For those of you who have been wanting an intelligent list of demands from the OWS. These are a list of libertarian demands that I think are fantastic. Original Source: Libertarian Occupy Wall Street Demands | Students For Liberty 1. End the Federal Reserve: Since the Federal Reserve was instituted in 1913, the dollar has lost over 95% of its purchasing power and has caused vicious boom and bust cycles throughout the 20th century. Big-spending politicians and politically favored bankers love the Fed's loose monetary policy since it allows them to print as much money as they want to help finance their pet projects without directly taxing the general populace. Unfortunately, the general public becomes victim to the insidious inflation tax which eats away all of their savings. What is truly needed is a system of competing currencies that is recognized and accepted as such by individuals through the actions of the market without the coercion of the state. 2. End all corporate subsidies: Corporate subsidies encourage rent-seeking behavior and also create substantial distortions in the marketplace. If we want to eliminate the corporate revolving door in government, destroying the piggy bank of subsidies is a good first step. Businesses will now have to actually compete for consumers in order to stay afloat, as opposed to constantly feeding off of the trough of taxpayer funds. 3. Restore Freedom of Association in Labor Relations: Government should step out of labor relations altogether and allow for people to freely and peacefully contract with each other. This is by no means an attack on unions. If anything, when voluntaryism replaces statism, labor unions would be more organic based on the models of Lions Club or Rotary Club organizations or Japanese style enterprise unions. These labor models simply encourage people to get together and act in unison, which in turn fosters an environment of worker-employer camaraderie. Workers will truly have a say in these respective organizations without having to worry about top-down government actors potentially co-opting these organizations. 4. End the War on Drugs: The War on Drugs has been going on for more than three decades and has resulted in the incarceration of millions of people for non-violent crimes. The black markets created by these misguided policies have created incentives for violent criminal syndicates to step into these markets and make ludicrous profits. This helps finance their criminal activities that have completely destabilized countries such as Mexico and Colombia over the past two decades. The War on Drugs has also empowered the prison-industrial complex, which benefits tremendously from the increasing number of prisoners they can get from the criminalization of drug use. Likewise, the drug war has resulted in the militarization of police departments and has diverted law enforcement resources that would otherwise be used to combat violent crimes. It has also led to heinous violations of civil liberties across the board. Drug problems used be handled through the community instead of through coercion, as practically all drugs were legal during the 19th century. Ending the drug war would incentivize voluntary civil society institutions to tackle these problems on a local level. 5. Restore Free Markets in Education: There is no doubt that education costs have skyrocketed the past decades, but that has been the result of government intervention in the education. The antidote to this disease is a free market in education. Abolishing the Department of Education would be a great start. Parents should be able to choose from private schools, religious schools, apprenticeships, homeschooling co-ops, and online education programs like Academic Earth and Khan Academy. In a free market for education, the customers are the parents and children, and they have the money and means to choose the education that they want instead of the government controlling what they will get. This system would also empower teachers to set up their own schools and become entrepreneurs in education, which would enable the latest innovations in educational services to be more readily available to the general public. Likewise, in the higher education sector markets must also be allowed to function. Some of the largest misallocations in human capital occur in higher education and this has resulted from outdated models of education that benefit tenured professors and administrators and the push for making college education a “right†for all. To solve this, top-down accreditation agencies should be abolished and instead let the market create more market-oriented rating agencies that send signals to consumers about which educational institutes provide the best services at the lowest cost. With education going the online route, you will start to see the medieval era model of education turn into a more open-source model of education that allows for everyone to have access to even the most esoteric forms of knowledge at very little to no cost. 6. Restore Free Markets in Health Care: The American Medical Association, which for almost 150 years has effectively cartelized the allocation of medical resources, and government involvement in the insurance industry has resulted in the rising costs of healthcare. To solve this problem, there must be a free market in drugs where people can freely import from foreign countries and not have to worry about cumbersome bureaucracies like the FDA preventing potentially lifesaving medicine from entering the market. In a system of free market healthcare, instead of the FDA there would be competing drug certifying companies on the market relying entirely on their reputation for good testing since they would not be backed by the state. Individual doctors, patients and insurers will decide which certifying agencies they trust and which they do not. Other reforms would include removing the state monopoly on medical licensing which would allow for competing businesses or nonprofits to provide certification. Shorter patent terms on drugs and medical technology would also help tremendously. This would enable producers to learn from each other's research at a faster rate, thus allowing for an increase in the supply of vital drugs and devices while accelerating the overall pace of research. 7. Revert to a Non-interventionist Foreign Policy: With hundreds of bases in over 150 countries, the United States is completely overstretched. The U.S must close down all these bases and end the War on Terror in order to truly bring about peace and prosperity. The political establishment's pursuit of foreign policy interventionism over the past 50 years has resulted in the loss of countless American lives and civil liberties. It has also led to the creation of a “vampire economy†in which the military complex sucks out a substantial amount of wealth in the economy that would otherwise be put into more productive sectors of the economy. By ending these wars and closing down these bases, there would be a major economic stimulus, as taxpayers dollars that are usually spent on military projects would actually go back to the average American's pockets to be spent on more productive sectors of the economy that have actual demand. 