Every structured society will have these interests to defend. Unless we do not seek a structured society, it seems to me that the most important question is one of legitimacy and accountability. Is the structure built around the interests of its participants, and does the structure respond to the will of its participants? I do believe that in the US, we have reason to question whether the system is popularly legitimate, and whether the system is significantly responsive.

There is a narrative that US citizens have long been characteristically comfortable without a wide social safety net. I do believe that this is partially a grassroots narrative. However, it also serves to defend the interests of those with power in the current system. You can see this in particular in the Tea Party movement. This kind of narrative appropriation happens on the left as well, but the messaging isn't so clear, or so plainly oxymoronic.

IMO OWS successfully resisted appropriation of a narrative, yet took it so far that they couldn't establish one of their own.