The term “Moral Entrepreneur” was first coined by the author of the Outsiders Howard S. Becker. Becker categorized Moral entrepreneur into two categories: Rule Creator and Rule Enforces. Those that create rules are seen as “moral crusaders”, their main focus is persuading others to steer away from deviance and towards what they perceive as the norm. The Rule Creators are usually composed of upper class affluent individuals that are not mainly concerned with the means by which they persuade others to achieve their agenda. Becker emphasizes this notion when he alludes to Moral Entrepreneur as being a sort of political competition in which these moral agents must generate public awareness, public support, possess power, and be able to propose a concise and acceptable solution to the problem (Becker 147-148). Prime examples of Moral Entrepreneurs are MADD, Anti- Pornography, Anti-Tobacco groups, and individuals like Martin Luther King, Gandhi etc, these people all share in common the desire to weed out deviance and inequality and to have a better and positive society. These Prolific Moral Entrepreneurs paved the way for a new and unconventional form of Moral Entrepreneurship that has captured the attention of viewers all over the world; The Occupy Wall Street Movement is composed of contemporary collective Moral Entrepreneurs. These Moral Entrepreneurs do not possess political or financial power, but they do generate public awareness, support, and have a strong passion to make a change. Thus, this paper will delve into the components that fuel the engine of OWS as Moral Entrepreneurs, particularly Socio-Economic injustice and Social immobility. The Occupy Wall Street Movement was first sparked by a Canadian activist group that goe... ... middle of paper ... ...ne equally. According to Becker Moral Entrepreneur is the formation of a new class of outsiders whose behavior now violates these newly minted regulations and therefore is subject to the opprobrious label of “deviant” and this is exactly what is occurring now, the movement has been negatively labeled by news media, and portrayed as punch of homeless hobos and hippies gallivanting around without a clear message. Ultimately, this led to the police getting involved and removing these OWS participants from Zuccotti Park, mainly due to increasing health and safety hazard to those camped in the park. Nevertheless, OWS vowed to continue their crusade against inequality and corporate corruption. OWS protestors may be physically evicted from their makeshift camps, but the ideology and the message of equality they have spread around the world cannot be evicted.
Demonstrating a form of protest that was more of an art form and a statement than riots and violence, in September 2011, people occupied New York 's financial district of Wall Street over issues that Henry David
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. received a Nobel Prize and was honored by the President of the United States for his contributions to society. On the other hand, he was prosecuted, convicted, incarcerated, and had his sentence reaffirmed by the Supreme Court. These explanations seem rather contradictory. If what he did was noble, why was he jailed for his actions? When we take into account these manifestations of the government's attitude towards Martin Luther King, we can safely make the assumption that the government is not always justified in the laws that it creates. Our government's original purpose was to keep order and ensure freedom to its people. As history has shown us, as in the case of African Americans, the government will expand its role and take away liberties of the few. The individual is justified in acting out in civil disobedience when the government restricts the liberties of the individual.
This specific protest helps as an example of the new trend of activism that use as a model the 1999 Seattle protests against the WTO –which was the turning point of the emergence of a new actor in the political and societal arenas, both locally and internationally-. These movements –A16 in DC, the Seattle protests, Occupy Wall Street, etc.- have not the aim of gathering in a straightforward and violent form, but in a pacific and `fun’ way, and to protest against the ongoing disbelief of the current free-market and democratic world system. As some may misinterpret, these movements are not a rise against globalization, but a rise against the economic effects of capitalism. We can observe the goals, visions and targets of the new alter-activist movements in a small extract of Randal Doane´s A Postmodern Lorax Manifesto for the A16 Warriors (2000) –which was printed and distributed throughout the streets in the A16 protest-:
When faced with injustice people make many different choices. These can accelerate or lessen injustice. Some choices people chose to make when confronted with injustice are to act out violently, speak against the injustice, or to join the injustice. In the sources, “A Class Divided”, “A Short History of Justin Dart, Jr., Father of the ADA”, and, “Antisemitism”, the choices that were made by people faced with injustice were shown to impact injustice in a positive or negative way.
