COMMENTARY: My name is Wall Street, and I’m addicted to greed

NEW YORK (RNS) Analyzing something as fluid and complex as the Occupy Wall Street movement is a fool’s errand. The protests that started here and went viral don’t stand still long enough for precise observation. This is a movement, not an institution. It is about freedom, not acquiring the power to compel behavior. Its currency […]

NEW YORK (RNS) Analyzing something as fluid and complex as the Occupy Wall Street movement is a fool’s errand.

The protests that started here and went viral don’t stand still long enough for precise observation. This is a movement, not an institution. It is about freedom, not acquiring the power to compel behavior. Its currency is personal stories, not votes and donations.

Oddly, it’s what Christianity set out to be, before the power-seekers took control and turned it into an institution that eventually did what all power-based institutions do: use power to win more power, at the expense of hurting people.


This cloud could take a different shape tomorrow. That’s what is so exciting about Occupy Wall Street — and so vexing to those who want to see the endgame and exploit it.

Here’s what we can say so far:

First, the mega-rich have overreached yet again. They do that. If your spirit centers in accumulation, enough is never enough. Avarice and hubris don’t know how to stop. Like an alcoholic in full toot, they can’t restrain themselves.

We are dealing with a sickness, an addiction as powerful as any of the more commonly recognized addictions, like alcohol, drugs, gambling and overeating. Like alcoholism, the addiction to wealth is chronic (it keeps recurring), progressive (it keeps getting worse), and self-destructive.

The wealthy will sacrifice everything — morality, friends, family, health — in order to keep the wealth flowing. They will manipulate others, ignore those who counsel probity, declare their critics simply envious, and seek the company of “drinking buddies.”

Second, avarice breeds corruption. It’s always easier to steal wealth than to earn it. Corruption, in turn, finds plenty of enablers, like public officials who carry water for the wealthy. That’s why we see huge sums pouring into campaign coffers.

Third, more and more people get hurt. Not just intellectually appalled, but literally and deeply wounded. If you go to an Al-Anon meeting, you will hear the same: moms who sold and stole everything to keep the crack flowing, husbands who promised good things and routinely delivered bad things.


Fourth, in time the wounded find each other. They compare stories, identify causes, and collaborate on action. They file class-action lawsuits (like Wal-Mart’s female employees), they form organizations (like labor unions), they form voting blocs (like the Tea Party), they march on Washington (like the jobless), they take up arms (like the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794), or they take to the streets in peaceful protests (like Occupy Wall Street).

In a sense, Occupy Wall Street has the flavor of an intervention, when family and friends confront the alcoholic, tell their painful stories, and name the consequences of continued addiction.

Wealth and power fight back, often in the name of public safety and democratic principles. The reaction usually succeeds because the majority doesn’t identify with the protesters.

This time might be different, because the “99 percent” truly is a vast majority who have seen their nation’s wealth plundered and the values that make America matter corrupted. Even those who haven’t lost jobs or houses identify more with the suffering than with the financial and corporate elite who caused the suffering.

Where will Occupy Wall Street lead? I have no idea. Most addicts don’t recover. But life changes for family and friends when they name the addiction and resolve to take control of their own lives.

(Tom Ehrich is a writer, church consultant and Episcopal priest based in New York. He is the author of “Just Wondering, Jesus” and founder of the Church Wellness Project. His website is http://www.morningwalkmedia.com. Follow Tom on Twitter @tomehrich.)


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