Be the Revolution

Thomas Jefferson used to wonder about revolutions and even grew fascinated with them.  No wonder.  He was George Washington’s representative to France during the American Revolution and about to be America’s third president during the French Revolution two decades later.

He knew the world was changing rapidly on both continents.  When penning his infamous Declaration of Independence in 1776, he was aware enough to know that the average family in China was actually better off than their counterparts in the West.  Yet by the end of his lifetime, both Americans and Europeans were ten times better off than the Chinese.  What the revolutionary spirit had done was sufficient enough to bring prosperity, liberty and independence from old norms in only a few decades.

Jefferson became America’s third president 218 years ago next week.  He lived long enough to see average people organize successfully enough to wrestle the fabulous political power from the autocrats, wealth from the elites, and religious faith from the professional clerics.  They required one great resource to accomplish such herculean tasks – self-government.  But the revolutionary spirit was strong enough that they came together, using both the vote and belief in civil society, to achieve what many thought impossible.

This week I found myself wondering if Jefferson would believe we could do that again today – in America, Europe or Canada?  I was somewhat shocked at my own audacity to entertain such a thought, but then again, massive challenges face us today that only revolutionary spirits can match. Yes, there was also be the need for reform and refinement, but when it comes to issues like climate change, wealth inequality, the rise of racism or the loss of trust, the status quo of our politics and our citizenship can’t hope to save us.

There is a key difference between Jefferson’s desire for revolution in his day and what we feel in ours. The door was opening for average people and families in his era, giving people hope that change was possible. Yet there is this growing sense in our times, in the West at least, that we are watching the door close.

The godfather of capitalism, Adam Smith, actually talked about this.  He knew in both North America and Europe that things were on the growth curve and that even greater improvements were coming.  In such a light, Smith believed the average person would be elevated – in wealth, in education, in opportunity and in human spirit. He turned out to be right.

But in his Wealth of Nations,he warned against what he termed the “stationary state” – a time when wages would become stagnant and where capitalism had lost its “democratic mission.”  He spoke of the wealthy being fabulously wealthy but that small businesses would “be near to the edge of closing.”  He went on to talk about how the poor would become systematized and that class distinctions would soon reappear with a vengeance.  Tragically, he wrote of a time when things would become static and hope would be deferred.  Citizens would no longer believe in their institutions and even have difficulty in believing in themselves., in their own part and potential in the democratic process.

The legislative achievements of the middle-class era have fallen prey to those seeking to roll back progress for workers, gender equity, affordable post-secondary education and global standards that now run the risk of falling by history’s wayside, kicked to the curb by the very people that once benefitted from such advances.

What Smith called “democratic mission” is just another way of saying “revolution” – that ability to come together, collaborate, plan and resource our ability to fight for our own security within our institutions instead of blowing everything up and hoping we can survive on the frontier that’s left.

I want to cover this a bit more in the next blog post, but for now the question remains:  are we no longer capable of revolution because we are permitting the door to democracy to close instead of forcing it open?  The revolution we’re talking about here isn’t the kind that destroys but builds – especially on the progress of the past.  It can’t be manufactured, but can only be lived by the very people who believe in it and once benefitted by it.  To paraphrase Gandhi or Obama: "Be the revolution you wish to see in the world." Or as John F. Kennedy once put it:

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.  You cannot buy the revolution.  You cannot make the revolution.  You can only be the revolution.”