Reuters ©Enlarge photo
ROME (Reuters) - Anti-greed protesters rallied
globally on Saturday, denouncing bankers and
politicians over the
international
economic crisis,
with violence
rocking Rome where cars were torched and
bank windows
smashed.
Galvanized by the Occupy Wall Street movement, protests began in New
Zealand, touched parts of Asia, spread to Europe, and resumed at their starting
point in New York with 5,000 marchers decrying corporate greed and economic
inequality.
After weeks of intense media coverage, U.S. protests have still been smaller
than G20 meetings or political conventions have yielded in recent years. Such
events often draw tens of thousands of demonstrators.
The demonstrations by the disaffected coincided with the Group of 20 meeting
in Paris, where finance ministers and central bankers from major economies
were holding talks on the debt and deficit crises afflicting many Western countries.
The Occupy Wall Street movement has gathered steam for a month, culminating with the global day of action. It remains unclear what
momentum the movement, which has been driven by social media, has beyond Saturday
While most rallies were relatively small and barely held up traffic, the Rome event drew tens of thousands of people and snaked
through the city centre for miles (kilometres).
Hundreds of hooded, masked demonstrators rampaged in some of the worst violence seen in the Italian capital in years, setting cars
ablaze, breaking bank and shop windows and destroying traffic lights and signposts.
Police fired volleys of tear gas and used water cannon to try to disperse militant protesters who were hurling rocks, bottles and
fireworks, but clashes went on into the evening.
Smoke bombs set off by protesters cast a pall over a sea of red flags and banners bearing slogans denouncing economic policies the
protesters say are hurting the poor.
The violence sent many peaceful demonstrators and local residents near the Colosseum and St John's Basilica running into hotels
and churches for safety.
NOT AS LARGE AS HOPED
American protesters are angry that U.S. banks are enjoying booming profits after getting massive bailouts in 2008 while average
people are struggling in a tough economy with more than 9 percent unemployment and little help from Washington.
In New York, where the movement began when protesters set up a makeshift camp in a Lower Manhattan park on September 17,
organizers said the protest grew to at least 5,000 people as they marched to Times Square in midtown Manhattan.
Some were disappointed the crowd was not larger.
"People don't want to get involved. They'd rather watch on TV," said Troy Simmons, 47, who joined demonstrators as he left work.
"The protesters could have done better today. ... People from the whole region should be here and it didn't happen."
The Times Square mood was akin to New Year's Eve, when the famed "ball drop" occurs. In a festive mood, protesters were joined
by throngs of tourists snapping pictures, together counting back from 10 and shouting, "Happy New Year."
Police said three people were arrested in Times Square after pushing down police barriers and five men were arrested earlier for
wearing masks. Police also arrested 24 people at a Citibank branch in Manhattan, mostly for trespassing.
Small and peaceful rallies got the ball rolling across the Asia-Pacific region on Saturday. In Auckland, New Zealand's biggest city,
3,000 people chanted and banged drums.
In Sydney, about 2,000 people, including representatives of Aboriginal groups, communists and trade unionists, protested outside the
central Reserve Bank of Australia.
Hundreds marched in Tokyo. Over 100 people gathered at the Taipei stock exchange, chanting "we are Taiwan's 99 percent" and
saying economic growth had only benefited companies while middle-class salaries barely covered basic costs.
In Hong Kong, home to the Asian headquarters of investment banks including Goldman Sachs, over 100 people gathered at
Exchange Square in the Central district. Students joined with retirees, holding banners that called banks a cancer.
Portugal was the scene of the biggest reported protest action, with more than 20,000 marching in Lisbon and a similar number in the
country's second city Oporto, two days after the government announced a new batch of austerity measures.
Hundreds broke through a police cordon around the parliament in Lisbon to occupy its broad marble staircase.
"This debt is not ours!" and "IMF, get out of here now!," demonstrators chanted. Banners read: "We are not merchandise in bankers'
hands!" or "No more rescue loans for banks!"
Around 4,000 Greeks with banners bearing slogans like "Greece is not for sale" staged an anti-austerity rally in Athens' Syntagma
Square, the scene of violent clashes between riot police and stone-throwing youths in June.
Many were furious at how austerity imposed by the government to reduce debt incurred by profligate spending and corruption had
undermined the lives of ordinary Greeks.
In Paris, around 1,000 protesters rallied in front of city hall, coinciding with the G20 finance chiefs' meeting, after coming in from the
working class neighborhood of Belleville where drummers, trumpeters and a tuba revved up the crowd.
