is revolution ever morally justified?

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IS REVOLUTION EVER MORALLY JUSTIFIED?

W. H. NIELSEN

I. INTRODUCTION

Let me first offer some initial clarification of the terms employed in the title of this paper.

Often "revolution" is used to refer to any rapid change in social, economic, political, military or educational institutions. In this broad sense, almost everyone would accept some revolutions as justifiable. What I want to concern myself with is the question of whether a military revolution is ever justified. Is it ever justifiable to take up arms to overthrow some or even all of the existing institutions of a society?

A course of action may be justifiable in several ways; prudentially, legally, and morally. I will completely ignore the issue of a prudential justification of revolution. As far as legal justification is concerned, the question is easily answered. No state ever legalizes its own destruction by revolution. It is with the problem of the moral justification of revolution that I want to concern myself.

There are two main principles in normative ethics. One is the principle of maximizing the good which is usually construed as human happiness or well-being. This is the principle of utility. The other is the issue of distributing the good, or, more exactly, with distributing the opportunity to live the good life. This is the principle of justice.

I believe that both of these principles are teleological principles, i.e., they assert that the rightness of an action or policy is determined by its conducive- ness to a happier and/or a more just society. In other words, it is the end that justifies the means. This, of course, has to be properly understood in the light of obvious qualifications. It does not mean that any end justifies the means. For then Hitler's ends of a vast slavic slave Judenfrei empire would have justified the invasion of Russia and the extermination of the Jews. Nor does it mean that an end justifies any means. Let us suppose that there are two ways or means of producing racial peace in the U.S. One is by providing jobs for all adult Negroes, the other is by throwing every dissident Negro into a concentration camp. The latter means cannot be justified because the former constitute alternative means to realizing the end. My point is that only the necessary means are justified by an end. The principle I am invoking then should read, "Moral ends justify the means necessary to realize them." Even this requires further qualification, for if the necessary means are counter-productive with respect to the end intended or if they undermine some other moral end, then even the necessary means may be morally unjustifiable.

What I must add, however, is this. All of us invoke ends to justify means.

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Suppose the end is racial peace in the U.S. Suppose also that racial peace could only be achieved by large scale taxation of white U.S. citizens to pay for job-retraining, rebuilding of ghettoes, etc. Now, obviously some white Americans are going to be harmed. They will have less spending power. But the end (the benefit of society as a whole) requires means (taxation of whites) which are harmful to a subsection of U.S. citizens. You may have a different end, say, racial segregation, in which case you will justify discriminatory laws to realize it. But we all justify means in terms of our ends. The only questions that could possibly separate us are: Are the ends morally good? Are the means necessary to realize the end? Are the means counter-productive? Do the means violate some other end?

II. WHAT MEANS ARE NECESSARY TO ACHIEVE A MORALLY GOOD SOCIETY?

A. What Means are Necessary to Achieve a Maximally Happy Society?

No doubt there are many necessary conditions of human happiness but I shall concentrate on the gut means. In order to live a happy life people require an adequate diet; starvation is hardly conducive to happiness. People require clothing and shelter; exposure is not conducive to one's well-being. People require medical care; dying and even being sick is obviously not conducive to one's well-being.

People require education; they do not require education in the same way as they require food, but education is a requirement of the good life.

B. What Means are Necessary to Achieve a Distributively Just Society? (1) What is a Distributively Just Society ?

This is a very difficult question to answer. It seems to me that a just society is one in which everyone has an absolutely equal opportunity to enjoy the good life. 1

(2) What Sorts of Things Ought to be Distributed?

In order to bring about an absolutely equal opportunity to live the good life we have to distribute three things: power or authority, burdens and benefits.

By "power" or "authority" I mean simply the wherewithal to issue commands or laws and to coerce others to obey them. It has to be distributed in order to equalize freedom, to prevent tyranny and to prevent alienation. By "burdens" I mean to draw attention to the fact that some jobs are intrinsically and extrinsically desirable, e.g., being a professor, whereas others are both intrinsically and extrinsically undesirable. In a word, some of us are given a much better opportunity to live happily than others because we can enjoy our jobs while others cannot at all or as fully enjoy their

1 William Frankena, "Some Beliefs About Justice," Lindley Lecture, The University of Kansas, 1966.

300 The Journal of Value Inquiry

jobs. By "benefits" I refer to food, clothing, shelter, medical care, education and leisure time. Obviously, these must be distributed if everyone is to have an equal opportunity to enjoy the good life.

