Wall Street Movement assignment help Introduction

Occupy Wall Street (OWS) is a protest movement that began on September 17, 2011from Zuccotti Park, New York City’s

Wall Street financial district. The Canadian activist group Adbusters initiated the protest that spreads around the world after few days. This movement was rose due to some issues related to social and economic inequality, greed, corruption and unnecessary influence of corporations on government (Tharamangalam, 2011). The slogan of OWS is “We are the 99%”. It addresses the growing income inequality and wealth distribution in the U.S. between the wealthiest 1% and the rest of the population. In this assignment, moral and economic implications of this movement, reasons for income inequality and wealth distribution in the U.S. will be discussed. Along with this assignment help, equitable outcome of the movement and prediction of future of this movement will be described in this assignment.

Moral and economic implications OWS has involved moral and economic implications in this movement. People, who join protest, do these things with moral passions and moral identities. There are six clusters of moral concerns such as care/harm, fairness/cheating, liberty/oppression, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, and sanctity/degradation. The main moral foundation of OWS is fairness, followed by care and liberty (Haidt, 2012). Loyalty, authority, and sanctity, by contrast, were very little in evidence. Political liberals primarily based on the moral foundation of care/harm, followed by fairness/cheating and liberty/oppression. In contrast, social conservatives use all six foundations. The moral foundation of liberty was evident at OWS in the use of positive terms such as liberty or freedom. Occupy Wall Street is not a rally to “get government off our backs” but it’s a rally to get government to increase regulation of Wall Street and big business. Along with this, the moral foundations of OWS are consistent with the moral foundations of fairness, care and concerns about oppression (Haidt, 2012). Fairness is important to make the protests as responsible towards perceived cheating, lawbreaking, and greed of the major financial firms. Along with this Wall Street Movement case study assignment helpthis movement has economic implications also. It has directed public attention to the issue of extreme inequality. Before a short time, the main issue in politics means the propriety of sexual preferences, reproductive behavior, or the personal behavior of presidents (Jickling & Hoskins, 2011). Economic policy, including tax cuts for the rich, subsidies and government protection for insurance and pharmaceutical companies, and financial deregulation. This movement has economic implication related to uprisings of invoked ideas of economy to justify the demands for basic needs.

Ethics implications Utilitarian: This ethics states the correctness of an action depends on the value of its consequences, and the usefulness can be rationally estimated. It views that the morally right action is the action that produces the most good (Hayry, 2002). The central idea of the utilitarian theory is that ethics is a reality, which can be demonstrated. It starts from the elementary motivations of human nature seeking happiness or pleasure, and to escape suffering. Utilitarianism is also distinguished by impartiality and agent-neutrality. The happiness of everyone counts equally. Kantian: Kantian ethics is a deontological ethical theory and based on the idea of moral duty. It stated that goodwill is the only intrinsically good thing and that an action is only good if it is performed out of duty, rather than out of practical need or desire (Betzler, 2008). Kant’s ethics has been criticized, because it fails to provide specific enough ethics to affect decision making and deals with abstract ideas, rather than practical situation. Virtue ethics: Virtue ethics refers to ethical systems that focus on what sort of person one should try to be. Virtue ethics is contrasted with the dominant method of doing ethics in philosophy that focuses on actions (Jost & Wuerth, 2011). For example, both Kantian and utilitarian systems try to provide guiding principles for actions that allow a person to decide, how to behave in any given situation. At the same time, virtue ethics focuses on what makes a person good rather than good actions. Occupy Wall Street is an especially interesting collective action movement, because it embodies a distinctive and pervasive shift in ethical orientation. The purpose of peaceful protest is to point out some kind of wrongdoing and some situation needs to be remedied (Haidt, 2012). If protesters themselves commit ethical violations during the course of their protest, they lose all credibility. Civil disobedience refers to acts which are illegal, but still ethical. OWS is a peaceful, powerful and growing movement. There have been few violent incidents. In this movement, Kantian theory is best applied, because it focuses on actions and practical situations. In the movement, it is important for the protesters to control their behavior and perform their duty with good intention and willing (Jost & Wuerth, 2011). For example, the main intention of this movement is to cleaning up corruption: financial recklessness, corporate lobbyists and corporate power interfering with politics.

Responsible for income inequality In the US economy, the major trend is growing gap between the poorest and richest sectors. Data from a number of sources refers that income inequality has grown significantly since the late 1970s, after several decades of stability (Tenebrarum, 2011). This gap is increased between the middle class and to earners with the disparity of income and wealth. Income is the flow of earnings paid for the employment of a resource. For example, wages and salaries are paid for the employment of labor; interest and dividends are paid for the employment of financial capital; rent is paid for the employment of real estate. There are various reasons that are responsible for the income inequality and wealth distribution in the US. Expertise, productiveness and work experience, inheritance, gender, and race have strong influence on distribution of personal income. Following are the main reasons of income inequality in US: Race and gender disparities: Income levels vary by gender and race. Women consider factors other than salary when looking for employment. They are more likely to work for governments or non-profits that pay less than the private sector (Shi, 2011). Women receive fewer promotions and opportunities for occupation and economic advancement than others. So, these gender disparities are responsible for income inequality. Taxation: Another factor in income inequality is the tax rate. A progressive tax is a tax by which the tax rate increases as the taxable base amount increases (Hacker & Pierson, 2010). But in the US, overall income tax rates are below the OECD average and it has been declining after 2005. Education and technology: Income differences between the different levels of educational attainment have increased. Expertise and skills certified degree translates into increased occupational qualification, which leads to greater economic rewards (Martinez, 2007). In US, post industrial society requires more and more expertise, while manufacturing sector employed secondary educated employees that reduces their wages and salaries and increase inequality. Political parties: Political parties and presidents are also responsible for income inequality and wealth distribution in the US. Political parties have led to a trend of declining labor union membership rates and resulting diminishing political clout, decreased expenditure on social services, and less government redistribution (Tenebrarum, 2011). There is strong relation between the party of the president and income inequality in America since 1948. Under Democratic presidents, the greatest income gains at the bottom of the income scale. In contrast, under Republican presidents, gains were much less but growth there was concentrated towards the top. So, these reasons, immigration, globalization, decline of labor, trade and political parties are responsible for income inequality and wealth distribution in the US (Martinez, 2007). This did not happen suddenly, but it has been grown from 1970s over a long time period.

