The End of Revolution?

Revolutions can be compared to migrations. While reform is an attempt to improve life through a series of adjustments, revolution rejects the idea of piecemeal improvement, demanding that the past—the life we have been living, the ancien régime—be abandoned altogether in favor of a plunge into a completely new world of unknown risks and possibilities.

When discussing motivations for migration, social scientists usually distinguish between “push” factors that lead people to become dissatisfied with life in their homeland and “pull” factors that offer a promise of a better life somewhere else. ¹ Similarly, there are two sorts of incentives for revolutions. On the one hand, conditions may become so intolerable that at some point people simply refuse to accept the existing order of things any longer. On the other, revolutionaries usually also have a vision of a better—more free, more just, more prosperous, or whatever else “better” may imply—political, social, or economic order. Revolutions are like migrations to the future—migrations in time rather than in space.

Unlike the countries to which people emigrate in search of a better life, the promised lands of revolution do not yet exist, save in the minds of those who believe in them. Without such a “pull” factor, the “push” factor of dissatisfaction with the existing reality produces revolts that are “revolutions” only in the literal sense of revolving, cyclical movement. Revolutions as we understand the word today are modern phenomena linked to another modern phenomenon—ideology, or a quasi-scientific, rationalized, systematic vision of the political, social, or economic world as it should be.

A revolution in this modern sense cannot take place unless both “push” and “pull” factors are present. In practice, the “pull” factor of ideology is usually represented by enlightened elites, while the “push” factor is embodied by the disgruntled masses. The former are powerless without the latter; without the former, the latter have no sense of direction. Elites who have an ideological vision of a better life have to wait for the masses to revolt (or incite them to do so) before they can even try to channel their negative energy toward the positive end of implementing an ideological vision.

Revolutions are unlikely when factors opposed to the “push” and “pull” factors prevail. The “push” factor may be outweighed by a certain level of satisfaction with life as it is—let us call this the “stay” factor. And people may lack a vision of a dramatically different (and better) order of things; in other words, there may be no “pull” factor.

In the chapter in Democracy in America entitled “Why Great Revolutions Will Become More Rare” (II, iii, ch. 21), Tocqueville’s main argument is that in the land of liberty and equality the “push” factor is weak, while the “stay” factor is strong. The “stay” factor in democracy is constituted by what today we would call the middle class:

Between these two extremes of democratic communities stands an innumerable multitude of men almost alike, who, without being exactly either rich or poor, possess sufficient property to desire the maintenance of order, yet not enough to excite envy. Such men are the natural enemies of violent commotions; their lack of agitation keeps all beneath them and above them still and secures the balance of the fabric of society

(II, 252).

Democratic equality makes industry and commerce the most popular occupation for the majority of people, and these activities, especially commerce, also have a calming effect:

Commerce is naturally adverse to all the violent passions; it loves to temporize, takes delight in compromise, and studiously avoids irritation. It is patient, insinuating, flexible, and never has recourse to extreme measures until obliged by the most absolute necessity. Commerce renders men independent of one another, gives them a lofty notion of their personal importance, leads them to seek to conduct their own affairs, and teaches how to conduct them well; it therefore prepares men for freedom, but preserves them from revolutions

(II, 254).

The fact that the majority of the population are property owners and that commerce is such a central economic activity supplies the most [End...