something would definitely break in that case, but would it break the way you want, probably not without years (decades?) of groundwork
drwhat posted:deprivation of a basic (first world) necessity to a wide swath of the population for a moderate period of time. food etc would work but the most obvious to me would be electricity. the infrastructure is quite sensitive (see also the 2003 New York / Ontario blackout; or Brittle Power 1982)
something would definitely break in that case, but would it break the way you want, probably not without years (decades?) of groundwork
im just talking about violent uprising as a precondition of revolution, of course its not guaranteed to lead to revolution, but without it the chance of revolution is close enough to zero
so
major blackouts leading to violent uprising, yes i suppose thats a possibility, but i think its far more likely proles would just turn on each other in that situation
Petrol posted:what would it take to spark a violent uprising of the kind necessary for revolution? i'm talking of course of the west and i guess more specifically about america and maybe britain since most of you seem to be from those places and talk mostly about the situation there. can you think of a hypothetical BUT REALISTIC scenario in which revolution occurs. just curious
multiculturalism is abolished (this is for england and australia at least) and immigrants of colour are deported. The resultant unity and lowering of intra-worker tension and suspicion leads people to think more collectively about what kind of society they want rather than blaming everything on non-whites
america has always had violent uprisings tho, since it's inception america's history has been one written in blood and built on the foundation of skulls. the past 30 years have been an exception, but that's changing as contradictions between labor and capital sharpen.
In an America stretched by crisis to the breaking point, billionaire entrepreneur and government insider James Sands is riding high. Over the protests of civic groups and the increasing alienation of his wife, Anne, Sands is poised on the brink of an immensely risky and controversial deal that will give him control of all public water in the Pacific Northwest. But when his business partner is murdered by a radical group called The Army of the Republic, Sands finds himself losing control of his business and his life. Desperate, he turns to Whitehall Security, a private intelligence firm with far-reaching political connections. For a steep monthly fee, Whitehall will hunt down and eliminate any threats to Sands's enterprise.
Meanwhile, in Seattle, a young guerrilla named Lando leads The Army of the Republic into a dangerous war of ideals. Charismatic and cunning, Lando is obsessed with the goal of saving the country from its corrupt ruling alliance by any means necessary. His reluctant ally is political organizer Emily Cortright, coordinator of a network of civil, religious, and labor groups. Bound together in a web of common aims and conflicting loyalties, the two plan a massive peaceful protest against a conference of national business leaders, which they hope will stagger the Regime.
Beyond his control, through, Lando's Army of the Republic has already unleashed a chain of events that will electrify and frighten an uneasy nation. Hemmed in by their lethal compromises, Emily, Lando, James, and Anne struggle to redeem or destroy those whom they love most.
Thrilling and unforgettable, The Army of the Republic is a brilliant, provocative novel about what it means to live in a democracy.
p.s. yes but it isn't produced by a particular set of mechanics falling into place and thinking of it like that is an immature analysis instead think about contradictions resolving them outside of capitalism like a whale finally eating a boat
Edited by SovietFriends ()
AmericanNazbro posted:depletion of natural resources is definitely a precursor for any kind of future revolts and revolutions, but what's more interesting (i think) is the direction the ideological framework is heading and where it'll end up in 10 years. whether there will be a resurgence in marxism or will reactionary thought become the dominant ideology
this
capitalism is in an intractable crisis right now and we are only just about getting to the stage where the crisis is a systemically more dysfunctional system then existed pre financial crisis
the ideological configurations this will produce especially in the context of ecological crisis are going to themselves produce conditions for revolution more relevant than waiting for historical examples to mirror themselves in our reality
saying that the posh will solve it with or without any help either in a capitalism structure or post capitalist structure its just that it will be really rubbish and thats why we need to dispel immature notions of revolution so we dont mistakenly think evolutionary green socialism has finally won out or some kind of nonsense like that when the posh invariably bring in a section of the poor for their own struggle
Edited by SovietFriends ()
Petrol posted:what would it take to spark a violent uprising of the kind necessary for revolution?