"This is potentially the start of a strong movement," said Olivier Milleron, a doctor whose group of trumpeters played the classic
American folk song "This land is your land."
"THE INDIGNANT ONES"
The Rome protesters, who called themselves "the indignant ones," included unemployed, students and pensioners.
"I am here to show support for those don't have enough money to make it to the next pay check while the ECB (European Central
Bank) keeps feeding the banks and killing workers and families," said Danila Cucunia, a 43-year-old teacher.
"We can't carry on any more with public debt that wasn't created by us but by thieving governments, corrupt banks and speculators
who don't give a damn about us," said Nicla Crippa, 49. "They caused this international crisis and are still profiting from it. They
should pay for it."
In imitation of the occupation of Zuccotti Park near Wall Street in Manhattan, protesters have been camped out across the street from
the headquarters of the Bank of Italy for days.
The global protests were a response to calls by New York demonstrators for others to join them. Their example has prompted similar
occupations in dozens of U.S. cities.
At a small protest in Dublin, Ireland, Gordon Lucas, an unemployed software developer said "We don't have economic democracy
anymore. ... I don't feel I am being represented."
In Madrid, around 2,000 people gathered for a march to the central Puerta del Sol. Placards read: "Put the bankers on the bench"
and "Enough painkillers -- euthanasia for the banks."
"It's not fair that they take your house away from you if you can't pay your mortgage, but give billions to the banks for unclear
reasons," said 44-year-old telecom company employee Fabia, who declined to give her surname.
In Germany, thousands gathered in Berlin, Hamburg, Leipzig and outside the European Central Bank in Frankfurt.
Demonstrators gathered peacefully in Paradeplatz, the main square in the Swiss financial centre of Zurich.
In London, around 2,000 people assembled outside St Paul's Cathedral, near the City financial district, for a rally dubbed "Occupy the
London Stock Exchange."
Joe Dawson, 31, who lost his job as a product developer at Barclays Bank, said he had taken his two children aged 10 and 8 to the
rally to show them people had a voice.
"I'm not passive anymore and I don't want them to be. This is their future too," Dawson said. "I work four jobs part-time, I take
whatever I can get."
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told the crowd: "I hope this protest will result in a similar process to what we saw in New York,
Cairo and Tunisia," he said, referring to revolutions in the Arab world.
Outside of New York, similar protests were held in other U.S. cities and Canada. Hundreds turned out in Washington, D.C., while a
couple of thousand people gathered near Toronto's financial district as well as in Portland, Oregon.
A protest in Los Angeles drew about 5,000 people.
(Additional reporting by Catherine Hornby in Rome, Naomi O'Leary and Michael Holden in London, Natalia Drozdiak in Berlin,
Alexandria Sage and Gus Trompiz in Paris, Iciar Reinlein, Jonathan Gleave and Carlos Ruano in Madrid, Cameron French in Toronto,
Edith Honan, Ray Sanchez and Ed McAllister in New York, Carmel Crimins in Dublin; Writing by Mark Heinrich; Editing by Angus
MacSwan, Mark Egan and Todd Eastham)
Seems to be a bit of an awakening internationally though, at least when it comes to economics.... If I was one of the many americans that lost their house by losing their job (9 per cent unemployment!?), only to hear about another bank bail out, I would be front and center in New York.
Banks and wall st can make 100 billion dollar mistakes and the government bails them out(while the common man foots the bill!) in the interest of national finacial security, but when the common man is hard on his luck and cant meet a few tiny payments, he is out on the st.
Any country with divisions of wealth that great, and no middle class left to bridge the gap, is gonna run into conflict.
There's a form of capitalism that I belive in, it's one where trade is done fairly and both sides come away feeling content, one about earning money honestly and the other about receiving value for their money spent. But what some of these greedy corporations practice is not capitalism, not the one I belive in, it's a perversion of financial exploitation. They use the law to do it, they use political donations to buy politicians and they use their intelligence to pray on those less intelligent than them. They have fucked over the middle class, to the point where it's disappearing.
Wall Street embodies the worst of these low life scum, but they are world wide. I congradulate every one of these protesters, I suspect a revolution is brewing and I'm glad to see it.
Communism has nothing to do with this, socialism has everything to do with it, some people need to learn the difference.
