The revolution is here and I don't like how it looks

Radical activists are always pondering what 'the revolution' will look like. What are the events that could lead to a radical change of society, and what strategy would facilitate that change. I've taken a rather passive approach to this question-- that at some point a large fraction of society will become disillusioned with the status quo, at which point I would like my ideology to have a prominent position in the discussions about how to change our institutions.

Well, it looks like we've reached that tipping point, and I regret to say that my favorite movement is not in a position to make many gains. Here's how I see the landscape at the moment. For the past couple decades, a wing of the plutocracy has been building up an authoritarian ethno-nationalist movement in their effort to solidify and expand their power in the USA. This ethno-nationalist movement has finally reached the point where they thought they could grab power, which led to Trump's post-election coup attempt. The establishment liberals repelled the initial assault, but have not been able to mount a decisive counter-attack (e.g. convincing Republican leadership to turn against Trump), so the liberals and ethno-nationalists are now locked in a existential struggle. 

The liberals have a few avenues open to them -- the most straight-forward that I see are efforts to secure and expand representation for ethnic/racial minorities, and trying to peel conservatives (and opportunists) away from their alliance with the ethno-nationalists. The problem is that many people seem to deny that the game has changed, and everyone is falling back to their old games and priorities...such as fighting over exactly how high the minimum wage should be. Meanwhile, the multiethnic coalition (i.e. Democrats) is toying with increasingly authoritarian measures itself, such as expanding surveillance and soft censorship (via social media platforms). Regardless of whether the ethno-nationalists or the multiethnic capitalists come out on top, I think we're in a 'revolutionary' period in our society where norms and institutions will rapidly change.

I don't see libertarian socialism having much of a place in the debate right now, nor having much relevance to the big picture strategies of the moment -- except perhaps as a response to ethno-nationalists getting the upper hand.

What are some contemporary resistance movements?

Hi all -- I need to crowd-source some information. In honor of Trump's possible coronation, I want to bring attention to current resistance movements around the world. But first, I need to get a list together. Nominate whomever you'd like, but they are most interesting to me if they are civilian led, popular enough and dedicated enough to have a realistic chance of toppling an oppressive regime. I'm not too interested in  counter-culture movements that fashion themselves as resistance, or militant groups that have been pushed to the margins of their society over the course of years.

Heres' what I can think of:

• Zimbabwe. "This Flag"
• Venezuela. The opposition... (with some in their Congress)

Recent past:

• Color revolutions (e.g. Ukraine). Russian liberals.
• Arab spring
• Umbrellas in Hong Kong
• Turkey's civil resistance (could use the anti-PDK or pro-PDK movements, though pro-PDK resisted the establishmet of a new oppressor) 
• Anti-Apartheid

I'm sure I'm missing something...

When currencies collapse (conflicted feelings)

Steve Hanke has charted the collapse of the Iranian rial:

I have conflicted feelings about this:

1) Sadness: this must be causing great hardship for the Iranian people
2) Comfort: this must be weakening the regime, particularly their ability to buy foreign weapons.
3) Discomfort: this collapse (following an embargo) was orchestrated by a regime with a history of dominating and exploiting foreign countries. In some sense, this is just another battle in the wars among various ruling classes.
4) Satisfaction: while any community would suffer from economic isolation, I think that the Iranian state has largely brought this on themselves, and this type of collapse is essentially inevitable. Better to get it done sooner than  later (assuming that the regime is replaced with a more humane one). The Iranian state has suppressed the creativity and initiative of the Iranian people, and their economy consequently is weak. This "black-market" deviation from state-sanctioned exchange rates indicates that the Iranian state is being sidelined within the Iranian  economy. Every black-market exchange is a tiny revolution (a la Agorism).


tip Marginal Revolution

"See the violence inherent in the system"

Previously, I described how some of the Occupy tactics were inherently radical and were an open challenge to the authority of the established system of power (i.e. law enforcement). In such a situation, the protesters should expect a forceful response. However, that does not mean that I believe that they deserved what they got. A humane (and self-confident) system should not resort to such violence in order to enforce its laws on non-violent resisters.

One of the main distinctions that I made was between breaking the law and obstructing law-enforcement. Law breaking is not radical, especially if the law-breakers passively accept being arrested; obstructing law-enforcement is radical. While I think that the Nov 9 protests at UC Berkeley fall into the later category, the Nov 18 protests at UC Davis seem to be a simple act of law-breaking, yet it was met with a similar level of violence (update below). Here's the video:



Given the brutal responses to these Occupy Cal protests, and other Occupy protests around the country, the public mood is starting to change (at least, mine is). William Lind provides an interesting comment on the tactical achievements of these protests. James Fallows offers some well-worded comments from the mainstream liberal perspective.

this is what happens when authority is unaccountable and has lost any sense of human connection to a subject population... And by the way, when did we accept the idea that local police forces would always dress up in riot gear that used to be associated with storm troopers and dystopian sci-fi movies?

Now brutal police tactics are becoming the issue. Public outrage over police behavior can move in two directions -- reform or revolution. Of course, reform is what mainstream liberals (and probably most of the student protestors) are hoping for; they want a system that is basically like today's, but a little more sensitive to people's rights and needs. The alternative is a radical restructuring of our social relations, which is probably the desired outcome for some of the protesters. The non-violent protests of Nov 9 were bound to provoke some sort of forceful response -- yet they were still not violent. They force observers to ask themselves whether "the system" is worth this sort of violence. My preferred outcome is a little of each -- that we strongly question the law enforcement mandates (such as drug prohibition) that have enlarged our police forces and created constant conflict between law enforcement and much of the public (a hope echoed by E.D. Kain)

It all brings to mind a scene the comic/satirical classic, Monty Python and the Holy Grail -- when some peasants refuse to recognize the authority King Aurthur and are subsequently manhandled into submission:



Come, see the violence inherent in the system.

