Analyzing the Impact of Revolutions on Prosperity: A Scientific Approach

[rootX]

Do revolutions lead to prosperity?

or

Do we need revolutions for prosperity?

or

Is revolutions one of the factors that determine prosperity?

defⁿ
Revolutions : Overthrowing the governments
Prosperity : Good living standards e.g. literacy and life expectancy.

Scope:
Only last 500 years

I have been thinking of this question for more than a month. I am still not confident about what is the right question to ask and how we can answer the right question.

It might also be a good idea if we limit ourselves to last 500 years so we do not consider anything that happened before that. Otherwise, countries have come up and down through out the history so it might be meaningless to look at last thousand years to answer this question.

I thought about going back and finding all revolutions that happened in the past and finding if revolutions brought better living standards and comparing it to possibility if the revolution did not occur. Other way will be comparing two similar countries: one that overthrew its government and one that did not.

Please refrain from unsubstantiated personal opinions or propaganda.

Unfortunately, currently I do not have sufficient time to study this myself so I thought I would put here.

 

[BWV]

I think you can state categorically that every communist revolution in the 20th century resulted in a lower overall standard of living, if only for the ubiquity of large famines

the issue would hinge on the existing institutions (legal system, property rights, civil discourse etc) and whether they were preserved or not. The US had the common law system to fall back on and the UK which they revolted against was the among the most liberal political systems in existence during that time, so things really did not change that much. In contrast, Spanish colonialism was much more brutal and repressive and there were not stable civil institutions for Latin America to fall back on.

Egypt has better institutions than Libya where Quadafi ran a totalitarian regime - which bodes better for Egypt

 

[talk2glenn]

Do revolutions lead to prosperity?

Generally speaking, violent revolution does not end well.

http://www.newsweek.com/2011/02/27/un-american-revolutions.html

 

[russ_watters]

Is the question even relevant? The question implies to me that revolutions are about an attempt to increase prosperity. What if they have nothing to do with prosperity - is it a relevant question?

 

[talk2glenn]

In fairness to the OP, I think in political science economic hardship is considered a sufficient condition for revolution. Whatever the ostensible motivations, generally, poor people rebel and wealthy people don't.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Anatomy_of_Revolution

Brinton summarizes the revolutionary process as moving from "financial breakdown, [to] organization of the discontented to remedy this breakdown ... revolutionary demands on the part of these organized discontented, demands which if granted would mean the virtual abdication of those governing, attempted use of force by the government, its failure, and the attainment of power by the revolutionists. These revolutionists have hitherto been acting as an organized and nearly unanimous group, but with the attainment of power it is clear that they are not united. The group which dominates these first stages we call the moderates ... power passes by violent ... methods from Right to Left."

I read the question as, "do they make those poor people any better off?" The answer is, usually not.

According to Brinton, while "we must not expect our revolutions to be identical" (p. 226), three of the four (the English, French and Russian) began "in hope and moderation", reached "a crisis in a reign of terror," and ended "in something like dictatorship - Cromwell, Bonaparte, Stalin". The exception is the American Revolution, which "does not quite follow this pattern". (p. 24)

 

[WhoWee]

Is it possible that Entitlement programs (expanded in the 1960's) in the US have given a false sense of prosperity to millions of beneficiaries?

 

[nismaratwork]

Is the question even relevant? The question implies to me that revolutions are about an attempt to increase prosperity. What if they have nothing to do with prosperity - is it a relevant question?

The Egyptians seemed to think so.

 

[nismaratwork]

Is it possible that Entitlement programs (expanded in the 1960's) in the US have given a false sense of prosperity to millions of beneficiaries?

I wouldn't confuse a safety net with prosperity.

 

[WhoWee]

I wouldn't confuse a safety net with prosperity.

Unemployment is a safety net - lifelong participation in food, housing and medical is not (IMO).

 

[nismaratwork]

Unemployment is a safety net - lifelong participation in food, housing and medical is not (IMO).

It sure as hell isn't anything a reasonable person would call prosperity either. I'm not arguing against abuses in these systems; they are MEANT to be safety nets.

 

[WhoWee]

It sure as hell isn't anything a reasonable person would call prosperity either. I'm not arguing against abuses in these systems; they are MEANT to be safety nets.

