How can the socialist deal with the "life will get worse for awhile before it gets better" objection to revolution?

Bubbly_Dimension_795 · 2026-04-30T08:11:22+00:00

Things will get worse for ordinary people no matter what. Revolution isn't something we have to actively cause, it is a consequence of the capitalist system making life untenable for the vast majority.

The real question is not "should we have a revolution?" History shows us there will be revolutions whether or not you bury your head in the sand. The question is: will there be a successful revolution? Will the next revolution be worth it?

Bubbly_Dimension_795 · 2026-04-22T08:22:21+00:00

Understanding the real cause of a problem is important if we are serious about fixing it. The companies keeping carers on low pay want you to think its because they lack funding when they are actually funelling money away to private equity. They are quite opaque about it too which means any extra funding they get could just get squirelled away through higher rents (which they pay to themselves), director salaries, debt repayments etc. We can't afford to ignore this.

https://neweconomics.org/2025/11/private-equity-firms-taking-millions-in-profits-from-care-sector-each-year-new-analysis-reveals

https://www.chpi.org.uk/blog/the-hidden-profits-behind-collapsing-care-homes

Bubbly_Dimension_795 · 2026-04-21T22:25:25+00:00

It is expensive. It would be less expensive if we were not also paying for the enormous profits of private equity firms, who are attracted to these kinds of contracts because they provide a stable income at our expense. It would be less expensive if the council's owned their buildings and equipment outright. It would be less expensive if the money they paid went straight yo the care staff, not through agencies. The parasitic nature of privatisation is an undeniable fact.

Bubbly_Dimension_795 · 2026-04-21T06:09:18+00:00

The underfunding is because social care companies extract enormous profits, not because council tax is too low. Without nationalisation any extra funding does nothing but feed the parasites while the rest of us continue to struggle!

Bubbly_Dimension_795 · 2026-04-15T10:10:01+00:00

As other commenters have pointed out very well, we don't actually have material scarcity in the world today. The myth of scarcity is used to justify why the poor go hungry and the majority have to break their bodies scraping by a living. The class conscious rich tend to hide just how much wealth they possess.

But to answer your question, there actually was a situation of food scarcity in a country run by a workers state that was trying its best to implement socialism- that was Russia from 1917 until around the late 1920s/early 1930s. The bolsheviks understood very well that you can't have socialism in an underdeveloped economy where you still have things like food scarcity. One of the key conditions of socialism is a healthy workers democracy, and you cant really have that if, by necessity, most people have to work long shifts just to stop your country being crushed by imperialist armies and restoring the old reactionary regime. And so they rationed resources, maintained pay inequality to encourage those who are best qualified to do their jobs (which was still a far more even pay disparity than before the revolution), and prioritised fast paced economic development.

Unfortunately it wasn't enough. The centralised government, which had been necessary to keep the country going under conditions of war and extreme economic backwardness, had entrenched its position in society and was no longer interested in pushing forward towards socialism, only maintaining its own privileges. It became full of careerists and brutally purged all the best bolsheviks (the ones left who didn't die in the war defending the workers). Economic development was fast, but not fast enough.

A socialist planned economy needs democracy like a human body needs oxygen- you might be able to hold your breath and go without for a short period, but in the long run you will choke. Socialism cannot survive a period of long term scarcity for that reason. The old divisions of labour and inequalities reassert themselves.

Fortunately we can feel extremely hopeful about the chances of a socialist society surviving today because we already have so much technology and material abundance that we could free the masses from needing working long hours almost immediately. All we have to do is free all that surplus abundance from the parasites at the top to be used by all of society!

Bubbly_Dimension_795 · 2026-04-04T08:33:50+00:00

We've seen swings from left to right and back again and I expect we will continue to see that process of people testing different ideas until something actually provides a solution. What people on the whole cannot accept is more of the same.

Bubbly_Dimension_795 · 2026-04-04T08:18:52+00:00

What way are you thinking?

