Revolution O'clock

02 Jun, 2026

Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.

- James Baldwin

I wrote recently that we must raise a revolution, but that's not quite right. A revolution is under way, and we must figure out what to do.

In this post I'll set out a string of brief, skeletal arguments why core aspects of our prevailing social, political, and economic arrangements are unsustainable, so that they will inevitably disintegrate or be radically transformed in the coming years. Either way, the changes will be revolutionary - we can let them happen to us or we can try to steer them. I'll follow each sketch in the list by a potential, necessarily radical way we might respond.

A few things to keep in mind.

First, the list is wrong. That's right, it's absolutely incorrect.

It's less wrong, however, than an empty page. I've been brainstorming, beats shoving my head into sand, this is what came out. Now, precisely because the arguments are so simple and clear on their face to be accessible to an engaged highschooler, I am also claiming that we must address them - elaborate, qualify, reformulate, or dismiss them - to have the first idea about what's going on in the world and what we can do to have a say.

The list is wrong, as of now, because it's preliminary. It's a starting step, and I have the background to expand a few items, but I don't claim expertise in any one. It needs a lot more work. Each point needs to be developed, first into a full blog post, then into a literature review ... which is as much as I can hope to accomplish by myself. In the process, the arguments will and should change, some beyond recognition. I doubt, though, that the implications can change so much as to invalidate the overall case.

Please let me know if you can help.

There's one major assumption: that the global climate and ecological breakdown is due to the sheer volume of matter and energy flows under human control. I consider this an admissible simplification, but it's reasonable to expect me to justify it - if not conclusively, then at least why we cannot rule it out. I'll take a rain check on that.

The arguments are tentative, but if the dynamics they outline are real, we cannot afford to ignore them. Let's talk about it.

Loosely in order from the more economic to the more geopolitical:

1. Capital accumulates due to the profit motive. The main incentive for economic production in capitalism is the profit motive. The most direct way profits can be used to generate more profits is to reinvest them into growing the business. When successful, this results in increasing economic activity, which, other things equal, pulls in more energy and resources.

Revolution: significantly limit or eliminate the profit incentive.

2. The reserve pool of labor needs employment. To save on labor costs, businesses are incentivized to innovate to produce more goods and services per unit of labor power. As productivity goes up, people lose jobs. The economy then must grow to create work for the constantly replenished pool of unemployed workers.

Revolution: make selling one's labor power to survive optional.

3. Interest-bearing debt currencies require expansion. Nearly all national currencies today are backed by interest-bearing debt. This requires the real economies of goods and services to function, in effect, as pyramid schemes. Since every new currency unit in circulation is backed by more than one unit of new debt, the deficit must be made up. This can happen in three main ways: by rendering services to the financial sector; by debt write-off in jubilee or bankruptcy; or by growing the economy, for instance by exploiting new resources and monetizing services previously rendered for free.

Revolution: overhaul local, national, and international currency and credit systems to eliminate this dynamic.

4. Governments create new physical and abstract real estate. Governments demarcate components of physical and symbolic worlds as property and sell rights to use them. This way, they raise funds to replenish their coffers, and serve up aspects of our societies and ecologies as tradable goods (land, carbon emissions, electromagnetic frequencies, inventions, creative works). When explicitly material, the new commodities directly increase human-controlled matter and energy flows. When not, they still require investment in new forms of infrastructure and coercion.

Revolution: govern material and abstract resources as commons.

5. While the economy grows, the pitchforks remain in the shed. Inequalities in income and standards of living carry the risk of class conflict. One of the reasons the poor do not revolt is the expectation of increasing overall living standards brought about by the growth of domestic production - the promise of a rising tide that lifts all boats. People who witness gradual advances in material prosperity find it easier to accept their lot, believing that their children will have it better.

Revolution: minimize income and class differences within nations.

6. GDP is the benchmark for national development. The gross domestic product is the main measure of how far a country has progressed in the imagined regatta of global development. Although UN development goals include many targets other than economic growth, increased production is still considered the primary way to reduce world poverty and inequality between nations. While they may disagree on how to achieve it, all countries pursue growth as a core policy aim.

Revolution: redistribute global wealth through technology transfer, debt writeoff, reparations for colonialism, and other means.

7. Nations grow their economies to project force to grow even more. Economic strength grants advantages in global commerce and geopolitics. First, it ensures a more favorable position in world markets, giving richer countries disproportionate claim to the products of poorer ones. Second, it undergirds tools of international influence, from foreign aid to military force. This enables stronger nations to dictate terms to weaker ones, gaining yet more control of energy and resources.

Revolution: dismantle exploitative trade relations, disarm and dismember nations to make wars of aggression impossible.

Fighting words, eh?

What do you think? How does each of these dynamics shape our lives? Can we still achieve a sustainable world if we ignore them? Which do you think is crucial, salient, marginal, spurious? How else could we address them? Please let me know.¹

If any two of them (really, any one, but I'm being cautious /s) are important, we live in revolutionary times - we are in the course of a world-historical transformation to rival the French, Russian, Chinese, and anti-colonial revolutions, possibly one as fundamental as agriculture and industrialization.

This is not a hot take, or a call to repent because the end is nigh.

To claim this is not the case, we need convincing reasons why most (really, all) of the outlined dynamics are minor or specious. If even a few are at play approximately as sketched out - I can't easily dismiss them, but I'm all ears - the upheaval, uncertainty, and hardship in the coming decades will rival and exceed the first half of the 20th century. The crisis will continue until all social relations producing it are overturned or strictly contained.

This is our reality. Getting a head start on any outcome we favor, including survival, means facing it and meeting it with open eyes.

Next time, I'll turn to the guiding themes - reason, anger, love - and start drawing lessons.