Well put KC
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_difference_between_socialism_and_communismSocialism Vs Communism " Socialism is the idea that the working class, the class that produces the profits, the wealth, the cars, houses, planes, steel, should take over and run things collectively, democratically, for the benefit of the majority (who also "just happen" to be workers too). Communism is the idea that society should not have classes - exploiters and exploited, oppressors and oppressed, and so on. " Socialism generally refers to an economic system, while communism refers to both an economic and political system. Socialism seeks to manage the economy through deliberate and collective social control. Communism seeks to manage both the economy and the society by ensuring that property is owned collectively, and that control over the distribution of property is centralized in order to achieve both classlessness and statelessness. Both socialism and communism are based on the principle that the goods and services produced in an economy should be owned publicly, and controlled and planned by a centralized organization. Socialism says that the distribution should take place according to the amount of an individual's production efforts, whilst communism asserts that that goods and services should be distributed among the populace according to individuals' needs. Additional Viewpoints from Contributors: View 1 The meaning of the words 'socialism' and 'communism' have changed and grown over the years. Most communists would say that communism is a form of socialism, or a progression from socialism, so we will start with that word. At its heart, Socialism stands for a belief in government for the benefit of the whole of society. It stands, therefore, opposite Liberalism, which is a belief in government (or lack thereof) for the benefit of the individual. This broad meaning has allowed the term 'socialism' to be used to describe a very broad array of practical governmental styles. Regardless of modern political practice, most forms of socialism owe a great debt to 19th century socialism. That period was a time of great social upheaval in Europe and many of its current and former colonies. The Industrial Revolution had irreversibly changed the way that working people lived their lives, and had brought a great many of them into the cities, where extreme poverty became normality. Various strands of socialism began to form, trying to better the lives of the working class. Not all of them would be considered left-wing nowadays, and the Fascist and Nazi movements grew out of this period quite organically. The German political economists Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels gave enormous purpose to the general socialist movement and drew many socialists into their theories of socialism and communism. They famously wrote the Communist Manifesto, a very small document considering its reputation. At that time, the terms, 'socialism' and 'social democracy' were largely interchangeable and they remain so to many people across the world, whose socialist or social-democratic political parties are driven primarily by the legacy of socialists other than Marx and Engels. While many socialist parties now have Marxist factions, or attract a broad base of communist-leaning activists and voters, these parties are generally not communist, and even less Marxist. Modern socialist parties tend to believe in a strong, centralised, welfare state, but they fall very short of communism, in that they support the right of individuals to own private capital. Although their were 'communists' before Marx, they bear little resemblance to post-Marx Communists. Marx was a high-profile figure in a political movement which sought to do away with the idea of private capital. It is important to note that the vast majority of communists do not believe that absolutely everything should be owned by the state, or by everybody. In his book Capital (Das Kapital in German), Marx laid out an economic philosophy, explaining how private capitalism works, how it is a deeply flawed economic practice, and how the working man and woman are exploited by capitalism's basic nature. Marx and number of other political and economic theorists of the time, proposed that the way to achieve a dignified and high quality of life for everybody, was to communalise the economy. This wasn't just to be government for the people, it was to be government by the people. The communists called for a complete social, economic and political revolution, whereby all the private capital - the means of producing everything society needs - would be taken away from the private individuals and companies that got so rich at the expense of the works, and would be owned collectively by everyone. In the form of communism proposed by Marx and his direct ideological descendants, such as Lenin, Trotsky, and Mao, this transformation would take place by a Communist Party seizing control of a national government (hopefully more than one, perhaps even them all), and instituting a transitional form of government, which would steadily communise the economy until the point where the state could be abolished and true communism would be complete. This stage they called socialism. There are many communists who disagree with this strategy for achieving communism, in light of the atrocious crimes committed by 'Marxist' parties in the USSR, China and Cambodia in particular. Chief among the libertarian communists are the anarchist-communists, who famously split acrimoniously with the communists led by Marx. Anarchist-communists believe that to give the state all the power is to invite disaster. They believe in the bottom-up approach to social transformation, fostering strong community and workers' groups, emphasising from the start, a need to limit personal power and heirarchies. There are other strands of communism, but all ultimately believe in the idea of the collective ownership and management of the economy - by the people, for the people. View 2 Socialism and communism are ideological doctrines that have many similarities as well as many differences. It is difficult to discern the true differences between socialism and communism, as various societies have tried different types of both systems in myriad forms, and many ideologues with different agendas have defined both systems in biased terms. Some main differences, however, can still be identified. One difference between socialism and communism is that socialism is mainly an economic system, while communism is both an economic and a political system. As an economic system, socialism seeks to manage the economy through deliberate and collective social control. Communism, however, seeks to manage both the economy and the society by ensuring that property is owned collectively and that control over the distribution of property is centralized in order to achieve both classlessness and statelessness. Both socialism and communism are similar in that they seek to prevent the ill effects that are sometimes produced by capitalism. Both socialism and communism are based on the principle that