Chris Glen claims he has slept in Aotea Square for 50 nights as part of the global Occupy protest. Glen is financially stable as an owner of two pubs and a cafe in Manchester in the UK and doesn't need to be working.

But Gerald Arbuckle says that the protesters are "neither unrealistic nor impractical." He says they are receiving support from two sources that come from "opposite ends of society."

Read Gerald Arbuckle's Blog.

It is rare these days to hear good news about the global economy. We still fear that another world recession will smother us. We do not trust the banking world. We know that the rich are getting richer, the poor poorer. On the global scene capitalism is ruling with less and less controls and concern for the common good.

But there are two small, but remarkable, signs that people are not giving up hope. And surprisingly they come from opposite ends of society.

The first challenging glimmer of hope is Occupy Wall Street and its many supporting groups around the world. On our television screens we see, for example, occupiers at Zuccotti Park, New York, and groups of people huddled together under small, fragile tents outside St Paul's cathedral, London. In Zuccotti Park people have congregated on an inhospitable concrete space right in the middle of the nation's top financial district. St Paul's is also close to London's financial centre. These people surely are utopian dreamers, dreaming of a society that no longer marginalises the poor and controls the greed of the rich.

It is so easy to dismiss the protesters as impractical and unrealistic. But anyone acquainted with Catholic social thinking recognizes that our principles of social justice conform in no small way with the aspirations of the protesters.

A recent report on what is happening at Zuccotti Park contains some deeply moving incidents. The park certainly attracts the homeless and mentally ill who benefit from the free meals and company. This raises serious questions for the protesters. What should they do? Remove them?

But one spokesperson answered for the rest: "We decided we would not marginalise these people like the rest of society does. I guess, we've created own welfare state, and I mean that in the best sense of the term." She and others have organised for drug counsellors and social workers to offer help for these people. What example! Before we rush to condemn these protesters around the world, let us ask ourselves this question: What are we doing to live out the Gospel imperative to work with people on the margins of society, as many protesters are doing? These people are rightly annoying our conscience.

The second tiny sign of hope is contained in two recent articles in, of all places, The Harvard Business Review. Among a small group of influential thinkers and business people there is a growing recognition that the primary purpose of business is not to make money - the more the better. They believe that in business institutions society and people are not something to be accidentally added to what they are doing, but they should be at the very centre of their concern. They believe that their firms must be more than agents for creating profit. Rather their core mission calls them also to be instruments for achieving societal purposes and for providing significant livelihoods for those who work in them and surrounding society. They are prepared to spend time, talent, and resources on national and community projects in which people are prepared to work together for the common good.

Corporate social responsibility, in brief, is to be integral to all project planning and implementation. This is surely a quiet revolution. Unrestrained capitalism is being turned upside-down - at last! As in the case of Occupy Wall Street movements this revolution in thinking - technically termed "creating shared value" - on the part of some business firms, even major ones - is thoroughly in line with our Catholic social principles.

The authors of the articles give examples of business firms that are beginning to place social responsibility at the heart of their operations, not as something on the periphery: IBM, Nestle, Unilever, Procter & Gamble. But they warn that "our understanding of the potential of shared value is just beginning."

Readers may be interested in reading the articles in The Harvard Business Review: Michael E.Porter, "Creating Shared Value," (January 2011), and Rosabeth Moss Kanter, "How Great Companies Think Differently: Instead of Being Mere Money-Generating Machines, They Combine Financial and Social Logic to Build Enduring Success," (November 2011).

Gerald A. Arbuckle, sm, an anthropologist, and recently a Government appointed member of the Independent Panel to oversee the value-based reform of the NSW public hospital system. He is author of Healthcare Ministry: Refounding the Mission in Tumultuous Times (2000).

