When The Revolution Arrives ... 50 Years From Now

[Popular Front of Judea]

Here is a speculative, hypothetical scenario. Let's say a Doctor Who type character reveals to you that yes the revolution is coming ... but it will take 50 or so years before the last capitalist crisis has occurred, the working class has seized power and the long discussed 'DOTP' finally is in progress. (In time for the bicentennial of the the first volume of Das Kapital.) How would this change the way you live your life and your political activity?

[synthesis]

If I knew that for a fact I might be less active, because that's a lot sooner than I think it will be. I mean, there are still remnants of feudalism and it could be argued that it is even dominant as a mode of production in places like Bhutan, a place famous for having long sought to insulate itself from global capital.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

If I knew that for a fact I might be less active, because that's a lot sooner than I think it will be. I mean, there are still remnants of feudalism and it could be argued that it is even dominant as a mode of production in places like Bhutan, a place famous for having long sought to insulate itself from global capital.

I agree, as David Harvey mentioned, one of the reasons that we had so much revolutionary potential in the 60 is because capital found its expansion limited by a pool of labor in Europe and America that was far too small to meet its needs and was unable to expand due to the fact that monopoly imperialism still keep the rest of the world chronically undeveloped. Now that these barriers have fallen down capital will be allowed to expand to almost absurd heights and to be perfectly honest because of this I wouldn't even call the current crisis a "crisis" but rather a minor hiccup on the long march to global capitalism. I don't really see global revolution as tenable until the uneven nature of imperialist development is resolved and I don't think this current process of "globalization" has really even touched the issue. In fact I'd say it's barely done anything to alleviate feudalism while solidifying U.S hegemony. If anything revolution will occur in the "storm centers of imperialism" (Lenin) but even there although it might be spreading I don't think that it will be the demise of the capitalist system unless the entire periphery falls in a domino fashion and the supply of labor is made artificially small again.

[bcbm]

Here is a speculative, hypothetical scenario. Let's say a Doctor Who type character reveals to you that yes the revolution is coming ... but it will take 50 or so years before the last capitalist crisis has occurred, the working class has seized power and the long discussed 'DOTP' finally is in progress. (In time for the bicentennial of the the first volume of Das Kapital.) How would this change the way you live your life and your political activity?

i would stop drinking cuz clearly it is affecting my mental health

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Actually that's kind of sort of the premise of the TV series Continuum. There are two timelines, both taking place in Vancouver, B.C. In the main timeline by 2077 the world is ruled by a Corporate Global State. In another there is some sort of anarcho-socialist society.The plotline is very convoluted by basically it follows a "terrorist" group who goes back in time to 2013 to make sure future history moves towards the socialist society.

The plotline is waaay too complicated to havestrong class struggle themes.

Anyway I would disagree that earlier modes of production, feudalism, must be fully surpassed before there is a revolution. Capitalism has already reached its limits. The follapse of "actually existing socialism" and China coming online did give capitalism a new lease on life but that seems to have now reached its limits.

As I understand the OP I'd be notified that socialism or at least the final end of capitalism will be here 50 years from now.I don't think this would change what I'm doing. At the very least I'd want to be more a part of this future, play a prominent role.

I probably would exercise more, take vitamins and anti-ocxydents, drive more carefully, and research what's known about slowing the aging process to increase the chances i'll be there healthy and youthful.

[Red Commissar]

I'd knock out the guy and steal his time machine.



Otherwise I'd probably have something else for motivation. 50 years from now though we'd all be old farts. I would have to hope I'm not in a nursing home by then or killed in preceding instability.

[Decolonize The Left]

Wouldn't change a thing.

[Art Vandelay]

I don't know how I'm going to spend next week let alone the next 50 years. What I do know is that whenever the revolution comes I'm going to down me a bottle of red label then take Voxy out to patrol the streets armed with a shotgun in my right hand and my copy of capital in my left.

