“I am a human being, not a commodity.”This was one of the many messages carried on placards by sober faced protesters who comprise the Occupy Wall Street movement. Thousands of Americans in Manhattan and growing numbers in other cities across the United States have added their voices in opposition to a system that favours the wealthy and marginalises all others. They challenge the unrelenting greed that oils the financial services machinery in lower Manhattan; a machinery that has done more to bring about a global meltdown and destroyed lives of honest, hardworking people than any other single force.Professor Cornel West has likened this movement to the Arab Spring in his unique hyperbolical style. It isn’t the same since the protestors seem resigned to merely voicing their opposition to a system with no plan or strategy for fundamental change. Their objection is to a financial services system that has an incestuous relationship with the government that, in effect, provides them with an advantage to the detriment of everyday people.It was because of Wall Street greed that, behind the veil of ‘innovative intellectual capital’, bespoke suited gangsters, epitomised but by no means limited to Madoff and his ilk, stole billions of dollars from investors. It was Wall Street greed that spurned the creation of increasingly complex financial instruments that few understood save for the fact there was certain short term gain for the companies that sold them.When the deck of cards collapsed, the US government and governments around the world stepped in to buttress, indeed save, this bastion of free enterprise capitalism from its own internal inferno. The rationale: the companies are too big to fail. And so they were saved. With taxpayers’ money.What has not been protected, what has not been saved, are the jobs, livelihoods and homes of millions of Americans, destroyed by the policies and practices emanating from Wall Street. With Wall Street returning to profit and bonuses, you would think there is no connection between that street and Main Street. The Occupy Wall Street movement connects the two.The mainstream Western media has not given the same coverage of this that they would have were it in some other part of world and many US politicians are uncomfortable talking about it. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a veteran and ally of Wall Street, said, while he appreciated the protestors’ right to free speech and to protest, he hoped they would not interfere with people who were trying to get to work.The message of the protestors requires reflection. What structures do we need in place to ensure that business embraces innovation and is situated in an environment conducive to growth yet minimises the excessive swings that cause so much hardship? If we simply embrace the pursuit of profits as the primary national objective, what are the consequences for the people? If the people are so marginalised they come to the conclusion they have no vested interest in society that is run as a company and they are merely a commodity, what are the consequences for that society?Walton Brown is a social and political commentator. Follow his blog on www.respicefinem1.blogspot.com. He can be contacted at walton[AT]researchmix.com