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"People are angry." -- Nancy Pelosi
"On some level I can't blame them." -- Ben Bernanke
As advertised, a month ago tomorrow, on September 17th, the rabble moved into Wall Street. People sleeping in cardboard boxes and tents occupied a space formerly known as Liberty Plaza Park -- a park that was set up by US Steel in 1968, and renamed, after 2006, for the chairman of Brookfield Office Properties, John Zuccotti.
Yesterday afternoon, a crowd of protestors marched up the Avenue of the Americas toward Times Square, where at least 42 people were taken away by the police in plastic handcuffs. There were protests, and arrests, all weekend long -- from Chicago, to Rome, to Hong Kong. As of yesterday, according to www.occupywallst.org, demonstrations had spread to over 100 US cities, and to over 1500 cities worldwide.
It isn't always clear what the occupiers are after. Some want to prosecute corporations. Some want to tax the rich. Some want debt relief. Some just want a job. But mostly, they all want a bigger slice of the American Pie -- at least in New York.
The rich are getting richer, as we speak. Cornell University economics professor Robert Frank has written a lot about the economic inequality problem. The number of American millionaires is up from 2.86 million in 2009, to 3.1 million in 2010. And they have more cash: $11.6 trillion in 2010, up from $10.7 trillion in 2009. The top 1% of American households now owns more than half of America's stocks; and less and less is being left to the bottom 99%. These data don't lie: the disparities are growing large.
This has happened to people before.
As some deeply indebted students of core courses in the Classics are aware, there were large numbers of debtors in ancient Athens. Then one day Solon, the great lawgiver, forgave them. As Aristotle, or one of his students, put it in The Athenian Constitution: "Solon liberated the people, both immediately and for the future. He made a cancellation of debts, both private and public, which the Athenians call seisachtheia, or The Shaking Off of Burdens, since by means of it they shook off the weight lying on them."
Just a few generations later, Pericles ostracized the rich, and put a stimulus package into effect. By Aristotle's, or his student's, calculations, 1200 cavalry, 2500 infantry, 1600 archers, 500 guards, 500 councilors, 1400 officers and 6000 jurors -- in all, over 20,000 Athenian men -- were supported on public funds.
Something like that has happened to animals, too.
As a few unemployed biology majors must know, naked mole rats eat the rich. Most naked mole rats live in underground colonies of tens or hundreds of animals; and most naked mole rats work hard. They dig tunnels, carry food, feed pups and fight snakes. But some work harder than others, so queens make an effort to "activate" the lazy ones. Big, 40 or 50-gram naked mole rats get shoved 1-3 times an hour; but small, 10 or 20-gram naked mole-rats hardly get shoved at all.
It's sort of like that for paper wasps. Queens go after the biggest wasps first; they attack medium sized wasps next; and they hardly bother with the smallest wasps. The bigger they are, they more likely they are to fall.
For one brief, shining moment, Athens became a democracy, of sorts. But naked mole rats and paper wasps rule over despotisms -- as have more than a few historical kings and queens.
Lessons from history and natural history are relevant. So, unfortunately, is unemployment. And so are mortgages, credit card balances and student debt.
References
Reeve, Kern. 1992. Queen activation of lazy workers in colonies of the eusocial naked mole rat. Nature, 358: 147-149.
Pardi, Leo. 1948. Dominance order in Polistes wasps. Physiological Zoölogy, 21: 1-13.
Betzig, Laura. 2009. Sex and politics in insects, crustaceans, birds, mammals, the Ancient Near East and the Bible. Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament, 23: 208-232.
Betzig, Laura. 2010. The end of the republic. In P. Kappeler and J. Silk, eds. Mind the Gap: Primate Behavior and Human Universals, pp. 153-68. Berlin: Springer Verlag.