capitalism
discipline posted:Petrol posted:what would it take to spark a violent uprising of the kind necessary for revolution?
why do you think violence is necessary lol (you work for the government)
a worker strike is an act of violence. when defining the word violence in this context, the relationship between capital and labor has be taken into account and thus any actions that forcefully disrupt the ability of capital to reproduce are forms of objective violence that will be met in kind with subjective violence as a means of self preservation.
america has thousands of predator drones flying overhead as well as a standing army within it's borders, it's pretty silly to insinuate anyone is earnestly implying a bunch of effete nerds will arm themselves with bolt action rifles from gunshows and charge the bastille--thereby enacting a glorious workers state within a horrifically reactionary country. the goal is to weaken the structures of power until a revolution would be possible, not heroically committing suicide on the impulse of spontaneity. the more immediate goal, i guess, would be to ferment thought outside of the dominant hegemony, so that it cannot be subsumed within capitalist ideology.
on the world stage, if nato allies with bric militaries they may be able to Maintain Order
basically every state that has tried to build socialism has had the same basic sort of state organization. there was a leading socialist party that had a constitutional mandate giving it a relative monopoly of power. this party was then built into a broader front which included social movements, such as women's groups and youth groups. the only countries that come close to socialism still have something like this, like cuba and north korea.
the reason is because the capitalists remain the more powerful class even after a revolution. you can't just take over the state and then imagine that the entire weight of culture and commodity production will somehow dissipate. if you hold a normal election in that situation then it will almost always shift things to the right.
this was like basic until neoliberalism took over. like many dozens of countries had revolutions and most of them claimed to be marxist or socialist and almost all of them had one party states. when the revolutionary tide ebbed then they all ended up being overthrown or converting to social-democratic positions.
the lack of liberal-democratic institutions wasn't some oversight or mistake or something, it was integral to thinking of the state as revolutionary. but the vast majority of leftists in the west are deeply liberal and can't see that. and they aren't exactly wrong in that democracy is a good thing, it's just that if you want to fight capitalism then you have to take over a country and that can't be done in a normal parliamentary manner.
xipe posted:if amerika is really sitting on 'the saudi arabia of natural gas' (and coal) then they will have enough energy to produce 100 years of mcrib => no revolution in our lifetimes, no?
on the world stage, if nato allies with bric militaries they may be able to Maintain Order
the first bit might help shape how America responds to the systemic ecological crisis which is more then just energy but its not going to solve it just like creating capital intensive green tech wont
the brics are more confusing then that as well dont think of them as natural parts of the capitalist order if anything they are a symptom of capitalisms crisis in trying to manage the world poor not wanting more influence over imperial rent though part of that is obv sections of them wanting in on the game
getfiscal posted:the lack of liberal-democratic institutions wasn't some oversight or mistake or something, it was integral to thinking of the state as revolutionary. but the vast majority of leftists in the west are deeply liberal and can't see that. and they aren't exactly wrong in that democracy is a good thing, it's just that if you want to fight capitalism then you have to take over a country and that can't be done in a normal parliamentary manner.
maybe revolutionaries (even we!) could/should estimate how long they can maintain a dictatorship for, and hence how significantly they can alter the power relations in their society before control is returned?
