In so far as the collateral damage argument does apply, surely it applies to everything the Occupiers do?

Yes, you’re probably right. I had been roused by this Buy Nothing thing specifically, and I wasn’t thinking along those lines. I think Occupy has some idea that they can convince the executives to give up some cash and push it down the slide, hence circumventing the unemployment problem. Unlikely.

Regarding your second point, the problem is, however, that this incoherence in their “platform” is a seeming point of pride for them. I’m not wholly unsympathetic, but if you’re pushing for some kind of change, you should have some concrete demands. How is your foe supposed to respond without them? The most consistent echo from Occupy is to get the money out of politics; but that’s a vague demand in and of itself, and it’s not clear to me they’ve expressed the preferred channels by which to achieve such a goal.

I don’t agree with you about the alliance with the Tea Party, though, mostly because I think the Tea Party would fervently oppose trust-busting, which your Item B would necessitate. The Tea Party wanted to allow the banks to fail, so long as that’s what The Market had in store for them; they opposed government backing, not the very existence of a massive corporation.

Personally, I was for a little trust-busting, but I’m not sure Occupy and the Tea Party share much common ground. As much as the former has attempted to deny its being a leftist movement, I think this alignment has become increasingly apparent. (Again, the political waters have become so murky, and the din from over-confident commentators so loud, that I’m reluctant to express staunch support either way. A little more ambivalence is in order, though I will say Occupy managed to spur some truly shameful police behavior—but that’s beside the point.)

As I see it, the Occupiers have a choice. Their present programme is incoherent. They can (a) embrace full-blown socialism for a post-scarcity society – press for a solution that partially decouples work from income, so that unemployment is seen as a normal part of life and a perfectly valid way to spend at least a few weeks out of every year; or (b) concentrate on tearing down the barriers that big companies set up to prevent anyone competing with them, which would result in most big companies breaking up. (That would mean, basically, allying with the Tea Party…)

I usually think Bryan Caplan is great, and I would adopt his cheery, pro-fertility outlook if I could buy it, but I can’t.

For my part, I just thought it a bit odd that Occupy may be playing against themselves on this one.

(On the anti-fertility front, Bryan Caplan actually argued in what I think was an EconLog post that we should actually hope for more people because it would increase the numbers of able contributors–thinkers, visionaries, etc.). I don’t know if I agree, but it struck me as an interesting thought. I’m not sure we’ll really consume ourselves to extinction, anyway; we may not even have a chance. More likely, we’ll just thin ourselves out, substantially.)

Re: English degrees—hence my encouragement against them…well, not against them, necessarily, but certainly a caveat against thinking there is some de facto creative endgame in the pursuit of one. Bellow’s degree in anthropology comes through marvelously, I think, in Henderson the Rain King, and I don’t believe he’d be the writer he was without it. Ditto for the personal experiences of the others on that list.

My impugning ad copy was, admittedly, a shotgun burst. Whoring is an honest trade, but I don’t really consider copywriting whoring, per se. I can’t write if I don’t exaggerate, libel, and fabricate all the way to the top…er…bottom…whatever.

The key to writing is not to have an English degree, but to have something to say. How many English degrees would you find between Bellow, Parker, Thompson, Eliot and Nabokov? (Hint: it’s a number that starts with ‘n’.)

Now I take money to write what I’m told to write, because it’s so much easier than thinking of something for myself. Some people might call me a corporate whore, and I wouldn’t flinch from that description: whoring is an honest job.