The rate at which the formal Occupy movement has taken off has been quite startling. One reason, no doubt, is that there was already a consensus among people who, as a general rule, manage to occupy themselves with productive and useful endeavors, that something was seriously out of whack and concluded "enough is enough." But, while the consensus was there, what's out of whack has been harder to identify. The banksters had obviously commandeered one of the essential tools of commerce and enterprise, money, but, for most basic transactions, the absence of money is not an insurmountable impediment. After all, multiple civilizations have flourished without money or reading materials being widespread. Something else has to be throwing our economies out of whack.
That "something else," I've been suggesting, is the middlemen -- the horde of people who sit at the nexus of exchange and trade and, like bears going after salmon or the toll-taken on the turnpike, exact a profit for themselves without adding any value. But, I don't think that's quite right. Middlemen tax profits, but they don't interfere with the production process.
The people who do that, I now think, are the incompetents, whose numbers may not be increasing, but their influence certainly has. Incompetents are people who don't work.
Some people are not capable of work. That is they are practically incompetent (all thumbs, stupid hands) and need someone to work for them. The fortunate ones are endowed with the gift of gab, which lets them cajole or coerce their sustenance from those who can work. The less endowed have to resort to theft and end up in prison where sustenance is provided without question.
Preachers and politicians are incompetents. Not only are they obviously endowed with the gift of gab, but they have an apparently infinite capacity to look foolish without being ashamed, which keeps them from shutting up. Knowing no constraint, they just keep demanding until somebody decides "enough is enough."
Which is what Occupy is about. And which is why we are seeing preachers and politicians coalescing in the Republican primary process. If Occupy is a success and people's basic needs are met, what will the incompetents use as a threat to coerce sustenance for themselves?
Why must it be coerced? I suspect it's simply because they're greedy. Modest incompetents get along quite well just being agreeable and complimentary. Think of the gigolo and the bimbo.