I’ve heard people say this, and it kind of sounds right. But just thinking of examples, stuff like:
magna carta (start of democracy)
sufferage (women’s vote)
civil rights (racial legal equality)
Feminism
Gay rights
Trans rights (where they exist)
Are all big wins that happened from improving on flawed systems.
Meanwhile, places that have had revolutions overthrowing the government (Egypt, Lybia, Russia, China) all seem to have gained very little in terms of resistance ideas, and mainly just wound up with a new authoritarian in charge.
Maybe I’m subconsciously picking select examples though? If definitely seems like this to all the ones I can think of.
That revolutionary attempt seemed like it could’ve had long term success without the pitfalls of Marxist attempts had it survived, but it took about 80 years of slowly educating the populace on those ideas, creating alternative ferrier schools, and building up successful unions to prime them for that outcome, and the failure of the Russian revolution and it’s decent into authoritarian bureaucracy was relatively fresh on their minds.
I suspect in our current world, prefiguration is likely the best course of action, which attempts to slowly build up the society we want to live in within the skeleton of our existing one, and to then remain standing as the skeleton around it crumbles. Which would indicate that building up unions, worker owned coops, community mutual aid (ex, food not bombs, community gardens) is crucial to pushing society in the right direction.
I’m more interested in how we can make the new thing that comes after it better. Best place to start for resistance ideas anyway.
I’ve heard people say this, and it kind of sounds right. But just thinking of examples, stuff like:
Are all big wins that happened from improving on flawed systems.
Meanwhile, places that have had revolutions overthrowing the government (Egypt, Lybia, Russia, China) all seem to have gained very little in terms of resistance ideas, and mainly just wound up with a new authoritarian in charge.
Maybe I’m subconsciously picking select examples though? If definitely seems like this to all the ones I can think of.
Anarchists during the Spanish Civil War implemented one of the few positive revolutionary societies, but it was quashed after about a year due to the Soviets betraying them and Franco eventually destroying what was left.
That revolutionary attempt seemed like it could’ve had long term success without the pitfalls of Marxist attempts had it survived, but it took about 80 years of slowly educating the populace on those ideas, creating alternative ferrier schools, and building up successful unions to prime them for that outcome, and the failure of the Russian revolution and it’s decent into authoritarian bureaucracy was relatively fresh on their minds.
I suspect in our current world, prefiguration is likely the best course of action, which attempts to slowly build up the society we want to live in within the skeleton of our existing one, and to then remain standing as the skeleton around it crumbles. Which would indicate that building up unions, worker owned coops, community mutual aid (ex, food not bombs, community gardens) is crucial to pushing society in the right direction.