(3) How Ought these Objects to be Distributed? In a general way, we already know the answer to this question. They are

to be distributed in the ways necessary for or conducive to giving everyone an equal opportunity to live the good life. What are the specifics?

The power attaching to every hierarchy of authority must be distributed in a democratic way complete with a workable system of recall in order to equalize freedom, to prevent tyranny and to prevent alienation. The burdens of society must be distributed according to effort so that everyone bears a proportionately equal share of the burdens. Thus, if it requires twice as much effort for A to teach for an hour as it requires of B, then B should teach twice as many hours per week as A. The benefits of society have to be distributed in different ways. Food, clothing, shelter and medical care have to be distributed according to need. No other criterion of distribution will enable everyone to have an equal opportunity to live the good life. Education must be distributed on the basis of capacity for absorption of knowledge. Leisure time must be distributed in proportion to the mental and physical effort required by one's task.

III. REVOLUTION AND THE MORAL SOCIETY

The question to which I am addressing myself is this: "Is a military revolution ever morally justifiable?" The answer to it turns upon this question: "Is a military revolution necessary in order to realize a morally good society, i.e., one characterized by human happiness and distributive justice?" And, getting down to specifics, the question becomes "Can a society both provide the maximal quantity of the means of well-being and distribute them so as to equalize the opportunity of well-being by means other than military revolution?" If the answer is that military revolution is necessary as a means to and conducive to these ends then it is morally justifiable: if not, not.

This question cannot be answered without qualification. It all depends on the conditions prevalent in a given society. To address myself to the contem- porary world, let me consider two types of society, those that are relatively well-developed (the U.S., Canada, Russia) and those that are underdeveloped (the countries of the southern hemisphere).

IV. A TYPICAL UNDERDEVELOPED SOCIETY

A typical underdeveloped society is one in which there is mass illiteracy, mass poverty and mass disease. The means required for human well-being (an adequate diet and medical care) are simply not available. Agriculture is inefficient and industry is almost non-existent. Insofar as there is economic

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and social development, a few enjoy most of its benefits at the expense of the many.

V. WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE?

It is obvious that every society requires economic development to achieve the means conducive to human well-being. This requires development preferably on two fronts: in agriculture and in industry. The problem comes down to raising the productivity of both urban and rural workers. It is not sufficient, however, merely to raise the standard of living for that could result merely in a wealthier but equally unjust society. In order for that society to develop into a moral society it must also achieve a just distribution of the wealth.

The question I am raising about revolution reduces to this: "Can the underdeveloped societies raise the productivity of labour and distribute its fruits justly without a revolution?"

VI. PROSPECTS FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

The prospects for economic development without a revolution are very bleak in many countries of the underdeveloped world. There are a number of reasons for this, though I will touch on only two of them.

Most underdeveloped countries have a one-crop economy. They produce one item for sale to the developed countries. But here the tide turns against the poor countries. For the rich countries are able to control prices not only for the raw materials they purchase but also for the manufactured items they sell. The result has been that the price of raw material tends to fall whereas that of manufactured items tends to rise. The result is that the underdeveloped societies suffer from a permanent balance of payments deficit. Every year they fall further into debt. The result is that economic development is seriously hampered.

One crucial factor of economic development is investment of the surplus produced. There is in most underdeveloped societies a surplus, but it falls into the hands of a privileged class who tend to spend it in conspicuous consumption or to deposit it in foreign banks. The privileged class does not need to invest its surplus in order to live luxuriously and hence it tends to avoid investment. Not only does the privileged group not need to invest but also it is afraid to invest. The consequences of investment and economic development are inevitably mass upheavals in society. Traditional values and customs will invariably be upset. The traditional means of controlling society will be upheaval and under such conditions a number of things can happen. One of the most likely consequences is a move of the population toward socialism. The traditional privileged classes will of course lose their privileges in a socialist society. Because it wishes to avoid socialism, this


class tends to avoid economic development and its upheavals for fear that once loosened of their traditional controls the masses will deprive them of their privileges. The privileged class tends to prefer the time-tested methods of force to keep the lid on the pot rather than risk the consequences of economic development.

