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The population might not be happy, but they don't have the means to change it. Revolutions don't happen when people are mad, they happen when the ones who can a

The population might not be happy, but they don't have the means to change it. Revolutions don't happen when people are mad, they happen when the ones who can afford armies and equipment sense the possibility of coming out on top. 250 years ago George Washington could have financed the entire Revolutionary War out of his own pocket and he still would have retained two thirds of his wealth. Instead he put the losses on top of the public debt, became the leader of the new nation and enjoyed no longer having to pay taxes to the British for the economic output of his slaves. Today we can see the same thing happening again with different rich guys' names. But the poor will not benefit this time either. When things get bad for average people, it's just an opportunity for other rich guys to take the reigns.

ty6853 2y ago
And now we're paying 10x the fraction of our gdp as the early non war days. The feds are bleeding us dry to line they and their corrupt friends pockets and their public debt.
- BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
  If we got rid of the federal government, and things didn’t break put into war or anything, would the issue be solved?
  - ty6853 2y ago
    No nothing will 'solve' it, but it may attenuate it in some states. Although moving from size in early days to zero is your own strawman.
    - BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
      I guess my issue is more that I feel like you’re looking in the wrong direction here. Imo the government’s behavior, which I don’t think is quite as egregious as you’re making it out to be, is primarily downstream from other things (notably the interests of money). I asked that question because I don’t think that getting rid of the federal government would help people very much at all.
- scarface_74 2y ago
  A quick Google search shows the median income tax as percentage of income is around 15%
  - ty6853 2y ago
    Federal income tax was zero most of the time before 1913.
    - scarface_74 2y ago
      15% is a far cry from “bleeding us dry”.
      - ty6853 2y ago
        Federal gov spends about 24% of GDP. Meanwhile HN is constantly reminding us landlords are bleeding us dry at closer to 30% of income. Pre WW1 peacetime federal spending would be a godsend for working families.
wqaatwt 2y ago
> 250 years ago George Washington His wealth was mainly in very illiquid land. A lot of it was near worthless unless US won the war since it was beyond the line drawn by the Royal Proclamation of 1763 and white settlers were generally banned from settling there. Otherwise like many landholders back in the day he was semi-broke and had limited access to cash. Of course after the war of course he was both compensated for his expenses and got “his” land in Ohio (more or less)
- sigmoid10 2y ago
  Well, most of Elon Musks assets today are also not cash and highly dependent on the federal government going his way on key issues. He's certainly not dumb doing what he does if his goal is to get richer and more powerful. But unlike 200 years ago, we can watch live how that stuff plays out.
  - wqaatwt 2y ago
    > certainly not dumb Perhaps but IMHO it’s a very high risk strategy and I doubt it’s necessarily optimal if more wealth is his primary goal (as opposed to his other seemingly highly megalomaniacal ambitions..) So far his actions haven’t really been that beneficial for Tesla (of course its sales growth might have significantly slowed down even if he stayed out of politics). SpaceX can only make that much even if it gets to appropriate the entire budget of NASA. Also at the end of the day his and Trump’s relationship might fall apart any day.
    - hnfong 2y ago
      Any risk Elon's taking is peanuts compared with George Washington taking on the world's leading colonial power...
      - wqaatwt 2y ago
        I wouldn’t necessarily go as far as directly comparing Musk and George Washington. But I suppose there are some parallels [if we take the more cynical] perspective. Both were willing to take on significant risk to upend the established socio-economic order primarily for the benefit of their respective social classes (wealthy landholders and tech-oligarchs). But yes, confiscation of all his property and even the gallows (fortunately or unfortunately for everyone else) is not a risk Musk is facing yet.
timewizard 2y ago
> no longer having to pay taxes to the British for the economic output of his slaves. This suggests that taxing the slaves would have better helped the poor. Was it helping them before the war? Were the poor suddenly worse off because of the revolution? > it's just an opportunity for other rich guys to take the reigns. Do George Washington's heirs control a significant portion of today's wealth?
- BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
  The heir question is goalpost moving; it has no bearing. Whether things may get better for the poor or may not isn’t so much the point as I see it. The observation here is that the poor, and their anger, become pawns for the games of elites. Sometimes those games benefit them where an elite acts as a benevolent avatar of their anger, but this is usually a transient faux-alliance because the elite calls the shots and has no genuine interest in a positive outcome for the poor they claim to represent.
