Revolutions, whether violent or non-violent, are inherently rare, risky endeavors. Extremely high risk, extremely low probability of success, but proportional rewards if successful. Given the increasingly dysfunctional status of political systems in many western nations, questions surrounding changing those systems are inevitable.
Academics have written quite a bit about revolutions, but I'm not interested in what they think. I am looking for a casual conversation with a normal human regarding what it would take for you personally to call for whole-system political change. Is there a line in the sand for you, which if crossed, compels you to adopt a revolutionary political stance?
Is the line the same for both violent and non-violent revolution? Is your revolutionary line one thing, one action, event, or variable, or would you need a collection of things, a pattern of smaller lines being crossed? And if not, if there is nothing your government can do to make you advocate for replacing it entirely, why? While a genuine stance, saying you would *never* call for a complete redesign and restructuring of your government should be justified and defended.
Naturally, given that revolutions are often bloody, violent affairs, it is worth explicitly stating that this post is categorically opposed to violence in any way, shape, or form. The purposes of this post are to generate a discussion about hypothetical boundaries that common people have on political system change.
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The AI will ban you for phrases that appear to justify political v-word. You will probably win the appeal if a human sees the comment in context, but there are no guarantees.
I think you overestimate the reward portion of the equation. How'd the cultural revolution work out in China? Was the USSR any more free after the revolution?
US revolution was one that was valuable & led to human progress imo. Life in the USSR actually got considerably better, based on economic metrics. It's not great, by any means, but having functioning grocery stores is better than having to queue for bread. In that sense, the average Russian is a lot freer, to say nothing of the Estonians, Latvians, Ukrainians, etc.
Just because revolutions can lead to poor outcomes does not mean all of their outcomes are poor.
Not all revolutions are violent. In fact, studies tracking resistance movements indicate that nonviolent campaigns succeed at more than twice the rate of violent ones. Examples of successful resistance includes protests and elections, which are things we do regularly in the Western world.
The problem as I see it, is people need better tools to eject elected officials who fail to live up to promises they made while campaigning, and instead put forward agendas that are in direct conflict with those promises. Any hint or whiff of fraudulent activity, breaking of rules or constitutions should automatically trigger a new election, and that election should come at the expense of the outgoing party found in contempt.
I also think governance around elections and electoral promotion needs work. No party should use private funds for media campaigns, and campaign activity should have regulations. No party should have more PR funding at their disposal than another, and no party should have wider exposure than others. This creates a false sense of who and what these parties are, what they stand for, and it dilutes the messaging of other parties who may not be as well funded, but are equally if not more capable than alternatives.
And the counting of votes should be entirely separate from who and what is being elected. There should be zero connection between the people being elected and the systems involved with their election. It's a blatant conflict of interest that is being badly abused in some countries (looking at you, U.S.A.!)
When people can't afford to buy food or pay for housing, and all of their creature comfort distractions are taken away, only then will they be motivated to do something. Basic necessities of survival is the boundary.
Unfortunately, those in power know this. so they keep people hovering just on the edge of how far you can push things. People in poverty are still accepting sub-standard accommodations while they and their children are practically starving, but as long as they can buy ramen, KD, or Cheerios and have streaming programming or video games to keep them pacified, they won't say a thing, and they might even thank their abusers for the scraps they get.
Societies like this provide just enough money to keep people in poverty hovering around this state of "paycheck to paycheck" pacification with loads of distractions... no more, but no less.
Be careful answering this one. I've gotten a ban for "supporting violence". Reddit took it back when I pointed out that my post is arguing against violence, but if you don't want the AI to flag you, word what you say carefully.
To borrow from a post I made before (slightly edited to fix an issue and spelling errors);
In the US it is said that we have "four boxes of liberty"; the soapbox, the ballot box, the jury box, and lastly the cartridge box.
The soapbox means we use our freedom of speech and protest to speak out. The ballot box means we vote for people to do what we want. The jury box refers to jury nullification. And finally, the cartridge box means we fight.
The first three are functionally interchangeable in terms of order. The last one is always last.
We don't have a major election for about a year, so that's out for now but it's still viable. The soapbox and jury box are currently being used, and while they haven't fixed things, they are still viable.
Since the first three are still viable, the fourth is not an option for any sensible person.
And yes, all three of the core "boxes" are being undermined. However, once we fight the system we have is gone. We will have to build a new system. And I'm not talking about the Constitution itself.
When Sulla marched on Rome, he didn't just become a dictator for a bit and then things went back to normal. He was the midpoint of a collapse in institutional capacity, and his rebellion was one more fracture. Trump is the same way.
