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19centuryman:

19centuryman favorite Joe Stiglitz speaking at #occupywallstreet. The transcript is below if you’d rather not sit through the whole shaky video.

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Before talking about economics, I want to say something about democracy. In July I was in Spain, talking to the Indignados there, the protestors. There I could use a bullhorn – I didn’t have to go through this echo chamber. I realize the pedagogy of having to repeat what I say is very valuable, but it takes the whole process much longer. The fact that you are not allowed to use a megaphone on Sunday is outrageous.

We have too many regulations stopping democracy and not enough regulations stopping Wall Street from misbehaving. You should have the right to walk down the street peacefully and demonstrate your views and not be arrested and be sprayed with pepper spray.

Now I want to talk a little bit about what I said in Spain about (the debt and) the banks. The protesters there are called the indignados – and I said you are right to be indignant.

The fact is the system is not working right. It is not right that we have so many people without jobs when we have so many needs that we have to fulfill. It is not right that we are throwing people out of their houses when we have so many homeless people. Our financial markets have an important role to play – they are supposed to allocate capital, manage risk; but they misallocated capital and they created risk.

We are bearing the cost of their misdeeds – there’s a system where we socialize losses and we privatize gain. That’s not capitalism, that’s not a market economy – that’s a distorted economy and if we continue with that we won’t succeed in growing and we won’t succeed in creating a just economy.

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Populism is loud, dumb and stupid by definition. It’s also the best way to create change in any society. For what seems like my entire life, the American left has had a monopoly on intellectual and rational discourse regarding social and political change in this country only matched by a complete inability to get people involved on any sort of emotional level. That’s changing.

The vague, directionless anger of occupywallstreet is coming together like Voltron with Stiglitz, Cornell West (and Cornell West’s hair!) and anyone else who’d like to do something with their lives other than explain how money works to Ron Paul for the umpteenth time.

Si, se puede en realidad.