“We need to take it by force” does not necessarily follow “They won’t give up power voluntarily”. People with civil war fantasies need to have a sit down and have a long fucking think about what that implies. What we need to do is revive a culture of labor solidarity that we’ve allowed to wither since the heyday of labor unions in the country.
Yall realize many of the rights we have as laborers now we’re won with force… Right?
Like, yes collective bargaining, labor solidarity, etc. is super important (which is also a form of force) but there were literal armed conflicts between laborers and the police on behalf of companies.
I’m not saying we need a civil war, but let’s not pretend we won our rights today without bloodshed.
Edit: Left out a key word, whoops.
If we can’t keep them without killing each other then we are just repeating a cycle. But freedom of choice is more important than forcing politics and beliefs on people just so they cooperate. Me nor anyone I know is going to engage in murder just to get my way. I did my part, I have no kids to perpetuate the cycle. Stop providing the machine with fodder and the issue solves itself.
There’s no cycle. That’s the whole problem. They made money the most important thing, required for life, then took all the money and sat on it. There’s no cycle. Yesterday they had the money. Today they have the money. Tomorrow they will still have the money unless the people of this world do something about it.
I’m saying we need a civil war, but let’s not pretend we won our rights today without bloodshed.
Oh, I didn’t mean it like that. More that using force as the tool of overthrow is fundamentally a mistake. Obviously in any sufficiently powerful labor movement there will, inevitably, be those who attempt to use both legal and illegal force to disperse them. Force is thus necessary to defend the other processes of labor solidarity - forming unions, protests, strikes, lockouts, etc.
Many people, not all of them unreasonably, will side with the system in the case of a violent revolution, though. When a shooting war starts, you can’t un-shoot the bullet once you realize the death toll will reach the millions - it will be carried on to its gruesome end, and that may not be to a left-wing victory.
For those who think that a revolution would have overwhelming popular support, for God’s sake, a third of the country still believes nonwhite and LGBT folk are inferior, and another third doesn’t fucking care. Supporting a violent leftist overthrow is not gonna be on the agenda for them, no matter how much theory you’ve read and how solid your arguments about their exploitation are. The last third will be difficult to convince - not unreasonably, considering the value placed on democratic ideals and processes.
And the situation is similar, if less severe, in other developed countries at this time.
Fwiw I did mean to say, “I’m not saying we need a civil war.” Though, honestly, I’m not saying we don’t either. It just wasn’t really the point I was trying to make in that moment.
I think I more or less agree with you though. Violence is not necessarily my first choice, but it’s naive to think the opposition will listen without it. Or at the very least the threat of it.
The reality is that our power structures heavily favor the owning class, and they’re not going to hand over that power laying down. Collective action and such is of course the first step, but as you mentioned force will be used to dispurse labor movements.
One billionare showing up publicly lynched or drawn and quartered will get the rest in line. If not, two or three dozen more will do the trick.
It would give them more power. You wanna see what psychopathic minds given a reason to work together and given victim cards can do? I don’t.
The rich are brought in line by denying them of power, not feeding them more power by offering reasons for them to get protected even more.
You wanna go that route, be prepared for a lot of collateral damage and extended times of hardship.
No. What will happen is the rich will surround themselves with more security and will have a legitimate reason to be more aggressive towards who they consider a menace. If you want to change society, get involved in politics, involve those who think like you, and be patient.
Force doesn’t necessarily imply bloodshed, but forcing them to give up what they have against their will definitely implies force - I think we’re well beyond the point of simple persuasion.
I mean, I actually believe that it won’t be accomplished without bloodshed - but there’s a world of difference between ‘civil unrest’ and ‘civil war’, and I see people fantasizing about the latter far too often. Force is the tool workers use to prevent the use of overwhelming force against the workers - but using it as a tool of overthrow itself is… often strategically unsound, unless matters have already spiraled into chaos.
This is where supposedly communist regimes tend to go wrong - they skip straight to revolution without taking the necessary preparatory steps to do things like level inequality and shore up democracy. This just means that the wealth and power reconsolidate almost immediately into authoritarian state capitalism or similar - generally a worse state than preceded it, and definitely not communism.
The force is necessary though.
We might not seek violence, but it’s coming for us if we organize in any way that has a chance to succeed. The history of the last century has been violent crackdowns on labor organizing. From Pinkertons and cops at home to CIA coups and full on military blockades abroad.
We do need to get everyone organized for anything to happen, but we do have to be ready for when that crackdown comes for us.
And yeah. That’s fucking terrifying and I’m pessimistic enough to not really think we have that much of a shot at winning. But it’s wishful thinking to imagine that we could get to the future we want just by playing nice within the system that’s keeping us here.
There’s a vast gulf between ‘playing nice’ and ‘use force to overthrow the elite’. There were great strides made in the heyday of labor organization in the 1880s-1930s. There can be great strides made again. The elite are not some organized cabal of rulers plotting against us - they are selfish people who got where they are by being exceptionally selfish. They don’t want to preserve capitalism - they want to preserve themselves. They can be pressured. They can be bargained with. Most of them are rational - that’s their weakness. They’ll accept deals that are good for them, or that they perceive as such, even if it weakens the system as a whole. For God’s sake, we have the best educated generation to ever exist on the face of this planet - planning and bargaining are what we’ve been toiling our miserable white-collar lives around. All we lack is solidarity.
It’s not as satisfying as heads rolling down the streets of Paris - but it’s never just the elite who die in such scenarios. We should be ready for such an occasion as civil war - but it should also be a last resort.
I think it’s pretty clear that the rich are not rational actors and neither can they be trusted.
