revolutionary situation

Letter to Atlantic:

Huntington is quoted as believing that economic sanctions, shortages, and hardships never lead to the downfall of revolutionary regimes, because sacrifice is proof of commitment in a revolutionary situation: "Revolutionary governments may be undermined by affluence; but they are never overthrown by poverty."

But a "revolutionary situation" is always temporary, because ideological fervor can't be sustained indefinitely, even under sanctions. Revolutions eventually have to deliver in material terms; if they can't, they become vulnerable to food shortages, as well as to luxury hotels. One defense is some form of totalitarian control, which is what revolutionary regimes finally turn to, with numbing predictability. Coercive control, not revolutionary commitment, is the reason why material shortages do not lead to the overthrow of Sadam or Castro.

Compared with revolutionary fervor, the kind of self-interest characteristic of capitalist systems has the great advantage of being an extremely reliable motivator in the longer run; it doesn't wear off. But maybe the lesson of recent events is that there is a third way. Namely, motivation that derives from fundamentalist religious beliefs. A divine extension of self-interest, with martyrs motivated by promised payoffs in the afterlife, for example. Is it possible that such motivation not only will not subside with time, but is also immune to the effects of both poverty and affluence? If so, we are in for a very hard and very long fight.

Byron