wesapien 2y ago
Laborer coordination and workforce strikes.
- briandear 2y ago
  How very Marxist. How have those Marxist governments fared in the past?
  - tankenmate 2y ago
    Unions have done more to increase the wages of the working class than tax cuts for the rich have ever done. If you want to live in a country with rampant poverty, homelessness, crime, etc then go to a country with low or no income tax. If you're not a lord in a feudal society then you're a serf.
  - FranzFerdiNaN 2y ago
    Marxism is when people stand up for their rights I guess?
    - vixen99 2y ago
      There are zero rights without obligations. Why do we never hear about the latter? To read about people standing up for their rights in a Marxist State read Robert Conquest's 570 pages of 'The Great Terror' - an account of the crimes committed against humanity in the name of the Soviet Communism that emerged from the 1917 revolution. 'We'll do it differently' is the usual response. Sadly this always leaves out appreciation of the human factor whereby charismatic leaders arise and are convinced they know the truth and the way. Before considering a revolution, ensure there's a solution for this human problem of leaders who lead the masses (they regard the latter as such) down a path that in retrospect is seen to be a disaster. Pol Pot, The Great Leap Forward, the Iranian Revolution. We need to sit down and think about this before taking to the streets. How about evolution rather than 'eggs in one basket' revolution?
      - pjc50 2y ago
briandear 2y ago
> Instead he put the losses on top of the public debt, became the leader of the new nation and enjoyed no longer having to pay taxes to the British for the economic output of his slaves. That’s a rather skewed take. You might see what Washington himself said about becoming that leader. https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/spotlight-primary-source/george-washingtons-reluctance-become-president-1789 https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/spotlight-pr... George Washington wasn’t a signer of the Declaration of Independence either, so this idea that he concocted the revolution for personal gain is silly. He was appointed to lead the Continental Army by John Adams because of Washington’s military experience and his being from Virginia which was an asset in unifying the colonies.
ThinkBeat 2y ago
Revolutions can happen if enough people show up. Massive amounts of people are difficult to deal with. Smaller groups you can outright kill in daylight, but better to get to them first to torture and kill them out of sight. Once you need to kill 500.000 who are protesting and if violence to quell the hoards wakes up more people who want to see the regime fail.
- sigmoid10 2y ago
  Belarus had 500.000 people show up. But they got beat down. Hong Kong had millions of people show up. But it just led to massive crackdowns. Numbers mean nothing when the guys who own the guns are not on your side.
  - matwood 2y ago
    > Numbers mean nothing when the guys who own the guns are not on your side. Not saying it will turn out differently, but there are more guns circulating in the US than there are people. Nearly everyone has or can easily get access to a gun. US culture is also quite a bit different, celebrating violence, don't tread on me, etc... Again, it might not make a difference, but I'm not sure those other situations are comparable. Something else to note is that military officers swear an oath the constitution, not POTUS (like enlisted do). Asking someone to order or to shoot fellow Americans, particularly if unarmed, would definitely be a test. If something like that did happen, we would be entering a second civil war.
    - sigmoid10 2y ago
      If it actually does come to a new civil war, my money is still on whoever owns most of the military. Small arms are nice and well, but they don't help you a lot when the other guy has got APCs and tanks.
      - matwood 2y ago
        I think it would be an open question as to which side ends up owning most of the military. Bases are all over the US along with national guard. The people in the military are also a pretty diverse group. In a civil war situation I don’t think it would be an automatic siding with DC.
WastedCucumber 2y ago
I think that's a very narrow and largely inaccurate view of revolutions. A lot of revolutions were carried out by people with very little resources - Mao led his army from under-developed hills, the October Revolution didn't have much of an industrial base either, nor did the left in the Spanish civil war (although the military eventually won, but hey, they had a fighting chance). And aside from that, many revolutions happen relatively peacefully. For example Chile or South Africa. Although the latter case did have some violence and property destruction. And aside from that, guns in the USA (assuming we're talking about this and not Europe) are cheap and plentiful. And a large, determined, but poorly-armed opposition has often beaten the smaller, well-armed forces of decadent states in the past. Let's hope it doesn't come to that though - even a peaceful movement can succeed if it's widespread.
- p3rls 2y ago
  For me it alternates between mind-numbing and mind-blowing the models of political violence people hold. It's one of the refreshing things about the crazy rightoids of late, how they emphasize how their larp revolution will cash out and retire enemies of the state. But here on HN we get ESL-Occupy Wallstreet jeremiads that'd make Sorel blush.
