OUTCOMES OF REVOLUTION

OUTCOMES OF REVOLUTION

Jose Luis Velasquez Pereira

INTRODUCTION
For contemporary political theory, revolution is a complex problem due to difficulties posed by its definition, classification schemes, and appropriate methods of research.

Thomas H. Green (1990, p. 13) has pointed out that
It is the almost unanimous opinion of writers on the subject that revolution means an alteration in the personnel, structure, supporting myth, and functions of government by methods that are not sanctioned by the prevailing constitution. Those methods almost invariably involve violence or the threat of violence against political elites, citizens, or both. And it is the opinion of a majority of scholars that revolution means a relatively abrupt and significant change in the distribution of wealth and social status.
According to Jack A. Goldstone (1986, pp. 2-7), revolution has been studied from the historical point of view, focusing on the natural history of revolution, and from the theoretical perspective based on two main approaches: the general theories of political violence and the structural theories of revolution. During this century undeniable progress in understanding the psychological roots of rebellion and the structure of revolutionary settings, has produced an impressive accumulation of theory on the subject. However, opinion within the intellectual community regarding the phenomenon is divided among scholars such as Greene who consider that the problems associated with understanding, explaining, predicting, and implementing revolution "may be similar to the problems associated with predicting earthquakes or the weather. At the very best, we talk in term of probabilities. But what goes into the calculation of social scientific probabilities is likely to be, at some point along the line, more and exercise of intuition than a demonstration of science." In an opposing camp, scholars such as Goldstone who express a more optimistic opinion, consider that based on previous efforts to understand revolution, “We now better understand that revolution arises from a complex blending of state weakness, elite conflicts, and urban and rural revolts.” Goldstone further argues that other issues beyond the causes of revolution, inspire lively discussion: first, the outcomes of revolution; second, the role of capitalism in revolutionary unrest; third, the contribution of ideology to revolution, and fourth, the emergence of revolutionary conjunctures. These four issues are considered frontiers of research.
Bearing this in mind, I now turn to the issue that is the object of this dissertation: Nicaragua: Outcomes of Revolution. Since the outset of the theoretical debate, the intellectual community has been deeply divided among those scholars who believe revolution is a panacea for all social evils, and those who consider revolution and its consequences as a social evil in and of itself. The intellectuals of the French Revolution, Karl Marx and his followers, are found among the first group, and the intellectuals of the Romantic Conservative Reaction, the structural functionalists, and the liberal schools are in the second. Thus, during the last hundred years, two main set of theories have disputed the explanatory and normative explanation of the nature of social change. They are the theories of conflict—that stress the role of revolution—and the theories of gradual change that, in turn, emphasize equilibrium and compromise.

