In an earlier life I was an economic anthropologist and I still enjoy studying people with unusual views of the ideal society. For example, Ramona and I attended an early Earth First! rendezvous. It made the Sierra Club look moderate indeed.

Earth First!’s experiment seems exhausted. Its environmental concerns have been trumped by more immediate and pressing problems as America enters early stages of bankruptcy while a fundamental restructuring of our economy is underway. Now it’s financial monkey wrenching and fantasy wishing by Occupy crowds and other outliers such as Rainbows.

A few years after visiting the Earth First! encampment we were in Montana’s Big Hole when the Rainbow Family descended on the town of Jackson, population 47. Ramona was studying the responses of Big Hole ranch families’ to newcomers. Her proposal anticipated hobby ranchers and perhaps a few survivalists.

However, soon after she began work, some 18,500 Rainbows arrived, a tide of cultural flotsam and jetsam. Unlike the Occupiers, Rainbows hold one annual event. They meet in a national forest for a few days bordering the 4th of July.

The arrival of the Rainbows was like a 747 hitting a windshield designed to withstand grasshoppers. This event re-calibrated her research. We, and especially she, focused on Rainbows more than ranchers.

Rainbows, much like Occupiers, have strongly felt criticisms of America’s directions and financial rewards. While Rainbows isolate themselves in remote forests once a year, Occupiers seek national notice. Their goal is mobilization. Their purpose is less clear but worth exploring.

Ramona and I were in DC while the “Occupy” protestors were camped nearby in McPherson Square. I spoke with several during my morning and afternoon walks, gathered their literature, and read national accounts.

I find many of their policy proposals silly at best. “Eliminate Money” and “Jobs before Profits” ignore realities of social organization. However, Occupiers alert us to fundamental problems resulting from changes in the basic structure of our economy. First an observation.

Few of the “Occupy” protestors could live comfortably in Gallatin Gateway, or in Lake Woebegone, Garrison Keillor’s fictive hometown in NPR’s “Prairie Home Companion.” The reason is simple; people in our towns have an intuitive understanding of what behavior merits reward. Competent and able adults should produce services and goods that others value. Citizens should earn their way, not become dependent on entitlements.

However strongly we might disagree with the tactics, philosophy, and ethics of these three groups, Earth First!, Rainbows, and Occupiers, each responds to genuine problems and displacements. Some, perhaps most of them, enjoyed their antics and presumptive moral superiority.

Occupiers understand reductions in the economic opportunities Americans long assumed their due. The western world is undergoing changes that make middle class life more precarious. Jobs are increasingly automated or outsourced to low wage areas. The middle class is contracting. We are becoming a polarized economy with rewards concentrated at the top. This situation portends multiple dangers.

First, as factor prices change, especially labor, politicians create various barriers to change. These retard adjustments to new economic realities. They send false signals and prolong misery. Second, be aware of political opportunists winning power by identifying scapegoats. They’ll find a niche.

Alas, there are no easy solutions to problems of change. When governments attempt to manage economies, the top one percent, Occupiers’ nemesis, usually trump. Beware.