Look at history. You need a tipping point, but more importantly, you need organised masses and a vision/visionary to get behind.
That’s how Lenin got in power. It’s how the French decapitated their king. That’s why there was a rally at the White house when trump lost the previous election but nobody is doing anything against him now at the states while he dismantles the country.
Indeed, when things get bad, the public is willing to take risks. When everything is good enough, they don’t revolt.
However, successful revolts do require intelligent and capable leaders.
What the rich have realized, is that if they ensure smart and skilled kids get picked out of the drudgery and get comfortable working for the rich, then the exploited class will not really have anyone to lead them.
Put another way, in 1908, every factory had a few leaders working at the lowest levels. And they are the ones who spearheaded strikes and such.
Nowadays, society is really stratified in terms of skill.
Anyone who grew up poor, but had talent to organize, probably ended up in some kind of middle management or professional job and makes 2x the average.
Convincing these people to have class solidarity is difficult. Only a few of them actually see the bigger. Those tend to become middle or upper management or politicians, making 3-5x the average workers salary. And of those, only a very select few are willing to fight for the common man.
So yeah, the rich engineered a system that they can control. To actually change anything is going to be very difficult.
This is a great point that I haven’t heard before, and it seems intuitively correct. Considering overall economic mobility has gotten worse over the decades, I suppose one way you could validate this is by looking at the stats for economic mobility differentiated by… academic success? Measured IQ? Skill acquisition? None of those are good isolated indicators but maybe there’s a good measure where you can say “economic mobility increased for skilled people over time, but decreased for less-skilled people over the same time period.”
This is not a criticism of your point, by the way. I think you’re right. Just wondering exactly how right.
Economic mobility is usually determined by things like IQ, EQ and other marketable skills. So I don’t really know if your proposal is the right way to measure it. But such data would at least give some insight.
In the USA, most research I have seen says they have low economic mobility, because the rich have access to the best schools, etc.
But still, it’s not zero. Both JD Vance and AOC are examples of economic mobility.
One of them still fights (or appears to fight) for the class they came from, the other is successfully recruited to serve the interests of the ruling class.
Were they born in 1908 (and ignoring race and gender for the moment), then probably both of them would have been leaders for the working class.
Iran, 1977, mass demonstrations that were often kicked off by communists and socialists leading to a revolution in 1979.
Iran, 1988, communists, many who were involved in the revolution, begin being executed by the Islamic government.
Revolution is also sadly no guarantee of anything getting better.
“The moral arc of history bends towards justice” is a lie Westerners have sold themselves for far too long while the evidence otherwise has stared them in the face if they were paying any attention at all.
in 1908, every factory had a few leaders working at the lowest levels. And they are the ones who spearheaded strikes and such.
(I can’t be the first person to have this thought so someone please chime in and tell me where to learn more.)
The scale of housing and factories was different in 1908 though. These days factories are giant complexes in the middle of nowhere with supercommuters that don’t live anywhere near each other or the factory so don’t have the same opportunities to fraternize and organize in their homes and taverns. I don’t know how workers can overcome this massive hurdle from the modern era.
Wow you really picked two of the worst possible examples. French Revolutionaries decapitated so many officials that they ended up decapitating the previous wave of French Revolutionaries, then Napoleon and the Church took over.
My example was about how people get together to make revolutions happen, not wether they were good/bad or what ended up happening after. I chose those examples because in both cases a revolt was long time coming but people couldn’t do it until they were organised
Look at history. You need a tipping point, but more importantly, you need organised masses and a vision/visionary to get behind.
That’s how Lenin got in power. It’s how the French decapitated their king. That’s why there was a rally at the White house when trump lost the previous election but nobody is doing anything against him now at the states while he dismantles the country.
Correct, but there is a lot of nuance.
Indeed, when things get bad, the public is willing to take risks. When everything is good enough, they don’t revolt.
However, successful revolts do require intelligent and capable leaders.
What the rich have realized, is that if they ensure smart and skilled kids get picked out of the drudgery and get comfortable working for the rich, then the exploited class will not really have anyone to lead them.
Put another way, in 1908, every factory had a few leaders working at the lowest levels. And they are the ones who spearheaded strikes and such.
Nowadays, society is really stratified in terms of skill.
Anyone who grew up poor, but had talent to organize, probably ended up in some kind of middle management or professional job and makes 2x the average.
Convincing these people to have class solidarity is difficult. Only a few of them actually see the bigger. Those tend to become middle or upper management or politicians, making 3-5x the average workers salary. And of those, only a very select few are willing to fight for the common man.
So yeah, the rich engineered a system that they can control. To actually change anything is going to be very difficult.
This is a great point that I haven’t heard before, and it seems intuitively correct. Considering overall economic mobility has gotten worse over the decades, I suppose one way you could validate this is by looking at the stats for economic mobility differentiated by… academic success? Measured IQ? Skill acquisition? None of those are good isolated indicators but maybe there’s a good measure where you can say “economic mobility increased for skilled people over time, but decreased for less-skilled people over the same time period.”
This is not a criticism of your point, by the way. I think you’re right. Just wondering exactly how right.
Economic mobility is usually determined by things like IQ, EQ and other marketable skills. So I don’t really know if your proposal is the right way to measure it. But such data would at least give some insight.
In the USA, most research I have seen says they have low economic mobility, because the rich have access to the best schools, etc.
But still, it’s not zero. Both JD Vance and AOC are examples of economic mobility.
One of them still fights (or appears to fight) for the class they came from, the other is successfully recruited to serve the interests of the ruling class.
Were they born in 1908 (and ignoring race and gender for the moment), then probably both of them would have been leaders for the working class.
Iran, 1977, mass demonstrations that were often kicked off by communists and socialists leading to a revolution in 1979.
Iran, 1988, communists, many who were involved in the revolution, begin being executed by the Islamic government.
Revolution is also sadly no guarantee of anything getting better.
“The moral arc of history bends towards justice” is a lie Westerners have sold themselves for far too long while the evidence otherwise has stared them in the face if they were paying any attention at all.
Well yes, it turns out billions of us aid and explicit US training can stamp out communism, at least without any other support structures.
(I can’t be the first person to have this thought so someone please chime in and tell me where to learn more.)
The scale of housing and factories was different in 1908 though. These days factories are giant complexes in the middle of nowhere with supercommuters that don’t live anywhere near each other or the factory so don’t have the same opportunities to fraternize and organize in their homes and taverns. I don’t know how workers can overcome this massive hurdle from the modern era.
True, but nowadays most people don’t work in factories.
The modern equivalent would be the cashiers of Walmart and the baristas of Starbucks.
I have been starting to think it might be our job as humans to destroy those machines. I certainly have a fair amount of rage against these machines.
Yeah, part of it is definitely lack of “third places” (i.e. issues of car dependency/bad zoning) and declining social institutions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKgNrshVdMw
I’m not advocating it tbh
They probably taste like shit and cocaine
Wow you really picked two of the worst possible examples. French Revolutionaries decapitated so many officials that they ended up decapitating the previous wave of French Revolutionaries, then Napoleon and the Church took over.
My example was about how people get together to make revolutions happen, not wether they were good/bad or what ended up happening after. I chose those examples because in both cases a revolt was long time coming but people couldn’t do it until they were organised