The Price of Inequality

Throughout history, we have witnessed many appeals for change: today, the successful ones are known as revolutions, and nobody can remember the ones that were suppressed.

After the financial crisis of 2008, a great number of people had to reckon with a bankrupt political and financial system which, having been created on the basis of fundamental inequality, could not possibly come up with a solution to the social catastrophe that was already well underway. So, in September of 2011, the Occupy Wall Street movement was created in the United States, a movement representing  ‘99%’ of the country’s entire population in condemnation not only of its wealthiest 1%,  but also of the growth in the country’s economic disparity, a cause and consequence of the unstable economy and the completely unravelled political system.

The American subprime mortgage crisis brought to light another crisis, the collapse of the value system; the end of making money justified any means, even the exploitation of fellow citizens: some of the poorest and least educated people in the country.

The protestors wanted a new democracy, in which the people would matter, not the money, and in which the political system would cease to offer a helping hand to those already at the top of the pyramid, and would therefore stop making it even more difficult for the less advantaged to climb the social ladder.