Revolution

The Machine Will Never Triumph, part twenty-seven

O start a revolution—

O! start a revolution, somebody!
not to get money
but to lose it all for ever.

O! start a revolution, somebody!
not to install the working classes
but to abolish the working classes for ever
and have world of men.¹

If we are to have a revolution, it will first and foremost have to be a spiritual revolution, since there is no point in changing the external world, if we remain greedy and selfish inside. And we should never revolt in the name of any one class. All classes are part of the system. Primitive peoples had no classes. If the poor revolt, they shouldn’t revolt in order to become wealthy, but so that none may be wealthy again, save in the sense that ancient people were all wealthy with the natural abundances of life and earth. Lawrence described precisely the kind of revolution he favored:

The whole scheme of things is unjust and rotten, and money is just a disease upon humanity. It’s time there was an enormous revolution—not to install soviets, but to give life itself a chance. What’s the good of an industrial system piling up rubbish, while nobody lives. We want a revolution not in the name of money or work or any of that, but of life—and let money and work be as casual in human life as they are in a bird’s life, damn it all. Oh it’s time the whole thing was changed, absolutely[…] You’ve got to smash money and this beastly possessive spirit. I get more revolutionary every minute, but for life’s sake. The dead materialism of Marx socialism and soviets seems to me no better than what we’ve got. What we want is life, and trust: men trusting men, and making living a free thing, not a thing to be earned. But if men trusted men, we could soon have a new world, and send this one to the devil.²

Let’s revolt, but for the sake of life, not for the masses, nor for the classes, and never with guns, bombs, and all the evil implements of modern warfare. We must fight, but to fight with modern weapons lowers us, and if we use the tools of the Machine we have already lost. We, instead, have another greater power, namely the power to withdraw ourselves. If everyone withdrew from the system, from the machines, and stopped buying and selling, the whole damn thing would come down, and men would be free once again. This would be a revolution towards traditional ways of living; something old and new at the same time. It is not at all in alignment with the Marxist objectives. As can be seen from history, both Marxist and capitalist regimes were equally guilty of heinous crimes against the earth. It is time to break out of one’s head, to get outside of the ideas that one is used to. Marxism and capitalism are both bad. It is time for something new. Let’s crack our egos to make Rananim: