Believe it or not, the Occupy Wall Street movement has a useful message for the rest of the world — even Canadian financial advisors.

At first glance, the group of protestors who have taken up residence in a park in downtown Manhattan since early September seems confused and conflicted. It’s not entirely clear what they stand for, or what they hope to achieve. But the underlying motive that brought them to that park in the first place, and spawned dozens of copycat demonstrations around the world, is clearly a sense of unacceptable inequality.

This is obviously strongest in countries that have been most affected by the global financial crisis and the large recession it spawned. In the U.S., for example, many of the biggest firms on Wall Street were bailed out by the government when the crisis hit, and their executives proceeded to pay themselves huge bonuses, while little has been done to resolve the underlying calamity in the U.S. mortgage market. That is unfair, and has left the economic recovery limping along.

In the U.S. and parts of Europe, the perceived level of economic inequality and injustice has reached the point at which it has become intolerable. This is socially corrosive, and risks turning into full-blown class warfare.

The divide between financial advisors and their clients isn’t monetary; it’s informational. Advisors enjoy a large information advantage over most of their clients, which can be exploited to serve advisors’ own interests. Or they can act in the best interests of their clients, neutralizing this inherent inequality, even if that runs counter to advisors’ own short-term goals. The latter sets the stage for long-term, harmonious client relationships, while the former ultimately leads to revolt.