The west will in the near term likely descend into barbarism, open reaction, what fascism was in the 20th century Europe. (That or it’ll pull off some sort of miraculous crushing of the global south and buying capitalism breathing room for another 40 years)
So I think we could see a revolution the next 20 years, I just don’t think it’ll be a socialist one.
I also don’t discount the real possibility that the bourgeoisie in the west try to take their ball and go home, try and do dark enlightenment, neo-feudalism, and just build a high fence around it. What that actually ends up looking like in practice I wouldn’t know but I think it’s truly possible they find a way to keep the situation miserable but stable for another hundred years with the current power structure mostly the same. Climate change is certainly set to come in on the side of the US. Technology like AI and more specifically robotics dangles the promise of automation that’s good enough to serve as a control mechanism on the population, total information control, total surveillance, etc from which the ultimate breaking free would likely only come about from the decay of such systems out of neglect and greed.
I certainly HOPE there is a revolution, a Marxist one in the global north in the next 60 years. I’d like to see that before I die, I’d like for it to come sooner than that as in 60 years I have a pretty good chance of being dead of natural causes.
But we must remember how hard it is to predict history. Asked 100 years ago socialists in our place would have said Germany or Britain, etc would probably experience a revolution in their lifetime and they were wrong. Lenin thought he’d never live to see the revolution and he was wrong about that. We must however take from the past century how adaptable capitalism is. They have our playbook, they have experience correcting for, adjusting to many of their problems that give rise to revolutionary potential and they have a century of anti-communism propaganda messaging as well as 30 years of end of history messaging.
It seems unknowable, too many variables. It really hinges on can China become a communist super-power, avoid being crushed by the west, avoid being nuked by the west, avoid being strangled and can it exert power including trade and friendship better than the west can extend neo-colonialism, color revolutions, fomented extremism and terrorism/separatism to the rest of the world? If it can, if the west’s grasp on the rest of the world slips then short of the west deciding to use nuclear weapons and destroy human civilization then sooner or later I think we’ll have won. I think we’ll know the results of this within 10 years by 2035 we’ll see the fruits of the west’s plans or China’s plans.
The west is trying delaying actions because climate change is coming in on their side so that’s a big unknown, that could really hit China hard regardless of all their efforts and become a real drain while the US is almost certain to weather that new reality among the best of all nations.
Wait, how come the USA will be less hit than China in the future due to climate change?
The only thing that’s set in stone is the past and that’s only because it has already happened. Predictions can be useful if applied alongside action (ex: “the weather prediction says it will rain on Thursday, so I will go the baseball game on Tuesday instead”). Without the action, they mean little. Things can reach a tipping point in one area or another, unforeseen crises can arise, and throughout it all, there are multiple factions vying for power, whether for selfish reasons, such as fascism, or humanitarian ones, such as anti-imperialism, decolonization, and liberation of the working class. Aid in the humanitarian struggle where you can; that’s where dire predictions are transformed into optimistic ones.
The imperial core countries will be the last to have a revolutionion.
They might fail or be aborted, but I actually think we might see something happen in the next 20 years tops for at least some global north countries. Living conditions are worsening quickly with no relief in sight, and unless the ruling classes manage to find some pressure valve I think it’s gonna blow up soon.
I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more “riots” and maybe a much larger scale CHAZ-like occupation in the US or more militant Gilets Jaunes protests in France, among other things. Sadly I don’t foresee a Marxist-Leninist revolution any time soon for most of these countries (Greece maybe?), but then again nobody in 1902 expected 1905, and few people even in February 1917 expected October 1917.
It is very easy to feel like it’s never going to happen.
One of the biggest reasons FDR implemented the New Deal, was because there were groups advocating for communism and socialism in the US and it was not a far fetched prospect.
https://jacobin.com/2019/10/highlander-folk-school-socialist-party-new-deal
The more we organize and unionize, the more it’s possible!