the goods and services produced in an economy should be owned publicly and controlled and planned by a centralized organization. However, socialism asserts that the distribution should take place according to the amount of individuals' production efforts, while communism asserts that that goods and services should be distributed among the populace according to individuals' needs. Another difference between socialism and communism is that communists assert that both capitalism and private ownership of means of production must be done away with as soon as possible in order to make sure a classless society, the communist ideal, is formed. Socialists, however, see capitalism as a possible part of the ideal state and believe that socialism can exist in a capitalist society. In fact, one of the ideas of socialism is that everyone within the society will benefit from capitalism as much as possible as long as the capitalism is controlled somehow by a centralized planning system. Finally, another difference between socialism and communism is centered on who controls the structure of economy. Where socialism generally aims to have as many people as possible influence how the economy works, communism seeks to concentrate that number into a smaller amount. View 3 Socialism and Communism are often used interchangeably as they are both in opposition to Capitalism but they are actually two different economic philosophies. Both have been theorized in different versions ranging from libertarian to authoritarian along the social spectrum. Societies having these economic philosophies bear little resemblance to one another if they are on opposite sides of the social spectrum. To add to the confusion many political entities have described themselves as "Socialist" or "Communist" in name, without actually adhering to either in their economic policies. One of the most notable is the Nationalist Socialist German Worker's party which incorporated "Socialist" into their name but actually carried out a mixed policy of privatized and state Capitalism. Another infamous and most commonly cited one was the U.S.S.R., which not only claimed to be Socialist but also claimed to be a Federation of Democratic Republics. In reality that government was an oppressive bureaucracy with a centrally planned state capitalist economy. Both Socialism and Communism oppose the private ownership of the means of production and the products produced from that capital, ie. Capitalism. Instead Socialism advocates ownership by the workers who use the capital and Communism advocates ownership of capital by the entire community. So in Capitalism an individual or group of individuals would own a factory, all the machines that produce, let's say a car, and all the cars produced. They then hire workers to make the cars and pay them wages that they compete with each other for. Afterwards they sell the cars and keep what they make above their expenses as profit. In Socialism the workers in the factory own the factory, machines, and the cars produced. After they produce their cars they sell them on a market and distribute what they make above their expenses amongst themselves. The workers only have collective ownership of where they work and what they produce. Finally, in Communism the entire community collectively owns all industries and everything produced in those industries. The workers in the commune's car factory would produce cars that could either be distributed within the commune or sold to others with the profits being distributed amongst all members of the commune. It is important to differentiate State Capitalism from even the most authoritarian version of Socialism and Communism. In the latter government institutions are limited to the enforcement of Socialist and Communist property rights, ie. Ensuring that workers have free access to capital, or that profits are distributed to everyone who has a right to them. In a State Capitalist economy government bureaucrats own the means of production, set wages for their citizens, and distribute goods and services. As in all economies wealth tends to concentrate with those who own the capital and the goods produced by that capital. Primary references: Max Stirner- The Ego and Its Own Emma Goldman- Red Emma Speaks Peter Kropotkin- Conquest of Bread, The Great French Revolution, Evolution and Environment Pierre-Joseph Proudhon- The Evolution of Capitalism, The Philosophy of Misery: System of Economical Contradictions, What is Property?: An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government Lucy Parsons- Liberty, Equality & Solidarity Michael Bakunin- God and the State, The Basic Bakunin: Writings 1869-1871 Errico Malatesta- Life and Ideas Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti- The Letters of Sacco and Vanzetti A_summarized,_simplified_point_of_view">A summarized, simplified point of view From the two above answers the second one is very thorough but it can be hard for a person who hasn't studied left-wing ideologies to understand it. Therefore I will try to simply explain how the difference between socialism and communism has changed throughout time, and the meaning of both terms has been contorted throughout history (Like leninism being called communism and nazism being called socialism). In the dawn of all ideologies in the 19th century there were 5 main types of philosophies - Nationalism, Conservatism, Liberalism, Socialism and Utopian Socialism. After that many scientists and philosophers built on "Socialism" and many sub-ideologies were formed, one of them communism. So you can imagine it this way - Socialism is the drive C on your computer and Communism, Libertarian Socialism, Marxism, etc. are the folders in the drive. When Marx and Engels came along, they started using Socialism and Communism interchangeably, but basically you don't see the word "communism" is used less in their text because, like all the other left-wingers of the 19th century, they were building on Socialism. Then, when Lenin and the USSR came along they applied a industrialization-based economy to an agricultural country, therefore they failed and were at loss. Then they decided to create a "transition" to communism, which was surprisingly called socialism. So they claimed that they are a socialism country and socialism will lead to communism. Basically, their transition was a centralized capitalist system, and even Lenin admits that, because he thinks if Russia becomes a communist country it would be crushed through military force, and Stalin, in one of his secret letters claims that the USSR isn't socialist at all but if this went public it would mean the end of the USSR. Now in the 21st century people either think Socialism means more to the right and Communism means more to the left or that Socialism is the "transition" to Communism, but that couldn't be further from the truth - they forget that Communism is one of the ideologies in the category Socialism Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_difference_between_socialism_and_communism#ixzz1b6xvXRZm
I know this is a bit of a read, but its easy to get the two mistaken as there is a large difference.
