>mbs: if it isn't obvious, the question is how to encourage
>them to question and reject the status quo.
Yes, that question is obvious, but how do you get people to do that while the status quo gives them so (relatively) much (here I'm roughly following a good basic observation Brad deLong mentions in his essays about the benefits of capitalism)? They're being asked for so much with no assurances from the Left. I doubt most people would listen except in a time of crises (and even then it's an open question as to what they would throw their weight behind). Slowly, yes, I could see more people coming around to our way of thinking over a LONG time (but how much of "our way of thinking"?), especially if capital starts putting the screws to them and we keep educating/talking.
>mbs: from what I could see, the people minus the rock-
>throwers were planning exactly the right things. Marches
>for those who wanted to march, non-violent CD aimed at
>shutting down the summit for those willing to do that.
All that's fine, but what gets done by marching and demonstrating that you're not happy with the status quo? So far as I can tell, it gets placed in a neat box labelled "Unhappy People" and ignored (in Ontario, Mike Harris, the premier, labelled these sorts of actions as belonging to "special interest groups" (sic) and therefore not worthy of the government's agenda.
>mbs: I would differ. I think for most people life is
>an endless hassle, and a serious, honest person with
>solutions to common, important problems can get a hearing.
>Of course, other people get hearings too.
Yep, those other people usually have bigger megaphones and are usually related to the person in charge handing them out.
Wojtek said:
>Yep. I cannot think of a single historical instance of a government, let
>alone an economic system, being abolished by a protest / revolution from
>below. Governments are toppled by other governments, while protesters
>/revolutionaries, like hyenas, move in only after the lions did the
>killing. Only in romantic mythologies a la Star Wars, the Trots, or the
>militias - a bunch of hicks with sticks and guns can defeat the Evil
Empire.
>I also think that you are right on the target when you say that what
>average folk really want is a peaceful life without being harassed by
>anyone else.
>That leads to a logical conclusion that a real political change is possible
>only through the existing political institutions (such as social democrats
>in Europe or democratic party in the US for the lack of a better
>alternative) - with one important exception: at strategic junctures,
>radical protesters serve as a stick making the social democrats a more
>attractive partner for the powers that be.
Oy Gevalt! Don't lump revolutions and protests together! They're not at all the same thing! As for the harassment stuff, yes, the problem is that the really powerful people want the same thing (heh, I recall Hayek saying something like the European Middle Ages was the most time when freedom was at it's utmost in Europe; it was also the time of the most disorganized brutality). That's part of the problem: lack of a better alternative and too much opportunism. And to make matters worse, the political and economic systems run at vastly different speeds.
Gordon said:
>If what I've read about the Russian Empire just before the
>revolutions of 1917 is correct, then at least one was
>toppled pretty much by itself.
That's another part of the problem: capitalism as it is now, is really too well entrenched to dig up and destroy tout coup. After all, it took several centuries for feudal relations to disappear, by and large. What with capitalisms characteristics, it might hang around a longer while yet. I doubt we've seen the worst of it. We'll probably have to wait for it to start really putting the screws to most of the Joe/Jane Averages out there before anything meaningful can get done.
>What about the replacement of whole cultural
>systems, as with the success of Christianity and of capitalism?
>These did not take place as coups d'état; the coups, revolutions
>and wars occurred after they had pretty much succeeded on lower
>social levels.
These succeeded because, I suspect (among other reasons), they made the powerful more powerful and allowed some others to take a place on the heights. Capitalism requires a proletariat to work; you might get rich proles, but they're still proles (same went for peasants and burghers in the Euro Middle Ages).
Forgive if I seem too cynical, but I just can't see a way clear for the moment. Occasional glimmers of light, maybe, but not a clear way yet. The darkness has to break up on it's own too.
Todd