Update: I found another video of the UC Davis event that shows a broader perspective, and it looks like the line of students were blocking the cops who were trying to leave with a protestor who they had arrested. So these students were obstructing law-enforcement.




Update 2: This 3-part video shows the whole confrontation. In part 2, around 6 minutes, you can see the crowd encircling the cops yelling "set them free" after which a "mic check" is held and someone announces that they cops will be allowed to leave only if they release the people who they had arrested (for setting up camps, or something).

The new economic power

Even when I'm trying to focus on my job, I get drawn into thinking about social activism. My most recent distraction comes from two articles by Pieter Hintjens. The main essay is called "A User's Guide to the Digital Revolution", the introduction to a book called Software and Silicon. Hintjens presents recent economic developments as a "digital revolution" on par with the "industrial revolution" of the early 19th century, and predicts similarly radical changes in social organization and political power. In a slapdash theory of class struggle, he makes analogies between then and now:

The new social concentrations of 19th century cities allowed an entrepreneurial middle class to emerge, and quite rapidly their economic power turned into political power, and in 1848 there was political revolution across Europe and the establishment of parliamentary democracy in many countries. Political change follows economic change, which follows social change.

Hintjens posits that the "old money" ruling class attempts to constrain the rising power of the "new money" entrepreneurial class with laws such as the Corn Laws of 19th century Britain, or the Intellectual Property laws of today's global system.

This narrative is all well and good (though it seems simplistic relative to the theories described in my current nightstand-book: a biography of Friedrich Engles), but it got me thinking about how the economic power of the "new money" differs from the "old money" in such a way that it demands radical change to the political system. Today, it seems that new money merges seamlessly into the old money; software entrepreneurs sell their start-ups or they draw salaries and dividends, which they then deposit in banks or stock-market investment funds -- just like everyone else with money. This is not anything like the difference between the landed aristocracy and the industrial bourgeoisie in the 19th century.

For there to be a true conflict between a rising economic class and the establishment, the new power has to be fundamentally different and incompatible with the old power. The aristocratic and bourgeoisie power structures were ideologically incompatible, and functionally non-convertible (though some industrialists were granted titles of nobility). I have to look hard -- and squint -- to see that sort of conflict in existing classes.

Hintjens provides a hint of this new form of power in another essay, called Testing Considered Evil. While this is superficially a technical essay about software design methodology, it is actually part of a manifesto about economic organization and how to motivate workers. Here is where we begin to see a radical form of economic power; Hintjens is focusing on how to get programmers involved (and obsessed) with Open Source Software development. This is economic activity that falls outside of the established channels -- it doesn't generate cash revenues, or any sort of property that can be owned by a corporation. The only economic asset gained by the entrepreneur is organizational: a network of motivated programmers, and a reputation that enables the entrepreneur to call on their services.

When this form of economic organization is viewed alongside the efforts of people such as the "Occupy Wall Street" crowd, I can imagine that something big is happening, and that tomorrow's power will not look like yesterday's.

Easy but important reading: "Founding Myths" by Ray Raphael

Founding Myths: Stories That Hide Our Patriotic Past by Ray Raphael.

Who was Sam Adams? According to Ray Raphael, "Sam" Adams is only a myth, loosely based on a man named Samuel Adams who was one of many activists involved in organizing resistance to British rule in Boston. Raphael traces the development of this myth, including the origins of the name "Sam", and how Adams came to be credited with masterminding the resistance to British rule. Throughout, he evaluates the ideological basis of the myth, and how it contrasts with the reality of Massachusetts politics at the time.

I recommend this book to anyone interested in American history, the American Revolution, or political revolutions in general. The book is interesting for a couple of reasons, yet still an easier read than most history books. Raphael revisits several familiar stories from the American Revolution, but uniquely emphasizes the role of "regular people", which is often overlooked in mainstream histories that focus on the men who held high offices in the government. Aside from providing a different perspective on the Revolution, Raphael uses these stories as case studies to illustrate how history is written -- or perhaps, how myths are made. For each of these stories, Raphael starts off by describing the oft-repeated myth, and then describing how it is wrong, why he believes that it is wrong, and how other historians got it wrong in the first place.

While the scholarship is impressive, this is not a dry academic work; as the subtitle makes clear, Raphael has an ideological agenda. He clearly states that he is interested in emphasizing the hyper-democracy of the revolutionary era, and tearing down the elitist stories concocted by later writers. While I happen to sympathize with his ideological aims, I often feel that his ideological assertions are heavy handed and that he is being unfair to the people that he disagrees with. While this could get irritating, I don't think that it detracts from the serious scholarship.

Despite being a serious book, it is still easy to read. In part this is due to Raphael's writing style, but moreso to the structure of the book. Each chapter discusses a different "myth", so it is easy to put it down for a week, and then resume with the next chapter. Also, most Americans are familiar with the basic stories, and should not have any trouble remembering the context for the issues being discussed.

My only qualification to recommending this book is that this is not an introduction to American history or the Revolutionary war. It assumes that the reader is familiar with the basic geography and politics of the Revolutionary era.