SovietFriends posted:the first bit might help shape how America responds to the systemic ecological crisis which is more then just energy but its not going to solve it just like creating capital intensive green tech wont
the brics are more confusing then that as well dont think of them as natural parts of the capitalist order if anything they are a symptom of capitalisms crisis in trying to manage the world poor not wanting more influence over imperial rent though part of that is obv sections of them wanting in on the game
i wasnt talking about solving ecological crisis at all (i dont expect them to even try), just about how much longer they can subsidise the lives of their populace & prevent revolution - specifically whether or not we will be old beforehand
def globally its a lot more hectic, but surely nato + brics interests converge in managing the poor, even if that system no longer fits our definition of 'capitalist'
xipe posted:xipe posted:
i wasnt talking about solving ecological crisis at all (i dont expect them to even try), just about how much longer they can subsidise the lives of their populace & prevent revolution - specifically whether or not we will be old beforehand
they will try and they will succeed in that the capitalist class individuated components will produce the best solution possible through their power within the current system to create something new and since they are the most powerful its kind of the default go to move baring the inevitable agency of everyone else to effect it
it will be proper wank
xipe posted:xipe posted:
def globally its a lot more hectic, but surely nato + brics interests converge in managing the poor, even if that system no longer fits our definition of 'capitalist'
managing the poor is like the super abstract reality of global capitalism but in reality the brics and nato represent two incredibly different structures of the world-system and their its difficult to really say just how deep the brics commitment to the structures of the capitalist world-system as they currently exist actually go even if in turn its difficult to say if the brics have any real commitment to radically changing the current structures of the capitalist world-system
in that context a military alliance is a major maybe except in the face of some hitler style existential crisis rather then a wave of revolutions
also they are capitalist i aint saying they aint its just that they are not a natural part of the capitalist order like say the nordic social democratic countries are despite attempts to frame them as apart the point about them being a symptom of capitalist crisis is that they are at once the natural growth of capitalism globalising as they are a mistake of capitalism in successfully keeping in bay the contradictions that are enveloping it
red bandana with farc-ep written on it from ebay
sks rifle produced in socialist yugolslavia from gunbroker
youtube channel full of maoism (the topshelf lark cos it uses flowery slogans)
im ready
AmericanNazbro posted:america is the seat of the empire. it has the largest and most brutally efficient structures of control--it's not going to have a revolution until it's position as a global super power, and subsequent ability to project power, is severely diminished. if the same conditions as pre ww1 manifest (the trajectory the world is currently heading), it's possible america could go state capitalist.
america has always had violent uprisings tho, since it's inception america's history has been one written in blood and built on the foundation of skulls. the past 30 years have been an exception, but that's changing as contradictions between labor and capital sharpen.
isn't america essentially state capitalist already? i dunno maybe i'm being loose with the terminology.....but TARP, the interstate highway system, the doling out of military and government infrastructure........
it's not going to have a revolution until it's position as a global super power, and subsequent ability to project power, is severely diminished. if the same conditions as pre ww1 manifest (the trajectory the world is currently heading)
plug http://www.scribd.com/doc/119014991/Brady-Gillerlain-Toward-a-New-Relationship-of-Souls
Z44SLAM131L posted:for revolutions we need gun's. people need to accept theg un's into their life and work with the gun's owners, such as the right wing working class. tell them that marx loves them and their gun's, and we can work for a future filled with jobs and bullet's
discipline posted:why do you think violence is necessary lol (you work for the government)
you found me out. i work for the government and my job is to hang out on obscure leftist web forums and discuss the preconditions of revolution in purely hypothetical terms. your under arrest
the issue to me, though, i guess, is that it's probably wrong to see armed conflict as the only form of violence / civil war. like there is an entire range of activity that causes real material change in society. when a few hundred thousand quebec students march in the streets then that's a form of social power that is then reflected back through institutions. hegemony is a sort of articulation of class violence and oppression, and critical interventions do change how hegemony is articulated. so direct action is not fruitful only if it leads to a simple image of an army with rifles fighting in the streets. and because that's true, it isn't obvious to me that the "smashing" of the state has to take the specific form of a sort of councilist insurrection that both trotskyists and maoists tend to prefer (even if the maoists sort of waffle on this). like the revolutions in eastern europe after world war 2 show that you can have control of the state before you transform it into a new socialist state through a revolution.
another issue is that it doesn't really make sense to emphasize illegal work (as an organization) when you have a lot of opportunities for legal work. like imagine you're in venezuela. you face a bourgeois-nationalist state. is your first priority there to build a maoist army and fight the government? i don't think so at all. i think you could reasonably want to support the bolivarian process in order to exhaust it. i think that's a key lesson of leninism.
