Ernie Barrington: The secret of the Occupy movement's success

Protesters associated with the Occupy Wall Street movement march in midtown Manhattan to deliver letters to bank CEOs. Photo / AP

There is long tradition of revolt when the mass of the people feel oppressed by a small minority. This is essentially what Occupy Wall Street is about. It's inspiring because it has killed despair and apathy for a lot of people who may have thought they were powerless.

In a sense much of the world is held in a kind of economic serfdom and the current protests can be seen as a 'collective scream' about selfishness, greed and power by elite groups. Hence the Occupy slogan "the 99% against the 1%". In the US the top 1 per cent of earners more than doubled their share of the nation's income over the last three decades (Congressional Budget Office). It is no coincidence that this one percent largely controls the government and is able to influence laws and regulations in its favour.

Income inequality is endemic in most countries and there is resentment that the banks and the financial sector were very quickly bailed out by the taxpayers in the crash of 2008, yet nothing was done to change disparities of wealth among private citizens. There is also a feeling that no one was punished. "Too big too fail", but also too big to jail. Impunity of elites is a powerful driver of Occupy.

Lest it be thought that greed is confined to Wall Street, it has just been announced that the directors of Britain's largest companies received a 49 per cent pay rise in the past year, while average workers failed even to keep up with inflation. The chief executives of the FTSE 100 largest companies earned an average of £3,855,172 last year.

The Occupy Wall Street movement that has spread across US cities and now in thousands of cities around the world, including Auckland, is also collectively echoing an earlier time in Europe when peasants attempted to fight back against their oppressors.

The Peasants Revolt in England in 1381 was a rebellion against a vicious poll tax that was to impact on the lower classes who were held in near-slavery at the time. Although the revolt did not succeed directly, it is seen as the beginning of the end of serfdom in medieval England. Maybe the present fight-back will lead to political action that will redress some of the imbalances in so many societies.

When we lived in smaller communities it was easier to keep in check those people who were greedy with resources. Anthropologists studying present day hunter-gatherers have noted that they are egalitarian because individual selfish acts are effectively counterbalanced by the combined will of the rest of the people by ridiculing and even ostracising individuals whose competitive and selfish acts interfere with the overall needs of the group.

With much larger communities we have to leave it to governments to help redress imbalances and this is where Americans in particular feel frustrated, especially by the failure to legislate for the rich to pay their fair share of tax. The US Congress now has an approval rate of less than 14 per cent. The Republican Party frequently blocks attempts by the Obama administration to redress imbalances, the current "Jobs Bill" being a case in point. In a CBS News/New York Times poll in late October 2011, 69 per cent said that the Republicans favour the rich.

That Occupy has struck a responsive chord is revealed by a recent Bloomberg poll indicating that 68 per cent of American people supported their actions showing that the simple slogan - we are the 99 per cent - resonates with the public.

The greatest achievement of Occupy Wall Street may well turn out to be its very existence. Just as in the Peasants revolt in 1381 did not change things immediately it did increase awareness among elites of the need for reform of feudalism and the misery felt by the peasants of their enforced near-slavery. In the 21st century there are large numbers of unemployed, or underemployed, living in very poor circumstances. Now it is time for governments to take heed of the people.

* Ernie Barrington is retired and formerly taught at The University of Auckland.