Let's think about that a minute. In the 1960's, the expansion of welfare was a dream come true to many - now - it seems it isn't good enough "to a reasonable person"? My turn to laugh (sorry).

 

[nismaratwork]

Let's think about that a minute. In the 1960's, the expansion of welfare was a dream come true to many - now - it seems it isn't good enough "to a reasonable person"? My turn to laugh (sorry).

Not what I said: it isn't "PROSPERITY."

edit:

Prosperity is the state of flourishing, thriving, success, or good fortune. [1] Prosperity often encompasses wealth but also includes others factors which are independent of wealth to varying degrees, such as happiness and health.

•an economic state of growth with rising profits and full employment
•the condition of prospering; having good fortune

Welfare is not that, unless you're engaged in MASSIVE fraud.

 

[WhoWee]

Not what I said: it isn't "PROSPERITY."

edit:
Welfare is not that, unless you're engaged in MASSIVE fraud.

If you recall, this started when I said "Is it possible that Entitlement programs (expanded in the 1960's) in the US have given a false sense of prosperity to millions of beneficiaries?" my bold

 

[nismaratwork]

If you recall, this started when I said "Is it possible that Entitlement programs (expanded in the 1960's) in the US have given a false sense of prosperity to millions of beneficiaries?" my bold

...I don't see how the dole queue gives a false sense of Prosperity unless the word is to be butchered.

 

[WhoWee]

If a family receives $500 per month in food, $400 in rent subsidy, $1,500 in medical, $100 in transportation, $300 in utility subsidy, and $900 SSDI - total $3,700 per month = $44,000 per year PLUS EIC (if someone worked a few hour - maybe $1,000 per year?) of perhaps $5,000= $50,000 gross @ 20 years equals $1,000,000 - isn't it like winning the lottery?

 

[nismaratwork]

If a family receives $500 per month in food, $400 in rent subsidy, $1,500 in medical, $100 in transportation, $300 in utility subsidy, and $900 SSDI - total $3,700 per month = $44,000 per year PLUS EIC (if someone worked a few hour - maybe $1,000 per year?) of perhaps $5,000= $50,000 gross @ 20 years equals $1,000,000 - isn't it like winning the lottery?

1 million USD for a family over 20 years, at the most? No, and I'm not arguing for or against it, but no matter how you flip it, that's still not prosperity.

 

[WhoWee]

1 million USD for a family over 20 years, at the most? No, and I'm not arguing for or against it, but no matter how you flip it, that's still not prosperity.

I said "false sense of prosperity" - IMO - the nation is starting to wake up and pay attention. Again IMO, if there's a "revolution" this time - it's going to be by the taxpayers and non-union people who are tired of hearing how bad unions and people on welfare have it - and aren't buying the line that only the "rich" people need to pay - again IMO.

 

[russ_watters]

In fairness to the OP, I think in political science economic hardship is considered a sufficient condition for revolution. Whatever the ostensible motivations, generally, poor people rebel and wealthy people don't.

Really? Could you give some examples where economic hardship is by far the primary motivator for revolution? It certainly wasn't the prime mover in the recent Middle East revolutions. It wasn't for the American revolution either - heck, for the American revolution it was mostly rich people leading the revolution. But the reason was political oppression. At best I think it can sometimes be considered the final straw whereas the underlying problem is typically lack of freedom.

Economic hardship can certainly cause unrest, but how that manifests depends on the government. For example, in the US, intense dissatisfaction with the government's handling of economic matters led to wide swings in the electorate in consecutive elections. Why didn't we violently revolt instead? The answer is our government has a built-in mechanism for peacefully overthrowing it that dictatorships don't. So when they are annoyed about anything, the only recourse is to overthrow the government with physical force.

 

[russ_watters]

The Egyptians seemed to think so.

They seemed to think what? That economic factors were enough to revolt? That's not how I saw the driver of the Egyptian revolution. The wiki seems to agree:

Grievances of Egyptian protesters focused on legal and political issues[10] including police brutality,[11] state of emergency laws,[11] lack of free elections and freedom of speech,[12] uncontrollable corruption,[12] as well as economic issues including high unemployment,[13] food price inflation,[13] and low minimum wages.[11][13] The primary demands from protest organizers are the end of the Hosni Mubarak regime, the end of Emergency Law (martial law), freedom, justice, a responsive non-military government, and management of Egypt's resources.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Egyptian_revolution

Yeah, economic factors are in there somewhere, but the primary driver was that they were sick of living in a dictatorship and saw a successful revolution next-door.

