Revolution is a process, not necessarily an event. A lot of people seem to think of revolutions as single events, usually wars, but those revolutionary wars are only parts of a much larger revolutionary process. The industrial revolution, for example, took place over about a century, and then the second industrial revolution occurred over multiple decades. These industrial revolutions coincided with the rise of capitalism. It’s likely we couldn’t have had one without the other. In that regard, capitalism didn’t emerge as a result of a single, revolutionary event, it emerged gradually, organically over decades, generations, and even centuries. The revolutionary process that led to the emergence of capitalism involved many reforms. There’s no reason to think socialism would be any different. Any revolutionary process is likely to involve, or even necessitate, many reforms. I don’t think there is a strict dichotomy between reform and revolution, the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
I think people just get impatient. They see reforms as too slow, they want the end of capitalism, and the transition to socialism, now. These people think that if they just have enough guns and soldiers they can force the end of capitalism, but this is simply wrong. No one can force the end of capitalism, it must come about organically. The only thing that can end capitalism, is capitalism. It must be allowed to run its course. Socialism will arise as we look for solutions to the problems caused by the internal contradictions inherent to capitalism. I think where direct revolutionary action will be most necessary is to counter reactionaries.
However, reforms are still important, because it is exponentially harder for the working class to organize when they are preoccupied with the essential business of survival.
Reforms do not solve capitalism, but they loosen its grip such that we can better educate and organise people towards the goal of its eventual destruction.
Equally importantly, reforms help people to imagine a world without capitalism. When you live your entire life firmly emedded in its grasp, capitalism seems inescapable and inevitable. Larger scale reforms like universal basic income would not, in and of themselves, achieve the goal of eliminating capitalism, but they would allow the average person to acclimate to the underlying ideals of a post-capitalist world, whilst vastly alleviating the immediate harms of capitalism, and freeing up the time and energy of the average worker towards building a better world. Unions do not solve capitalism, but they reduce harm, and act as a powerful political force that can be leveraged towards anti-capitalist goals. Student loan debt forgiveness does not solve capitalism, but it empowers the working class with capital of our own that can be put towards the greater fight. Many, many more examples could be given.
Do not forget that the eventual goal is that capitalism is killed, not tamed, but do not ever dismiss the importance of even the smallest reforms in the process of achieving that end.
God I’m gonna get downvoted to hell for this aren’t i, but i still want to know. What system would we replace capitalism with once it’s gone? True communism doesn’t really seem achievable given how it’s turned into something else every time we’ve tried it. Socialism seems a bit more reasonable as we have societies already with socialist structures in place (albeit coexisting with capitalist structures). Are there any other systems I’m unaware of that we would plan on implementing?
We would need some plan, because if we were to put every business owner at the end of a rope it’d still leave something akin to a power vacuum. stuff would need to be created at that exact moment but the people hadn’t yet developed the structures to do so in the wake of the businesses who had done it before. A situation like that is just begging to reverse all of the work it took to get there. Capitalists and even probably feudalists would be itching to take up control over the means of production first chance they got. So what would we plan on implementing first, before they got the chance?
The ultimate end result looks a lot like Star Trek. A fully automated, post-scarcity, fully post-capitalist society.
The question is simply what the stepping stones are to getting there. The fact that you can’t just throw out what we have overnight is precisely the point I was making.
There’s no one right answer to the question, but a lot of very smart people have some very good ideas.
The easiest starting point is to look at what everyone most obviously needs. Some basic requirements can easily be laid out; everyone should have housing, sustenance, healthcare, education, and sufficient monetary resources to meet any other basic needs (including emotional and psychological wellbeing; ie, access to entertainment, the time and money to socialize, etc). These are the basic requirements of freeing humans from the yoke of capitalism, so we should endeavour to build a society where these needs, are met for everyone. A government is the most efficient system we have found for organizing resources at scale, so there’s no obvious reason not to continue to have one.
Mechanisms will be needed to prevent individuals maintaining control over capital, because we’ve learned that that very clearly doesn’t work. Nationalizing everything is one approach, but we can also look to strong (most likely mandatory) unions, or the use of worker owned co-ops (Mondragon in Spain is a fascinating example).
Simply talking about “communism vs socialism” is far too reductive. Post-capitalist economics is a vastly more complex field. It’s been over a century since Marx. I suggest checking out Unlearning Economics on YouTube (https://youtube.com/@unlearningeconomics9021?si=947khNPxgU7OppRQfor) some really good introductory material. If you want a more advanced introduction, McMaster University hosted an excellent lecture series (https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzLUWMt2NZLRmKY_kEiLc-hvOcyOlgE4N&si=4O-Z7tphB5BUcrYu)
Neat, I assume everyone posting and upvoting this is picking up a rifle and running out there to revolt violently against the “system.” No? Just going to type away on your keyboard? Cool.
Aah yes, Rosa Luxemburg, famous advocate for violence.
Revolutionaries like Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht and Paul Levi argued against a violent putsch and fought for political and economic revolution through organization of the working class to seize power. Guillotines don’t work. And its impossible to have a pacifist revolution, the ruling class will never allow it so defense will be a necessity, but the German revolution/Spartacist uprising is an especially good example of this. Revolutionaries were constantly arguing against violence, but there were many “radicals” that thought they could just seize the capital buildings to take the power. This led to several failed Putsches, like the Vorwards siege that led to the murder of Karl and Rosa, the Kapp Putsch, and ultimately the Reichstag fire which led to the ascention of the Nazis to power. In Germany by 1923 the ruling capitalist class and their stooges were completely defeated – but so were the workers. Devastating loss after loss in violent uprisings, when the Marxists were arguing for political and social changes, led to the conditions for the Nazis to come to power.
A real revolution to overthrow the class that controls the production of goods, the actual historical basis for the state, politics and economics, cannot be won with violence. It takes time and preparation for when the wheels start coming off the social order that supports the existing system, similar to what was happening to the feudal system in the 19th century culminating in the worldwide bourgeois revolution of world war I. The next stage of progress for society is one where the workers seize the power for ourselves, which is an act of mass collective political action. It can’t be won with violence, violently overthrowing the government and instating new leaders, even supposedly “socialist” ones is a kind of reform, and is not revolutionary.
To overthrow the economic system and smash the state in order to create a new workers state and productive capabilities that benefit the planet, the people, and all life rather than raping it all for profit takes a long time, but the conditions exist to make it possible. The ruling class can no longer run society, business and the world, there’s nothing left to conquer and resources are limited. Revolution for our generations is not optional, it becomes necessary to prevent further violence. Ultimately this capitalist system is the most violent and destructive system ever created. So handwringing about going and getting your rifle for violent revolution is completely ridiculous in a world that takes away housing while people are homeless, and then makes being homeless a crime; all while supporting global imperialism, genocide and ecosystemic catastrophe for all people; just so the rich can get richer.
Is this the lady who tried to establish a Soviet state in Germany against social democrats (Spartacist uprising)?
