The Occupy Wall Street Movement

Occupy Wall Street has been called many things, including unfocused, ungrounded, and silly. However, others coin it as “America’s first internet-era movement” (Rushkoff). In essence, Occupy Wall Street is a series of protests and demonstrations that oppose the influence of corporate greed on American democracy. The protestors use marches and nonviolent demonstrations to express their dissatisfaction with the state of American politics and the economy. This relates to the political science concepts of power, performance democracy, and protective democracy. The Occupy Wall Street movement is a succession of protests that have no formal leader and no formal demands. The concept behind this form of movement is that each person is a leader, and everyone’s values and concerns deserve equal attention. The movement has found its roots and inspiration in the Arab Spring, a series of revolutionary movements and protests that have rocked the Arab world over the past months. On September 17, the wave of protests known as Occupy Wall Street began in New York with over one thousand protestors brandishing signs up and down Wall Street. Though the movement has no formal demands, one main goal asserted by the movement’s website is to establish “a general assembly in every backyard, on every street corner because we don’t need Wall Street and we don’t need politicians to build a better society” (Occupy Wall Street). This declaration is based on the belief that politicians and Wall Street executives have only the interests of the wealthy in mind. The single source of unity in the movement is the belief that the current political and economic system is broken and needs to be fixed.