Reform more radical than revolution!?

[Niggel]

Dear friends,

I need your help to find an argument I once picked up but can not remember who put this statement forward or where it was written.

The argument went something like this: As a revolution accepts force as a legitimate weapon after the revolution they can not seriously argue that there should be not fighting but peace. When you reform (I do not necessarily mean through a parliamentary system) a society through smaller steps and actually convince people of what is good/bad real change can happen. The way society works is actually changed and not just the people in the drivers seat. The author added, as fas as I remember, that reform is the more radical way to change a society as you actually change change peoples mind and not try to impose something better like Socialism, Communism or Anarchy (pick your favorite) unto people which are not convinced that it can work or how it could work.

I hope this makes a little sense and somebody can point me into the right direction.

Thankful,

Niggel :che:

[Angelo.Porchetta]

I couldn't agree more.

Revolutions ultimately lead to violence. Violence is the tool of the capitalist elite to oppress the workers.

As Derrick Jensen said, "You can’t use the master’s tools to dismantle the master’s house."

[Tim Finnegan]

The author does not seem to be using any definition of "revolution" which much resemble a Marxian one. I suspect that s/he was just beating some pseudo-Leninist strawman in order to big up their own pallid reformism as the more "responsible" or "reasonable" option. Needless to say, Big Rosie dealt with this rather neatly (http://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1900/reform-revolution/index.htm) a century ago.

[jake williams]

Dear friends,

I need your help to find an argument I once picked up but can not remember who put this statement forward or where it was written.

The argument went something like this: As a revolution accepts force as a legitimate weapon after the revolution they can not seriously argue that there should be not fighting but peace. When you reform (I do not necessarily mean through a parliamentary system) a society through smaller steps and actually convince people of what is good/bad real change can happen. The way society works is actually changed and not just the people in the drivers seat. The author added, as fas as I remember, that reform is the more radical way to change a society as you actually change change peoples mind and not try to impose something better like Socialism, Communism or Anarchy (pick your favorite) unto people which are not convinced that it can work or how it could work.

I hope this makes a little sense and somebody can point me into the right direction.

Thankful,

Niggel :che:
I think there's two things you're confused about - what a "revolution" is and what constitutes "radical".

A revolution in the sense we talk about here is a fundamental change in who gets to make the decisions about society. In a socialist revolution the point is to move control of those decisions from one class - a small minority of capitalists who own the means of production - to another class - the vast majority of the population, the working class.

The assertion that this is less "radical" than "reforms" relies on the idea that what must be "radically changed" is the use of political force. Any revolution does involve political force - capitalists will not willingly give up their control of the means of production. So if you believe that the main problem is the use of political force, you might think that revolutions are indeed a bad thing.

The problem is, capitalism itself - reformed or otherwise - also involves the use of political force. There's no way to avoid the use of political force unless we can abolish capitalist society, but we can't get there without the use of political force (a revolution to break down capitalist relations).

So no, reformed capitalism is not more "radical" than its revolutionary overthrow, because it maintains the central class division of society intact. This could, of course, apply to alleged variants of "socialism" which themselves constitute reformed capitalism.

[StalinFanboy]

Dear friends,

I need your help to find an argument I once picked up but can not remember who put this statement forward or where it was written.

The argument went something like this: As a revolution accepts force as a legitimate weapon after the revolution they can not seriously argue that there should be not fighting but peace. When you reform (I do not necessarily mean through a parliamentary system) a society through smaller steps and actually convince people of what is good/bad real change can happen. The way society works is actually changed and not just the people in the drivers seat. The author added, as fas as I remember, that reform is the more radical way to change a society as you actually change change peoples mind and not try to impose something better like Socialism, Communism or Anarchy (pick your favorite) unto people which are not convinced that it can work or how it could work.

I hope this makes a little sense and somebody can point me into the right direction.

Thankful,

Niggel :che:

Communism isn't imposed. It already exists.

[jake williams]

Communism isn't imposed. It already exists.
Huh?

Communism is imposed on the bourgeoisie. They don't like it but it'll happen anyway.