THE THEORETICAL DEBATE
MARX AND POPPER
The origin of theories of conflict has to be found in the works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, who over a century ago in 1872, wrote in “The Communist Manifesto”:
The history of all hitherto existing society is a history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes... The communists... declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions... And here it becomes evident, that the bourgeoisie is unfit any longer to be the ruling class in society, and to improve its conditions of existence upon society as soon as an over riding low society can no longer live under this bourgeoisie, in other words, its existence is no longer compatible with society. (Marx and Engels. 1955 [1848], p. 9, 46.)
Thus, the Marxist view of social change, expressed in the theory of Historical Materialism, holds that a given society named A becomes B, as a consequence of the development of A’s internal contradiction. Therefore, the Marxist dialectic holds that society undergoes a dialectical process following three successive stages: Thesis, Anti-Thesis and Synthesis. During the Thesis period, there is a given social order­—the establishment—that has been imposed by a dominant class; this order and this class is able to resolve the society's problems through its normal procedures. But as it gradually begins to lose its abilities and decline, the oppressed class begins to take advantage of the situation, elaborating an alternative social project that challenges and begins to compete with the old social order. Suddenly, the social conflict exacerbates and the class struggle breaks out; this is the Anti-Thesis stage. Finally, after a severe confrontation the oppressed class is able to overthrow the ruling class. The old order, having been subverted, is completely replaced by a new order built according to the interests and beliefs of the former oppressed class. This final stage is called Synthesis (Marx. 1970).
The Marxist theory of social change stresses the following three concepts: first, social change is always driven by conflict or class struggle; hence, irrational factors such as emotions, social pressures and passions play an important role. Second, the social, political and economics contradictions between the fundamental classes are irreconcilable. Third, the political projects or programs of the fundamental classes are incompatible. Fourth, the old social order is (and must be) replaced completely by a new one.
It is important to remember that, although Marx himself elaborated his theory upon certain historical facts, we can hardly deny that in doing so, he also was interested in promoting Communist revolution in Europe, and this introduced an ideological bias in his view. Nevertheless, his theory about the social change was widespread within the social scientific community, and became one of its predominant paradigms of the last hundred years.
Later, following the Soviet Revolution­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ (1919) in which the Marxist Leninist theory played a key role, Western liberal thought began to develop a critical scientific assessment of the Marxist approach to social change. Along these lines, in 1945—just at the end of the World War II and following Max Weber's pioneer works—Karl Popper (1962) advanced a new approach to the social change explanation in opposition to the Marxist view, that became a new paradigm (or research program) in Social Science.
In order to find the social and philosophical roots of the modern totalitarian phenomena, that had emerged in the first half of the twentieth century, i.e., the Nazi-Fascist regimes and Communism, Popper (1962, p. 157) directed his criticism at Plato’s philosophy, where he had detected the origin of the Hegelian and Marxist thought. Consequently, Popper pointed out that an important element in Plato’s philosophy which has had great impact on the schools of thought and that inspired the totalitarian phenomena of the twentieth century, was “social utopianism” which was grounded in two main concepts: first, in the idea that society could be completely changed in relatively short periods of time, and second, that it could be reconstructed on the basis of “something like a blueprint.” As a matter of fact, Popper argues:
"The Utopian approach may be described as follows. Any rational action must have certain aim. It is rational in the same degree as it pursues its aim consciously and consistently, and as it determines its means according to his end... These principles [of rationality] if applied to the realm of political activity, demand that we must determine our ultimate political aim, or the ideal state, before taking any practical action. Only when this ultimate aim is determined, in rough outline at least, only then can we begin to consider the best ways and means for its realization, and to draw up a plan for practical action. Those are the necessary preliminaries of any practical political move that can be called rational, and specially of social engineering.
This, in brief, is the methodological approach which I call Utopian Engineering. It is convincing and attractive. In fact, it is just the kind of methodological approach to attract all those who are either unaffected by historical prejudices or reacting against them. This makes it only the more dangerous, and its criticism the more imperative. (Popper. 1962, p. 158.)
Although, this statement is directed at Plato’s political view of the “Ideal City,” as well as at the Hegelian mystification and justification of the modern nation-state, it does not address the Marxist view and its claim of being a materialistic and anti-utopical approach to history. However, Popper’s criticism also made evident the way in which the Marxist view came to share the attributes of the Utopian approach. On this matter Popper says:
But there is one element within Utopianism which is particularly characteristic of Plato's approach and which Marx does not oppose although it is perhaps the most important of those elements which I have attacked as unrealistic. It is the sweep of Utopianism, its attempt to deal with society as a whole, leaving no stone upturned. It is the conviction that one has to go to the very root of the social evil, that nothing short of a complete eradication of the offending social system will do if we wish to bring any decency into the world.... Both Plato and Marx are dreaming of the apocalyptic revolution which will radically transfigure the whole social world. (Popper. 1962, p. 159.)
Wherefore, Popper considers that political action is incapable of dealing with society as a whole. In other words, no matter what utopical blue print or political resources one might have, it is impossible to change society completely—at least successfully—yet it is possible to turn it upside down. According to Popper, this is impossible since "at present, the sociological knowledge necessary for large scale engineering is simply non-existent” (1962, p. 160).
Popper’s rejection of the utopical approach of dealing with social change lead him to create his own, which he named “Piecemeal social engineering.” On this subject, he stated:
The Platonic approach I have in mind can be described as that of Utopian engineering, as opposed to another kind of social engineering which I consider as the only rational one, and which may be described by the name of piecemeal engineering... a piecemeal engineering will, accordingly, adopt the method of searching for, and fighting against, the greatest and most urgent evils of society, rather than searching for, and fighting for, its greatest ultimate good.... And it is also the difference between the only method of improving matters which has so far been really successful, at any time, and in any place... and a method which, wherever it has been tried, had led only to the use of violence in place of reason, and if not to its own abandonment, at any rate to that of its original blueprint... And opposed to this, blueprints for piecemeal engineering are comparatively simple. They are blueprint for single institutions, for health and unemployment insurance, for instance, or arbitration courts or anti-depression budgeting or educational reform. If they go wrong the damage is not very great, and a readjustment not very difficult... There will be a possibility of reaching a reasonable compromise and therefore of achieving the improvement by democratic method.... But the kind of experiment from which we can learn most is the alteration of one social institution at a time. For only in this way can we learn how to fit institutions into the framework of other institutions, and how to adjust them so they work according to our intentions. This—and not Utopian planning or historical prophecy—would mean the introduction of scientific method into politics, since the whole secret of scientific method is a readiness to learn from mistakes. (Popper. 1962, p. 161.)
In brief, Popper rejected the Utopian engineering—it meant Revolution—on the grounds that it is impossible to carry out, fruitless and irrational. On the other hand, he proposed Piecemeal Social Engineering as the best means for meeting the challenges of social change. In short, Piecemeal Engineering meant the gradual transformation of sectors of the society, instead of changing it at large. In other words, it meant the building of compromises and institutions to harmonize the interest of the different social group that coexist within society, avoiding—instead of promoting conflict, anarchy or dictatorship—situations which he considered to be highly expensive to society and to human beings.