A collection of people, green-anarchist radicals, as many would call them, sit cross-legged in the grass, listening to various musical acts and speakers, while absorbing the old growth redwood trees they are surrounded by. They are voicing their pleas of protection for the very earth their toes were sinking into, the very nature they found themselves surrounded by, the very nature they were watching be destroyed. Collectively, the words of the immoral, dedicated fighter Dr. Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. echoed around them: “If a human being doesn’t have something they’re willing to die for, they don’t deserve to live”1
This is a movement like no other Occupy Wall Street has no known leader, they have no official set of demands of what they want. They are not sure what outcomes they want to have there is no one person who is the leader and talks for the group. Occupy Wall Street movement has been quoted saying “We are all the leader” (Gautney) Unlike the FSM movement where there were key leaders in the movement, the Occupy Wall Street movement is one that is run by the people that show up there and show their support to the movement. Another thing that separates the Occupy Wall Street movement is that each local organization that is officiated with them establishes their own goals, and practices that will work for them and the thing that they are trying to set forth in there movement. (Gautney)
A. Occupy Wall Street Protests Spread Nationwide - ABC News. ABCNews.com: Daily News, Breaking News and Video Broadcasts - ABC News. 6 Oct. 2011. Web.
Seymour, Richard. "Five Examples of Civil Disobedience to Remember." Theguardian.com. Guardian News and Media, 20 Aug. 2012. Web. 20 May 2014.
The working class, faced with all the struggles that capitalism puts it through, is bound to revolt against the ruling class. During the 19th century, Marx states that “the workers begin to form combinations (Trades’ Unions) against the bourgeois; they club together in order to keep up the rate of wages; they found permanent associations in order to make provision beforehand for these occasional revolts. Here and there, the contest breaks out into riots.” Today, the working class hosts manifestations and form multiple organizations to help them through their struggles. In New York, the Occupy Wall Street movement organizes marches to demand fairer laws, such as universal health
On August 4, 1967 I led a group of student activists to the gallery of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), in protest of capitalism. This was just the beginning of my counterculture protests. In January 1968, I co-founded a group called the Youth International Party (Yippies), where I acted as “[a] semi-freak among the love children” and “was determined to bring the hippie movement into a broader protest”. As life went on, so did my protests. I spoke in New York, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania on topics that went against capitalism and leaving the homeless behind. Next, I was also a part of the Chicago 7, which was a group of people who were planning to be disrupt the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago with protests. We were put on trial, yet this was eventually overturned. Jerry Rubin, (who was in the Chicago 7) called me a ''one-of-a-kind American hero'', and a “very rare person who cannot be replaced”. One of the main reasons why I was so persuasive, and so many people listened to me was because I ''combined humor and commitment and dedication”, which was unusual in political and activists. My role in supporting counterculture was very important because I was an unusual activist that people didn't see everyday, therefore my ideas were fresh and unheard of often, so many people were intrigued. My
Roth, John K. “A Theodicy of Protest.” Encountering Evil: Live options in Theodicy. Ed. Stephen T. Davis. Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1981.
Reaching for justice throughout human history has been one of the primordial dreams chased by most humans while at the same time, hunted as a mere fugitive by others in order to satisfy their appalling thirst for injustice. “Injustice anywhere is at threat to justice everywhere” as stated by Martin lather King, if one doesn’t fight for justice he/she might end up having to face the sad reality of injustice taking over everywhere. In order to not let such a thing take place we need to fight against injustice as one. Two literature works which embrace this idea are Common Sense by Thomas Pain and Letter to Any Would-be Terrorists by Naomi Shihab Nye. These two literature works as example of protest literature were very important in illustrating how crucial it was to fight against injustice because both works were effective in encouraging and helping the authors and their audiences share their ideas about a preoccupying topic while hoping at the same time to someday bring about an important social or political change.
To many a metaphor for a semi-real place where fortunes are made and lost, Wall Street is actually a very real place with a very rich history. Among investors, “Wall Street” refers to the collective set of financial institutions in New York City including stock exchanges, banks, brokerages, commodity markets, money markets, hedge funds, etc.[1] These institutions buy and sell securities in capital markets. Securities are contracts, to borrow money or fund a company for a stake in its ownership for example, that can be traded at a price. Capital markets are the markets, like stock exchanges, where these securities are traded. Generally, companies need money to produce what they sell and investors have this money. Securities are instruments which get this money from investors to companies efficiently.[2]
Social entrepreneurs tend to have a clear picture of their social mission, usually through the discernment of the social needs and how to improve the depressing status of the social needs (Dees and Muller, 2008). Social entrepreneurs transcends charitable giving’s and philanthropy to achieve their social mission and usually they focus on the challenges causing the social problems rather than just identifying and alleviating the symptoms (Nga and Shamuganathan, 2010).
Activism is not where you originate from or where you are located, it’s what you do. Activism allows us to make social changes; this can occur in many different ways. It allows us to make a change in the world through political, social, economic, and sometimes even through environmental changes. It’s usually lead by individuals but the majority of the time people gather collectively through social movements. An activist is the principal of a social movement. Activist arouses particular information that impacts individuals and allow them to gather, protest, and make social changes. There are many different types of activism first we have those who “demand solutions to contemporary problems through taking the oppositional stances to mainstream