Comes The Revolution?

History shows that when oligarchies, or their monetary equivalent, plutocracies, become too oligarchic or plutocratic, they are initially ended by egalitarian movements. After that anything can happen and usually does. Examples are Louis XVI France, Tsarist Russia, Iran, and today, most prominently Egypt, to which might eventually be added Tunisia, Yemen, Jordan and Syria.

That sort of thing couldn’t happen here, could it? Fair or not we have laws which in theory, and often in fact, are representative of the will of the people to whom they apply. The same can be said of their enforcement. The closest we’ve come to revolution was during the Great Depression when many of the perceived oligarch/plutocrats were replaced by election. The nation survived.

We weren’t then, and aren’t today, as autocratic as these nations. We have another thing going for us. Our left wing, the logical source of a serious revolution, consists of a bunch of amateurs when compared to the right wing equivalent. In their l960’s heyday they attracted plenty of attention. But there was no central theme. There were the ghetto riots, a strange way to thank Lyndon Johnson. The installation of the draft led to anti Vietnam War activity from college age students. If anybody knows what the Symbionese Liberation Army was about please let me in on it. The proof of the pudding in all this random left wing activity was the election of a Republican president.

When the right gets into gear they know what they want and how to get it. The 1994 “Republican Revolution” and today’s Tea Party movement were bloodless affairs, the only damage being to truth, reason and, in my opinion the nation. They managed to sweep Congress in both cases. This was done largely with the votes of poorer Americans, acting like alumni of the School for the Gullible.  

A revolution from the left is probably distant. We have never been a pure democracy or republic, take your pick. After slavery Jim Crow was with us for a century. But the seemingly inexorable economic stratification of the past thirty years has taken us well in the direction of a plutocracy. The Citizens United is the most prominent of several events pointing us towards oligarchy. The two often go together.

I’ve always derided the debating technique of those who argue a political point with a sentence beginning with “The the next thing you know.” Whatever the issue, it is rarely the “next thing.” This thing will usually do nicely. But in view of the likely consequences of a government default should the Republican House of Representatives refuse to raise the national debt ceiling, I’m beginning to think that the next thing could be this thing.