Chase, great insight on how when states lose power, they become increasingly authoritarian and coercive.
This may in turn stimulate mass demonstrations as people try to regain their freedom and liberty.
Now as Chase says, if enough people choose to oppose the government's tight grip on individual liberties, there are high chances that it will retreat and tactically withdraw its lockdown proposals.
However, this is less likely to happen due to the inherent structure of incentives built into mass demonstrations, namely;
- The short term factor
- The long term factor
- Non Exclusivity
The short term factor refers to the fact that the risks and costs that arise from a popular insurrection are immediate, therefore they are certain.
So for example if we all choose to go and protest lockdown in the streets, the authoritarian government is most likely to descend on us with its coercive security and military apparatus.
As a result, Tim may lose an arm, a leg or get badly injured. Reagan might get shot to death. And Enrique may lose his grocery business down the street.
The tragic situations elucidated above tend to come about when it is a mob of people without organised leadership. And as we all know, mobs can quickly degenerate into a state of chaos, looting and property destruction. And that is all the state needs to justify its harsh and deadly crackdown on protesters.
One way the above scenarios can be remedied is by ensuring that the uprising is led and organised by an intelligent charismatic leader who insists that the people remain calm and peaceful regardless of provocations.
As for the long-term factor, the benefits of liberty and freedom that come as a result of a successful insurrection come at a later date, therefore they are uncertain. Hence Karim and Wesley may choose not to participate in our well organised protest party because they see it as a high risk enterprise whose returns at best may come at a creep, not a gallop and at worst, may never materialize.
Okay, on to the non exclusivity aspect of demonstrations. In the event that the uprisings are successful, there is no way that you can exclude those who didn't participate and those that were actively opposed to the demonstrations from cashing in on the benefits.
The underlying mindset of these folks is as follows; Let Barry, Johannes, Patrick, Eddy and Jerome go and do their thing. Heck, if they lose , too bad for them. Atleast am still safe and sound. But if they succeed, its a win-win and libations fa EVERYBODY!!!
So you end up with a situation where Marshal, the commander of the military outfit, who was actively trying to impose the state's will on the streets cannot be excluded from enjoying the beauty of the outdoors and is now free to go about his day hitting on hundreds of chicks, all because no lockdown measures have been instated.
And folks like Jack, Derrick, Tom et al who chose not to participate but rather remain at home and shag their FWBs, play video games or watch fast paced TV series cannot be excluded from going to night clubs, house parties etc
Conclusion:
When it comes to mass opposition to state control, the aforementioned three factors tend to undermine collective action efforts.
Oh and by the way, the folks strewn about throughout this short post are all fictional and for strictly satirical purposes.
Any names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the writer's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons posting on this forum or actual events is purely coincidental.
NOTE:
Hey folks, early this year i embarked on the journey of developing my writing abilities. I've been writing on a daily basis and been tweaking my style based on the way Chase structures his ideas.
The name drop aspect of this post was inspired by Chase's GC island article.
I was aiming for it to be a rib cracking post. My bad for not having the intuition to see that revolutionary activities are a highly sensitive issue.
On that note, I apologize and have altered the names in the OP.
Buena suerte,
Rambalt
