Revolutions: A Predictive Model
While we’re on the subject of war, let’s share one internal model we use when planning around and forecasting revolutions.
Can a revolution be predicted by analyzing the groups involved? What causes revolutionary ideas and movements to foment in otherwise stable governments?
We theorize that revolutions can be predicted based on the allegiance of five core factions:
- The Economic Elite: These are the individuals with wealth in a society.
- The Social Elite: These are the individuals who hold status in society. People are told to heed their opinions over those of other people. Historically, they might have been the nobility and the church but today they are mostly academics and those in the media.
- The Military: This one is self-evident.
- The Urban Dispossessed: These are people without social or economic power who live in cities.
- The Rural Dispossessed: These are people without social or economic power who live outside of cities.
In times of long-term government legitimacy, these allegiances are critical to track. Legitimacy can best be thought of as a metric that measures how natural the current world order feels. High legitimacy governments are unlikely to be overthrown. (This is why, after a revolution, a military coup is likely. The new government has very little legitimacy and the military has the physical might.)
**Almost all revolutions are caused by one of the social groups who are not the economic elite thinking they should be the economic elite.**
A common type of revolution takes place when the social elite becomes upset about not also being the economic elite. This is frequently what instigates “communist” or ”socialist” revolutions. When a society gives too much power to the social elite (media, professors, clergy, etc.) without also ensuring they have a good chunk of the economic pie, the social elite are tempted to use one of the two dispossessed groups to instigate a regime change by promising to give them (the dispossessed) a bigger piece of the pie. Ultimately, these types of revolutions typically just result in the social elite becoming the economic elite without also lifting up the dispossessed who fought for them (often to realize the social elite are very bad at running things).
The big “mistake” revolutionaries of this sort make is thinking that the urban and rural dispossessed groups are equally valuable in winning a social revolution. The urban dispossessed have virtually no value as an ally during a revolution (with one exception discussed below).
The urban dispossessed are not valuable in a revolution for two core reasons:
- You only have to hold a fairly small amount of land with a military force to control an urban population. It is very hard to actively hold a large rural area with the military because occupying soldiers need to be more dispersed while rebels can afford to coalesce upon and attack hostile forces wherever they may be. More complicated supply lines must also be maintained when quashing rebellions outside of concentrated cities, which are usually fairly vulnerable.
- The urban dispossessed often rely heavily on social services or city infrastructure for their day-to-day wellbeing. This contrasts heavily with the rural dispossessed, who can more easily make or source their own food if needed.
Dynamics of course change when the urban dispossessed don’t enjoy social program, state, or city infrastructure support. Tsarist Russia offered little by the way of city infrastructure or social programs to the urban dispossessed, making them a formidable force in the communist revolution.
Given how common and widespread social support for dispossessed urban populations is around the world, we would go so far as to say that the rural dispossessed are the number one faction to have on your side if you’re a leader in hopes of a long, stable reign (the military come in a close second). The economic and social elite are just not nearly as important as they think they are. This is why when you look at nations in which you would expect a revolution but do not see one (Turkey, Venezuela, China, etc.) the ruling party has sided with the rural dispossessed.
A major exception to the above rule involves any nation suffering from Dutch Disease: When it has a commodity that is easy to control and makes up most of their income (usually oil). In such cases, whoever controls both that commodity and the military controls the country. When the cash cow commodity and military are controlled by different factions, a revolution is coming.