- eszed 2y ago
  Historical nitpick: the Spanish civil war kicked off when the right - most of(police + military + church + rich people) - rebelled against a constitutional republican government. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader whether that best fits their definition of a "revolution".
- adrian_b 2y ago
  Revolutions happen relatively peacefully only when a significant part of the armed forces changes sides or at least refuses to execute orders. With the transition from conscripted militaries to autonomous robotic weapons, there will be no more humans refusing to execute orders and no more traitors. A future revolution will succeed only against a grossly incompetent government.
  - 2y ago
beardyw 2y ago
I think Russia in 1917 is a more recent and valid parallel. But it takes hunger rather than disapproval to fuel such a revolution.
- sigmoid10 2y ago
  It's actually pretty similar when you get to the bottom of it. Lenin was a member of the nobility during the Tsar rule. He saw his oppurtunity when Russian leadership was weakened after the first World War (similar to how the British were weakened after the Seven Years' War) and took it. The biggest difference is that he had unsuccessfully tried before and was orchestrating the whole thing from his exile base in Switzerland. Hunger was just a useful tool to overthrow the government more easily. If hunger alone was enough, Mao would have gotten his ass kicked harder and faster than anyone else in history. But in the end hungry people don't make good soldiers and only soldiers can bring drastic change in governance.
  - dttze 2y ago
    > Lenin was a member of the nobility during the Tsar rule. This is not true at all. Where is your source for this claim?
    - beardyw 2y ago
      His father was a school inspector and was promoted to a rank equivalent to a mayor. Not nobility as you or I might imagine it.
    - sigmoid10 2y ago
      Paragraph about his father from wikipedia: >he was promoted to Director of Public Schools for the province, overseeing the foundation of over 450 schools as a part of the government's plans for modernisation. In January 1882, his dedication to education earned him the Order of Saint Vladimir, which bestowed on him the status of hereditary nobleman.
rho4 2y ago
Thank you for this take, which I haven't seen before. I believe it will help me deal with the current doomsday news (and be more stoic in general).
tim333 2y ago
>they don't have the means to change it. They could vote for lefties like Corbyn or Bernie but they don't because things aren't that bad.
potato3732842 2y ago
>George Washington... Literally all the founding fathers stood to be wealthier by getting the colonies to work with Britain than against it. Like, this is basic fucking math. Dragging armies across the economy you do business in with the end result being you are on your own and can no longer rely on the dominant economic power for protection and trade agreements and whatnot is not how you get fabulously rich if you are already starting from "not peasant". If you want to look at them through an economic lens the right one to choose is "the founding fathers were rich enough that they knew that even if revolution was bad on a macro level they'd still be filthy rich and wouldn't starve" >But the poor will not benefit this time either. When things get bad for average people, it's just an opportunity for other rich guys to take the reigns. I think you need to look at more revolutions. What tends to happen is a shuffling of the people who are already on top and the "HN class" of high end professionals, academics, media personalities, business leaders and other "peasants who are critical to the system" wind up in the gulags or losing their heads because the "fungible peasants" are pissed off at them for really squeezing out every penny until the system collapsed.
serallak 2y ago
> George Washington could have financed the entire Revolutionary War out of his own pocket and he still would have retained two thirds of his wealth Is that true ? As far as I am aware, the money the French Government alone loaned to the US during the revolutionary war (at least two million dollars[0]) far exceeded the value of Washington personal wealth (estimated at $780,000 in 1799 [1], so at the time of his death, not during the war). And this is not counting all the loans made from other foreign sources (the Spanish Government and private Dutch investors), and the money raised directly by the Continental Congress. Also, as others have said, it would have been almost impossible to liquidate his assets (his lands and his slaves) during the war - the problem was availability of cash, not wealth. [0] https://history.state.gov/milestones/1784-1800/loans https://history.state.gov/milestones/1784-1800/loans [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finances_of_George_Washington#Economic_interactions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finances_of_George_Washington#...
- sigmoid10 2y ago
  Your source says that it depends on how you look at it. See the similar discussion regarding Iraq war spending in the other comments. But it is also totally irrelevant, because the point is that Washington was one of the richest people in America before the war started and even richer when he died. There is no doubt about that.
  - serallak 2y ago
