They know not what they do

First of all, if I or anyone reads this even a few years from now, it is likely that the name, Occupy Wall Street will not ring any bells.  So let's just say that OWS is at this moment an on-going, spontaneous, global protest against the corporate and financial structure of the world, at  least the "developed" world.  The resounding theme is "we are the 99%" who are losing wealth, and losing hope, and losing time.  The message is familiar: the only reason we have societies is for our mutual benefit.  We didn't sign up to be mulch in the wealth-gardens of the 1%.

I seems to me that a big problem is that the 1% don't even know they're doing anything wrong.  Of course, they are, but they don't know it.  Our system (call it by name, Capitalism) is ideologically based on the notion that if profits are maximized, all will be well.  Well, it isn't and it won't.  For the most part, the banks aren't doing anything illegal when they buy and sell, debt, and insurance, and derivatives.  Anyone can sell anything whether it's real or not, as long as someone wants to buy it.  And corporations aren't doing anything illegal when they restructure instead of retool, when they move jobs to polluting, hazardous, plantations instead of taking smaller profits.  They're all just doing what the "market" demands.

In order for anything to change, these activities must become illegal.  We can't just do it with incentives; they're no substitute for obscene profits.   Yes, we must put restraints on "liberty" for the benefit of society.  After all, that's why we live in a society, for the benefit.  When the majority (much less 99%) of those who form a society no longer receive a benefit from it, when they'd be better off living in trees, they will bring it down, and the 1% along with it.