Abstract

The Occupy Wall Street (OWS), which started as a small protest at Liberty Square in Manhattan’s Financial District of New York, slowly spread to major cities around the world. The OWS protest was targeted against corporate greed and economic injustice. Social media played a very important role in spreading the disgruntlement around the world. The case looks at the reasons behind the OWS movement , the role of social media and provides a basis to debate whether the movement can dubbed anti-capitalist.

Learning Objectives

The case is structured to achieve the following Learning Objectives:

• To understand major economic reasons for the start of the Occupy Wall Street movement.
• To understand and compare the Occupy Wall Street with the Arab Spring Movement
• Discuss the role of the social media in the movement.
• Discuss and differentiate between capitalism and anti-capitalism
• Understand why governments resort to bailouts

Keywords

Occupy Wall Street, Zuccotti Park, Economic crisis, indignant movement, corporate greed, we are the 99 percent, economic disparity, social inequality, bailouts, financial institutions, Wall Street, Main Street, anti-capitalist movement, capitalism, The Great Disruption, housing bubble, global financial markets, Great Depression, US financial institutions, regulatory failures, high risk, financial products, low interest rates, housing prices, Supply , Demand, Real prices, Mortgage related securities, residential mortgage backed securities (RMBS), collateral debt obligations (CDOs), high risk assets, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, AIG, Credit Default Swaps (CDS), Lehman Brothers, global recession, JP Morgan Chase, Trouble Asset Relief Program, Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform, income inequalities, World Economic Forum, Social media, Twitter, facebook, Adbusters