When the proles have nothing to lose but their chains, they get restless :-/
Is this empirically true? I am not an expert, but seems to me that many revolutions are caused not by consistent suffering—which makes people adjust to the “new normal”—but rather by situations where the quality of life increases a bit—which gives people expectations of improvement—and then either fails to increase further, or even falls back a bit. That is when people explode.
A child doesn’t throw a tantrum because she never had a chocolate, but she will if you give her one piece and then take away the remaining ones.
seems to me that many revolutions are caused not by consistent suffering
The issue is not the level of suffering, the issue is what do you have to lose. What’s the downside to burning the whole system to the ground? If not much, well, why not?
That is when people explode
Middle class doesn’t explode. Arguably that’s the reason why revolutions (and popular uprisings) in the West have become much more rare than, say, a couple of hundred years ago.
The American revolution seems to have been a pretty middle-class affair. The Czech(oslovakian) “Velvet Revolution” and the Estonian “Singing Revolution” too, I think. [EDITED to add:] In so far as there can be said to be a middle class in a communist state.
Yeah, Eastern Europe / Russia is an interesting case. First, as you mention, it’s unclear to what degree we can speak of the middle class there during the Soviet times. Second, some “revolutions” there were velvet primarily because the previous power structures essentially imploded leaving vacuum in their place—there was no one to fight. However not all of them were and the notable post-Soviet power struggle in the Ukraine (the “orange revolution”) was protracted and somewhat violent.
The issue is not the level of suffering, the issue is what do you have to lose.
More precisely, it is what you believe you have to lose. And humans seems to have a cognitive bias that they take all advantages of the current situation for granted, if they existed at least for a decade.
So when people see more options, they are going to be like: “Worst case, we fail and everything stays like it is now. Best case, everything improves. We just have to try.” Then they sometimes get surprised, for example when millions of them starve to death, learning too late that they actually had something to lose.
In some sense, Brexit or Trump are revolutions converted by the mechanism of democracy into mere dramatic elections. People participating at them seem to have the “we have nothing to lose” mentality. I am not saying they are going to lose something as a consequence, only that the possibility of such outcome certainly exists. I wouldn’t bother trying to convince them about that, though.
Is this empirically true? I am not an expert, but seems to me that many revolutions are caused not by consistent suffering—which makes people adjust to the “new normal”—but rather by situations where the quality of life increases a bit—which gives people expectations of improvement—and then either fails to increase further, or even falls back a bit. That is when people explode.
A child doesn’t throw a tantrum because she never had a chocolate, but she will if you give her one piece and then take away the remaining ones.
The issue is not the level of suffering, the issue is what do you have to lose. What’s the downside to burning the whole system to the ground? If not much, well, why not?
Middle class doesn’t explode. Arguably that’s the reason why revolutions (and popular uprisings) in the West have become much more rare than, say, a couple of hundred years ago.
The American revolution seems to have been a pretty middle-class affair. The Czech(oslovakian) “Velvet Revolution” and the Estonian “Singing Revolution” too, I think. [EDITED to add:] In so far as there can be said to be a middle class in a communist state.
Yeah, Eastern Europe / Russia is an interesting case. First, as you mention, it’s unclear to what degree we can speak of the middle class there during the Soviet times. Second, some “revolutions” there were velvet primarily because the previous power structures essentially imploded leaving vacuum in their place—there was no one to fight. However not all of them were and the notable post-Soviet power struggle in the Ukraine (the “orange revolution”) was protracted and somewhat violent.
So… it’s complicated? X-)
More precisely, it is what you believe you have to lose. And humans seems to have a cognitive bias that they take all advantages of the current situation for granted, if they existed at least for a decade.
So when people see more options, they are going to be like: “Worst case, we fail and everything stays like it is now. Best case, everything improves. We just have to try.” Then they sometimes get surprised, for example when millions of them starve to death, learning too late that they actually had something to lose.
In some sense, Brexit or Trump are revolutions converted by the mechanism of democracy into mere dramatic elections. People participating at them seem to have the “we have nothing to lose” mentality. I am not saying they are going to lose something as a consequence, only that the possibility of such outcome certainly exists. I wouldn’t bother trying to convince them about that, though.
(Yes it does.)