The Decade of Failed Revolutions

Another decade has come to an end, and yes, I have realized that a bit too late. Therefore, I decided to come up with a theory on why the previous 10-years should have drastically changed the world, yet we have come to another year of stagnation and even higher expectations.

Before I get to the direct formulation of the idea of the missed revolutions, let’s recap the previous decade. For that, we need to imagine ourselves in the post-crisis time of the wild 2010. Back then the world was slowly recovering after the “globalization” crisis of 2008, the word “Bitcoin” was almost unknown to the large public, people enjoyed their iPhones 3GS and Skyrim did not even exist. It was a start not of a new decade but a new era: people had great expectations on how technology is going to change the world, how economic systems will come up with new transparent policies to boost global trade and development and how governments will fight against the rise of monopolies.

Why was that a good start? Well, we had loads of chances to bring the change in almost every sphere of our lives: economic, social, political and technological; people were expecting that the change just has to come and that it has to bring something absolutely new. Moreover, the early 2010s just had to do it, because the decade prior to that has shown that in the new, “digitalized” world, old processes have to be switched to the new practices. It meant that the companies have to become more transparent in their operations, they should be striving for change; that meant that the old political powers had to come up with new directives to address the rising risks of another crisis as well as adopt technological advantages to fight against existing problems. It is important to notice, how closely tied the economics, politics and technological development have become in the early 2010s. We were surrounded by enormous opportunities, that later we refused to use.

TLDR: 2010 was a new beginning providing us with loads of new opportunities. That was the start of the decade that would further “shape” our social, economic and political processes and trends.

The time passed by and with every year the sentiment in the media, the overall “information background” had become more depressive. It started with the growth of oligopolies when few digital firms took advantage of the early shaping market. Oligopolies that grew its power not just within the market but pushed even further, towards the field of politics with several lobbying propositions. Then “the depression” has become even more noticeable with the clear rise in the nationalistic rhetoric, support of the national economic protectionism (just for a quick notice, I do not mean the US only; the Asian market implemented several changes towards economic protectionism, leaving the external market powerless, several European countries continued to abuse the economic system of the union, CIS has become a “pot” of conflicts that drove local countries to the economic “split”: pro- and anti- Western).

At first, it grew as a social “negative” sentiment (in other words, the social dissatisfaction has become more and more clear). Then, a series of the catastrophic acts took place: local conflicts in Syria, nationalistic rise in Spain, nationalistic movements in the Nordics, the Crimea conflict, war between Russia and Ukraine, suppressed revolutions in Russia, several terror acts including mass murders in Norway, explosions in Paris, terrorist attacks in the UK, rise of ISIS. Apart from the horrific events, political changes did not bring “the positive changes” we were hoping for, quite the opposite: the rise of the national parties in the EU, Brexit, trade wars and the political mess in the US, etc. From year to year, the hopes about the bright future have been fading. It should have been the decade of the social formation, that has become the decade of the suppression.

TLDR: with every year of the previous decade the positive hopes have been fading away, which have been reflected and affected by the several of tragic events. Instead of shaping the new reality we have entered the age of stagnation in politics and global economy.

I believe that the previous decade should have been the start of the change. In almost every sphere of our lives, we had everything at our hands to bring the change that we needed. And we need a complete social revolution rather than the adaptation of the old processes to the new formats. It should have been not just a political revolution, but “the revolution of thought”, and here is why:

