Only revolution can bring real change, evolution merely heals some of the wounds caused by the present organisation of society.
12 million kids died in 1990 before they were five years old. In 2010 still 7.5 million kids died. The UN Millennium goals aim to reduce this number in 2015 to 4 million but that will not be achieved – also thanks to the crisis. Without help 300 million kids should have died in this 25 years. The UN saved 100 million kids, but still 200 million kids died. And the dying continues after 2015. The present society based on greed of the privileged cannot solve the problem of the unnecessary death of hundreds of millions kids. Jean-Paul Marat said already about the use of violence by revolutionaries: “Violence by The People is legitimate, it remains always far inferior to the sum of all injustices by the despots over the centuries”.
The dying 99% are unacceptable. It is among other things caused by the believe that evolution will improve the world. But not for the hundreds of millions of dying kids, not for the billions that live in misery.
Maybe evolution will bring some partial improvements (till the next crisis) but development is too slow. The present society cannot solve big problems. To wipe out all misery we need a revolution, another society build on the idea that all people have the same status.
A revolutionary change is a sudden change. Powerful forces accumulate and unexpectedly something happens nobody could foresee. The Fall of the Berlin Wall, the Financial Crisis or the Russian revolution are examples. Humans can cause a revolution by increasing pressure on society. Not by demanding small improvements but by undermining the forces that keep this wretched society together for their own benefit. The 1% decide first in favour of the own well-being. At the bottom billions live like animals, each day looking for food and shelter to survive. When the extravagant life of the top is not disturbed society will proceed on the same way as before and millions of kids will continue to die each year unnecessary before they are five years old.
Big world problems cannot be solved in a society were money is the prime factor in decisions. A paradigm shift is needed that replaces the pivotal role of money by the idea that all people have the same status. When we achieve that change, a new 1% will never rise up again. Seemingly insoluble problems will be solved. Thomas S. Kuhn said in his book “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”. “During revolutions scientists see new and different things when looking with familiar instruments at places they looked before”. René Thom described the same jump in the development of humanity in his mathematical Catastrophe Theory. Revolutions bring unexpected solutions to seemingly insolvable problems. We have the task to make revolution and new solutions possible.
The power pyramid can be destroyed by undermining the power of the 1%. In actions the damage to the 99% must me minimised and the pressure on the 1% maximised. The first part of this idea says that we see each other as having the same status, the second that there is a group that is different that has to be called to order.
When we increase the pressure on the 1% it will suddenly reach the point that the pyramid collapses. Just as a balloon suddenly explodes when you continue to fill it up with air. In the meantime we have learned that all people have the same status and the problem that people die unnecessary will be solved easily.
We can increase the pressure by Creatively Disturbing the life-style of the 1%. We cannot afford to restrict ourselves to actions that have been proven not to contribute to a real change. Humanity cannot permit itself to get change by small steps. It is too costly. Revolutionary change is necessary to destroy the separated, extravagant and privileged world of the 1%. I have already described a multitude of small revolutionary guerrilla-like actions in a War of the Flea against the weak points of the rulers in other articles, e.g. https://downwithelite.wordpress.com/2012/07/06/the-war-of-the-flea-attack-the-weak-points/
Joost van Steenis
downwithelite 
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This blog begs a lot of questions …. that bottom 99% is this misery and high child mortality a new thing? Are the productivity and technological gains made by more advanced cultures the cause of the world wide poverty, or does the rise of wealthy nations just present a contrast.
1. an individual owns themselves and the fruits of their labor
2. the most just system in this imperfect world is one where people trade with each other, needs and wants are met in a market of buyers and sellers
3. the purpose of government is the protect the people it governs from people who use force against its citizen, foreign and domestic. Protect property rights, patents and contract enforcement. To prevent the restriction of freedom by private individuals forcing costs on others, civil law torts. Not to use its monopoly of force to infringe on the rights granted by the Constitution. The law apply to everyone, there is no special class of super citizens created by law.
The use of “Force” by government is the problem, that goes both ways from the poor to the rich and rich to the poor.
In all my studies, I have come to the conclusion the it all manifest when people do not like the price of things, cannot get it through voluntary trade or restraint of trade … so the go to government who uses its monopoly on force for a commission to abridge the rights of the buyer or seller to force a trade on their terms.
That is the problem with a mixed socialist/capitalist system, it creates a circularity that never ends … you make drugs illegal, you raise the price of it, more people get in the market, it creates a class of criminals the government has to deal with it creating a bigger problem of a criminal class, which means it has to take more money from the people to support the system, taking money from beneficial programs, creating more poor people that turn to this lucrative market, etc etc …. all because conservatives failed to convince other that they should use drugs, so the brought government in.