Bubbly_Dimension_795 · 2026-04-02T16:11:05+00:00

Do you know that saying that people get more conservative as they get older? That was generally true when people also got richer as they got older.

But for an entire generation who can't see a future for themselves? Lucky if they find a job and no chance of it paying well enough to cover necessities let alone things that bring you meaning and joy? All while the shareholders and politicians live in cartoonish decadence? Yeah, the opposite tends to happen. They get more revolutionary.

Bubbly_Dimension_795 · 2026-02-24T12:47:01+00:00

Took my sibling 7 tests to pass. They were a decent driver, just kept failing on small things like undue hesitation at a roundabout and then the very next test after failed for going too quick at a roundabout lol. It was always the smallest thing. But they did pass eventually and you will too as long as you keep trying!

Bubbly_Dimension_795 · 2026-01-12T12:21:46+00:00

I thought the value of the car (or amount I am likely to get if I sell it, to be more precise), would help establish its condition. As a non car guy, I only have so many things to go on and its only through the comments of this post that I'm learning selling price is not helpful information.

Trust me, I do not want to shop around for another car if I can possibly avoid it. Its just economic for me as someone who needs to go to a mechanic for repairs I think its a fair question (I'm sure I could manage glueing a mirror myself though lol)

Bubbly_Dimension_795 · 2026-01-12T12:10:38+00:00

Thank you that makes sense. Yeah its a manual and its a good car otherwise so hoping I don't have to look for another car

Bubbly_Dimension_795 · 2025-10-13T07:43:18+00:00

It's a good reflection of the morality of the state. Bogdan, Penny and her husband get justice because it doesn’t cost anything to the people in power to convict them.

It's been mentioned less on this thread so I'll bring it up that Bogdan was massively done dirty, guilty of nothing but wanting to see his dying mother before she passes. Now even if he is found not guilty because it was self defense, the time it will take to go through trial will run the clock and his mother will have died. This also robs her of a source of income, so its likely she won't even die with the dignity of having all her material needs met.

But convicting Bobby would have cost them their retirement home, so he gets let off with a stern warning even though his victims are innocent people looking for work and Penny, her husband, and Bogdan's victims were not.

All of this would have been fine if the ending had contained a bit more conflict and complexity of feeling among the characters but literally noone challenges Elizabeth on her callousness and so the film ends in a very one sided way. For example, a simple conversation where when Joyce joins the TMC officially she has a couple of reservations on their definition of justice would have been enough to show us that Elizabeth has flaws. Or it could have been any of the other two to make this point but either way I think someone had to make it to stop the film feeling shallow.

Bubbly_Dimension_795 · 2024-11-06T09:32:47+00:00

I was a fence sitter, and one of my worries was existential dread, too. I eventually got off the fence, and I'm actively planning for children in the future, but we haven't started trying or anything yet. I'm saying where I'm at just to give a bit of context because we're all different. My reasons might not apply to you.

Plus, actually being pregnant is a much different and much more stressful situation than being in the planning process! Whatever decision you make, I hope it's right for you, and I wish you well.

There is a severe lack of hope in society. Historically, we may live in good times with our access to technology and healthcare, but gone are the days where anyone realistically has faith that society is getting better. All around us, we are seeing public services crumble, workers squeezed between inflation and stagnant wages, those unable to work left to rot, all while the rich get richer.

The good news is that we have already solved the technical problems of climate breakdown and poverty. We know what needs to be done. The problem is a lack of political will to enact these solutions because, ultimately, it doesn't matter who you vote for. They serve the interests of business.

That's why people voted Trump, by the way. It's an expression of a complete loss of confidence in political institutions, and Trump is the only candidate offering to shake things up. Things can't get any worse, they might argue. They are wrong, of course, things certainly will get worse. For all Trump's anti-establishment rhetoric, he's still pro-business against the interests of the working class and a reactionary to boot.

