revolutionary optimism

Revolutionary optimism

Revolutionary optimism is the belief that a better society is possible, and that we have the power to create it.
It’s not a vague hope or wishful thinking, but follows form the concrete analysis of the material conditions and historical forces that make revolution both necessary and inevitable:

1) The material preconditions for a better society already exist.
Capitalism has developed the productive forces (technology, industry, knowledge, the working class itself) to the point where poverty, hunger, homelessness are solvable. The problem is just control, downstream of ownership. Previous societies collapsed from scarcity. Capitalism’s crisis is a crisis of overproduction, abundance that can’t be profitably distributed.

2) The system’s contradictions guarantee crisis, and crisis forces people into motion.
It’s en empircal observation, recent history: Greece 2015, the Arab Spring, Chile, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal. The ruling class cannot stabilize the system (besides short-term measures like printing money or starting wars, which just prepare deeper crisis). Each crisis radicalizes wider layers. Dialectics: things change into their opposite. Stability contains the seeds of its own destruction.

3) The working class has the structural power to transform society.
It’s not about “educating people”. People aren’t stupid, they know what’s going on, on a deep intuitive level. Epstein, the countless wars, cuts, scapegoating, environmental-,health-,….scandals ¹ are learning experiences. Changes in quantity than eventually abrubtly lead to a change in quality (of collective consciousness & collective action → mass protests, revolution).
The working class runs everything. When it moves, society stops. Revolutionary situations will arise. The question is whether there’s an organized force with clear ideas ready to act when they do.

Dead ends

Reformism: “capitalism can’t be overthrown, let’s do the best we can within the confines of the system.” Sees every defeat as proof revolution is impossible, rather than a lesson about what was missing. “Just one more petition bro, trust.” “Nooo don’t expropriate the capitalists, then they won’t invite me to fancy dinners to sell out the working class anymore nooo.”

Techno-optimism: technology will fix everything. “Just one more datacenter bro, it will fix climate change bro, trust.” Ignores who owns (read controls) the technology (and almost all of the economy and politicitians), and the fact that this entity is bound to optimize for profit.

Techno-pessimism: technology can’t save us, civilizational decline is inevitable. Can’t imagine changing social relations, so can only conclude barbarism.

Degrowth: treat growth itself as the enemy. Abandon scientific analysis for Malthusian moralism. Under capitalism, degrowth just means recession.

What they share: inability (or refusal) to think outside capitalism.

Most who are not communists are lost

Knowing lots of people who are not communists… one thing we can see in all of them is this perpetual frustration / alienation / disorientation. Going from one thing to another, trying to find hapiness in some way. But it always kind of escapes them.
We are extremely lucky to have a guiding principle that gives us insight into the way the world works.

Transclude of Hegel#^9f8a7b

As communists we don’t feel confronted by an alien world - we feel at home in the world, because we understand it, and what’s necessary. And it gives us an unparalleled advantage over everyone else in the society. It is a guiding principle that allows us to go about in this world with a deep sense of belonging - to the world, to an international organism, which works across the planet according to the same principle, the same course of history, which has brought humanity to this faithful moment … carrying the seed to a future society.
’- Hamid Alizadeh

Footnotes

1. Literally just any random veritasium video, if you really need examples. Here’s also a long list — if you see it I finally got around to tidying it up: Examples for capitalism not being the most efficient system, producing for our needs ↩