I hate using the term “workers” because it hides the true nature of the issue, in America since you own your labor you have the right to sell it at any price …. the price you get is base on the supply and demand for your labor, when there is alot of supply wages fall and when supply is low wages go up … these are amoral market forces. There is a McDonalds in ND that is paying $25 hr because of the shortage of labor, aren’t these workers exploiting the situation? are they immoral? Most of you would say no, but when the shoe is on the other foot the owner is immoral. So they a minority of workers go to the government to force the owner to pay then a price higher than the market, but if they do it to that one owner the competition will put them out of business so they have to force the entire industry or give that company special privileges … which mean when the owner makes the choice to invest in the company (which is either capital or labor), they invest in capital which minimizes the need for labor so the workers go back to the government to force the owners to not invest in capital, which makes them even more uncompetitive especial if its global then protectionist quotas and tariff which pushes the price even higher then the people get upset and want to use government power to lower the price and we have subsidies …. who is better off? no one except the government, the greats con you can ever pull is selling a solution to the problem you created.
regardless of all the complexity people want to bring to any socioeconomic structure …. who controls prices? in a lassie-faire system as Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman, Hayek, Mises …. History has been extreme clear, the people and their choices determine price, no person or corporation can control price … see Game Theory. In a socialist/fascist/marxist system, a government central planner determines price, and they do a horrid job of it …. look at China, the most populust nation in the world has a housing surplus and more empty office space than the entire US. East/West Germany, North/South Korea … how is this even debatable is scary enough
the fundamental principle here there are 2 basic schools of thought about how human beings interact … voluntary exchange or force, all social issues come from that basis. There is the capitalist/libertarian view that we own ourselves and the fruits of our labor to purse our happiness as we see fit to the point that a person doesn’t directly use force, threat of force, fraud (directly using lies or deception) to deprive other of that same right or the authoritarian/socialist/Marxist/theocratic/collectivist view that we do not own ourselves nor the fruit of our labor but a higher power does so we are at the behest of its benevolent (or malevolent) will.
This central to any social theory because is becomes the moral and ethical for how people interact, because that is where it gets complicated. This stems from a host of issues:
1. To quote Snowball “all animals are created equal, some more equal than others” … aka, natural and situational inequality
2. Game Theory, the macro/micro problem … what good for a group disproportional disadvantages some in a group – what benefits some disadvantages the group as a whole … where self interest and collective interest conflict (why we have a Dept of Agriculture)
3. Technology, the greatest of all double edge swords … it is the source of all creation and destruction in a modern society, the harbinger of progress and inequality
these are the same issues that have been plaguing society since the beginning, the industrial revolution expanded it, and our current transition to a knowledge basis economy is pushing it to a critical mass.
We need new ideas, because the old ones have proved a failure …. no society has the stones to accept the negatives that come with Lassie-Faire Capitalism and Central Planning has been an experiment that leads to stagnation and bloodshed. So what do we do now is the question that I want to engaged here … not the social ills blame game debate that’s been going on for the last 200 years.
After all of that, this revolution you want to happen, the same question fundamental question of humanity persist …. just wondering who are these saint that are going to manage thing when we begin a new?
Hello Marc Anthony,
I think we have the same starting point, our world is not very well organised and there is a lot of misery. As I write in my7 latetst book, From Choas to Change, entereing a new era (feee dosdwnloadable from my site http://members.chelklo.nl/jsteenis I advance a more fundamental idea. Everything is dominated by money and thois domination I want to replace by the idea that all people have the same status. Though maybe someone of the 99% can profit a little in the present society the rules are made so that the top profits more, extremely more. And they have thee power – connected with money – to prevent any change that can endanger there superior position. The 1% live in a separated world – an eliteworld – where the 99% are not allowed to come. Any misery or violence is restricted to the massworld of the 99%. We see that the present financial crisis has no influence on the position of the 1% but hurts only the 99%. The same people who caused the crisis are now “solving” the crisis and again fin the first place for their own benefit. You mention the housing bubble but a new bubble is already in the making, internet, again housing, carbon rights etc. The carbon rights scheme is indeed an extreme example of the domination of money over people. Installed with the idea that the world must not be polluted it gives the right to rich parts of the industry to pollute the world even more when it is compensated by money. Not less pollution stands central but money. Everything is pointed on getting more and more money (to the few) and the idea that all people should have a decent life does not exist in the eliteworld. Though it is possible that a few 99% get a little more money in special cases – as you mention – in general all the benefits are first gotten by the top-few and then maybe others can get also something. The problem lies at the top and not at the basis. To break the power of money I propose as one of the means an idea that restricts the possibility of purchasing. See my blog article Spending 200.000 euro in one year should be the Limit! https://downwithelite.wordpress.com/2012/06/21/spending-200-000-euro-in-one-year-should-be-the-limit/ When money loses its dominating role, peole become more inmprortant and we can eneter z new world.
friendly greetigns, joost van Steenis