    I'm not doubting that Washington was very very rich. I'm doubting the different and very specific claim that "George Washington could have financed the entire Revolutionary War" with just a third of his wealth. To me, the math simply does not add up. I suppose it can be chalked up to hyperbole ? I also don't see how a discussion of the Iraq war could be relevant to that claim ...
    - sigmoid10 2y ago
      War financing is incredibly complex and even more so when your only source is some paper notes from several hundred years ago. Whether you believe that or not basically boils down to how you want to see it. Would you for example say that George Washington would have owned more than 30,000 slaves in today's world? A straightforward extrapolation of the population size might suggest so. But then again that is also grossly overlooking many other aspects. So you would also be right to doubt it. Either way, you would still be missing the point of the discussion.
mihaic 2y ago
I can see almost the same argument being made in 1780 in a French salon, after the cost of fielding armies had exploded in the seven year war.
- sigmoid10 2y ago
  Because it's literally the same basic concept. The fall of the French monarchy and the eventual rise of Napoleon followed the exact same principles: Rich people born into nobility using their military influence and public dissent to overthrow a government and establish themselves as new rulers. The biggest difference here is that Napoleon came from a more modest form of nobility by comparison and was an actual military genius who rose from a low-end officer all the way to the top because of his skills on the battlefield (at least until his success went to his head and he crowned himself emperor). But he wouldn't have gotten anywhere without his soldiers.
  - mihaic 2y ago
    > Rich people born into nobility using their military influence and public dissent to overthrow a government and establish themselves as new rulers. Just to be clear, are you saying that the French Revolution was done by the rich born into nobility (even if minor)? Even if the rich still had an advantage during the entire turmoil, I think it's hard to argue that for the decades after 1790 that there wasn't a huge boost to social mobility.
eric_cc 2y ago
Washington did not have anywhere near the financial resources to fund the Revolutionary War, and the war was financed mainly through debt, foreign aid, and state contributions. While he did benefit from independence in some ways, he did not orchestrate it as a means to avoid taxes or personally enrich himself.
dumbledoren 2y ago
> 250 years ago George Washington could have financed the entire Revolutionary War That was a rebellion, not a revolution. The colonial elite broke away from the mother country. They sculpted the eventual legal and political structure to protect their power and privilege without having to pay taxes. If you're looking for a revolution, better look at the French Revolution or the October Revolution.
- johnthewise 2y ago
  The October Revolution wasn’t a popular uprising but a surgical strike by a minority faction. just after the take over, SRs were more popular but bolsheviks crushed them fast without much resistance. so it wasn't about what people wanted but what a determined minority could pull off.
  - dumbledoren 2y ago
    > The October Revolution wasn’t a popular uprising but a surgical strike by a minority faction And with that argument, you reduce every.single.revolution to a 'surgical strike by a minority faction'. The French Revolution becomes a surgical strike of a few enlightened bourgeois in Paris. The American Rebellion becomes the rebellion of a very small clique of rich colonial landowners. No revolution would be an exception. Every single revolution happens through a vanguard party pushing it forward - that's what the Bolsheviks got right. > it wasn't about what people wanted It wasn't what the better-off bourgeois and their dependents in Moscow, St. Petersburg and other regions wanted. It was apparently what the people wanted, because the resulting, foreign-aided civil war was won by the power of those people. No revolution can win a civil war without popular support.
dennis_jeeves2 2y ago
>Revolutions don't happen when people are mad, they happen when the ones who can afford armies and equipment sense the possibility of coming out on top. I agree. Too often 'revolutions' are framed as though common people were responsible for it - because it appeals to the modern day 'peasants' ( the 'middle' class and below) ideas of a 'fair' society. They are just pawns in a larger game and they are oblivious to it.
mmooss 2y ago
Where does all that come from? Democratic revolutions have happened all over the world. > 250 years ago George Washington could have financed the entire Revolutionary War Could you provide some support for this claim?
cykros 2y ago
Cryptography, as the state department used to understand, is a munition (but of course, thank God for the First and Second Amendment). Cryptography based peer to peer currency that can replace a debt based system of inflation that provides an unfair advantage to the first spender of the new money is a particularly powerful munition in addressing this issue. At least Bukele seems to get this. As does the IMF, as evidenced by their panicked attempt to shut him down. No rush in any case though; the people who understand Bitcoin the best are those that need to, and rapid adoption is just a stressor on those building out the rails.