The privileged class composed of landlords and a small middle class tend to be allied with their military against social and economic development. But this is not all. The privileged minority is also allied to the U.S. Both have a vested interest in the status quo. The U.S. will lose its control of natural resources to a socialist revolution while the privileged class will lose its privileges.

Since the indigenous privileged class, its army and the U.S. all tend to be allied against economic development, there seems to be no way out of the impasse of starvation other than to defeat the indigenous military machine of the upper classes. This can be done only by creating an alternative military machine, e.g., a guerrilla army. In other words, it seems that the only way out of the present deplorable condition is by means of a revolution. That of course is not all there is to the matter. After the defeat of the indigenous military apparatus it is safe to predict that the U.S. will intervene as it has done in every socialist revolution in the twentieth century.

If these arguments are correct, the underdeveloped countries face the choice between perpetual starvation and revolution. In such conditions it is not hard to see why many peoples have opted for revolution. It is also not hard to see that a revolution is morally justified. Before I draw the conclusion that revolution is morally justified, let me consider three objections to what I have said.

VII. THREE OBJECTIONS

A. A Revolution is Not Necessary The objection comes down to this: "Capitalism has sufficed in Europe,

North America and even in Japan in bringing about economic development without a military revolution". My reply is to agree with your premise and to disagree with your conclusion. For the combination of forces now is quite different from what it was in the nineteenth and even in the first half of the twentieth century. I want to make two points to support this claim.

The first is that Japan, the Western European countries and the United States were not colonies (their resources were not controlled by others). On the contrary, they were colonizers (they controlled the resources of others). Economic development is easy if you control other peoples' resources; impossible if you can't even control your own. And today - and this is my second point - the combination of an indigenous privileged class and the U.S. is, willy hilly, dead set on preventing economic progress. The political- military apparatus jails or kills the only organized political force, i.e., Communism, which is seriously interested in and has a viable program for economic development. The reason for killing or jailing communists is that

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communism - if it succeeds in achieving political power - will eliminate the privileged class and expropriate the foreigner, both of whom stand in the way of economic development.

B. A Revolution is Not Sufficient

I will formulate the second objection in this way. "Even if you are right on the first point, it is still the case that a socialist revolution designed to expropriate the land and natural resources will not be sufficient for, or even conducive to, economic development. All you have to do is look at Russia, China, North Vietnam, Cuba and North Korea to see the failure of socialism."

My reply to this objection is to concede part of it and yet to deny its thrust. Indeed a socialist revolution is not sufficient for economic develo- merit. Much else has to be done, e.g., develop technological know-how motivate the people, draw up plans, etc. But on the other part I demur. Indeed, let us look at the countries you mention. Russia, in a mere twenty- five years of economic development (the other twenty-five years being taken up with wars and reconstruction) has become a powerful nation freed of the problems of starvation, disease 2 and illiteracy. China in a mere fifteen years has solved the same problems. Similar comments apply to the other socialist countries mentioned. Russian agricultural development, I should add here, is not as successful as that of the U.S. or even as successful as that in other socialist countries. The reason for this is the Bolsheviks led an urban socialist revolution and only later brought about a rural revolution. The rural revolution was not popular; it was imposed by sheer brutality - a fact which explains rural inefficiency in Russia. All the other socialist revolutions were peasant revolutions. The peasants in China, Vietnam and Cuba constituted the base of a revolution against the indigenous privileged class and foreign ownership of resources. Only later did the revolution reach the urban areas. But no large class was opposed to the revolution. This fact goes a long way toward explaining the far greater successes of the revolution of the coloured peoples.

C.

I would now like to consider a further objection - an appendage, really, of the first objection.

It runs "Why can't the leaders of the underdeveloped societies simply ask the Americans to leave and then begin to develop their own resources? That way no revolution would be required."

My reply is twofold. Firstly, that has occurred. Americans have been asked to leave. Invariably such a request has been followed by a military

2 This point bears on another moral principle which I have assumed but not discussed. It bears on the principle of minimizing the loss of life. In order to be unequivocally morally justifiable, a revolution must save more lives from starvation and disease than it loses in the course of seizing political power.


coup d'etat often (as we subsequently find out) organized and financed by the U.S. Neither America nor the privileged people will likely give up its enormous wealth and power without a fight.

Secondly, even if America were to leave voluntarily, there would still be insurmountable impediments to economic development, viz., inefficient agriculture. The essence of economic development is to make agriculture suf- ficiently efficient so that some people can leave the land and engage in industrial development in the urban areas. Agriculture is not efficient enough for that. Indeed, as I have already said, mass starvation is imminent almost everywhere in the underdeveloped world.

VIII. PRELIMINARY SUMMARY

Up to this point I have argued that a military revolution is morally justified in a typical country in the underdeveloped countries of the world because it is a necessary condition of, and conducive to, economic development and thereby to creating the necessary conditions of a happy people.

I now wish to turn to another question: "Does the revolution have to be socialist, i.e., must the means of production and distribution be publicly owned, in order to bring about a just society?" I will answer this question in the affirmative. If I am right about this point then it will follow that not just any revolution is morally justified. A Fascist revolution (if that is not self- contradictory) would not be morally justified. Only a socialist revolution can be morally justified.

IX. JUSTICE IN CAPITALISM AND SOCIALISM

Most people, I find, believe, as I do, that a distributively just society is one in which everyone has an absolutely equal opportunity to live the good life. One of the strangest facts about the Western World is that it has not con- sidered the most obvious consequence of this fact, viz., that capitalism is unjust in two crucial respects.

A. To Each According to his Birth Ownership of wealth is passed from generation to generation on the basis

of birth. This militates against an equal opportunity to live the good life and in favour of a privileged minority. Hence capitalism is unjust. To press my point, I am astounded that people in capitalist nations can denounce feudalism (which distributes wealth on the basis of birth) as unjust and yet not see that capitalism is unjust for the same reason.

B. To Each According to his Contribution It is just as strange that people do not see that distribution of wealth in

proportion to contribution also militates against an equal opportunity to live the good life. The intelligent in a meritocracy become a new privileged class.

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It is clear on the basis of these two points that only a socialist society could be just, for only socialism can eliminate inheritance and contribution as a basis of distribution of wealth. Furthermore, only socialism can realize a just distribution of power, i.e., only socialism can make possible a radical democratization of all hierarchies including the economic hierarchy. Only socialism can do away with economic power based on heredity.

At this point I want to ask an important question (which will lead me into the next major point). "Can socialism be just?" It is not sufficient to point out that only socialism can be just. If a socialist revolution is to be fully morally justified by the principle of justice as well as by the principle of utility, it must also be shown that a socialist revolution is conducive to a just distribution. For if it were empirically impossible to satisfy the other necessary conditions, then all the bloodshed of revolution would not be morally justified. In order to say what I have to say on this subject, I want to turn to the next topic.

X. REVOLUTION IN THE DEVELOPED COUNTRIES

Is a military revolution morally justified in the developed countries? Or put in another way, "Can the principle of justice alone justify a revolution in those countries which have already solved the problem of economic development and which thus have already satisfied most of the requirements of the principle of utility?"

A. The U.S.S.R.

Socialism calls for an end to tyranny and for a radical democratization of all hierarchies of authority (even the military!). But after fifty years, the Russian state is a vast bureaucracy presiding over a monolithic society in which dissidents are curbed with a ruthlessness not outdone even by the Czars. It is unjust because there is no equality of freedom or even any attempt to create it. (It is, by the way also unjust in its distribution of burdens and wealth.) I can perhaps best put my point this way. Socialism (public ownership) is only a necessary condition of a just society. But, with the exception of the elimination of heredity as a basis of distribution of the means of production, Russia remains as unjust as any capitalist country.