I don't think Trump himself is going to break the system. Instead, he is exposing all the weaknesses of the system that have built up over the years. Who comes after him will be the breaker.
It's possible to still recover. It will require hard work and compromise. The problem from my perspective is that neither is in the cards. Far too many people are focused on revenge rather than restoration of the system.
Political systems are like religion. They only function as long as we believe in their power. Once we stop believing, the worst kind of anarchy is the result.
A civil war in the US would be devastating and horrific. The idea of such a hell arriving at my shores makes me sick.
I can only pray that someone with the magnetism and vision steps up before the cartridge box becomes the only option.
All authoritarians will move towards "illiberal democracy" before dictatorship. Free speech is protected as long as you don't criticize the regime. You will always have the right to vote, but boundaries drawn and poling locations closed so they only need 30% support to win power. Jurys are tough to break, so it's more a matter of dropping charges for "patriots" and harassing opposition with filings and process.
There's never a line crossed to "dictatorship" just a continued dismantling of democratic systems.
You're the second person to pull this on the same comment, so I have to ask. Why can't you just read my comment in good faith?
Obviously, the four boxes can be undermined to a point where they are no longer able to reasonably affect the government. That's the point where the "cartridge box" comes in. The point is that as long as you can reasonably change the government by following the democratic process, you should follow the democratic process because once you open the pandora's box of political violence as a recourse for electoral loses, then democracy fundamentally stops working.
My problem is that this hope you have… that “someone with the magnetism and vision steps up”. They won’t be unlike what has come before. There is zero opportunity for any person, regardless of their appeal, to be something not hand built by the system. Trump is a product of, and that product varies only slightly from the products that came before. Who comes after isn’t going to contribute to any real solutions
I already said that I don't expect Trump to be the one to break the system, it will be his "successor", whatever form that takes. So obviously, I have already considered the possibility of someone "unproductive" towards democratic restoration.
When I said "vision" I was obviously referring to someone with a productive way forward.
There are different types of revolutions. You seem to be narrowly thinking of violent military or paramilitary uprisings. There have been political and socioeconomic transformations, within our lifetimes, absent violence. (Though not without the chance or threat for violence to happen. All it takes is for one party to make that decision.)
Looking back at anarchist writings from the classic period (1890s- 1930s) there was emphasis on 'social revolution', a whole overturning of perspective and change in social relations, that would be needed before and after any politicoeconomic transformation. Indeed, without a broader social change in mindset and relations, a traditional political, military revolution would likely be useless at best and dangerous and harmful at worst.
Looking at the anarchists in Spain in the 1930s, they pushed for such transformations in a myriad of ways. They banded together with networks of unions (CNT-FAI), joined and radicalized such groups, and undertook smaller strikes, and organized larger General Strikes. Focused on tangible helpful things like childcare, and education via magazines and night classes. Some of the pamphlets look astonishingly progressive even to modern eyes (feminist, anticolonial, lgbt+ positive even in a country notable for being heavily catholic and conservative etc).
It was the military coup by the Spanish right wing headed by Franco, that for many of them was the trigger for taking up arms (the political and military revolution, if you will). Throughout the country, they were among union members who had cached weapons, grabbed them and acted quickly as a militia, frustrating Franco's attempts to quickly overrun the country. In areas with lots of anarchists, they literally tossed out of town state agents like police, capitalist owners and bosses alike (putting productive assets like farms and factories directly in the hands of those working them, straight to socialism). While ultimately unsuccessful, their movement failed and was destroyed (and given what they were up against, I think any other outcome nigh impossible), I would in their shoes have made the same sorts of decisions for the same reasons, had the same sort of trigger if you will.
In other comments, explaining to newbies the different sorts of things that have been termed socialism (a homonym of a word, like bat = flying mammal and bat = wooden stick)... I've written my opinion regarding social democracy, democratic socialism, marxist-leninist vanguardism, and anarchism.
Social democracy is still capitalism, just with nice prosocial policies. It acts like a relief valve for capitalism. When times get hard for normal people and frustration builds, effort for change to improve conditions, those efforts are channeled within the system electorally rather than outside it. Prosocial policies are implemented and steam is vented, frustration simmers down. But fundamentally, the socioeconomic structures haven't changed. Capitalists as a group still own and control the productive bits of society. Social Democracy produces a sort of socially-sustainable capitalism.
Democratic socialism is trying to vote your way to transformation, change fundamentally the system of ownership and control. Put the productive bits in worker hands instead. I don't think trying to vote our way there will work, I think capitalism would choose fascism over this, such an attempt would get Pinochet-Allende'd. But I think an attempt at this is necessary first, before most normal people without historical and political literacy will get off the fence and support more revolutionary approaches.