ty6853 2y ago

And now we're paying 10x the fraction of our gdp as the early non war days. The feds are bleeding us dry to line they and their corrupt friends pockets and their public debt.

BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
If we got rid of the federal government, and things didn’t break put into war or anything, would the issue be solved?
- ty6853 2y ago
  No nothing will 'solve' it, but it may attenuate it in some states. Although moving from size in early days to zero is your own strawman.
  - BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
    I guess my issue is more that I feel like you’re looking in the wrong direction here. Imo the government’s behavior, which I don’t think is quite as egregious as you’re making it out to be, is primarily downstream from other things (notably the interests of money). I asked that question because I don’t think that getting rid of the federal government would help people very much at all.
scarface_74 2y ago
A quick Google search shows the median income tax as percentage of income is around 15%
- ty6853 2y ago
  Federal income tax was zero most of the time before 1913.
  - scarface_74 2y ago
    15% is a far cry from “bleeding us dry”.
    - ty6853 2y ago
      Federal gov spends about 24% of GDP. Meanwhile HN is constantly reminding us landlords are bleeding us dry at closer to 30% of income. Pre WW1 peacetime federal spending would be a godsend for working families.

wqaatwt 2y ago

> 250 years ago George Washington His wealth was mainly in very illiquid land. A lot of it was near worthless unless US won the war since it was beyond the line drawn by the Royal Proclamation of 1763 and white settlers were generally banned from settling there. Otherwise like many landholders back in the day he was semi-broke and had limited access to cash. Of course after the war of course he was both compensated for his expenses and got “his” land in Ohio (more or less)

sigmoid10 2y ago
Well, most of Elon Musks assets today are also not cash and highly dependent on the federal government going his way on key issues. He's certainly not dumb doing what he does if his goal is to get richer and more powerful. But unlike 200 years ago, we can watch live how that stuff plays out.
- wqaatwt 2y ago
  > certainly not dumb Perhaps but IMHO it’s a very high risk strategy and I doubt it’s necessarily optimal if more wealth is his primary goal (as opposed to his other seemingly highly megalomaniacal ambitions..) So far his actions haven’t really been that beneficial for Tesla (of course its sales growth might have significantly slowed down even if he stayed out of politics). SpaceX can only make that much even if it gets to appropriate the entire budget of NASA. Also at the end of the day his and Trump’s relationship might fall apart any day.
  - hnfong 2y ago
    Any risk Elon's taking is peanuts compared with George Washington taking on the world's leading colonial power...
    - wqaatwt 2y ago
      I wouldn’t necessarily go as far as directly comparing Musk and George Washington. But I suppose there are some parallels [if we take the more cynical] perspective. Both were willing to take on significant risk to upend the established socio-economic order primarily for the benefit of their respective social classes (wealthy landholders and tech-oligarchs). But yes, confiscation of all his property and even the gallows (fortunately or unfortunately for everyone else) is not a risk Musk is facing yet.

timewizard 2y ago

> no longer having to pay taxes to the British for the economic output of his slaves. This suggests that taxing the slaves would have better helped the poor. Was it helping them before the war? Were the poor suddenly worse off because of the revolution? > it's just an opportunity for other rich guys to take the reigns. Do George Washington's heirs control a significant portion of today's wealth?

BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
The heir question is goalpost moving; it has no bearing. Whether things may get better for the poor or may not isn’t so much the point as I see it. The observation here is that the poor, and their anger, become pawns for the games of elites. Sometimes those games benefit them where an elite acts as a benevolent avatar of their anger, but this is usually a transient faux-alliance because the elite calls the shots and has no genuine interest in a positive outcome for the poor they claim to represent.

wesapien 2y ago

Laborer coordination and workforce strikes.

briandear 2y ago
How very Marxist. How have those Marxist governments fared in the past?
- tankenmate 2y ago
  Unions have done more to increase the wages of the working class than tax cuts for the rich have ever done. If you want to live in a country with rampant poverty, homelessness, crime, etc then go to a country with low or no income tax. If you're not a lord in a feudal society then you're a serf.
- FranzFerdiNaN 2y ago
  Marxism is when people stand up for their rights I guess?
  - vixen99 2y ago
    There are zero rights without obligations. Why do we never hear about the latter? To read about people standing up for their rights in a Marxist State read Robert Conquest's 570 pages of 'The Great Terror' - an account of the crimes committed against humanity in the name of the Soviet Communism that emerged from the 1917 revolution. 'We'll do it differently' is the usual response. Sadly this always leaves out appreciation of the human factor whereby charismatic leaders arise and are convinced they know the truth and the way. Before considering a revolution, ensure there's a solution for this human problem of leaders who lead the masses (they regard the latter as such) down a path that in retrospect is seen to be a disaster. Pol Pot, The Great Leap Forward, the Iranian Revolution. We need to sit down and think about this before taking to the streets. How about evolution rather than 'eggs in one basket' revolution?
    - pjc50 2y ago

briandear 2y ago

> Instead he put the losses on top of the public debt, became the leader of the new nation and enjoyed no longer having to pay taxes to the British for the economic output of his slaves. That’s a rather skewed take. You might see what Washington himself said about becoming that leader. https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/spotlight-primary-source/george-washingtons-reluctance-become-president-1789 https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/spotlight-pr... George Washington wasn’t a signer of the Declaration of Independence either, so this idea that he concocted the revolution for personal gain is silly. He was appointed to lead the Continental Army by John Adams because of Washington’s military experience and his being from Virginia which was an asset in unifying the colonies.

ThinkBeat 2y ago

Revolutions can happen if enough people show up. Massive amounts of people are difficult to deal with. Smaller groups you can outright kill in daylight, but better to get to them first to torture and kill them out of sight. Once you need to kill 500.000 who are protesting and if violence to quell the hoards wakes up more people who want to see the regime fail.

sigmoid10 2y ago
Belarus had 500.000 people show up. But they got beat down. Hong Kong had millions of people show up. But it just led to massive crackdowns. Numbers mean nothing when the guys who own the guns are not on your side.
- matwood 2y ago
  > Numbers mean nothing when the guys who own the guns are not on your side. Not saying it will turn out differently, but there are more guns circulating in the US than there are people. Nearly everyone has or can easily get access to a gun. US culture is also quite a bit different, celebrating violence, don't tread on me, etc... Again, it might not make a difference, but I'm not sure those other situations are comparable. Something else to note is that military officers swear an oath the constitution, not POTUS (like enlisted do). Asking someone to order or to shoot fellow Americans, particularly if unarmed, would definitely be a test. If something like that did happen, we would be entering a second civil war.
  - sigmoid10 2y ago
    If it actually does come to a new civil war, my money is still on whoever owns most of the military. Small arms are nice and well, but they don't help you a lot when the other guy has got APCs and tanks.
    - matwood 2y ago
      I think it would be an open question as to which side ends up owning most of the military. Bases are all over the US along with national guard. The people in the military are also a pretty diverse group. In a civil war situation I don’t think it would be an automatic siding with DC.

WastedCucumber 2y ago

I think that's a very narrow and largely inaccurate view of revolutions. A lot of revolutions were carried out by people with very little resources - Mao led his army from under-developed hills, the October Revolution didn't have much of an industrial base either, nor did the left in the Spanish civil war (although the military eventually won, but hey, they had a fighting chance). And aside from that, many revolutions happen relatively peacefully. For example Chile or South Africa. Although the latter case did have some violence and property destruction. And aside from that, guns in the USA (assuming we're talking about this and not Europe) are cheap and plentiful. And a large, determined, but poorly-armed opposition has often beaten the smaller, well-armed forces of decadent states in the past. Let's hope it doesn't come to that though - even a peaceful movement can succeed if it's widespread.