Equitable outcome for capitalistic society A capitalist system can only function under a rule of law. Capitalism requires a strong central government that enforces property laws and protects consumers, but denies irrational liability laws (Goldstein, 2012). In this system, income is distributed under the profit system and income of capitalist class comes from the unpaid labor of the workers in the form of profit, or surplus value. So, this movement would force to apply a rule and law related to labor wages and salaries (Williams, 2012). Along with this, for unemployment, this movement would force to government to provide better education systems and technology that help in developing required skills and knowledge for getting jobs. At the same time, workers’ wages always remain within a narrow range. No worker can get wealthy on wages, even he gets high salary. But the capitalist class automatically grows richer even individuals go out of business. It is because of reinvestment of capital and ongoing process of the exploitation of labor (Goldstein, 2012). So, for reducing this exploitation and income differences, OWS movement would force to government to make some rules and regulations for investing in Wall Street. Government should make a limit for the investment that helps to reduce income inequality because richer can’t invest their whole money to double this.

Forecasting of Occupy Wall Street Movement The future of Occupy Wall Street movement remains uncertain due to disbanding of most of the Occupy encampments across the country by federal government. In this scenario, it can be predicted that the movement will fade away or weaker due to various reasons or factors. The lack of strong leadership and hierarchy structure may be a reason of fade away of movement in future as quickly as it rose. Along with this, the decline in media coverage, social media activities and number of activists in last few months also shows that Occupy Wall Street movement will be fallen (Leeds, 2011). According to Google trends, internet search and media coverage on the movement have fallen by 66% and 10% that indicates decline in interest of people to continue this movement. On the basis of this, it can forecast that Occupy Wall Street movement will weaker rapidly. Along with this, there are also some other factors that are helpful to justify that the effect of movement will continuously decline on public (Graeber, 2012). Some of them are as follows:

• The current activities of movement will be not enough to directly change or affect high paying of chief executive officer (CEO) and top bankers.
• The decline in interest of protestors towards movement also shows that Occupy Wall Street movement will fade away (Graeber, 2012).
• There are some events such as European debt struggles, president election in the US and hurricanes are diverting the mind of people from movement to these factors that can also affect this movement (Leeds, 2011).
• Along with this, Occupy Wall Street movement has failed to cohere to plans and address them that also a solid reason behind the decline in impact.

Conclusion So, it can be concluded that Occupy Wall Street movement arises against income inequality and wealth distribution in US. It is growing and effective in starting but in future, it will fade away due to lack of leadership and media and decreasing interest of people.       References Betzler, M. (2008). Kant’s Ethics of Virtue. Germany: Walter de Gruyter. Goldstein, F. (2012). Capitalism and the roots of inequality. Retrieved from: http://www.workers.org/2012/us/inequality_0308/ Graeber, D. (2012). Occupy Wall Street’s anarchist roots. Retrieved from: http://occupywallst.org/article/occupy-wall-streets-anarchist-roots/ Hacker, J. S. & Pierson, P. (2010). Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer–and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class. USA: Simon and Schuster. Haidt, J. (2012). The Moral Foundations of Occupy Wall Street. Retrieved from: http://reason.com/archives/2011/12/30/the-moral-foundations-of-occupy-wall-str/1 Hayry, M. (2002). Liberal Utilitarianism and Applied Ethics. USA: Routledge. Jickling, M. & Hoskins, S. M. (2011). Finance and the Economy: Occupy Wall Street in Historical Perspective. Retrieved from: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42081.pdf Jost, L. & Wuerth, J. (2011). Perfecting Virtue: New Essays on Kantian Ethics and Virtue Ethics. UK: Cambridge University Press. Leeds, P. (2011). Occupy Wall Street may fade as quickly as it rose. Retrieved from: http://money.msn.com/top-stocks/post.aspx?post=cf8dac90-6cb0-449a-88e8-2d97c03bd213 Martinez, P. (2007). Income and Wealth Distribution in the U.S. Retrieved from: http://media.lanecc.edu/users/martinezp/200/Inequality.html Shi, L. (2011). The Nation’s Health. USA: Jones & Bartlett Learning. Tenebrarum, P. (2011). Wealth and Income Inequality in the US. Retrieved from: http://www.acting-man.com/?p=8422 Tharamangalam, J. (2011). Occupy Wall Street: Poverty and Rising Social Inequality, Interrogating Democracy in America. Retrieved from: http://www.globalresearch.ca/occupy-wall-street-poverty-and-rising-social-inequality-interrogating-democracy-in-america/28201 Williams, S. (2012). The Moral Case for Capitalism. Retrieved from: http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/07/31/the-moral-case-for-capitalism   Avail 100% original business assignment help with us.We ensure you that your business assignment help content would be authentic, original and according the assignment guidelines. So, hurry up and please e-mail us your any assignment help at info@www.assignmenthelpexperts.com