A bit ago, Roger and I were discussing the factors that can cause a Marxist
revolution, specifically about the maximum capacity of production idea. I said
that that was precisely the wrong time to expect a revolution, and that a
better time would be when capitalism is in recession or depression.
There’s a better explanation as to why advanced capitalist countries such as
the U.S. and Britain did not have a revolution. I knew I had seen it before,
but I haven’t read this book in two years, after I submitted it to Bookshare in
fact, so it took me some time to put my finger on it.
The book is Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Uval Harari. The writing
may seem a bit glib, but this is not an academic book. History is his
profession though, so I think he knows what he’s talking about. I’ll buy this
explanation until I hear a better one. I quote a bit above where he
specifically addresses Marxist revolutions to give a bit of context.
*
“Some complex systems, such as the weather, are oblivious to our predictions.
The
process of human development, in contrast, reacts to them. Indeed, the better
our
forecasts, the more reactions they engender. Hence paradoxically, as we
accumulate
more data and increase our computing power, events become wilder and more
unexpected.
The more we know, the less we can predict. Imagine, for example, that one day
experts
decipher the basic laws of the economy. Once this happens, banks, governments,
investors
and customers will begin to use this new knowledge to act in novel ways, and
gain
an edge over their competitors. For what is the use of new knowledge if it
doesn’t
lead to novel behaviours? Alas, once people change the way they behave, the
economic
theories become obsolete. We may know how the economy functioned in the past –
but
we no longer understand how it functions in the present, not to mention the
future.
This is not a hypothetical example. In the middle of the nineteenth century Karl
Marx reached brilliant economic insights. Based on these insights he predicted
an
increasingly violent conflict between the proletariat and the capitalists,
ending
with the inevitable victory of the former and the collapse of the capitalist
system.
Marx was certain that the revolution would start in countries that spearheaded
the
Industrial Revolution – such as Britain, France and the USA – and spread to the
rest
of the world.
Marx forgot that capitalists know how to read. At first only a handful of
disciples
took Marx seriously and read his writings. But as these socialist firebrands
gained
adherents and power, the capitalists became alarmed. They too perused
Das Kapital, adopting many of the tools and insights of Marxist analysis. In
the twentieth century
everybody from street urchins to presidents embraced a Marxist approach to
economics
and history. Even diehard capitalists who vehemently resisted the Marxist
prognosis
still made use of the Marxist diagnosis. When the CIA analysed the situation in
Vietnam or Chile
in the 1960s, it divided society into classes. When Nixon or Thatcher looked at
the
globe, they asked themselves who controls the vital means of production. From
1989
to 1991 George Bush oversaw the demise of the Evil Empire of communism, only to
be
defeated in the 1992 elections by Bill Clinton. Clinton’s winning campaign
strategy
was summarised in the motto: ‘It’s the economy, stupid.’ Marx could not have
said
it better.
As people adopted the Marxist diagnosis, they changed their behaviour
accordingly.
Capitalists in countries such as Britain and France strove to better the lot of
the
workers, strengthen their national consciousness and integrate them into the
political
system. Consequently when workers began voting in elections and Labour gained
power
in one country after another, the capitalists could still sleep soundly in their
beds. As a result, Marx’s predictions came to naught. Communist revolutions
never
engulfed the leading industrial powers such as Britain, France and the USA, and
the
dictatorship of the proletariat was consigned to the dustbin of history.
This is the paradox of historical knowledge. Knowledge that does not change
behaviour
is useless. But knowledge that changes behaviour quickly loses its relevance.
The
more data we have and the better we understand history, the faster history
alters
its course, and the faster our knowledge becomes outdated.”
Evan