p3rls 2y ago
For me it alternates between mind-numbing and mind-blowing the models of political violence people hold. It's one of the refreshing things about the crazy rightoids of late, how they emphasize how their larp revolution will cash out and retire enemies of the state. But here on HN we get ESL-Occupy Wallstreet jeremiads that'd make Sorel blush.
eszed 2y ago
Historical nitpick: the Spanish civil war kicked off when the right - most of(police + military + church + rich people) - rebelled against a constitutional republican government. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader whether that best fits their definition of a "revolution".
adrian_b 2y ago
Revolutions happen relatively peacefully only when a significant part of the armed forces changes sides or at least refuses to execute orders. With the transition from conscripted militaries to autonomous robotic weapons, there will be no more humans refusing to execute orders and no more traitors. A future revolution will succeed only against a grossly incompetent government.
- 2y ago

beardyw 2y ago

I think Russia in 1917 is a more recent and valid parallel. But it takes hunger rather than disapproval to fuel such a revolution.

sigmoid10 2y ago
It's actually pretty similar when you get to the bottom of it. Lenin was a member of the nobility during the Tsar rule. He saw his oppurtunity when Russian leadership was weakened after the first World War (similar to how the British were weakened after the Seven Years' War) and took it. The biggest difference is that he had unsuccessfully tried before and was orchestrating the whole thing from his exile base in Switzerland. Hunger was just a useful tool to overthrow the government more easily. If hunger alone was enough, Mao would have gotten his ass kicked harder and faster than anyone else in history. But in the end hungry people don't make good soldiers and only soldiers can bring drastic change in governance.
- dttze 2y ago
  > Lenin was a member of the nobility during the Tsar rule. This is not true at all. Where is your source for this claim?
  - beardyw 2y ago
    His father was a school inspector and was promoted to a rank equivalent to a mayor. Not nobility as you or I might imagine it.
  - sigmoid10 2y ago
    Paragraph about his father from wikipedia: >he was promoted to Director of Public Schools for the province, overseeing the foundation of over 450 schools as a part of the government's plans for modernisation. In January 1882, his dedication to education earned him the Order of Saint Vladimir, which bestowed on him the status of hereditary nobleman.

rho4 2y ago

Thank you for this take, which I haven't seen before. I believe it will help me deal with the current doomsday news (and be more stoic in general).

tim333 2y ago

>they don't have the means to change it. They could vote for lefties like Corbyn or Bernie but they don't because things aren't that bad.

potato3732842 2y ago

>George Washington... Literally all the founding fathers stood to be wealthier by getting the colonies to work with Britain than against it. Like, this is basic fucking math. Dragging armies across the economy you do business in with the end result being you are on your own and can no longer rely on the dominant economic power for protection and trade agreements and whatnot is not how you get fabulously rich if you are already starting from "not peasant". If you want to look at them through an economic lens the right one to choose is "the founding fathers were rich enough that they knew that even if revolution was bad on a macro level they'd still be filthy rich and wouldn't starve" >But the poor will not benefit this time either. When things get bad for average people, it's just an opportunity for other rich guys to take the reigns. I think you need to look at more revolutions. What tends to happen is a shuffling of the people who are already on top and the "HN class" of high end professionals, academics, media personalities, business leaders and other "peasants who are critical to the system" wind up in the gulags or losing their heads because the "fungible peasants" are pissed off at them for really squeezing out every penny until the system collapsed.

serallak 2y ago

> George Washington could have financed the entire Revolutionary War out of his own pocket and he still would have retained two thirds of his wealth Is that true ? As far as I am aware, the money the French Government alone loaned to the US during the revolutionary war (at least two million dollars[0]) far exceeded the value of Washington personal wealth (estimated at $780,000 in 1799 [1], so at the time of his death, not during the war). And this is not counting all the loans made from other foreign sources (the Spanish Government and private Dutch investors), and the money raised directly by the Continental Congress. Also, as others have said, it would have been almost impossible to liquidate his assets (his lands and his slaves) during the war - the problem was availability of cash, not wealth. [0] https://history.state.gov/milestones/1784-1800/loans https://history.state.gov/milestones/1784-1800/loans [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finances_of_George_Washington#Economic_interactions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finances_of_George_Washington#...