There is a reason democracies have wild elections and dictatorships have revolutions: people don't like living in oppressive dictatorships.

So to circle back to the questions in the OP:

Do revolutions lead to prosperity?

There isn't necessarily any direct connection between revolution and prosperity.

...and the corollary: a lack of prosperity doesn't necessarily cause revolution. As I said above, I think revolutions are more strongly tied to the system of government than economic factors.

Do we need revolutions for prosperity?

Maybe yes, maybe no. Depends on if the current system of government is one that limits prosperity.

Is revolutions one of the factors that determine prosperity?

It can, but it doesn't have to.

If all these answers sound vague/noncomittal, it's because I don't think they are useful/relevant questions, as I discussed above and in my previous post. Rootx, I think a big part of the problem is that since you don't really believe in freedom, you have a hard time using the concept of freedom as an explanation/motivation for historical events. That's something you'll have to deal with in order to properly analyze these things - one must set aside their own motivations for the analysis and deal instead with the motivations of the people doing the doing.

 

[nismaratwork]

They seemed to think what? That economic factors were enough to revolt? That's not how I saw the driver of the Egyptian revolution. The wiki seems to agree: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Egyptian_revolution

Yeah, economic factors are in there somewhere, but the primary driver was that they were sick of living in a dictatorship and saw a successful revolution next-door.

There is a reason democracies have wild elections and dictatorships have revolutions: people don't like living in oppressive dictatorships.

Hmmmm... yet the Saudis are able to bribe their citizenry into quiesence, as with most of the emirates.

Curious.

 

[russ_watters]

Hmmmm... yet the Saudis are able to bribe their citizenry into quiesence, as with most of the emirates.

Curious.

Why is it curious? Make a point, don't beat around the bush.

 

[nismaratwork]

Why is it curious? Make a point, don't beat around the bush.

... I'm sorry... I have to laugh so hard right now, I can barely type... brb in a few!

Oh, and my point is: you're wrong, and the 10+ Billion USD "giveaways" in SA are soicial bribes to keep the poplace placated. I'd think you'd be all over that, given your views on public... anything.

Oh, and the market thinks you're wrong too...
http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=662025&publicationSubCategoryId=200

Stability can be bought for a time... the thing is, Egypt didn't have the cash... well... Mubarak may have, but not the coffers.

Ist Klar, Ja? (Is clear, Yes?)

 

[rootX]

It certainly wasn't the prime mover in the recent Middle East revolutions

Considering Tunisia case:
The revolution was triggered as well caused by unemployment and poor economy of Tunisia as per following article (also see BBC article below). It also considers political suppression but I as read unemployment was prime mover. I can go and try to get more if you find this unsatisfactory.

Ali fled the country after high levels of unemployment
and inequalities resulted in widespread chaos and
social unrest.

While apparently stable, Tunisia’s political system has
suddenly revealed itself unsustainable. Taking a closer look, it becomes clear that this
is due to the regime’s increasing inability over the last decade to address the most
prominent socioeconomic challenges facing the country: youth unemployment and
growing regional disparities amid rising corruption.

with over 30
percent of the working age population between 15 and 24 unemployed, a figure
comparable to that in neighbouring Egypt (34 percent) and Algeria (31 percent), but
much higher than in Morocco (15 percent), Israel (18 percent), and Turkey (19 percent)
(See Figure 1).

http://www.iai.it/pdf/DocIAI/iaiwp1102.pdf
BBC:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12160219

The riots were initially against the increasing numbers of unemployed, with the unemployment rate currently standing at around 15%, but rising food prices and frustrations with the ruling elite have since become additional issues.

China was well worried about a year ago when it was seeing lots of young people not finding any jobs and I think it prepared itself well. Arab nations didn't see this coming.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7915372.stm

The biggest challenge facing China is not slowing growth but unemployment, which could trigger social unrest, a Chinese government minister has said.

