At 10:03 AM 2/26/97 -0800, Jim Devine wrote:
>I wrote:>in the US, if I am not mistaken, the big increases in
>the progressiveness of the tax system coincide with wars. <
etc.
I fully agree. There are only two conditions that pose a REAL threat to the
oligarchy: a lots of unhappy people with guns (e.g. during the war time) and
the inability of the state to use force to repress them (e.g. when that
force is needed elsewhere, in the frontline).
This was the story behind the Russian Revolution -- the only successful
revolution against an essentially capitalist regime, for all other leftist
revolutions from China to Cuba were against agrarian regimes, and as such,
they partially coincided with the interests of the bourgeoisie (cf.
Barrington Moore, _The Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy_).
Although Moore argues that the Russian Revolution grew from the feudal
background of the country set on a rapid modernization course, I think that
his argument misses two points: first, that the major revolutionary push
came from the urban industrial centers, not form the coutry side (like in
China); second, the peasant masses were alredy mobilized and armed for the
war; when the command structure of the Russian Army started to crumble under
the German blows, that left a lot of unhappy people with guns in Russia that
could not be effectively controlled by the oligarchy.
So the bottom line is the follwoing equation:
many unhappy people with guns + inability of the state to control them = a
successful revolution against a capitalist regime.
I think capitalists all over the world took a note of it. Each time they
rely on mass mobilization, they try to make the unhappy people more happy.
This does not have to be during an armed conflict (when the command
structures of the army work), but after one. Studies show that the level of
violence usually increases after the hostilities are over -- a lot of people
with guns, trained how to fight, get demobilized and they can become
unhappy again if they find out that nor much changed after the war, except
that the rich are even richer. So that prompts the state oligarchy to make
unhappy people a bit more happy by intruducing social programs.
That, I belive, is more-or-less a gist of the argument proposed by Theda
Skocpol in _Protecting soldiers and mothers: the political origins of social
policy in the United States_. Interestingly, the Nazis and the Italian
Fascists implemented far reaching social programs when they were preparing
for war.
With the Left and Liberals not only vowing not to use violence themselves,
but also to support the oligarchy to disarm all those who are ready to use
force -- no wonder that the oligarchy feels free to dismantle whatever is
left or our social safety net system. And they are laughing all the way to
the bank.
wojtek sokolowski
institute for policy studies
johns hopkins university
baltimore, md 21218
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
voice: (410) 516-4056
fax: (410) 516-8233
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| |
|When I hear "family values," I reach for my revolver. |
| (no apologies to Hanns Johst) |
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