sigmoid10 2y ago
Your source says that it depends on how you look at it. See the similar discussion regarding Iraq war spending in the other comments. But it is also totally irrelevant, because the point is that Washington was one of the richest people in America before the war started and even richer when he died. There is no doubt about that.
- serallak 2y ago
  I'm not doubting that Washington was very very rich. I'm doubting the different and very specific claim that "George Washington could have financed the entire Revolutionary War" with just a third of his wealth. To me, the math simply does not add up. I suppose it can be chalked up to hyperbole ? I also don't see how a discussion of the Iraq war could be relevant to that claim ...
  - sigmoid10 2y ago
    War financing is incredibly complex and even more so when your only source is some paper notes from several hundred years ago. Whether you believe that or not basically boils down to how you want to see it. Would you for example say that George Washington would have owned more than 30,000 slaves in today's world? A straightforward extrapolation of the population size might suggest so. But then again that is also grossly overlooking many other aspects. So you would also be right to doubt it. Either way, you would still be missing the point of the discussion.

mihaic 2y ago

I can see almost the same argument being made in 1780 in a French salon, after the cost of fielding armies had exploded in the seven year war.

sigmoid10 2y ago
Because it's literally the same basic concept. The fall of the French monarchy and the eventual rise of Napoleon followed the exact same principles: Rich people born into nobility using their military influence and public dissent to overthrow a government and establish themselves as new rulers. The biggest difference here is that Napoleon came from a more modest form of nobility by comparison and was an actual military genius who rose from a low-end officer all the way to the top because of his skills on the battlefield (at least until his success went to his head and he crowned himself emperor). But he wouldn't have gotten anywhere without his soldiers.
- mihaic 2y ago
  > Rich people born into nobility using their military influence and public dissent to overthrow a government and establish themselves as new rulers. Just to be clear, are you saying that the French Revolution was done by the rich born into nobility (even if minor)? Even if the rich still had an advantage during the entire turmoil, I think it's hard to argue that for the decades after 1790 that there wasn't a huge boost to social mobility.

eric_cc 2y ago

Washington did not have anywhere near the financial resources to fund the Revolutionary War, and the war was financed mainly through debt, foreign aid, and state contributions. While he did benefit from independence in some ways, he did not orchestrate it as a means to avoid taxes or personally enrich himself.

dumbledoren 2y ago

> 250 years ago George Washington could have financed the entire Revolutionary War That was a rebellion, not a revolution. The colonial elite broke away from the mother country. They sculpted the eventual legal and political structure to protect their power and privilege without having to pay taxes. If you're looking for a revolution, better look at the French Revolution or the October Revolution.

johnthewise 2y ago
The October Revolution wasn’t a popular uprising but a surgical strike by a minority faction. just after the take over, SRs were more popular but bolsheviks crushed them fast without much resistance. so it wasn't about what people wanted but what a determined minority could pull off.
- dumbledoren 2y ago
  > The October Revolution wasn’t a popular uprising but a surgical strike by a minority faction And with that argument, you reduce every.single.revolution to a 'surgical strike by a minority faction'. The French Revolution becomes a surgical strike of a few enlightened bourgeois in Paris. The American Rebellion becomes the rebellion of a very small clique of rich colonial landowners. No revolution would be an exception. Every single revolution happens through a vanguard party pushing it forward - that's what the Bolsheviks got right. > it wasn't about what people wanted It wasn't what the better-off bourgeois and their dependents in Moscow, St. Petersburg and other regions wanted. It was apparently what the people wanted, because the resulting, foreign-aided civil war was won by the power of those people. No revolution can win a civil war without popular support.

dennis_jeeves2 2y ago

>Revolutions don't happen when people are mad, they happen when the ones who can afford armies and equipment sense the possibility of coming out on top. I agree. Too often 'revolutions' are framed as though common people were responsible for it - because it appeals to the modern day 'peasants' ( the 'middle' class and below) ideas of a 'fair' society. They are just pawns in a larger game and they are oblivious to it.

mmooss 2y ago

Where does all that come from? Democratic revolutions have happened all over the world. > 250 years ago George Washington could have financed the entire Revolutionary War Could you provide some support for this claim?

cykros 2y ago

Cryptography, as the state department used to understand, is a munition (but of course, thank God for the First and Second Amendment). Cryptography based peer to peer currency that can replace a debt based system of inflation that provides an unfair advantage to the first spender of the new money is a particularly powerful munition in addressing this issue. At least Bukele seems to get this. As does the IMF, as evidenced by their panicked attempt to shut him down. No rush in any case though; the people who understand Bitcoin the best are those that need to, and rapid adoption is just a stressor on those building out the rails.