Unfortunately, the argument that misery provokes revolt does not seem to be very well supported by the empirical evidence. Certainly misery does not provoke revolt typically or in any straightforward mechanical fashion. Most of humankind has been miserable for most of its existence in civilization, but revolts are uncommon. One thesis, I don't know how it is regarded by contemporary scholarship, is that revolts tends to accompany "rising expectation," they occur when the badly off see a prospect for improvement that is coming, but not fast enough.
Other conditions: organization, political leadership, a sense of injustice and having been wronged, a vision of better alternative, a political tradition of resistance, living memory of success or some positive value to the struggle, resources necessary for efficacy, are unsurprisingly also involved. Otherwise Dostoevsky's remark that "Man is the animal that can get used to anything" seems to apply all too well.
Moreover, with capitalist misery,there is a further problem, because capitalism undermines a lot of the conditions for revolt against misery by promoting individualism, dividing the oppressed, appearing to operate automatically (thereby undermining the sense of injustice), and so forth. That is not to say that revolt is impossible, but that mere capitalist misery is not sufficient for it.
--- Charles Brown <charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> wrote:
>
>
> Charles Brown wrote:
>
>
> >I don't think the FROP says the profit rate will
> necessarily drop in
> >the long run. The countervailing tendencies Marx
> notes and other
> >factors, including growing bourgeois economists'
> scientific
> >sophistication way beyond that of Marx's day, can
> fully counter the
> >tendency of profit to fall. By now the bourgeoisie
> ,their economists
> ,
> >government officials and bankers are past masters
> at making
> >countervailing tendencies to predominate.
> >
> >Nor that Marx indicates that it is a FROP crisis
> that is the big
> thing
> >in initiating "the final conflict". As you say, a
> business cycle
> crisis
> >can result in fascism as well as socialism.
> >
> >
> >
>
> Seth:
>
> If the FROP can be permanently counterbalanced by
> countervaling
> tendencies, then it changes into a mere Tendency of
> the Rate of Profit
>
> to Fall During Recessions and Then Rise Again During
> Recoveries (or Law
> of TRPFDRTRADR). No bourgeois economist would
> disagree with that. It's
> called the business cycle.
>
> ^^^^
> CB: That's correct. In Vol. III he terms it "the law
> of the tendency of
> the rate of profit to fall". It is part of Marx's
> explanation of the
> business cycle. He also says ultimately, crises are
> caused by the total
> demand of society is not sufficient to buy all that
> is produced. This
> follows directly from the fact that workers are not
> paid enough to buy
> all that they produce. Bourgeois economists would
> disagree that surplus
> value and profit are exploited from the
> wage-laborers , however.
>
> ^^^^^^^
>
> And Marx did indicate that the FROP would lead to a
> final crisis, in
> the
> Grundrisse. He may have softened or blurred that
> conclusion in his
> published writings, but his private thoughts somehow
> shone through
> clearly enough that millions of people managed to
> get the impression
> that a FROP would end capitalism.
>
> Seth
>
> ^^^^
> CB: If only there were and are millions who even
> know about FROP.
> (smile). Even most Party members probably don't read
> Vol. III.
>
> Anyway, I agree that millions have the impression
> that Marx wrote that
> it is a business cycle crisis that will precipitate
> the insurrections
> that lead to the end of capitalism. And I think
> Marx may purposely give
> something of that impression, but I don't think that
> is his thesis when
> one examines all he, Engels and Lenin say. It's not
> so much the cyclical
> downturns, but the permanent mass impoverishment,
> wars , etc. The
> downturns are particularly aggravated points that
> might be sort of a
> last straw in a mass state of mind that is fed up in
> the long run, over
> whole lifetimes of masses of workers and poor.
>
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>
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