Much has been said about how social media has helped OWS happen. Frankly it would never have happened if there was no Facebook, or Twitter, 2 for profit and very self interested companies.
What has always struck me about OWS is it’s general disdain for “capitalism.” I am not going to get into why this is right or wrong here. But I will say that I believe this ongoing flavor to the protest is because many do not understand that markets can do quite a lot of good. Often the freer they are the more good they do. This is counter intuitve for some, and I am not going into the theory behind this, but I will identify an example of such good.
They are called “cash mobs.” Like “flash mobs” they are mostly spontaneous gatherings of people organized, in an open source way and through social media, for the purpose of blessing a worthy business with a nice infusion of hipster dinero. In the attached article the example given is of a struggling organic market.
This is one way of many ways one can use markets for a better planet. Another would be becoming shareholders of a company (even just 1 share which lets you in the door of most shareholder meetings) and changing policy that way.
