[lbo-talk] USA and protests -or lack thereof-

[Eric Beck]

On Sat, Mar 14, 2009 at 5:21 AM, Jim Farmelant <farmelantj at juno.com> wrote:
> Alexis de Tocqueville in his book, *The Ancien Régime and the
> Revolution*,
> emphasized the role that increasing prosperity played in generating
> resistance by increasing people's expectations of future improvements.
> It's when these expectations turn out not to be met that people will
> then rebel.  So misery by itself tends not to generate rebellion.  In
> fact it usually breeds passivity.

Why would ever want to prescribe the conditions necessary for change
and "revolution"? This is where Leninist (the ripening of conditions)
and social democratic (the technocratic achievement of equality)
politics march in step with classic liberalism: the (economic) base
determines the (political) superstructure.

I'm generally pretty critical of cult-stud/Negrian theses that
resistance is everywhere, but subscribing to this list almost makes me
want to convert. Reading the (mostly middle-aged white) guys here,
you'd never know that people collaboratively dig tunnels to cross
borders or that Pakistani health care and sex workers form their own
unions or that people engage in informal mutual aid every day. No, the
revolutionary politics (which had a pretty strong Oedipal component)
they grew up with don't exist anymore so they assume politics don't
exist anymore. Fortunately, most people don't care what progressive
mailing lists have to say.