his job, we redistribute wealth to save it. When someone wants a new government program to help them pay off student loans (even those responsibly incurred) or medical bills for their child, we force them into bankruptcy or take their home under cries of fairness, liberty, and the Constitution. Can you not see why this might cause some to think we have a system that isn’t working the same for some of the top 1 percent in this country?
It’s clear to me that Wall Street has its own OWS-types, in the form of connected lobbyists and political power brokers, who routinely run their own “protests” in this country where they cry about overly-favorable treatment of the 99 percent — they just don’t do it in shabby tents, hippie clothes, or with parades. OWS is the other side of the coin. It’s not as pretty, but they’re playing the same game with what they have.
Yes, I’m sympathetic to OWS. But I’m not out there with them, because what they want to do is not the answer to any of the problems they’ve identified.
Is life really that bad for you? And do you really blame it on Wall Street financiers? Really? I’m having a hard time buying that.
The occupiers answer has nothing to do with the problem. Their answer is nothing more than left wing policies wrapped up in a new political opportunism. It is impossible to spend any amount of time with or watching these people (as I did downtown last week) and maintain any kind of support for the dangers they present to good public policy.
Ok, to shorten things up: give me a number and some specifics. You’re only spouting anger, not policies.
Right now the so called 1% (Americans, last I checked and just a due the equality under the law that everyone else gets) pays 35% of all tax revenues. How much more is “fair?” At what point are they paying their fair share?
Two: do you really want to live in a country where the law treats some citizens differently than others?
Three: No one successfully went hat in hand and received government bailouts. Have you read the history of TARP? The banks that went to the government “hat in hand” failed. Remember Bearn Stearns? They aren’t there any more. The government did not give them the money they asked (the exception is GM, but I don’t see any Occupy Detroit people, because unions got a large portion of that money). According to “Too Big to Fail,” by Andrew Ross Sorkin, the Treasury Department under Hank Paulson put the bankers in a room and told them (nine months after Bear failed): You will accept this pay out and you will accept the terms we are delivering. That doesn’t sound anything like “hat in hand” to me.
Fourth: What laws have been violated? If you’re going to make accusations about the necessity of prosecution, you better back it up. Quod gratis asseritur gratis negatur…
Otherwise, you just sound angry, not persuasive.
This has nothing to do with the dress of the protesters. If you’ll note the pictures of this post, even, the protesters are not hippies, poorly dressed, or smelly…they’re upper middle class or anarchist. I might even say that the woman there is, in fact, pretty.
I’m sympathetic to the problems our country has, too, but I don’t believe that it is the fault of the wealthy, or that you can solve them by stealing from the rich.
Further, you have completely ignored the point of the article: what America is today is in large part due to the ready access to finance and capital. The Mac book upon which you are responding to this post was made possible due to finance from Wall Street. The student loans with which I, and you if you have them, got through law school with are made possible due to Wall Street finance. The legal research you perform with either Lexis or Westlaw (or even Google). All are made possible by Wall Street finance. Even the home you live in is made possible by Wall Street finance.
If problems exist, they cannot be remedied by picketing, or fleecing, the wealthy. You cannot rob Peter to pay Paul and result in a net gain. That’s what this is about. That’s the Occupy people want. And that’s the issue.
Spin it with sympathetic words, but it doesn’t change the fact that their intent is for policies that are bad for Americans, never mind Wall Street. (In that sense, maybe they’ll get what they want–they’ll tear down America and the wealthy will lose too.)
In the mean time, look again at the pictures above. It hard for me to have any sympathy, or to empathize with, people who have more wealth than most of the world, have the leisure time to sit on their butts, and care little more than for what the world owes them.
Where do you draw the line? 35%? 45%? 55%?
Life is good for me. I’m pretty darn poor right now (though that’s certainly relative and it’s really by choice), and I’m not protesting. I support myself, and, if I do say so myself, I do it incredibly responsibly. I don’t believe I’m held down by anyone. I don’t resent others for their success, lawfully and ethically obtained.
I believe in a flat, non-progressive income tax system, no deductions (with the exception of charitable giving), no loopholes. 35 percent is way too high. I’d prefer something in the 15 percent range (well, hey, I’d prefer lower, but 15 percent seems like it could be realistic).But I understand the frustration. And I believe there is need for some reasonable regulation of the equities and investment banking industries. Do I think consistent, uncritical deregulation bears some of the blame for where we’re at economically today . . . yeah, I do, even if it only facilitated some bad personal decisions. To be frank, if our response to economic bubbles is going to be panicked Wall Street bailouts, then I’d prefer to see bubbles regulated as we go along rather than the boom-bust-bailout fiasco we’ve seen played out in front of us over the last 3 years.You know, I suspect many of these OWS people hold down jobs or are in school. They have other places where they could sit on their butts. I don’t think it’s all about them, personally. In fact, I suspect most of them are, as you say, better off than the average person who has got to work and can be sitting there all day. I think they are here for others (in their own, misguided way) just as much (or more) than they are for themselves.Finally, how do you know I’m responding to this on a Macbook??? I could be using an iPhone, or an iMac, or a Mac Pro . . . . Maybe I’ll switch to Android, it seems like it might be a little more OWS style 🙂 Poor Steve Jobs, in death he has become fodder in ideological battles . . . how the mighty have fallen!
I’m still waiting for you to spell out exactly what “misconduct” you are referring to. You do, repeatedly, but have failed to provide the examples. Quod gratis asseritur gratis negatur.
I’m still waiting for you to translate your Latin 🙂 Remember who it is you’re talking to!
Hey, look, on a serious note, I’m talking about my distaste for wealth being pursued irresponsibly, and with no regard to the welfare of others.
It’s reprehensible to me the way some feel that self-interest and free market principles entitle them to take advantage of others, just the way it’s reprehensible for me when people game our welfare system at the expense of those who fund it. I see way too much of both.
What misconduct am I talking about? Fraud, securities and garden variety. Accounting gimmicks. Tax evasion. Let’s enforce those laws to the extent we have them in place (and put them in place to the extent we do not).