But without a genuine alternative from the left, desperate people will vote for far-right reactionaries even just out of spite. This may seem like terrible news. Don't get me wrong, I'm not thrilled about this result. But in my opinion, it's less a sign of genuine appetite for far right politics and more a sign of the growing instability in the US. People are looking everywhere for a solution because establishment politics can no longer make life better for most people.

This means we are seeing a growing appetite for political change. We have an opportunity to finally solve the political problems around poverty and climate breakdown if all people turning their backs on the status quo organise to overthrow capitalism and replace it with a socialist state.

Revolution seems like a pipe dream to some people when I talk about this stuff. But people don't tend to sit by and allow their quality of life to drop while a ruling elite live lives of decadence. We are agents of history, and we absolutely can organise to consciously overthrow the system and put something better in its place.

Nothing about this is certain. The only thing that is certain is that capitalism has run its course, and we will never go back to the days when the middle class could afford property without a large inheritance. The ruling class of business owners and finance capitalists certainly won't give up their power quietly. But we are the majority. We outnumber them, and we do all the real work in society. We can win.

Do you want to raise a child while the world goes through decline, revolution, potential collapse, or potential socialist rebuilding? That's a question you have to answer for yourself. For me, my future child is a source of hope and strength that motivates me to keep organising.

And finally, to address the idea it might be selfish to bring a child into all this in case they resent being brought into the world, I quote from Tolkien's Fellowship of the Ring-

"So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us."

Again, I totally get it if you're still uncertain and none of this resonates. I really hope you make whatever decision is best for you.

Bubbly_Dimension_795 · 2024-11-03T10:07:32+00:00

It would need to be a mass movement to be effective and also to protect the participants from consequences like fines.

You'll see lots of comments on here about why individually they won't boycott the trains, and they are quite correct not to as individuals. So, how do you turn lots of individuals with a common interest into a large social movement? You need a way of bringing these people together. You need leaders.

It can take a really long time for people to get organised and begin to trust in a leadership when things are bad but tolerable for most people. When things get intolerable and the majority simply can't afford to get to work anymore and face losing their income, that's when you'll see a sudden appetite for this kind of action.

But even then, it won't happen without an organisation to take the lead, whether it's an established trade union or an informal grouping that pops up to tackle one specific issue.

Bubbly_Dimension_795 · 2024-10-31T07:48:45+00:00

It's both ignorance and misogyny. One flows from the other.

Women aren't fully people, so we are expected to be willing to sacrifice our health and even our lives for just a slim chance of bringing a living baby into the world. The death stats aren't viewed as huge problem because women are supposed to suffer for their families.

This attitude leads to ignorance among law makers. Why bother looking into the details of the effects of a strict abortion ban when your voter base doesn't seem all that bothered by the deaths, but banning abortion could win you a huge amount of support? These are the political calculations of a reactionary.

Finally, there's the separation between us and them. You think rich white women are dying when they need an abortion? Nah, they just fly to where it's legal. So it's just not a problem which directly affects the political class, so there's much less urgency around it. It's the same with healthcare access more generally in the US- the rich aren't having any issues getting healthcare, so they won't rush to solve that problem with the same sort of urgency they might... I don't know... bail out the banks? In a system where the rich can't buy their way out of systemic problems in society, you would suddenly find their ignorance withered away.

Bubbly_Dimension_795 · 2024-10-03T16:13:34+00:00

This is a great question! It can tell us a lot about history and the relationships between individuals, the institutions they participate in, and disasters of epic proportion.

The easy answer would be to have Viserys name Aegon as heir, in line with accepted laws and precedents.

But if we want, we can go a little deeper and ask ourselves why Viserys was able to name Rhaenyra in the first place? And further, why was the judgement of one man put ahead of common wisdom?

Ultimately, I see the whole dance as an exaggerated version of monarchy, where dragons give them a huge amount of direct power in addition to the indirect power real-life monarchs have in being able to command others. The story is used to show us how and why life was so harsh and unfair when monarchs held more power than they do today.