8. End Coercive Taxation: The income tax and other federal taxes have enabled the US government to explode into an enormous Bismarckian warfare/welfare state. These revenue generating mechanism have created a gigantic trough of money readily available to corrupt politicians to spend to their heart's content. By the same token, these taxes are immoral and allow for the government to arbitrarily pick between which groups to plunder and which groups to dole out the taxpayer funded goodies. All of these taxes should be abolished. The federal government must only generate money from user fees and reasonable excise taxes. When the government can generate tons of revenue, it can also spend out the wazoo, especially on misguided foreign policy and social welfare programs. The beast must be put on a diet. 9. Let Young People Opt out of Entitlement Programs: Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid have created a total social welfare boondoggle where young people will get the short end of the stick. As the baby boomer's retire en masse, young people face the daunting task of footing the bill for their parent's social programs. Not only is this immoral, but it will create massive tax burdens for the younger generations. Young people should be allowed to opt-out of these programs and actually take ownership of their savings without depending on the state. As more and more youth opt out, these programs will eventually be gradually phased out. 10. Restructure Business Incorporation: If we want to truly create a separation of corporation and state, there must be a push towards a more organic, free market manner of incorporating business. It is no surprise how even the smallest government interaction with business gives the government the opportunity completely get involved in business. All forms limited liability should be conducted contractually as opposed to the traditional top-down model of incorporating companies. All government sponsored liability caps should be done away with. Ultimately, there would be credit rating agencies to guide investors in knowing which companies would protect their investments the best. These institutions could also incorporate these companies through market means so that they can partake in interstate commerce. The only legitimate government involvement with these type of businesses should be court related with regards to dealing with contracts and torts. The goal is to essentially remove the government imposed corporate veil and look for market alternatives independent of the state to form businesses and handle liability and risk.
If you capitalized the L intentionally then you are correct. (Edit: I recognize it was the first word of the sentence which, if it is your only reason for the "L", renders the entire point I'm wishing to express completely irrelevant.) If you are making a broad generalization about a vast ideological demographic, then I'm afraid I beg to differ. [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCY01P44CKA[/ame]
As there is no monolithic grouping of ideological principles agreed upon by all OWS participants, I would definitely disagree with the suggestion that libertarians do not associate with OWS. There are definite libertarian participants in the movement, as evidenced by Ron Paul and End the Fed signs at numerous rallies. Judge Nap & Dr. Paul have expressed some support for the basic sentiment behind OWS - they got bailed out, we got sold out. Anyone can come in or go out of the movement at any time, really, which is a strength in some regards and a weakness in others. Libertarians, socialists, libertarian-socialists and many other groups can express their voice through the movement.
Great list! As for the comment that libertarians don't associate with OWS...lol. You're trying to pigeon-hole OWS into one ideology, when that is NOT the case. It's the same thing the media is doing, and it has the potential to lead to the democrats seizing more power and government to grow even larger, because people are going to BELIEVE that OWS is a purely left wing movement, and then the government(particularly democrats) can be like "ok, we'll met your demands," and then increase its own power. OWS is NOT about one ideology, and we NEED libertarians to get involved in educating people, and using OWS to help do that.
I approve. I sympathize with the OWS protesters. It's a shame how ignorant the majority of them are though. That much is proven simply by them even protesting Wall Street in the first place instead of occupying the Federal Reserve, White House, Congress, etc.
Yeah its too bad. If I even posted this list on the official OWS website I'd be trolled. There website is saturated by communists. They also banned talk of the federal reserve on their website.
On the official ows website forum any talk of ron paul will result in a ban! Wtf! Go and read it yourself.
These are ten times more intelligent then the official list of demands. The official list is just a demand for free shit. I'm surprised they didn't include "free ice cream every Saturday" on their list.
If you don't get rid of the Federal Reserve, the same banking interests will run the show. They dictate what domestic and foreign policy is going to be, because they are in charge of who gets the money, and how it's paid for. When you have the power to loan or print however much money you want, and give it out to whomever, there is no law that you aren't exempt from. Trying to regulate the Federal Reserve is futile as well, the people that can print trillions on a whim can buy off whomever they please. Your average person can be bought for a lot less then they claim. Your typical macho man always spouts the "Well I wouldn't go gay unless I was paid a million $" or whatever, truth is most people sell out for a small fraction of whatever number they claim. So when you are in charge of currency, you can buy anyone and everyone. Banks will still be too big to fail, will still get bailed out, your money will continue to lose value, and everyone's standard of living will continue to go down (except for the 0.1%) Not to mention countries that don't want to use the worthless currency will still be invaded or bullied into using the worthless currency as to maintain the full spectrum dominance of the 0.1%. The fact that OWS ignores this is a HUGE red flag. Not all OWS people ignore the fed, but the ones that control it's image perception and it's stated mission objectives do. This should cause suspicion of all individuals sympathetic to the OWS movement.