What Makes Revolution Happen?
The criminal behavior of the U.S. government in its attack on our ability to feed, house and educate our families and on the environment; the failure to bring ICE murderers to justice; the arming of Israel to conduct genocide; the gratuitous war on Iran…cry out for fundamental change to our system of government. How can we possibly correct so many terrible wrongs except through fundamental change? “Revolution” is the word most often used. It is the right word.
What is a revolution? A revolution is a “changing of the guard,” the seizure of state power by a new ruling class when the old ruling class can no longer rule in the same way. This can only happen when a society’s technological capacity leaps forward, overpowering the existing technological framework. The last period of revolutionary change was the industrial revolution when an industrial and commercial capitalist class overthrew the agrarian aristocracies.
We are entering a period of revolutionary change. The industrial system is being overthrown by more productive computer technology that includes artificial intelligence (AI). These new methods of production do not require a large working class, only a few workers to oversee and update production. We, the working class, the 99% who must work to survive, are being thrown out of the workplace. We face starvation and want while the capitalist class, the 1% owners of AI and the economy, are protected by the government. To survive, we must organize to seize state power from the 1 % owners.
Revolutionaries do not start revolutions. Today, our society is organized as a “Capitalist Democracy” set up to protect private property and ensure that the rich get richer. The American people understand this and are fighting back – No Kings Day, ICE Out, No Data Centers, No Mass Detentions Warehouses, Stop Police Terror, End the Genocide in Gaza, Stop the War against Iran. We did not plan to fight, most people do not want to fight, but we must fight for our future. This is the OBJECTIVE SIDE of a revolution and it is laying the basis for what will come.
What do revolutionaries do? Revolutionaries are the thinkers. The people who work to guarantee success by helping the working class understand the big picture. The people who use an understanding of the long flow of history to show that we cannot go back, we cannot reform the Capitalist system, we must change it. They are thinkers, writers, educators, communicators and artists who help people understand how to do the right thing today and why it must be done. This is the SUBJECTIVE SIDE of a revolution.
The revolutionary movement can never be just a movement of people who want to fight. The revolutionary movement has to be a movement of people who think. Thinking is a lot harder than fighting so people fight rather than think.1(Nelson Perry)
The seizure of state power by the working class will free humanity from the shackles of war, fascism and poverty. A new world of peace and justice beckons humankind.
Footnote
- Daymonjhartley.com