for another example, look at the spanish civil war. the war was framed by communists as a defence of the bourgeois democratic republic. trotskyists criticized this and said the war should be a revolutionary war against all capitalists. i think it makes sense to try to build broad coalitions with existing institutions where it is possible for advancing a democratic agenda, even if you can't win everything within that model and then will have to fight new battles down the line. i dunno though just thinking out loud
getfiscal posted:the issue to me, though, i guess, is that it's probably wrong to see armed conflict as the only form of violence / civil war. like there is an entire range of activity that causes real material change in society.
absolutely but i believe that the only form of violence that leads to revolution is armed conflict. other forms of violence/resistance can certainly bring about reform but are there not limits to reform? don't reforms tend to grant certain demands of the violent minority in order to disarm them?
getfiscal posted:the revolutions in eastern europe after world war 2 show that you can have control of the state before you transform it into a new socialist state through a revolution.
where do extranational concerns come into the picture? a state may be reformed into some semblance of socialism but continue to serve capitalist external power. can such a state truly be considered socialist?
Petrol posted:absolutely but i believe that the only form of violence that leads to revolution is armed conflict. other forms of violence/resistance can certainly bring about reform but are there not limits to reform? don't reforms tend to grant certain demands of the violent minority in order to disarm them?
well i think it might help to rebuild why violence is needed.
a bourgeois state is built around the preservation of inequalities by separating people from the means of production and forcing them (generally) to sell their labour on a market in exchange for money to buy commodities. within this system there are various forms of privilege experienced by people and other sorts of oppressions. because of the character of a capitalist society, ideology reinforces people's identification with their relative privileges and encourages to see oppressions as deficiencies. accordingly, when there are contradictions within society (such as unemployment) there are always hegemonic subjectivities that correspond to the problem (such as blaming other poor or foreigners or something). when an anti-systemic / counterhegemonic movement threatens to undo the inequalities at their root, it creates huge incentives for bourgeois society to reimpose order.
why reformism is sometimes tolerated is because it targets specific inequalities and not the underlying system of inequality-as-such. socialism is resisted because it threatens to end the possibility of existing as a certain subject-position (wealthy, patriarchical, racist, etc.). so it really is a negation of that person's life in a certain sense, and this forces them to fight back in a vicious way. it would be similar to telling a priest they could not live a religious life, it goes to the core of their identity, which is reinforced by a certain material structure.
so it is obvious that any serious counterhegemonic coalition is proposing enormous violence when it calls for the dissollution of entire social groups as they currently exist. and it can gain allies in this struggle by emphasizing the importance of the oppressions that the majority faces. but it needs to find a way to neutralize the capacity of bourgeois culture to constantly reproduce itself. and it can only do that through the transformation of the economy, sure, but it also needs to control cultural/ideological production. and it can't do that from a subordinate position.
even though the majority in society (generally) should support socialism, it only breaks through to general support for specific socialist movements in situations of extreme crisis - when the survival of both broad sides are at question. it's not enough to be oppressed, people have to believe they can't continue in a certain way, and the ruling class needs to be in a sort of deadlock over what to do. but it isn't obvious that this deadlock comes about in the same way every time. that is, the general crisis isn't always civil war instigated by a people's army. for sure there is usually violence, but the character and source of violence often varies widely. there is a large difference between initiating an armed conflict in order to initiate socialist revolution and building the base for a socialist revolution through movements and building towards a situation where violence becomes inevitable because the other options have been exhausted.
that's part of it, too, i guess - the only reason why lenin was able to win power was because a reformist government took power and then sided with the bourgeoisie in a decisive way, clearing the way for a revolutionary option, which won largely without violence before triggering a civil war once the character of the new regime became evident. in china, it was the failure of the nationalists to maintain hegemony with functioning institutions that could build a national economy that led to things like massive defections to the communists when a food crisis hit. socialists win power when things break, but i'm not sure that means that they need to focus on constituting an armed force now.