Weighing In On the Odd Couple: The Liberty and Occupy Movements

A recent excursion to downtown Boston provided me an opportunity “in the field” to test Corrine Curcie’s hypothesis that the Occupy movement and the supporters of Congressman Ron Paul have more in common than meets the eye.
On Saturday afternoon I noticed a sizable parade of Occupy protestors walking through Boston’s Downtown Crossing.
The majority of the signs seem to give a largely representative sample of the general composition of the movement:
1) Pro-peace activists upset at the government’s current foreign military campaigns:

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
2) Those dissatisfied with the handling of the financial crisis:

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
3) Advocates of more progressive taxation and financial regulation:

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
But I also detected a few other interesting protestors dispersed throughout the crowd:

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
What is one to make of this?
As Corinne notes, there exists a very real potential for some ideological overlap between the two camps. The most obvious issue of common ground is both groups’ opposition to the United States’ recent foreign policy.
There is great reason for skepticism, however, on whether these two respective movements really “belong together.”
My skepticism largely comes from observing the vast fundamental ideological differences that separate the movements: as well as opposition to war, Ron Paul also stands for reducing (and eliminating large parts of) federal taxation, regulation, and spending. Dr. Paul believes in “standing against” Wall Street, but only in ending regulatory and legal privileges for corporations, as well as engaging in systematic reform of the country’s banking sector.
But it precisely Dr. Paul’s ideological commitment to free markets and a much smaller state which seems to conflict with the values and desires of the Occupy movements. Though both camps express discontent with the privileged position of banks and corporations in the current legal framework, the solutions offered by today’s Occupiers appear to directly oppose the values espoused by Dr. Paul. Rather than simply end legal privileges for corporations and banks, the Occupy movements advocate for greater regulation and state supervision of these institutions. Rather than advocate the protection of property rights through limiting the state’s power of taxation and confiscation of wealth, Occupiers seem to advocate even more progressive rates of taxation: the “taking back” of wealth by the 99%. The rhetoric of free markets and commercial liberty which Dr. Paul continuously espouses seems to be precisely of the kind condemned by the Occupiers.
Unless the members of the Occupy protests experience a radical change in their economic views, one should not expect much to come from this temporary alliance.
Those hoping for something more might perhaps benefit from learning more of the similar experiences of Murray Rothbard, one of the greatest libertarian intellectual activists of the 20th century, and his history of alliance (and later disillusionment) with elements of the American Left on an anti-war platform in the late 1960s.