What a socialist society needs in order to have a just distribution of power is mass participation in the revolution. That is, it requires popular enthu- siasm for the revolution and a willingness to participate in decision-making. It also requires that the monolithic leadership necessary to carry out the military revolution be willing to let the masses of people participate in the political and economic revolution that follows.

The Russian socialist revolution failed to lead to a just society because it failed to satisfy these two necessary conditions. The peasants were far from enthusiastic with socialism. They wanted their own plots of land. Stalin refused to try to rally the masses. He was, as Trotsky once said to his face


"the gravedigger of the revolution." In return for this remark, Stalin became Trotsky's gravedigger.

Will anything short of another revolution bring political justice (a tho- rough-going democratic distribution of power) to Russia? I doubt it. People in Russia are not even allowed to talk of the changes that are needed. (Every- one of note who wanted a democratic socialism in Russia was killed by 1937.) Social changes of the sort required in Russia to make it a just society require popular understanding of the issues. This is almost impossible even in a relatively open society like our own. It is doubly difficult - I would say "impossible" - wherever discussion is ended by exile to Siberia. If I had to make a prediction about the prospects of a revolution in Russia, I would say that one is not forthcoming in the near future. For one thing, there is the secret police. For another, there is the very real danger that the U.S. would intervene (as it did from 1918-1922) and destroy the one necessary condition of justice that Russia has so painfully achieved, viz., socialization of the means of production.

B. The U.S.A. The U.S.A. - like Russia - has come very close to solving its economic

problems. Most of the basic conditions of happiness have been achieved. If a revolution in the U.S. is morally justified it is because it cannot achieve a just distribution of the means to the good life.

The injustices of the U.S. are enormous. Most of the hierarchies of power are undemocratic. Burdens are unequally distributed. Negroes, e.g., bear the brunt of the burdens in many geographic areas. Wealth is distributed on the basis of either ownership or contribution, both of which militate against an equal opportunity to live the good life. But there is one redeeming feature of the U.S. Despite its massive injustices at home and its imperialism abroad, the U.S. is to some extent a market place of ideas. One can still publish articles like this one. Let me not exaggerate however. Socialists in the U.S. are severely discriminated against. Most of them cannot get jobs. They are hounded by the F.B.I. They have virtually no access to the means of mass communication. But, most of them are still alive and few are in prison. At least the U.S. is better than Russia in this respect. I f the U.S. continues to allow the socialists to speak out, e.g., against the war in Vietnam, then a revolution is not morally justified. The peaceful road to socialism is still open.

If I had to make a prediction about the U.S., I would, however, predict that the strains of a racial civil war and an unpopular imperialist international war will soon break down the few vestiges of political justice that exist in the U.S. I expect at least a crackdown on dissidence. The drafting of op- ponents of the Vietnam War and the jailing of Dr. Spock are portents of things to come. In such a case, a military socialist revolution would then be morally justified.

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C. Canada

Canada, like the U.S., has managed to solve many of its economic problems. Most of us eat well, medical care is generally accessible, we have shelter and most people are literate.

Canada is also politically democratic, though we too have no economic democracy. Political democracy is more likely to survive in Canada because we do not have a large dissident racial group. (Like you, we killed most of our Indians.) Further Canada is not yet an imperial power. Lest I be thought a nationalist let me point out that Canada is not imperialistic probably because it is too weak and, more to the point, too late. Almost all the desirable colonies have been picked up by the U.S. - Latin America before World War II and Asia and to some extent Africa after the War.

A military revolution is not morally justified in Canada at the present time, for we still have an alternative way of realizing a just society. We have a large and unsuppressed socialist party.

The greatest impediment to a socialist Canada will, I expect, be the U.S., which has intervened militarily in every socialist revolution in this century. If the U.S. could not tolerate a socialist society in Vietnam, there is no reason to suppose that she would tolerate one on her very borders, especially since Canada is by far her most lucrative colony. My expectation is that eventually we will have to fight for socialism in which case we would be morally justified in doing so, just as the Vietnamese are justified in their military revolution today.

The University of Manitoba

is revolution ever morally justified?

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