Lessons Occupy Wall Street can learn from Dr. Zhivago

“Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate” : Bertrand Russell Dr. Zhivago. Love. Emotion. Soul. Garden-farming. Stoic. It is a movie I watch often. Stark landscapes, exquisitely beautiful protagonists, individualism held to ransom by collectivism, a poignant love story which rises beyond - issues of extra-marital dalliances and infidelity, the cruel horrors of a society in search of social equality (thereby compelling a poet to stitch up torn limbs, rather than words)… Set in the early 20th century in Soviet Union, against the backdrop of the Czar’s execution, the Bolshevik Revolution and the subsequent Civil War. One step forward, two back. Capitalism in a nutshell. Greed. Intellect. Synthetic financial instruments. Epicurean. Around the same time, Europe (primarily Germany, Britain and France) and America were involved in a typical capitalist tug-of-war concerning war reparations and subsequent claims by France on Germany. A most intriguing exercise which involved financial jugglery, game theory and brinkmanship. Add a few powerful and intellectually gifted bankers and super-sized egos in there as well. What followed, was a mirage of economic prosperity in most of Europe and America, which went phut-kaput in 1929. This phut-kaput happens every two decades or so. But the blow-ups seem to be getting more frequent as time passes. (In the last 24 years, I can count four – 1987, 1998, 2000 and 2008). Annus Mirabilis turns to Annus Horriblis in the blink of an eye these days. What one can’t help but notice is that each time we get busted, we are better off than we were the last time the economic ground shifted from under our feet. Two steps forward, one back. John Maynard Keynes once said, “Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone”. That particular quote cracks me up every time I come across it. Especially the “greatest good for everyone” bit. On that note, let us move forward to Circa 2011, and join “everyone”. Neo-Bolsheviks. Equality. Free lunches. Envy. Mocking Nietzsche’s Ubermensch. What started out as a small movement out of Zucotti Park on 17 September, has gradually spread. And everyone is invited. Well, almost everyone, except for the 1%. It has gone viral faster than Jasmine Revolution ever could (while we are on the topic of Jasmine Revolution, is Egypt a Paradise now? Tunisia? Syria? Yemen? Libya?). And here is the irony – in the movie (Doctor Zhivago), when Yuri returns from the war, he finds his home has been divided into tenements, and there are a hundred or so delinquent comrades squatting in his not too un-palatial family home. The `Party’ mandates that a human being needs a few sq meters of living space only – any per capita residential space in excess of that, mocks social equality. Marxist to the core. Not unlike the squatters at Wall Street. And in financial districts all over the world. I mean, what right does John Paulson have to earn US$ 5bn, while a few million home-owners see their equity being drained by underwater mortgages? Tch tch…not fair! And why do the likes of Lloyd Blankfein and Jamie Dimon get those multi-million dollar bonuses when the going is good, and continue getting those bonuses when their army of mustard-sauce-on-Hermes-tie traders, financial whiz-kids with PhDs in economics, computer science and mathematics (a.k.a Quants) and smooth-talking salesmen who pawn financial instruments pregnant with risk to unsuspecting investors, bring the world to the brink of economic collapse? Raise the sickle, hit the streets and occupy their mansions, the Bolsheviks of yore would say! [caption id=“attachment_111491” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Reuters”]  [/caption] The current lot is saying the same thing. Different eras and nations, similar fundamental issues, same response. Tel Aviv, Athens, New York, Hong Kong, London…..structurally, it is like Tunisia, Sana, Damascus and Cairo all over again. A lot will be written on this topic by a lot of knowledgeable people in the coming few weeks. Self-appointed experts will come on TV, thrust their faces into ours (unsolicited), and ramble on about CDOs, leverage, CDSs, securitization, income disparity between the 1% and the 99%, Milken, Boesky, Predator’s Ball, high-frequency trading, stat-arb , Hedge Funds (not LTCM again please!) and some other impressive-sounding words, terms and names. Not to forget some Blinding glimpses of the Obvious on how Goldman Sachs runs US Economic and Fiscal policies, by proxy. And if a really knowledgeable hotshot comes on air, we will be given free lessons on Market Forces, Keynes, Bubbles, Wealth creation and employment generation, Greenspan and Glass-Steagall. As long as we are not expected to pay obeisance at the altar of Tom, Shobha and Dick’s collective ignorance on none too un-intelligent topics like this, we will survive the media onslaught, I guess. After all, we are all accustomed to googling stuff we had no clue about, claiming immediate mastery on that topic and then looking down upon those “experts” as pompous, gloating charlatans basking in the glory of their heightened self-worth (completely immune to facts, of course). …. Ah, more power to the Information Highway. This is not about all that though, I am afraid. This is about balance. After all, the Soviet Union that Yuri saw imploded 70 years later. In similar vein, capitalism swung to an extreme which was gloriously obscene and spectacularly indecent. It now seeks a new equilibrium again, and will over-shoot (some say, it already has) and over-compensate for the excesses of the past, before sanity is restored. Extremes do not last. Call it Socialism, Marxism, neo-Bolshevikism, tokenism, symbolic activism, whatever-ism. It will self-correct, re-calibrate and find a new normal. Everything does. But change comes with its own share of pain and purge. Tectonic shifts and seismic, gut-wrenching upheavals. Point and counter-point. Till sense prevails, the maximum possible are benefited and equilibrium restored. And what better location to start this movement from than the very heart of capitalism! Neo-Bolsheviks running amok on Wall Street is not a pretty sight. But neither is Lloyd Blankfein huffing and puffing around the block. TARP and bail-outs did not impact his earnings – bonus et al - too much, some would note. I am reminded of another powerful scene from Doctor Zhivago, when a clutch of revolutionaries (who have just kidnapped Yuri), ambush a group of `Whites’. After the carnage, when they walk into the fields to survey the glorious end-result of their not-so-glorious mass murder, they find the field littered with young unarmed children in white uniforms, most probably from a military academy. When the sickle meets Wall Street, will we see innocents getting slaughtered again? Figuratively.