 

[rootX]

They seemed to think what? That economic factors were enough to revolt? That's not how I saw the driver of the Egyptian revolution. The wiki seems to agree: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Egyptian_revolution
.

The uprising of Egyptian people, forcing their president to resign, is a turning point in the country’s history. Millions of people crowding streets of Cairo were able to oust a 30-year regime in just 18 days. A major reason for frustration of Egyptian people with Hosni Mubarak was his failure to improve economic conditions. Indeed, widespread poverty, rapid inflation, and double-digit unemployment were the underlying reasons for this unprecedented revolt. Data tell the story well.

http://www.csub.edu/kej/documents/weekly_updates/2011-02-14.pdf

 

[nismaratwork]

Why is it curious? Make a point, don't beat around the bush.

OK... I made my point... care to make yours in a fashion that isn't shredded within moments of its inception?

@rootX: If being a dictator was what it took for revolution, there should be more revolutions. Where people can be appeased, it's calm. In Oman, which is less wealthy and powerful than SA, you have SOME unrest. In Iran you have a massively powerful security, so there are protests, but they're crushed.

This is not the "ideological awakening" that "hemi-peens" like Wolfowitz, or hopeless dreamers such as Russ would like it to be.

Of course, many factors are at play, but note, even in Libya they're already fighting for oil and land.

$$$$$

 

[Isaacsname]

Revolution in the physical sense is evolved from the revolution of the minds taking part. I can assume the OP was making reference of violent revolution in societies throughout history ?

I think that revolutions are driven by subconscious acceptance of ideas born of want. As people look to better things, certain ideas are held on high by those that revere them, and considered in the subconscious by those that are indirectly affected. When ideas reach a critical mass of acceptance, they explode out into the collective consciousness and become woven into the fabric of our lives. Yes, as silly as it sounds, I believe that ideas can go supercritical too, perhaps that's a slightly abstract allegory.

Mirror neurons are possibly to blame for indecisive revolutions like Egypt, or what we saw in the LA riots, where it's more of a case of "monkey-see-monkey-do" and people are swept up into the mode, merely by seeing it happen. They don't know what they are rebelling against in a physical sense, only that they are acting against an idea/s that they feel governs their lives. In that sense, they are rebelling against something with no tangible reality in the attempt to enact changes in the physical world.

Usually the physical revolution happens because it is the easiest, it is a placebo for the necessary mental changes that would change life on the whole for a society.

Throw some Molotov cocktails, execute a leader, burn a store or two, this is tantemount to nothing other than disguising the problem in a new mask, it is scratching the surface of a problem/s that runs deeper. I think the only effective way to bring prosperity through revolution, is for the idea to be so grand and broadly sweeping that it transcends violence and becomes supplanted in the public consciousness.

OTOH, if we were all Ghandi-like, there would be no problems, and with no problems there would come no solutions. Without solutions we would have no learning, and without learning, life would cease to have purpose.

..., there is always the question, what does prosperity mean ? If there is no consensus of what is prosperity, than there is no concrete way to attain it, and violence will always stand in the way of mental clarity and communication. We have to define it before we can set a course to reach it.

I still think reality is just a trivial matter of semantics.

 

[talk2glenn]

Really? Could you give some examples where economic hardship is by far the primary motivator for revolution? It certainly wasn't the prime mover in the recent Middle East revolutions. It wasn't for the American revolution either - heck, for the American revolution it was mostly rich people leading the revolution. But the reason was political oppression. At best I think it can sometimes be considered the final straw whereas the underlying problem is typically lack of freedom.

Respectfully, I have to disagree. Generally, in the modern world, wealthy countries are democratic - I think this is the primary reason we don't see violent revolution there, versus elsewhere. It's a correlation versus causation thing. You also are not seeing credible unrest in the welathier dictatorships, like China.

The philosophical leadership of the American revolution was a wealthy elite, I grant you, but the populist motivator was decidedly economic; specifically, crushing taxes imposed by the Crown after the French-Indian war. George Washington didn't single handedly oust the British; he used an army of working proletarians to do it. The sort of people who have to wonder where there next meal is going to come from generally aren't all that concerned with more philosophical pursuits, like their representation in government. It's a simple matter of priorities. Food and shelter are at the top of the hierarchy; if a government can provide that, they've gone a long way towards securing their position.

