Occupy Wall Street Movement
Occupy Wall Street Movement
Barry Rice
Strayer University
BUS 309
April 30, 2013
Professor Sithole
Occupy Wall Street Movement
The Occupy Wall Street Movement (WSM) has some ethical and economic implications as stated within their Declaration of Occupation:
“As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power.”
(Radicals, 2013)
The economic implications in this statement are specifically defined by the lack of fairness in what they consider to be “The 99%” of the population that are not wealthy. The ethical situation is derived from being the majority of the population, but not having the majority rights to rule; emphasizing a distinct humanitarian variance between the people that should make the rules that govern equality, and those that actually do make those rules.
Moral Implications Attacking large cooperation’s, banks, and government WSM seemingly focuses on the moral value of equality amongst all except for the extremist. Ironically it is with what some might consider extremist actions that the WSM has partaken. Demonstrations and the occupying of public space, although mostly peaceful, could be looked at morally in different ways. On the one hand these people are making a stand for their beliefs, while on the other: what would they be doing if they were not making that stand on that particular day? Let us pretend that there were fifty city workers present at a certain demonstration. Those city workers were supposed to be cleaning up a backed up sewer line. Since
Barry Rice
Strayer University
BUS 309
April 30, 2013
Professor Sithole
Occupy Wall Street Movement
The Occupy Wall Street Movement (WSM) has some ethical and economic implications as stated within their Declaration of Occupation:
“As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power.”
(Radicals, 2013)
The economic implications in this statement are specifically defined by the lack of fairness in what they consider to be “The 99%” of the population that are not wealthy. The ethical situation is derived from being the majority of the population, but not having the majority rights to rule; emphasizing a distinct humanitarian variance between the people that should make the rules that govern equality, and those that actually do make those rules.
Moral Implications Attacking large cooperation’s, banks, and government WSM seemingly focuses on the moral value of equality amongst all except for the extremist. Ironically it is with what some might consider extremist actions that the WSM has partaken. Demonstrations and the occupying of public space, although mostly peaceful, could be looked at morally in different ways. On the one hand these people are making a stand for their beliefs, while on the other: what would they be doing if they were not making that stand on that particular day? Let us pretend that there were fifty city workers present at a certain demonstration. Those city workers were supposed to be cleaning up a backed up sewer line. Since
References: Hursthouse, R. (2012, April 29). Virtue Ethics . Retrieved from "The Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy": <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2012/entries/ethics-virtue/>. Radicals, V. (2013, April 30). Occupy Wall Street. N/A, New York, United States. Shaw, W. H. (2010). Business Ethics. Mason: Cengage Learning. Various. (2011, April 20). Articles on Inequality and Wealth. Retrieved from Inequality.org: http://inequality.org/t/wealth/