A lovely reactionary commonplace. A.O. Hirschmann has a nice little book tracing it back quite a ways, to the reactionary opposition to the French and American revolutions, which didn't turn out that way either. Now, I'm not advocating taking up arms against the empire, but not because it would like to fascism or totalitarianism if we did it, but because it would be suicide, unbelievably stupid, and really counterproductive.
"Radical upheavals," however, are not the same as armed insurrection. It would be a radical upheaval to take the power and wealth away from the ruling class and vest in the dsmocratic control of the workers, however we did it. Moreover, doiung it will require a lot of unconventioanl politics, rather than straight electoral campaigning, because there is no party that would advocate that, and even creating such a party would involve a radical upheaval.
Do I think it is worth it -- worth the risk that we might end up with fascism or Stalinism or the equivalent? I do -- if only becausea blind person can see (forgive me, Marta) that we are heading to repression and ruin already. We are not ins a situation where there is a stable liberal democarcy with a welfare state maintaining the least well off. In America, we havea savage neoliberal regimes with authoritarian ambitions that has alreadya sserted its willingness (if not shown its ability) to rule the world by force. Rejecting radical upheaval means assenting to that. It may happena nyway, but not with my cooperation!
For radical upheaval,
jks
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