To conservatives: Regulations aren't a bad thing. People who make their living by breaking the backs of those less fortunate than themselves deserve a measure of justice. More importantly, the people they are breaking deserve a measure of justice. You know that greed is bad. If you're honest with yourself I think you will admit that a lot of what drives corporations is greed, not mere ambition. The desire to have money isn't bad. The desire to have a lot of money isn't bad. Doing whatever it takes to get money, whether a little or a lot of it, is bad, wickedly so. You agree with this in principle, if you don't like what the Occupy people are putting forward as a solution to this then put forward your own solutions and argue your solution's merits. Don't just defend the system.
To Liberals: Regulations won't solve the problem. There are plenty of examples of far more regulated economic systems than free market capitalism. Many of them make capitalism's excesses, even those perpetrated by Transnational Corporations, look warm and fuzzy by comparison. This is because the fundamental problem is a human one. Humans seek personal advantage, whether we're talking about Wall Street fat cats, Party Members, or Senators. Replacing Capitalists with Regulators won't fix them problem, it will just change the slogans protesters are shouting. We can, and should, push for change. But just like talking about change without acting for change won't do any good, so too will addressing surface issues instead of hitting the heart of the matter not do any good.
To close: Dealing with this issue solely from a conservative or a solely liberal framework won't do any good. Nor is it sufficient for both sides to simply meet the other halfway, because this implies that cultural ideologies move along a linear scale. The approach needed is one that picks and chooses true statements from within both systems, discards what in those systems is false, and then moves forward with a plan of action based on the resulting, new third system.
To Liberals: Regulations won't solve the problem. There are plenty of examples of far more regulated economic systems than free market capitalism. Many of them make capitalism's excesses, even those perpetrated by Transnational Corporations, look warm and fuzzy by comparison. This is because the fundamental problem is a human one. Humans seek personal advantage, whether we're talking about Wall Street fat cats, Party Members, or Senators. Replacing Capitalists with Regulators won't fix them problem, it will just change the slogans protesters are shouting. We can, and should, push for change. But just like talking about change without acting for change won't do any good, so too will addressing surface issues instead of hitting the heart of the matter not do any good.
To close: Dealing with this issue solely from a conservative or a solely liberal framework won't do any good. Nor is it sufficient for both sides to simply meet the other halfway, because this implies that cultural ideologies move along a linear scale. The approach needed is one that picks and chooses true statements from within both systems, discards what in those systems is false, and then moves forward with a plan of action based on the resulting, new third system.