Image: Society of Mary New Zealand

In short, Goldman should do God's work— something that its chairman and chief executive, Lloyd C. Blankfein, once remarked that he did. (The joke bombed.) Long before Occupy Wall Street, the Sisters of St. Francis were quietly staging an occupation of their own. In recent years, this Roman Catholic order of 540 or so nuns has become one of the most surprising groups of corporate activists around. The nuns have gone toe-to-toe with Kroger, the grocery store chain, over farm worker rights; with McDonald's, over childhood obesity; and with Wells Fargo, over lending practices. They have tried, with mixed success, to exert some moral suasion over Fortune 500 executives, a group not always known for its piety.

"We want social returns, as well as financial ones," Sister Nora said, strolling through the garden behind Our Lady of Angels, the convent here where she has worked for more than half a century. She paused in front of a statue of Our Lady of Lourdes. "When you look at the major financial institutions, you have to realize there is greed involved."

The Sisters of St. Francis are an unusual example of the shareholder activism that has ripped through corporate America since the 1980s. Read more

Source: The Deacon's Bench
Image: Practikel

The Occupy Wall St movement one of the events shaping our world right now. Amazingly, it has been given the tick of approval by the Vatican. Are we at last taking seriously the words of Scripture ‘Serve God or Mammon', and ‘the love of money is the root of all evil'?

Occupations have been happening all around the world, almost spontaneously it seems, in response to the collapse of finance companies and systems. These Occupations are being treated differently in different countries. The response of the city councils in Dunedin and Wellington is one of negotiating with a view to resolving the situation, rather than calling in the police to use force. The individuals camping on public space in the city are causing very little disruption or offence to anyone, and are being supported by restaurants and others in the city.

It is hoped that their peaceful presence and willingness to engage in dialogue will cause some reflection among the public. The group is not offering solutions; the powerful corporations caused the problem; they must find solutions.

Possible solutions are being suggested. One is a financial transaction charge on every transaction that would yield a substantial fund. It could be used to rescue banks, defaulting countries even, but more importantly, reimburse ordinary people whose life savings have vanished with the failure of the banking system.

On another plane, increasingly, individuals and communities are exploring other ways of exchanging goods and services - the transition town movement in New Zealand and elsewhere; Living Economies in the Wairarapa, the Wellington South Time Bank just launched in the suburb of Newtown for example. There are many co-operative initiatives springing up in response to the failure of the traditional financial model, that offer a much more human and caring approach - not all overtly motivated by the Christian spirit. All these give me hope for the resilience of the human spirit.

'Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream of the modern world' is a symposium that is being presented around New Zealand, offering a changed view of our world.

Tricia Kane is a retired librarian and grandmother

Image: I have no ideas

The Occupy Wall Street protests have swept around the globe. While it is hard to identify a coherent program in these protests, it is clear that they have touched a nerve in Western society in regard to how the socio-economic system functions in the aftermath of the great financial crisis of 2008.

More extreme reactions can be identified in the Greek riots. The one clear note appears to be resentment at perceived corporate greed.

The Tea Party movement in the US, and its spin-offs around the world, such as the Convoy of No Confidence Rally in Canberra, express a similar anger at the status quo, though for them the growing debt crisis and a perceived culture of entitlement are the targets.

Both give expression to a crisis of confidence in the economic system and in the ability of our political processes to manage it.

Whatever the merits of such protests and the associated issues of free speech and democratic processes, it must be said that the capitalist system has shown itself over the last century as one that has been remarkably flexible and resilient.

It has seen off rival economic and political challenges from the extremes of right and left, and it is far too early to speak of any substantial challenge to its dominance today.

But perhaps there is a real taste for exploring alternatives.

In 1973 economist and philosopher E. F. Schumacher coined the phrase 'small is beautiful' — this was, in fact, the title of his seminal book on economics. In an age that had produced many great 'isms' (communism, fascism, capitalism) Schumacher advocated a more human-scale, decentralised approach to society. The subtitle toSmall Is Beautiful was 'economics as if people mattered'.

In more recent times Schumacher has been described as the 'soul of the Green movement'. Satish Kumar, editor of Resurgence, sees in the Greens community and economic policies the influence of Schumacher's belief that 'the environment is not just an empirical, technical, policy matter; it is related to human values, which are a part of natural values.' Read more

• Source: Eureka Street
• Image: Neil Perkin