Thu 20 Oct 2011 19:19 - Australia Markets closed The companies that control the world’s wealth tweet8 Email Print Dijana Barbarich, On Thursday 20 October 2011, 11:38 EST As protests against corporate greed spread around the world, a study out of Zurich University may have confirmed the protestors' worst fears. A trio of complex system theorists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, claim that a select group of global bankers own a large chunk of the global economy. The study found that of the 43,060 transnational corporations (TNCS) in existence, a group of 1,318 companies formed the heart of the world's financial system. (More From Yahoo!7 Finance: The Faces of Occupy Wall Street) This group could further be distilled to a core group of 147 companies which controlled 40 per cent of the wealth. The core group was dubbed the 'super entity' by the researchers and was largely made up from corporate banks like Barclays and Goldman Sachs. What the study uncovered next is worrying. The report by the trio claims each of the 'super entity' companies owned all or part of each other. Economic experts have commented that close connections between these 'super entity' companies mean that the network could be vulnerable to collapse. (More From Yahoo!7 Finance: Countries With The Highest Taxes) The Zurich team observed that "concentration of power is not good or bad in itself, but the core's tight interconnections could be." As the world learned during the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, distress and toxic debt can easily flow between companies and even countries. Some of the assumptions underlying the study have been criticised - such as the idea that ownership equates to control. The Swiss researchers, however, say they have no axe to grind, they simply applied mathematical models usually used to model natural systems to the world economy. While the Swiss research will surely be used to back-up and deny many conspiracy theories about global domination from a group of rich elite, it does tie in nicely with Occupy movement's catch cry of "We are the 99%. We are oppressed by the 1%". (More From Yahoo!7 Finance: Anti-Greed Protestors To Occupy Sydney) The top 50 of the 147 superconnected companies: 1. Barclays plc 2. Capital Group Companies Inc 3. FMR Corporation 4. AXA 5. State Street Corporation 6. JP Morgan Chase & Co 7. Legal & General Group plc 8. Vanguard Group Inc 9. UBS AG 10. Merrill Lynch & Co Inc 11. Wellington Management Co LLP 12. Deutsche Bank AG 13. Franklin Resources Inc 14. Credit Suisse Group 15. Walton Enterprises LLC 16. Bank of New York Mellon Corp 17. Natixis 18. Goldman Sachs Group Inc 19. T Rowe Price Group Inc 20. Legg Mason Inc 21. Morgan Stanley 22. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc 23. Northern Trust Corporation 24. Société Générale 25. Bank of America Corporation 26. Lloyds TSB Group plc 27. Invesco plc 28. Allianz SE 29. TIAA 30. Old Mutual Public Limited Company 31. Aviva plc 32. Schroders plc 33. Dod 33. Dodge & Cox 34. Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc* 35. Sun Life Financial Inc 36. Standard Life plc 37. CNCE 38. Nomura Holdings Inc 39. The Depository Trust Company 40. Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance 41. ING Groep NV 42. Brandes Investment Partners LP 43. Unicredito Italiano SPA 44. Deposit Insurance Corporation of Japan 45. Vereniging Aegon 46. BNP Paribas 47. Affiliated Managers Group Inc 48. Resona Holdings Inc 49. Capital Group International Inc 50. China Petrochemical Group Company * Lehman still existed in the 2007 dataset used
from yahoo 20/10/2011