In the case of the Middle East revolutions, the motivator is primarly economic, and not philosophical. The people aren't marching in the streets because they dislike non-democratic systems - they've always lived under relative states of dictatorship, but they are not always in revolt. So what's changed? The answer is economic circumstances - in the Middle East food accounts for between 25 and 50 percent of the average household budget, and there has been rapid food price inflation recently. This greatly erodes the purchasing power of Middle Eastern households. Couple this with a shortage of "acceptable" jobs for the youth (who are often over educated relative to their economy - the state subsidizes their schooling but then can't provide them with "satisfactory" employment given that education), and you have revolution.

History is filled with examples of poor democracies which fell in revolution (often but not always violent) due to economic hardship. The obvious examples are Germany, and just about all of the Latin American countries at one time or another. Post-colonial Africa also works. The common denominator is almost without fail (I doubt you could find any counterexample, honestly) relative economic hardship.

 

[WhoWee]

Couple this with a shortage of "acceptable" jobs for the youth (who are often over educated relative to their economy - the state subsidizes their schooling but then can't provide them with "satisfactory" employment given that education), and you have revolution.

Makes you wonder - what are they teaching these kids? Would it not benefit the state to prepare the children for the reality of their world - and how they might contribute upon completion of studies? You don't suppose the teachers are critical of the "establishment" - do you?

 

[talk2glenn]

Makes you wonder - what are they teaching these kids? Would it not benefit the state to prepare the children for the reality of their world - and how they might contribute upon completion of studies? You don't suppose the teachers are critical of the "establishment" - do you?

I can't tell you what the curriculum is like in an Egyptian university, but I can tell you the statistics are absurd. This is a country that is basically third-world in terms of living, infrastructure, and industrial standards, but something like a third of Egypt's young adults will go to college. Even if we assume that they're studying useful, technical fields like engineering and the sciences, and that the education standards are not abysmal (unlikely, but I can't say), I'm still at a loss to say where the economy is going to find a place for a third of its new-workers in technical professions.

I'd guess that the vast majority of the Egyptian economies needs are low- and medium-skilled labor in industry and agriculture. But instead of providing technical training for its population in preparation for entrance into these fields, the government pushes higher education. A lot of this is western influence - we convince them that higher education will lead to improved economic and technical circumstances, but I don't see any evidence that this works. It takes time to educate, but it takes more time for economies and labor market preferences to change. In the United States, it took the better part of a century. China is moving faster, but still highly dependent on low- and medium-skilled labor in the factories.

On that note, China is itself facing a similar crisis - its turning out new college graduates faster than the labor market can demand them, even as it grows and modernizes significantly faster than Egypt. This with an admission rate of only about 19%, substantially lower than that of Egypt. What the Egyptians were thinking, I cannot say. There is, frankly, no way a third of its college-aged population is qualified for higher education and needed by the domestic economy.

 

[WhoWee]

I can't tell you what the curriculum is like in an Egyptian university, but I can tell you the statistics are absurd. This is a country that is basically third-world in terms of living, infrastructure, and industrial standards, but something like a third of Egypt's young adults will go to college. Even if we assume that they're studying useful, technical fields like engineering and the sciences, and that the education standards are not abysmal (unlikely, but I can't say), I'm still at a loss to say where the economy is going to find a place for a third of its new-workers in technical professions.

I'd guess that the vast majority of the Egyptian economies needs are low- and medium-skilled labor in industry and agriculture. But instead of providing technical training for its population in preparation for entrance into these fields, the government pushes higher education. A lot of this is western influence - we convince them that higher education will lead to improved economic and technical circumstances, but I don't see any evidence that this works. It takes time to educate, but it takes more time for economies and labor market preferences to change. In the United States, it took the better part of a century. China is moving faster, but still highly dependent on low- and medium-skilled labor in the factories.

Does it seem reasonable to compare Egypt to Louisiana - both economies related to oil and transportation - neither the economic leaders in their region? While Egypt is arid - much of LA is swamp - both unusable for conventional agriculture. Both are also linked to tourism.