Making Sense of Revolution

Via Bazz

The Daily Reckoning
By Bill Bonner
Excerpt
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“In France, before the revolution, everybody was trying to get some special privilege,” explained our historian wife. “The rich and powerful always found some way to get ahead. I guess they always do. One had a monopoly on selling tobacco. Another had the right to collect taxes from some area in France. Still another got to sell fine fabrics or import china. Almost the entire aristocracy had been turned into zombies.

“The government was broke. It desperately needed money. So it began to squeeze everyone it could. This just made the situation worse.”

Meanwhile, the underlying economy was changing fast. While the zombies still controlled most of the land and the government, a new class of merchants and entrepreneurs was creating real wealth. This new dynamic bourgeoisie needed to get the zombies off its back.

The French Revolution began sensibly, with petitions and peaceful movements. The Estates General was convened. Grievances were heard. Change was promised. A great reform was proposed. And for a while, it looked as though France was on its way to becoming a constitutional democracy, like England, with its monarch and aristocracy still with heads on their shoulders, but with reduced powers. It looked like it might work…a peaceful revolution…an evolution towards a better system, one better suited to the needs of the new capitalistic era, with fewer zombies.

But it was not to be…the zombies dug in their heels. They resisted change…just like the elite always does. They could no more agree to give up their privileges than the elite in Washington today can agree to give up its revenues.

But the show must go on. Entrenched elites do no readily evolve; but history cannot be stopped. The unstoppable force of the Industrial Revolution and the Enlightenment ran right into the immoveable object of the monarchy and the privileged classes. The result? A huge, violent crash. The Committee of Public Safety…the Reign of Terror…and the Napoleonic Wars.

What’s ahead for the US and other developed countries? We don’t know. But the tax-spend-and-borrow model no longer works. Because these economies aren’t growing fast enough to keep up with the rising debt. Soon, they will be overwhelmed.

What then? Will they be able to reform themselves? Will “change” be more than a campaign slogan?

What Bastille will be stormed by the mobs? Whose head will roll?

We will have to wait to find out.