Occupy Wall Street Movement Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 1

Occupy Wall Street Movement - Research Paper Example Occupy Wall Street remains very pivotal in the US corporate, political and financial history because of the implications it brought along, as shall be seen forthwith. 1. Moral and Economic Implications Involved In the Movement So profound are the moral implications of OWS that to sidestep them is to ignore the very factors that anteceded and triggered the movement, since the genesis of OWS stands on moral grounds. The moral implication of OWS is highly positive and tending towards ethical considerations, given that participants in OWS charged that any economic system that compels the majority to shoulder the burdens of the ruling class and rich capitalist owners’ excesses and to settle the costs of inchoately run industries (through the majority’s health or financial values or both) is immoral and unacceptable. Balderston (2012) divulges that it is important to note that the moral implications of OWS are inextricably intertwined with the economic ones. Particularly, the economic implication of OWS was that which voiced and supported ethical concerns of the country’s economy, since OWS was poignant that any economic system that enriched a powerful and well-connected few at the expense of the majority and by using the majority, is unethical, illegitimate and therefore, unacceptable. One of the areas in which this matter was contested is income inequality. OWS protesters rightly argued that income inequality had been widening over the last three decades, with the culmination of this development being the unequal distribution of economic values and economic stagnation. This situation would in turn lead to the assuaging of the workers’ zeal. Again, the consideration of ethical and economic implications is exemplified by concerns that OWS aired, concerning the influence that money had on politics and debts (student loans, mortgages and credit card debts), the inconsistence that characterized the debts of individual borrowers and those of b ig financial organizations, in the wake of the 2008/9 global economic recession. To propound moral and economic implications of the OWS, the movement affirmed that all flourishing is mutual. The sentiments of the movement continued that since the world is interconnected and interdependent, any damage that would be wrought on any part would undercut the realization of the complex whole. Because of this, every individual, no matter how rich and powerful, has the responsibility to respect affirmative obligations of compassion and justice to future and present generations of all. 2. Analyzing each of the implications identified above against the utilitarian, Kantian, and virtue ethics to determine which theory best applies to the movement The moral and economic implications discussed above also go hand-in-glove with the standpoint that utilitarians take. The veracity of this standpoint is seen in the fact that utilitarianism vouches for the greatest good for the highest number [possible ]. The applicability of the moral implication which stated that any economic system that compels the majority to shoulder the burdens of the ruling class and rich capitalist owners’ excesses and to settle the costs of inchoately run industries (through the majority’s health or financial values or both) is immoral and unacceptable to utilitarianism is that the majority who are the economically oppressed and exploited