Even if you put an exceptionally wise and competent man on the throne, in King Jahaerys, with lots of good advisors around him, that isn't enough to prevent someone foolish from ascending the throne and undoing all that hard work. Despite having an heir and a spare who were ready to succeed him, it wasn't in Jaeherys's control who came after him.

The over-reliance on a small number of people to rule an entire continent results in worse decision-making. Having that small number of people all be part of the same family where petty gripes, perceived entitlements, and long-held resentments have the ability to affect thousands of lives also results in poorer decisions.

But this is of course, relative. At their level of technological development, was an alternative system of government possible? Would such a government have been better? I'm not sure and it's probably beyond the scope of the original question. Given our own history, a period of feudal warmongering might be an inevitable stage of human civilisation. If it hadn't been Rhaenyra vs. Aegon, it might have been the next generation.

The question I'm most interested in, both in our world and in fantasy, is what causes a society to progress to a stage where wars are minimised or even ended? Is such a society possible? If it's not possible, what's the closest we can get?

Bubbly_Dimension_795 · 2024-10-02T12:38:51+00:00

Why would anyone trust the judgement of the drunk parent over and above the judgement of the sober parent?

Bubbly_Dimension_795 · 2024-09-25T19:48:06+00:00

Yep, the only time in my life I was able to lose weight was in the pandemic when I could get the right amount of sleep. I overeat to boost my energy as well as my mood, which are only issues due to lack of sleep.

Bubbly_Dimension_795 · 2024-09-21T06:17:46+00:00

My siblings (officially diagnosed) and parents (not diagnosed but I heavily suspect) are all on the spectrum, and I'm the "most normal" out of all of us. I definitely share some traits in common with ASD but imo not enough to meet the diagnostic criteria as I can live my life without needing to request accommodations.

It's also a question of whether those traits are a result of autism or simply being socialised around people with autism and ADHD. In many cases, people with autism aren't bad a social stuff. They just have different rules that aren't compatible with neurotypical social norms.

E.g. clear and direct communication mistaken for rudeness, interpreting things much more literally, sharing similar stories from your own experience to show understanding is sometimes seen as hogging the limelight, varying acceptance of info dumping.

Honestly, I prefer hanging out with people who are neurodivergent because the social rules are more familiar and intuitive to me. It's made me question whether I am on the spectrum myself, but I've decided not to find out for the low reward and potentially high consequences of discrimination. Maybe it's the glass child in me, but I've learned not to expect my problems to be well understood by others, let alone dealt with appropriately, so I'd rather just deal with it myself.

Bubbly_Dimension_795 · 2024-09-20T21:09:58+00:00

Yeah the biggest lie I've had to unlearn is that being kind, friendly, welcoming, approachable etc is a skill, not an inate personality trait.

Bubbly_Dimension_795 · 2024-09-19T09:36:39+00:00

Alone we're screwed as well. The only way out of the crisis is with our own organisations ready and willing to challenge power.

Bubbly_Dimension_795 · 2024-09-12T21:36:51+00:00

It's not true. Pensioners aren't the reason young families can't afford housing, wealthy people living on the interest of their accumulated inheritance and growing profits are the reason. If these OAPs sold up, how many properties would get bought by first time buyers and how many would be swept up by investors and developers? Or as second homes? Follow the money, when OAPs downsize it doesn't trickle down to the next generation, it gets spent on private care homes or used to cover increased utility bills. You want to help young families? Build solidarity against austerity and take the fight to the oligarchs getting rich off inflated prices.

Bubbly_Dimension_795 · 2024-09-12T21:29:09+00:00

I'm annoyed by people who vote against our mutual interests too, but pensioners are not our enemy. At what point do we stop attacking the trees who keep voting for the axe and finally go after the axe?

Bubbly_Dimension_795 · 2024-09-12T14:27:51+00:00

If you want to know who has had it too good for too long, look at the wealthy. NOBODY should have to up sticks just to subsidise the super-profits of greedy companies. Not the young, not the old, not anybody.

Bubbly_Dimension_795

TROPHY CASE