Freedom Overpowering Equality Is America's War

The biggest surprise of 2011 is that the “Arab Spring” did not sweep up Iran, China, Russia and other CIS countries — as some people had wished — but has instead awkwardly evolved into today’s “Wall Street Autumn.” It has become a global “anti-capitalist” movement. But how did it start?

A longstanding problem in Europe and the U.S. is that freedom overpowers equality. Europe and America advocate freedom. The U.S. considers itself the world’s beacon of freedom, making the Statue of Liberty its national emblem. The problem is that the basis and premise of freedom need the economy, society and even government and law to all be equal. Since the beginning of the Enlightenment in the West, equality is the highest value. While the upper class was rising up, equality represented the ideological and political banner of expanding the interests of the middle and lower-class people.

However, following the dominating economic, political and ideological rise of the upper class — even with capitalism at the core of socio-political, ideological and cultural integration — the one-dimensional, homogeneous way slowly, but continuously highlighted the value of the freedom and democracy of the upper class. This put freedom onto a high pedestal, causing the value of equality to slowly become subordinate to the value of freedom and democracy. When there is a conflict between the public’s demand for equality and the principle of free capital, then the public’s demand for equality must follow the rules and regulations of free capital — and may even be attacked as the “hostile ideology” of socialism. Thus, in developed countries in Europe and the U.S., freedom has become the core value, even middle-class and lower-class people have long “been free.”

Unfortunately, extremes meet. In theory, on one hand, monetary politics is a common characteristic in Europe and the U.S.: Money restricts the nature and extent of freedom. On the other hand, since 2008, the extreme selfishness and greed and the authoritarian monopoly displayed by the Wall Street financial oligarchy has once again mangled the long-built superficial unified value of a free, democratic, equal and just society in Europe and the U.S. This has revealed the huge gap between free capital and equality.

On one hand, 1 percent of America’s wealthiest hold approximately 40 percent of the social wealth, while 99 percent of Americans cannot attain legitimate interests from economic growth. And yet, during the economic crisis they were affected by Wall Street’s financial capital crisis. On the other hand, normally, financial capital is able to enjoy the luxury of freedom. However, once there is a crisis, it not only needs taxpayers to pay for the billion-dollar debt, but it also needs the free market to prevent financial reform. It uses the concept of “small government, big society” to refuse state constraints on speculative capital, and it opposes the management functions of state tax increases and welfare programs.

The “Occupy Wall Street” movement cannot protest America’s freedom and democracy. However, it can openly protest unfair street politics, request new trade-offs and choices for freedom and equality, and require that the 99 percent’s vital interest of equality will be regarded as America’s core value. Only after these are accomplished will any far-reaching impact be produced.