[Skyhilist]

If you change the behavior of the people leading up to the future, than you change the future. It would be a logical paradox to tell anyone the future therefore (even if they someone could travel back in time), because it would change peoples behavior and therefore change the future, meaning that the future that they were being told of was a false one.

[Popular Front of Judea]

Don't forget your walker. :grin:
I don't know how I'm going to spend next week let alone the next 50 years. What I do know is that whenever the revolution comes I'm going to down me a bottle of red label then take Voxy out to patrol the streets armed with a shotgun in my right hand and my copy of capital in my left.

[Popular Front of Judea]

So you would assume the time traveler to be an undercover operative and act accordingly?


If you change the behavior of the people leading up to the future, than you change the future. It would be a logical paradox to tell anyone the future therefore (even if they someone could travel back in time), because it would change peoples behavior and therefore change the future, meaning that the future that they were being told of was a false one.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

A guaranteed additional 50 years of the present idiotic society? Welp, time to go measure myself with a noose.

[Art Vandelay]

Don't forget your walker. :grin:

Fuck that in 50 years time I'm going to have bionic legs or something.

[Decolonize The Left]

If you change the behavior of the people leading up to the future, than you change the future. It would be a logical paradox to tell anyone the future therefore (even if they someone could travel back in time), because it would change peoples behavior and therefore change the future, meaning that the future that they were being told of was a false one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_return

Edit: Your post posits free will.

[Skyhilist]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_return

Edit: Your post posits free will.

Disagree. All actions are pre-determined in the subconscious mind, which we have no control over, therefore meaning that we have no free will.

The way the subconscious pre-determines these before we know it consciously is as a reaction to the information around us, which informs expectation. Different information (e.g. know what happens in the future) = different expectation = different reaction.

[synthesis]

Exactly. Just the future-person being there to tell the person whatever the future is changes the variables that lead to the predetermined outcomes.

[bcbm]

Exactly. Just the future-person being there to tell the person whatever the future is changes the variables that lead to the predetermined outcomes.

unless the time traveler is one of those variables.

[synthesis]

unless the time traveler is one of those variables.
From what I've read, that's not how time travel would work. From an outside perspective the time traveler is going back through time, but the time traveler is still in their own present going into their own future. That new future hasn't happened yet.

[bcbm]

every possible thing is happening simultaneously really.

and going back in time is i am pretty sure impossible anyway, or surely would be with our technology level in fifty years.

[synthesis]

You are the worst debater ever.

[bcbm]

that is one possibility in an infinite multiverse

[Ceallach_the_Witch]

I can wait that long, and anyway, 71 isn't that old. I'd probably keep doing what I'm doing tbh.

[Decolonize The Left]

Disagree. All actions are pre-determined in the subconscious mind, which we have no control over, therefore meaning that we have no free will.

The way the subconscious pre-determines these before we know it consciously is as a reaction to the information around us, which informs expectation. Different information (e.g. know what happens in the future) = different expectation = different reaction.

If actions are pre-determined, then the casual chain of events goes all the way back, thereby refuting your earlier statement:

If you change the behavior of the people leading up to the future, than you change the future.
As if actions are pre-determined, there can be no "changing" of the future whatsoever.

Also, I do not believe actions are pre-determined or that there is such a thing as free will and I encourage you, if you do believe in the former claim, to attempt to justify it.

[A.J.]

Given my debauched lifestyle I'll probably be long gone by the time the revolution arrives.

Now there's a depressing thought.

There's only one thing for it. Some mindless escapism - yet more debauchery!

[Jimmie Higgins]

I'd be sad that it wouldn't happen until I was (hopefully still alive) in my 80s. But if it was a for-sure done deal and couldn't happen earlier or couldn't be "derailed" through some paradox of me knowing it was going to happen, then honestly, I'd take it easy content knowing that it will happen and I don't have to do anything.

[Devrim]

I will be almost certainly be dead.

Devrim