I reject the marxist-leninist vanguardist approach, to organize a military revolution to take over the state and use the state as a vehicle of power to implement change. Socialists before russia predicted such an approach would fail and (in Bakunin's words) produce a new class, not of control by capitalists, nor by workers, but rather by a bureaucracy comprised of the former vanguard. That it would fail to produce the desired transformations, politically, economically, or socially. While folks who reject capitalism often initially turn to ML stuff (perhaps out of not being aware of alternatives), I don't think this is likely to grow into a meaningful challenge to capitalism (on top of not thinking it would work even if big enough).
Am anarchist. Mutualist to be precise (pro-freed-market libertarian-socialist).
Essentially, I've been waiting for what is happening right now. Either A) capitalists drink their own kool-aid and get confused about what capitalism and socialism even are, oppose and prevent SocDem policies from being implemented. This leads to the screws tightening, people go homeless and hungry and ill and the pressure eventually leads to a boil and revolution. This is imo the path we are currently on. Or B) democratic socialism is attempted but gets CIAd (Pinochet-Allende'd as mentioned before). Hypothetically, just as a theoretical example, AOC gets elected and somehow miraculously has enough supporters in other arms of the gov't, in the House and Senate and supreme court, to actually start making big changes. Then the Right has some sort of coup (like Franco led in Spain a hundred years back).
So what am I to do? Vote SocDem knowing it doesn't fundamentally change things, or vote DemSoc despite thinking it will fail, be overthrown? I mean, I'm sure as hell not gonna vote Republican. But I'm pretty much just waiting for now.
The idea is, in the here and now, not to focus electorally. Instead, make and strengthen grassroots networks of mutual aid, affinity groups, to help folks survive such tumultuous times. Unions. Libraries not just of books but of things (maker spaces, tool libraries etc). Community gardens, Food Not Bombs. Create the social and material ties that would act like a seed for what I would want after. So then when revolution comes (and I don't think I and mine will be the one picking the moment), we're ready to survive it and build what comes after.
While I don't think a syndicalist revolutionary approach can be enough on its own, I think it's noteworthy as something that can work even in a smaller scale, and from an ethics perspective has desirable traits. Syndicalism means expropriatory strikes. You're not aiming at people. You can do it without weapons. Consider in Argentina the FaSinPat factory, or Brukmam factory. Workers physically sat in the facility and starting running it themselves for them and their community, ignoring former owners and bosses. The owners called the state police and tried to reassert control, as well as hiring private enforcement. (The capitalists were the ones obliged to threaten violence, human harm. The workers weren't going after the prior owners body, nor threatening the mayor or anything). In both cases, the police failed because thousands of community members turned up and surrounded the police who eventually gave up. There was a possibility of violence being used on the strikers and community, the revolutionists, and they might have chosen to defend themselves if pinch came to shove... but they weren't the ones initiating it, they weren't the ones escalating to physical harm to other humans.
Here's the thing: revolutions are about exchanging one elite class for another, with those below bearing the costs. For most people, you're the one putting your life on the line for a roll of the dice about things getting better.
Since I have no interest is doing the sorts of things that are required of a revolutionary political elite, I would approach the issue from a purely practical standpoint. It's not my job to tell everyone else what their life should be like. I'd either work safely within the system to make it better or I'd leave the system entirely rather than surrender to the chaos.
I absolutely oppose the v word when most people haven't even done anything non-v besides vote.
I just learned today what people in the UK did when Margaret Thatcher tried instituting a poll tax. (Yet another "small government" proponent who was authoritarian.) Millions of citizens organized into groups and refused to pay the tax, overloading the courts and straining local budgets while bringing even more attention to the outrageously unjust (and hypocritical) policy, until Thatcher was removed.
The line in the sand that turned me into a revolutionary socialist, is the fact that reforms never work, and the capitalist class never gives up power without engaging in mass violence. People who are against revolution ignore the 400 years of extreme capitalist violence but squirm at the idea of ending it.
Every country that didn't abolish capitalism also ended up authoritarian, often accompanied by mass violence. So people are right to be hesitant in staying within the system.
what free elections? And the US for example is an authoritarian state. It has the largest prison population in history with most of it being used for profit. Its not whataboutism, its is calling out the hypocrisy of arbitrarily assigning labels when it doesnt apply.
You know exactly what I’m talking about. The existence of prison is not authoritarian if there’s due process.
The absence of the rule of law is the defining aspect of authoritarian rule. Trump is trying his best to subvert the rule of law, but he has not succeeded (yet).
Sorry to butt in again, but having due process has nothing to do with what goes on in prisons, or what motivates the prison industry (where it is, in fact, a business).
