>I fail to see the difference between "they don't have a reason to revolt" and "loss of revolutionary potential". People, according to Marcuse, are more readil

>I fail to see the difference between "they don't have a reason to revolt" and "loss of revolutionary potential". People, according to Marcuse, are more readily able to see the problems of the system when they are on the outside and the margins, and being on the outside usually entailed a lower standard of living, low wages, and soul-crushing work. Marcuse thought that there are serious problems with capitalism, ones which may be reason for revolt, but increasing material security and integration into the system in which the worker becomes part of the machinery of the establishment (sometimes quite literally in lock-step with the machines or even a particular brand of machine) leads to this conversation not arising. He argued that contra Orwell in which "war is peace, peace is war", the contradiction is hidden in the noun itself by unintentional ideological forces. This precludes even most conversations about freedom, never mind critique. The point is that people should have revolutinary potential even if they deliberate and decide not to revolt. I should have the potential to read a book, even if upon reflection and consideration using that potential I decide to watch a movie instead. He argued that the modern system and the state, with its educational system, dull critical thinking or fail to nurture it in the first place. People have fewer options, including the option to revolt. In Repressive Tolerance he argued that because these potentials and critical abilities have been dulled, core democratic functions of deliberation cannot meaningfully be carried out any more. The point probably also applies to, say, the Soviet system, its integration of the people into its state machinery, its totalizing ideology, and its propaganda which precludes informed deliberation among the majority of people.