richard wolff isn't just a master on the topic, he's also a treat to listen to. very colourful, engaging speaker. although i might suggest that the influx of attention is due less to occupy and more to some older people getting "scratched off the list" due to age or death. i've known of and listened to wolff for many years, i just think he was that extra name or two down the list....

and, the reaction of the third speaker is actually very indicative of why these ideas are so difficult to get across in a society that fetishizes wealth. you want to interpret her comments through some kind of hefty ironic psychoanalysis.

i mean, to begin with she's got everything backwards.

1) the leftists in the french parliament were those that opposed state power, whereas the rightists were the ones in favour of it. deregulation is a decrease in state power and is consequently left-wing.
2) wolff wasn't arguing for deregulation in terms of less oversight - in fact, he'd not be opposed to that kind of regulation. he was arguing in terms of more democracy. democracy does not mean less oversight. democracy means more oversight.
3) marx' politics were of course about abolishing the state.
4) his supply and demand argument on wages is classical marxism. it's the reserve army of labour.

you put that together, and she's suggesting that marx was a reactionary conservative. and, while marx had some strange authoritarian streaks, that's actually simply a contradiction in terms. "marxist conservative". it's almost funny.

it's easy to conclude she's simply ignorant - that she doesn't know anything about marxist economics. but i think it's deeper than that. what she's saying, in terms of her body language and actual language, is the following:

i worked hard to get ahead in society. i am experiencing class mobility. your ideas threaten my ability to get ahead by exploiting others. i am therefore going to run off an absurd character assassination based on emotional hubris, and rely on the audience's presumed ignorance to get away with it. hopefully, that stops these people from getting ideas that may take away my privilege.

you need to cut through all kinds of bravado and bullshit to get there, but it's basically that: it's a reactionary support of statist institutions to uphold the privilege she believes she's entitled herself to.

and that's dangerous.

because my immediate reaction is that if you're going to force me to choose between pluralism + hierarchy and homogeneity + democracy, i'll choose the latter. i'm not about to just shrug off being a wage slave so that she can be rewarded for her protestant work ethic. i didn't put that on the table, she did. but, where's my self interest here? it's not in upholding her interests at the expense of mine.

in reality, there's no danger in me taking that position: i understand that there's no contradiction between democracy and pluralism; she's got her cause and effect backwards. you'll never get to economic equality through political equality. you need economic equality before political equality is possible. it's a kneejerk, but it's intellectual - it's abstract. i know better.

but, not everybody is as clear thinking as i am. and, when you reduce complex issues to absurd ultimatums, don't be surprised when people react in a way that you didn't expect - because you're blinded by the arrogance of your own privilege.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5IU5n729YI