All those strides came with the aforementioned violent crackdowns and the gains were short lived. Leaving the power structure in place and merely trying to bargain with it for a few more scraps left capitalists with the power they needed to erode those gains. And again, to the extent any progress was made, it was within the imperial core. All those other people around the world who were being exploited by international capital didn’t enjoy any of the benefits of the bargaining that went on here.
You have to ignore a lot of the reality of history to believe in the story of peaceful incremental progress.
Organized labor can demand all profits. Then the game of choosing the best investments doesn’t have any winners. There isn’t even money available to invest.
The elite is defending that game because it’s our source of optimizations. Is there a better alternative so that they don’t have to play?
Yeah it’s like… they’ve got a boot on your neck and you’re worried about you hurting them? Where’s your worry about the people they’re hurting right now?
Aside from that, revolutionary goals don’t even require violence per se. If the people who set this shit up would recognize the will of the people and step aside there’s no need for violence, but you know they’re gonna fight to their last breath to keep the power to hurt and control others. The violence is starting with them.
Just a casual call to violence 🤣
Self defense. The rich chose violence centuries ago, and continue to choose violence daily.
It could be non-violent. Organizing workers creates a power structure that can be used against the bourgeoisie.
It all depends. For about 97% of the world population, anyone earning more than 40k USD annual salary is part of the 5% elite
I’d wager more than half the population asking for forced takeover enters that range.
So if y’all willing, don’t worry, we third world countries are coming for you. We know you will surrender really easy
This is backwards. The working class is giving their power voluntarily to the elite. There is no force needed to get it, just don’t give it away.
What is missing that people keep voting the way they do? There is nobody to hold power if people prefer to give it away.
Ah yes - pissing away your vote on a third party in a 2 party first-past-the-post system will definitely fix it and not simply empower the greater evil.
It’s only pissing away if you don’t know that others vote alike. With surveys you know when a party is ready to take over.
What portion of the US population do you think have a remotely viable third party option?
I’d love to vote for a candidate who represents my views but have never once in my life been presented with anything even close.
How much time are you willing to invest to make such a candidate available?
I am an Anarchist. I don’t think it matters, the Democratic process doesn’t really include the possibility of the outcome of “we should stop doing all this nonsense”.
Advocating for violence, understandable and at the same time completely despromoted of imagination.
Idc how pissed you are, you’re like “them” if you can only think of ways that involve force, usually masses don’t make the best decisions when going on a rampage.
Make no mistakes, we have to change things, but generalising an incredibly complex situation to a sentence…
Edit: uuu someone’s afraid to actually having to find intelligent ways to make positive changes
Did we forget to say “please” when asking them to stop underpaying us as they get wealthy off our hard work, spending billions of dollars to entrench their position by corrupting our democracy, funding the politicians that are supposed to represent us and the media that’s supposed to inform us.
I notice you haven’t exercised that imagination of yours to present a way to get them to simply give up their political and economic power of their own accord - please don’t hold out on us.
I’m not your daddy, you find your own ways, I’m no jesus to go out there telling my fellow humans how to act, I only argument against points of view I don’t agree with. If you can’t find your own way to change my mind or to go forward with your own ideas that’s one thing. But don’t drag other people in there like if your goals are the same.
There are many, but most of them require intelligence and cunning. Require work since a very fucking young age towards that direction.
You seems to be lacking ideas? Well i ain’t no profet, I follow my path you follow yours. How many good ideas wouldn’t work unless you keep them tight to to chess is amz. But if I where to tell you that arguing with you is one of those ideas .
It means I belive you can do better things if you are thinking of non violent solicions cuz even a baby knows violece generates violence.
I won’t tell you how to act cuz I could never find something that would only work with your life experience.
Or maybe you not even intelligent enough to read all of this much less understanding it
So you’ll smugly sit back and tell everyone they’re wrong and stupid while presenting nothing that even resembles a solution?
I suppose that makes about as much sense as questioning my intelligence after spilling that soup of terrible spelling, punctuation and empty pseudo-intellectual truisms on to the internet.
“You don’t have any new ideas!”
“Ah well what are your new ideas?”
“No no, I don’t do that”.
Fuck right off.
Collective action to revolutionize political structures by force doesn’t necessarily entail going on a ‘rampage’ or just murdering your enemies summarily. The state uses force against it’s people and enemies every day. There are many forms force can take.
This reminds me of a nice Mark Twain quote I just posted a little while ago, talking about the French Revolution and the ‘Reign of Terror’:
There were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.
Imaginationless, is that why you choose to use the words of men who do not live in our times? Justice changes with each generation’s values, and so does the world and how we can do things…
History might repeat itself, but you don’t know what will repeat. You don’t know if these ideas are just taking brilliant minds from a fight that would actually make a positive difference or maybe they will work. Who knows, not me, not you, no one. All I’m saying is, if we have to choose a path, I’ll choose one that will make me less cruel then “them”.
Because I wouldn’t want to become “them” in the middle of my fight against “them”.
I chose those words because someone else quoted them earlier today and I thought it was relevant, it may be from ‘another time’ but the prevailing political and economic structures of today are essentially the same. Is self-defense cruel? If someone is beating someone to death, and you use force to stop that person from murdering them, is that as cruel as murder?
Let’s also not forget that collective action, etc, tends to not be violent. If it utilizes force it tends to do against things or systems, not people. The other side does not hesitate to use violence.
It’s interesting the different ideas people have when they hear ‘force’ or what power and violence are. A worker strike I think is a form of force, in that the employer is forced to work through the demands of the workers or go through the trouble of hiring new workers. The working class is a massive majority compared to the upper class, so when that sort of action is done it doesn’t necessarily have to have any bloodshed.
