People aren't protesting the right of the rich to make a profit. It's what they do with those profits that matters. It's that their end of the Social Contract was built on lies and deceptions. They said if we just lower their taxes and the regulations enough then all those record profits would trickle down into the other 98% of the country.
Instead they kept the profits and thanked the workers who got them rich by moving their jobs overseas and attacking the unions and other methods that allow people to do anything about it. They didn't want to pay up front in the form of salaries and benefits so now everyone's looking to the government for help. And they don't want to pay for that either.
Someone's got to look out for the other 98% of the country because the rich sure as hell aren't going to do it unless dragged kicking and screaming. Since they're not as dependent on American workers as in previous decades there is very little leverage to use against them. Thus, people are hitting the streets.
Pay now or pay later, but you will pay. That is what they don't get about Obama's plan to tax the rich: Obama's not trying to start a Class Warfare, he's trying to avoid one.