students of 'merican history help me out

[pinkpops]

Way back in my mind I remember something about a safety valve concept that allows social change instead of violent revolution. Like in the depression and the race riots of the 60's. Something had to give to avert (more) violence. I was at lunch with some publicans who were saying government has no role in social welfare e.g. Social Security and that reminded me of this concept that even if people were mean enough to watch their neighbors starve (as some people are already) there would still be the matter of open revolt. Am I making this up?

[wysi]

1. A vague recollection...

... is all that I have, of some discussion of the New Deal being put in place to keep people from revolting and perhaps creating a communist state (which in the 1930s was a real possibility).

The difficulty now is that the government is too well-armed to really fight against... (this is not an incitement to revolution my dear friendly FBI watcher, so don't bother visiting me).

[pinkpops]

2. Me neither Mr. FBI man

just an academic interest.

[pop goes the weasel]

3. Yep

This is a pretty prevalent theory. And it's one of the reasons that Lenin opposed liberal socialism, because they ameliorated "the necessary preconditions of the revolution." I often joke that the Republicans are really all hard-core Leninists and Trotskyites intent on speeding up the coming of the dictatorship of the proletarian. And judging from the number of "ex"-Communists among the neo-cons, sometimes I wonder if I'm not joking.