Occupy Wall Street and Today’s Misunderstanding of Capitalism (How to Focus “Occupy Wall Street” for Meaningful Change)

At Stock Market Companion, we understand the Occupy Wall Street protests.  We have been speaking and writing for several years about the problems and terrible imbalances of capitalism without morality or without an understanding of allegiance or support to the very structures that enabled specific business enterprises and technologies to exist.

Occupy Wall Street would do well to focus on the failure of U.S. businesses to create living wage jobs and opportunities for Americans, and stay on that message until there is positive change achieved.

Here is a brief contrast between an Occupy Wall Street protestor verses productive applications of capitalism from our November 11th 15Minute Market Update –

November 11, 2011

This early a.m. there was a news story about a young man who was discharged from the US military in Iraq who is now participating in the Occupy Wall Street protests in Washington, D.C.

The summary of the story is this – The young man was saying that he went to war to fight for capitalism and became disillusioned while in the military to the point that he caused himself to be dishonorably discharged.   He now can’t find a job in the U.S. that pays more than $10/hour, his dishonorable discharge disqualifies him from the new G.I. bill that would help him pay for school, and he therefore has become a socialist because the capitalistic structure that he was defending has failed to meet his needs.  The journalist slanted the story very sympathetically towards the young man.

The very next article that I then read was this one about the company Evolution-Fresh, being purchased by Starbucks, Inc. this week for $30 million.  Click here for the Business Week article. Another article that I read about this Starbucks acquisition stated that the founder of Evolution-Fresh is Jimmy Rosenberg.   Evolution-Fresh is his SECOND juice company.  The first one “Naked Juice” he built starting in approx. 1983 and sold to Pepsi in the early 90’s.  He then built Evolution-Fresh that he sold this week to Starbucks.

Look at this brilliant website from Evolution-Fresh.  It is a capitalistic model of simplicity, vibrant color, and purpose.  Their objective is to be singularly focused on “freshness”.  They have created processes and systems to get fruit from trees and pressed into juice and into the grocery stores in 7 days.  That just doesn’t happen in a socialistic structure.

The idea here is – Mr. Rosenberg has a very different understanding of what capitalism is all about than the young man protesting in Washington, D.C.   Mr. Rosenberg understands that capitalism doesn’t offer hand-outs.  Capitalism offers the most effective and efficient structure for people to build and participate in businesses that allocate resources of all kinds to meet the demands of an ever-changing market of individuals.  Capitalism offers a very powerful tool that allows people to create wealth legally.

In his commencement address in 2005 to the Stanford University graduating class (click on link to see it directly from the Stanford site – Video icon is there in the text), Mr. Steve Jobs mentions that he naively picked an expensive college (Reed College, Portland OR) that was causing him to spend the entire life savings of his working class parents for tuition.  After six months he didn’t see the value in it, didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life and couldn’t justify the cost to his parents.  So he dropped out and began to study what interested him.  The rest is Apple, Inc. history.   Young people today need a chance to learn about capitalism and economics so that they understand it and can apply it for good.  This is one of the main purposes of Stock Market Companion.

Mr. Rosenberg and Mr. Jobs are from an older generation.  Many from the next generation have enjoyed the benefits in their early years of the prosperity and quality of life that can come from capitalism, but have also now witnessed many poor applications of capitalism brought about by American enterprise leadership who have failed to offer jobs and opportunities to Americans.

Apple, Inc. was NOT created in the structure of socialism.  It was birthed in the fertile business incubating environment of capitalistic Silicon Valley.  Technologies and design features have been magnificently crafted and refined for consumer use by Apple, Inc.  Without taking away from Mr. Steve Jobs significant accomplishments, it is unfortunate that  in the last decade there have been relatively few American wage-paying factory jobs and opportunities created by Apple, Inc., compared to the explosion in low-paying factory work created in China.

“Occupy Wall Street” would do well to focus on the failure of the modern leadership of American enterprises to reward the system from which they were born, with living-wage paying jobs and opportunity.  This should be their core message and there is an abundance of examples of outrageous imbalances that would help to drive change on the board and executive leadership level in American enterprise.

Long ago, Mr. Henry Ford understood the importance of providing real wages and opportunity for Americans.  The Ford Motor Co. helped birth the American industrial revolution by providing wages that allowed workers to afford the products that they were producing and enjoy the fruit of their labor.  Today, an approx. 600,000 worker manufacturing city and satellite operations in China  are making a huge quantity of computer products (including iPhones) that are being sold in America.  The workers there earn about $130/month.  Click here for the details. These Chinese workers cannot afford iPhones and Americans who are unemployed have not received much opportunity from the magnificent technology and business prowess of the American company Apple, Inc. (and other technology companies) – in the form of living-wage paying factory jobs.

For more of ideas of How America Can Create Jobs – please click here for Mr. Andy Grove’s (former Intel CEO) proposals and assessments from his Business Week article.

If “Occupy Wall Street” could find this message about creating Jobs and Opportunity in America, and stay on message, they could make a meaningful impact for good.

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