In order for individuals to enact great change at a societial level, it almost never enough to protest.
You can't rework entrenched systems by holding up picket signs. Protest chants do not fix major social and economic issues. You can't fight injustice by begging the unjust elites to change their ways.
At most, a protest can raise awareness about the issue you are concerned about. But even that increased awareness is extremely vulnerable to the twist and spin of the people doing the reporting. How many grassroots movements have been co-opted by major political interests in the past decade alone? Let's see...the 99% movement was co-opted by the Democrat Party; the Tea Party movement was co-opted by the GOP; and various smaller movements have had their messages completely changed, their members either vilified or made to look stupid, according to the agendas of major news networks.
Now, this is where any good history teacher will trot out a few examples of our most celebrated social movements--and their attendant marches, speeches, and demonstrations--and how they "succeeded" in forcing the national "leadership" to create positive change. In my corner of the world, the classic example is the American Civil Rights movement. I completely agree that many of the changes that happened during the Civil Rights era made society fairer and safer for individuals, and it's likely that protesting contributed to those results, but I call bullshit on the idea that the movement was successful primarily because people protested.
See, what usually happens with successful social movements is something like this:
- Something is wrong with the way the state does things, and people are suffering because of it.
- Citizens realize that the way the state is doing this thing is wrong.
- Some people and organizations start acting in direct opposition to the law, either through public civil disobedience or by privately offering and taking advantage of black and gray market solutions that bypass the unjust law.
- A while later, some people decide to demonstrate and protest against the unjust law, believing that if they can gather enough support around their cause, they can persuade the powers that be to act fairly and mercifully.
- Finally, after much drama and political back-and-forth, the state changes the unjust law(s).
- In the history books, the state is praised and celebrated for doing The Right Thing. A national holiday is named to commemorate the struggle of our forebears and the beneficence of the state.
...but what about all those social movements that did not (or have not yet) succeed, even though their goals were every bit as good and important as the successful social movements? Did they just not protest hard enough???
The unfortunate fact is that the majority of protest-heavy social movements do not succeed without the presence of other mitigating factors.
I'm thinking of movements that are being waged all around the world at this very moment, that have been going on for years, decades, or longer with only scattered and minimal success. The Anti-War movement. The movement to end drug prohibition. The anti-circumcision movement. The movements for women's rights in certain parts of the world, and countless others. Why has protesting worked for some issues in some places, but not for the same issues in other places? Why is it that there are some issues that are pretty much guaranteed to never be resolved through protesting (like the problems of war and imperialism)?
Because the state only responds positively to social movements when it benefits the state to do so.
In the example of the American Civil Rights movement, it was seen as more prudent to legislate racial equality than to risk the major social upheaval that seemed certain to happen if they did not. The state did not have a change of heart. It did not reflect upon its moral standing. It did not do what it did for the benefit of the individuals it had been oppressing. The state acted in its own best interest by changing its attitude toward black Americans and mandating equal treatment of all citizens, regardless of race. If that threat of long-term unrest had not been present, the state might well have made a different decision.
So a state enacts social change when it behooves the state to do so, and no sooner.
This is why the BLM movement has not yet achieved its goal of police accountability. In order to make it worthwhile for the government to hold police accountable for the deaths they cause, several changes must first take place: there must be an end to the prosecution of victimless crimes; the prison-industrial complex must be made unprofitable; police officers must not be given extra rights that citizens out of uniform are not entitled to; and it must be more expensive for the government to defend murderous cops than it is profitable to overlook them.
This is also why the United States still has not legalized or decriminalized cannabis, even though people have been protesting these unjust laws for decades, the majority of Americans support its legalization, countless studies have shown it to be safe, and many states have legalized it for both medical and recreational use. Several federal agencies are practically dependent upon marijuana laws to fund their budgets. Many congresspeople enjoy lucrative partnerships with lobbyists from industries that benefit greatly from recreational drug prohibition (namely, the pharmaceutical industry.) The federal government will never reverse its position on cannabis or other recreational drugs, unless and until it becomes more expensive to enforce those laws than it is profitable to keep them in place. For the state governments that have legalized, it's simple math: the taxes they can collect from the sale of cannabis is a cash cow. For the federal government to charge sales tax on cannabis probably wouldn't ever fly, so something else has to happen to make it worth the government's while.
And this is why we can never expect any state to end war, or to stop the ridiculous central banking monetary policies that cause so much economic hardship, or to stop stealing people's money out of their paychecks. It's not in the state's best interests to do any of these things, regardless of how many citizens feel passionately that they should or how vocally they express those feelings.
If protesting won't work, what will?
Competition. Especially in this age of technological wonders, we are all in a unique position to bypass the state's injustices through bold and conscientious market activity. When people come up with a better alternative to an oppressive, powerful, and entrenched system and actually BUILD THAT ALTERNATIVE, that's when you see things begin to change rapidly.
For centuries, the state has claimed and enforced a monopoly over currency. This system has been the source of a lot of economic oppression and injustice, and in several conspicuous cases, has even contributed to the starvation of entire populaces. By investing in and using cryptocurrencies, we as individuals are competing with the state for monetary control, not protesting its ironclad dominion over the money supply.
Imagine applying that decentralized competition technique to other areas in which the state enforces unjust, oppressive, even criminal rigged economies:
Imagine Uber-ifying healthcare.
Imagine crowdfunded foreign aid.
Imagine blockchain-based immigration.
These decentralized solutions, and more, are on their way. Maybe someone reading this article now possesses the skills and vision necessary to help bring them about. Or maybe you're one of the millions of individuals who will provide the investment for such projects. Or maybe you'll just utilize these revolutionary solutions and services, even if it means breaking an unjust law.
If these new solutions are truly better than the government systems already in place, then people will switch to them in droves. Eventually, it will become more expensive for the state to prop up the unjust systems than it is profitable to keep them in place, and that's the point at which the state will be forced to recognize that it's in its best interests to stop trying to enforce those unjust laws and systems.
THAT's what it's going to take for things to change. A new model must be created, as Buckminster Fuller said, that makes the old one obsolete. Now Bucky probably wouldn't have spoken about political systems in economic terms like "competition" and "market appeal", but that's exactly what his words implied.
We're not going to achieve much success by begging our masters to have a change of heart. We have to compete the authoritarians out of business.
What do you think? Is protesting effective? Is it true that the state only acts in its best interests? Can competition change the world?
The first two images in this post were snagged from Pixabay and used under a Creative Commons license. The third image is from AZquotes.com
