Comment by JumpCrisscross
10 hours ago
> its true that you risk permanent injury, if you go too far
Guillotining–and violence as a tool of politics more broadly–is pretty much a one-way signal in the historical record (outside civil wars). More concentration of wealth and power. Or anarchy. Either way, the poor and middle class end up worse.
As for my civil-war caveat, even that's starting to look one way in the age of information and globally-mobilised proxy-war assets.
Hitler did not come to power out of a Jacobin movement, he came to power during a time just like our own, when a moderate government was convinced that there was no better alternative to their style of rule. It is dangerous to argue in favor of a stable middle class when history would prove that such forms of society are often fleeting when they do occur. Waves inevitably crash along the shore, which doesn’t mean they aren’t beautiful while they roll along it.