1. Rise of tech.
   At the start of the previous decade, the internet was in the process of formation. Not so many regulations were affecting the digital development, companies were just adopting the new possibilities to reach new customers, advertising and marketing were not filling every hole of the content, the content itself was driven by the independent creators, Facebook and social media as we know it was becoming more archaic in its old format and there was a start of rising of the new services, cybersecurity was not dead. Technologies were developing fast, and they were bringing the real change; the ones who didn’t apply it became irrelevant, the ones who adopted it first dominated the market. During “the rise”, we should have defined the key values of the digitalization that should be supported, such as content accessibility, decentralisation, proper applications of the regulations of the intellectual property, need for the privacy and cybersecurity, corporate transparency.
   While some of these values were completely ignored by both corporates and users, others became just a bunch of buzzwords having a zero real meaning behind them.
2. Shape of economies.
   Crisis of 2008 brought us an understanding of the economic risks and lack of real regulations towards the companies. Banks that were “too big” did not go bankrupt and the political side (that I will address later) has expressed its strong support for the large corporations. How it should have been changed? During the start of the previous decade, we still had a chance to avoid the economic rise of oligopolies in everything we see today on the market: from coke to phones. Due to the negligent consumerism we supported and are continuing to support the rise of corporations that do not have any moral values, nor any social responsibility, and if you think different, remember this phrase the next time you Google something, or watch a video on YouTube, or use WhatsApp, or check the photos of your ex on Instagram, {the list becomes too long}, etc.
3. Shape of politics.
   The previous two points may have been obvious in terms of “need for change”, however, politics have strongly contributed to the current stagnation. Before we dive into the theme, imagine that you are the political party, which is about to be overthrown, will you try to secure your position at any cost? In regard to political processes, the answer is rather obvious and logical, and we have experienced this answer in action for already more than a decade. But let me tell you what I mean under the “revolution of thought” regarding politics. It does not mean that people should take riffles and go kill policemen and supporters of the current governments; it also does not mean that all the governments and political structures should be changed. It means that:
   a) the political processes that are clearly has become inefficient in the modern age should be fixed (for example, elective systems in the US, transparency of the elections, referendum processes)
   b) restructuring of the political power (for example, changes addressing the problems of the political centralization, stronger affects of lobbying on politics, lack of the direct power in the democratic states)
   c) implementation of the new political practices oriented on the sustainable values (basically, addition to the point a, which addresses possible political renovations).
4. Interdependence between politics, technologies and economics.
   The change that was about to happen needed a “push”, and pushes in any of the mentioned spheres of our society would have made a ripple effect. A technological breakthrough would always effect economies, which have a drastic effect on politics. Economical changes usually stimulate a new wave of researches and have a higher effect on politics. And political change has a strong effect on the economy.

TLDR: a new kind of revolution should have risen that would have changed and restructured our perception of technological development, as well as an economic and political structure.

So, if everything was ready for a change, why didn’t it happen? The reason lies in the essence of the revolution: most of the previous revolutions have been either purely political or economical, while the change we should have gotten the last decade is completely different in its nature: it is oriented to support the progress and eliminate the mistakes of the past. Such a revolution does not bring power to another social, but rather the opposite, it decentralizes the existing power. It does not punish the monopolies, but rather changes the principles and rules of the economic systems. Basically, it should have brought a new beginning to the social structure, rather than a minor “patches” to the old system.

Another reason is way simpler: the existing economic and political powers are not willing to “pass the turn”. Quite the opposite: after numerous economic bubbles, several economic shifts, loads of bankruptcies, shifts in power, etc. leading groups have learned the way to stay at the top. These groups are driven by understandable motives because in the revolutionized world they would not stay at the control board. Yet, another problem is that they decided not to fight the change, but adopt it, “make it theirs” and further on mimic any “real” changes.

TLDR: the revolution did not happen because in its essence it is unique; current leading groups and social clusters have learned perfectly on how to keep their places.

Does that mean that the bright future is cancelled? Right now, I see only two possible outcomes of this situation, which can be described as good, but scary and not good at all.

Let’s start with the positive scenario. Historically, more revolutions and social changes have been suppressed the stronger was the outburst against the system. In other words, we can eventually come to the “revolution of the mind”, however, it may appear in a rather radical form, which would lead us to the number of the pointless sacrifices, mistakes and possibly another type of the social injustice. How the world of the bright future will look in the end, hopefully, we will see.

Another scenario a bit more depressive: change may never come. We will continue to exist in the social structure that has been utilized for several centuries. Economies would continue to result in market inequality, while the political power will continue to stay at the hands of the elite/oligarch/tyrannical groups. Some political or economic revolutions may appear, some regimes might fall, others may rise, yet the essence of the society would stay the same.

TLDR: two scenarios are possible: the revolution will come over time, but due to the long-term suppression it will have rather radical and aggressive features or the “revolution of thought” will forever remain as a hypothetical concept.