As the traditional American middle class keeps sliding into being a relatively poorer underclass with ever diminishing prospects, and wealth is continually concentrated at the very top, how far are we from a state of revolution? It seems to me the economic inequities and the division of wealth in America is growing past the point of mass toleration.
Is social revolution on the horizon?
Not close at all. I think you’re being short-sighted. Just as the ice age didn’t freeze over the entire planet.
We might be close, after all, but not for the reasons you’ve suggested. Unpredictable new developments (good or bad) are on the horizon.
I mean, a big part of the problem with this scenario is the lack of a clear defined target to revolt against. It’s all complex and intertwined. If we were to scrap the whole system and start over, we’d have to get to the point of already being in absolute poverty. Imagine living in the cold with no amenities, no income, no social programs to provide you with food, heat, law and order, and other basic needs. Nobody wants to go to those extremes, even if they are po’d at a perceived lack of opportunities.
No.
See, here’s the problem. The top 1% or whoever, they aren’t dumb. My father used to call this the “meat on the bone” theory. They’d eat all the meat off the bone, leaving just enough to throw us doggies some bones with just enough meat left on it to keep us from revolting. As long as they don’t mis-judge, and always leave just the bare minimal amount of meat on the bone, there won’t be a revolt.
No. Most Americans are so passive and submissive that they’ll put up with treatment that would cause riots and revolutions in other countries; or at least, require the application of major amounts of force to keep the populace from rioting and revolting.
Not if that Occupy Movement is any indication. It pretty much fizzled out despite this Admins effort to coddle it and the mass media’s effort to promote it.
A very bloody civil war I think would be more likley. The animosity between the left and right seems to be snowballing.
Funny, some story on the news recently had me wondering if some people never heard of the French Revolution. I think it was the unemployment issue.
But mostly I think we are making progress and it would take a lot more slippage in the wrong direction to get to that point.
My husband has been looking for work, with no luck at all, for a couple of weeks now. I may change my view if this goes on a lot longer.
Actually the movement in the recent past has been in the opposite direction–the Tea Party Republicans–whose top priorities are cutting the safety net and cutting taxes for the rich.
That’s the thing – in 2008 it seemed for a brief moment that there was high indignation and outrage at those whose profitseeking led to the economic crash… even an inkling of rejection of “too big to fail”. Huckabee Christian Conservatives were hurling invective at Wall Street, commentators from both sides were talking about how “the banksters” were responsible for people losing their homes.
But then both the outgoing (R) administration and the incoming (D) administration proceeded to provide huge bailouts to the financial sectors in order to contain the pain. Each began finding external blame (so it was not the establishment’s fault, it was Barney Frank’s or it was Deregulation’s, or it was that the Bush era was not really conservative but spendthrift, or it was the quants and their derivative equations) and promising “transformation” in mere mild reform. And when someone said “I want my country back” everybody jumped up to say that what she meant was that she wanted it back from someone who had been in charge only four months, so it was either racism or that it was only the new guy’s policies that scared her, and not what had happened over 8 years.
Meanwhile too many people were just too busy keeping the bills paid to risk losing everything else by bringing down the system. You can’t have a succesful revolution when nobody wants to risk it will be his head that rolls. So OWS fizzled into smelly campgrounds of smelly wannabes and the Tea Party was coopted by a bunch of RW political opportunists pomising the same old, same old package of Christianity, low taxes and guns to make the world safe for white anglos.
Actually, it was a famine issue. The poor in the USA suffer from obesity more often than malnutrition.
Among the people of my acquaintance:
The ones most interested in revolution, are generally not capable of it.
The ones most capable of revolution, are generally not interested in it.
When I was in college, I knew a lot of Liberal Arts majors, who would have loved to see a revolution. But, not one of them was willing to take a ROTC class and learn how to use a rifle. Most of them were staunch advocates of gun control. If a revolution ever does come, they will watch it from the sidelines. If they take any part at all, it will be as followers, not leaders. By the time they finish boot camp, the revolution will likely be over.
The ROTC cadets were mostly planning on joining the Establishment, not overthrowing it.
We had a lot of veterans going to school on the GI Bill. But again, most of them wanted to join the Establishment, not overthrow it.
In the years since I graduated, I have noticed the same dichotomy everywhere I go. Those who talk the most about it, in my opinion, have the least chance of succeeding.
If an insurrection ever comes out of my town, it will not be pursuing liberal goals.
Is the US really closer to it now than it was in the 1960s?
I pretty much agree with this. If there is a revolution brewing, it is more likely the middle class getting tired of the transfer of wealth from the producers to the (as Rand would say) moochers.
Hopefully the current issues facing us will lead to greater political participation by the masses.
It won’t, but it should.
When I see how “Occupy” fizzled, I have to doubt any revolution is near. When they bailed out the banks, but left nearly all the mortgagees bereft (and even prosecuted a few of them), I realized that they are really passive.
Unless something is done, and soon, about the decline of the infrastructure, the country will inevitably go into a slow decline.
Incidentally, poorer people are both obese and malnourished. That’s because junk food is heavily subsidized (the farm bill, which has done little to save the family farm, but is not another example of corporate greed) while good food is not.
Who is a maker and who is the taker in the following scenario?
The guy who works 60 hours a week trying desperately to earn enough money to keep his family fed, housed, and clothed?
Or his boss who skims 10% of the profits off the company to be able to afford his multiple houses (he has lost track of how many), private jet, yacht and the other accouterments of his class?
That’s a very strange statement, since riots and revolutions in other countries make people come here. Can you give us a list of the countries you’re talking about? Because I can think of dozens of countries where people are treated much worst than in the US, and yet there are neither riots nor revolution.
You ignore the “require the application of major amounts of force to keep the populace from rioting and revolting” part of my statement.
Nope. Just look south of the border. Mexico isn’t a police state, and yet I’m not seeing riots and revolution. Nor in most of South America. Protests, of course, but there are plenty of Latin American countries that aren’t anywhere near revolution and where the people have it considerably worse than in the US.
I.e. in the USA, we really do let them eat cake.