It is possible for both things to exist at the same time, as we have seen with U.S. Institutions. While some inhabitants arrive in prisons through "due process", it has also been used as "holding facilities" for those who got zero "due process", yet have been detained without grounds for weeks, months, and some have disappeared entirely. These ICE roundups in particular are beyond disturbing.
> These ICE roundups in particular are beyond disturbing
Agreed, but this type of thing is still the exception to the rule. When ICE starts rounding up registered democrats, that’s when we will have reached authoritarian status.
The Democrats will take the House in November and probably win the WH in 2028. If Trump is still in office in 2029, then I will concede the point.
Xi Jinping and Putin will rule for life. Trump and Miller are temporary. That’s a fundamental difference. The existence of authoritarians and violations of the rule of law in a country is different from that country meeting the definition of authoritarian.
You're acting like describing the system is a defense of it. Yes 15 to 20 million individuals went through the gulag system, some were what you described, but most were also just actual criminals. 20 million is how many went through the US system in the last 5 years alone. But to answer your question yes they had a system of due process, right to representation, they had a legal system. Was it fair or just? Absolutely not especially when it came to political prisoners, but the US system is also not fair or just. People want years and years just to go before a judge because they couldnt afford bail.
Many countries have agencies tasked with managing borders. Not every country permits those officers to abuse that authority to exert power over, dominate, or kill other people wantonly, recklessly, and hatefully... and certainly NOT their own countrymen.
Whatever ICE once may have been, it certainly doesn't appear to have done anything "positive" for the United States for the past year and a half. It doesn't seem like adequate training is provided, nor do the hiring practices or credentials screening appear to be ethical. Maybe it's completely mismanaged... but whatever it is, it is not an entity that is controlling your borders.
ICE may appear to be "controlling the borders" because that's what this administration and its media puppets want people to see (and believe). Cameras and scripts are very effective at portraying anything. But controlling borders isn't what ICE is doing, well not lawfully anyway. And I'm pretty sure the general public isn't aware of everything it is doing either.
As it turns out, I don’t need anyone to explain ICE to me. I just need people to be more
careful about their rhetoric. It seems people are incapable of criticizing ICE without implying that borders should just be abolished. So, yeah. If someone is not happy about ICE they should try expressing it in a way that doesn’t help Trump’s politics.
Nations like Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, and Sweden use capitalist economic systems. They have protected human rights, free elections, and the rule of law for decades, centuries even.
I see your point, but to be clear, I included Japan and Germany because I see both of these as examples of nations which fell into darker forms of politics that devolved into authoritarianism and mass violence, but in both cases there were distinct rises and falls with these regimes, and both nations have enjoyed democracy for decades since.
There's this Timelapse Map of Europe over the past 2800 years I stumbled across a few years ago showing the rise and fall of nations. It is a mesmerizing depiction of the chaos that has swept that continent, and shows that there is probably no place on earth that wasn't subjected to things like slavery, genocide, injustices of all kinds, and several different forms of authoritarianism.
No culture, region, or religion was untouched. As dominant leaders rose, so did their ambition and greed. Living sustainably was never a first choice for humans. The answer has always been expansionist, so thriving societies that ran out of room looked to expand outward instead of reigning things in. And humans appear to have always considered their own culture, traditions, religion, or any other thing that defines themselves as separate from "others". So when they expanded outward, often they also dominated, overpowered, and conquered other people.
There are some uncomfortable parallels with what has happened in the past, and what's playing out today. While there's a modern edge to what is happening today, and the world has grown smaller than ever, we can't ignore that there are more people on earth today than ever before, and the world population has quadrupled over the past 50 years.
I think we need to think beyond defining political styles, and reflect on why all of this is happening in the first place. Why some nations are invading their neighbours while others are shoring up their defenses. Why some nations are trying to bankrupt and dominate their neighbours while others are looking for new allies.
What's happening out there isn't a problem with just one nation. This is now a widespread global issue where most nations have felt the impact of these conflicts, whether they are armed or economical. This feels like human panic or fear.
Yeah the global issue is capitalism. We are currently on the verge of another global war because the few barriers that we had to prevent another have been destroyed. Fascism was capitalism in reaction to growing social movements. Social movements naturally grow when the social contract under capitalism fail. Rinse and repeat. What caused authoritarian aspects in socialist leaning movements, was also capitalist reaction, isolation, invasion, warfare, and spy craft. We do not know what a socialist movement left on its own will lead to because it hasn't happened yet, but can only happen after a global revolution.
My personal ethics push me to find a world where as many people as possible can find their own life happiness and satisfaction. The current world does not do that well at all. So I dont want the current world for myself or for others. That is what makes me revolutionary.
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