Why ordinary Americans are angry with Wall Street?

Today as I write this words New York City is witnessing the largest ever popular protest against Big Business and Finance Capital. The Occupy Wall street movement is gaining momentum and spreading to other Cities of USA. What are they protesting against?
“I did everything I was supposed to and I have nothing to show for it.”
The above statement reflects the general sentiment of the thousands of protesters blocking roads in New York today. The failed American dream is pushing more and more people into debt which no Government is ready to write off or help to re-pay, while the US treasury funds were liberally used to help big business to tide over its crisis several times in recent years. Those Companies which were bailed out by public money is showing big profits now but the US economy is in a bad recession.


We are the 99 Percent


One of the main fuel for this protests is the personal stories of hundreds of Americans depicted in the website 'We are the 99 Percent'.


Here are some examples.

Lost my job in 2006. Sold my home and moved in with my 87-year-old mother.

Worked temporary jobs on and off for over 5 years with little or no benefits.

Cancer survivor. Need medical care. Can’t afford health insurance.

TOO YOUNG TO RETIRE.

Watching my retirement funds and savings shrink.

Moved to Mexico to get medical care. Rent a room and live on $250 a month. No car. No phone.

Mom is in the hospital and I wonder if I can afford to come home.

I AM the 99%.

I am 30 years old. I have a BFA and an MA. I taught Art History for 2+ years and made regular payments on my loans. As a newer, less established member of the faculty I was out of work when my college cut classes. Over a year later and I still can’t find work. I pick up dog poop for $6 a walk. Because of deferments my $41,000 loan has become $62,000. I am the 99%.

III am 29 years old. I have a Master’s degree. I am $120,000+ in student loan/medical debt. In the past 18 months I: was diagnosed with cancer, lost 2 jobs, worked 70 hours/wk and unable to keep up. I get more calls from creditors than I do friends. My electricity was shut off in May. I was too embarrassed to tell people in August that it was still off. I had to move back in with my parents. I have $4 in my bank account and no job.

I am the 99%.

occupywallst.

These are the REAL stories of people who played by the rules,did as they were told,but has only huge debts to show for it.

The interesting thing is that the protesters have no concrete list of demands. Or you can say different protesters have different demands and these are being put to vote on net and may become finalized only after few weeks or even months.

 Most of the demands are aimed at better control and more taxing of big business and finance capital. There are also demands for more affordable universal health care and affordable education.

Here is a list of demands that are being voted on.

http://coupmedia.org/occupywallstreet/occupy-wall-street-official-demands-2009

Greece,Spain,Italy.........USA....... the tale of woes of Western Capitalist economies is continuing. Mass struggles are taking place in all these places against Corporate greed and the elected Government's abject surrender to big business and finance Capital.

Will these protests of honest and sincere men and women who played by the rules,but lost everything, help to bring  a revolutionary change in the system?

Evolutionary theory of Patriarchy

Patriarchy has always surprised me. Why should one gender class, the females surrender almost everything at the feet of males? Was it always like this? Is it changing? Let me try to find some answers.

There is no definite evidence to show when Patriarchy originated, or whether it was present even before Homo sapiens were evolved. Many other animals including many of the non-human primates exhibit patriarchy. But many other species of both primates and non-primates do not exhibit patriarchy. This shows that as different species evolved differently they adhered to different systems regarding Gender relations.
 As per evolutionary anthropology there is a natural selection of behaviour which gives the species maximum survival benefit.
In case of early Homo sapiens specialisation into a section  who hunt and a section which do not hunt but only gather food is an important change from rest of primates which helped in its survival. The human baby needed adult care and support for a long time compared to other species. This meant many of the women were not available for going out to hunt. Also the increased physical strength exhibited by males might have been more suitable for hunting. Thus hunting more or less became the domain of males while child rearing and gathering the domain of females.
 Many believe that compared to most other species humans exhibit the strongest male to male bonding. This might have been the result of group hunting of large animals several times the size of humans. At the same time humans show the least female to female bonding. May be the way of life of a gatherer might have been to see a competition in every one else.
As the hunter-gatherer society evolved, incest taboo that prevents sexual act between close relatives resulted in females going out to join other groups. Many of the non human primates shows same behaviour,though in some others it is the males who go out of the parental group.

Why women went out and not men? Is this again because of the strong male to male bonding in humans?
 In most of the primates where females go out of their parental group (chimpanzees,hamadrayas baboons), patriarchy is very strong. One reason for this is it is difficult for the new-comer female to make any sort of bonding with females of her adopted group.

In contrast in some species, females remain in their birth communities their whole lives. Here females  form alliances against aggressive males. Vervet monkeys  macaques, olive baboons, patas and rhesus monkeys are examples for this 'female bonding' . Thus in these species the males behave with much more respect towards females.

As human society developed from hunter-gatherer system to cultivation and feudalism patriarchy became stronger. Surplus wealth created had to be transferred to off springs. But if it had to be given to girls who go out of the house in marriage also,it meant  diluting of the family wealth. So a male only inheritance was developed for the survival advantage of the family as a unit but at a distinct disadvantage to females.

 Why females agreed to this?  By then men had almost complete control over tools for production of wealth like land,agricultural implements, weapons,domestic animals etc. It was also men who went out to wage war to capture more land and slave labourers.Women  might have perceived that their interests is best served through alliances with men, not with other women.

 Feudalism was slowly replaced by Capitalism due to the scientific revolution and advent of mass production of goods. Joint families got disbanded as they could not survive the new economic system.  Women who were small scale producers of goods with in the joint family system became either confined to household work or had to go out to work in factories. As production became more and more mechanised the importance of physical strength in production diminished. But still women who did the same work as men were under paid by the Capitalists.  Thus even though Capitalism helped in reducing gender discrimination by allowing women to sell their labour in the market, it was at a lower wage and  the unpaid house work and child rearing still remained the sole responsibility of women. When ever family needed more of her unpaid work, she had to sacrifice her paid work.

 Change in economic system to Capitalism also resulted in change in political system. More and more Nation states were formed and monarchies were replaced by democratic system of  governance. Initially only the rich men were able to contest or even  vote. Great struggles by working classes and women forced the ruling capitalists to allow universal franchise.  Legislators passed many gender sensitive laws.
 Thus now in most of the countries legally there is not much gender discrimination. Even there are positive discrimination for women in many ways. But still women are discriminated widely in the society though much less than before.
 Study of animals shows us that female to female alliances and alliance with like minded oppressed males are important in creating more egalitarian societies.
  Let us hope that such an alliance of oppressed classes can create not only a gender-equitable but also a social-equitable society in near future.

References:

http://www.mesacc.edu/dept/d10/asb/origins/apeswrath.html
http://socio.ch/evo/stone.htm
http://press.princeton.edu/books/stanford/
http://www.infobarrel.com/The_Evolution_Theory_and_Its_Relationship_to_Patriarchy_and_Feminism