The Ugly and Awkward Truth of ‘Occupy London’

One of the protester’s banners at Occupy London declares, “The 99% needs a safety net more than the 1% needs a security blanket.” Many mainstream commentators argue that the protesters are nothing but a bunch of demented anarchists and hateful Marxists in search of either chaos or utopia, presenting no viable alternative to the Capitalism system which they so despise. Yet there is nothing mad or contemptuous in the above statement, nor in the one below, which states, “The banks own you! The government has a credit card with no limit and you are their collateral! We are the 99%.” Both statements, rather, contain an ugly and awkward truth, that we live in a profoundly unfair and unjust society where the 1% – our rulers, the wealthy – have a lot and care little for the 99% who have very little. What’s most at fault here is human greed. The 1% will do all they can to hold onto their wealth, will do and say anything in its defense. If only these few had the courage to own their greed, confess to it, rather than to deny and seek to justify it. If only the 1% would say, “We have the lion’s share not because this is how the system works – capitalism an unfair system in which only the toughest survive – but rather because we are fucking greedy and are simply not prepared to help the 99%, see them prosper more, because if we do then we shall have less, shall no longer be the 99%.” How I long for the 1% to be this honest, to take personal responsibility, rather than hide behind endless increasingly unconvincing justifications for their greed. It has no other name, I’m afraid. Greed is greed.