DEPENDENCY THEORIES
During the postwar period, the debate between the Utopian Social Engineering and the Piecemeal Social Engineering approaches continued, fueled by the problems posed by the East-West conflict and the struggle for development in the new Third Word nations. The conflict between capitalism and communism, and the need to find paths for reconstruction and develop­ment, demanded complex theoretical conceptualizations. For some scholars, the evils of Capitalism can only be overcome by profound revolutionary processes that will end with the establishment of Socialism. In the Third World, a new approach, “Dependency Theory” based on the Marxist paradigm, emerged to provide explanations and formulas for overcoming underdevelopment.
Dependency Theory asserts that the dependent country is tied to the world economy by a transnational class linkage. An alliance of convenience and common interest exists between the centers of international capitalism and the clientele class that wields power in the dependent economy. This co-opted elite resists the loss of its privileges and is kept in power by the forces of world capitalism (Palma, Gabriel. 1978. And Smith, Tony***)
For Gilpin (1987, pp. 284-7), the crux of the attack by Marxist and dependency writers on established bourgeois elites in the Third World, is their assertion that the cooperation of those elites with international capitalism and the integration of the society into the world economy thwarts the economic development, social welfare, and political independence of the society. Those national bourgeois elites are accused of pursuing the interest of their own class rather than being true nationalists and defenders of the society against international capitalism. Therefore:
The solution to underdevelopment advocated by dependency theorists is destruction of the linkage between international capitalism and the domestic economy through the political triumph of a revolutionary national leadership that will overthrow the clientele elite and replace it with one dedicated to autonomous development. This new elite would dedicate itself to the industrialization of the economy, the prompt eradication of feudal privileges, and the achievement of social and economic equity. Through the replacement of capitalism by socialism and the course of self-reliant development, the new elite would create a just and strong state. (Gilpin 1987, p. 285.)

THE LIBERAL THEORY
On the other hand, liberal thought and Political Development School sustain that:
economic development will not occur unless the society has put its own house in proper order. As liberals stress, economic [and political] development will not take place unless the society has created efficient economic [and political] institutions...What is important for economic development and escape from dependence is the capacity of the economy to transform itself. This task is ultimately the responsibility of its own economic and political leadership....to many of the less developed countries have suffered the consequences of poor leadership. (Gilpin. 1987, p. 290.)
As we can see, while the Marxist family of theories stresses the importance of violent political change (i.e., revolution) and the external causes of under­development (imperialism and dependence), the liberal theories emphasize the internal factors that prevent development and the need for an institutional development process.
Absent from the theoretical debate was a detachment from ideological preferences, and an engagement with methodology, hard data and facts. Also lacking was an accurate research method to assess the outcome of revolution and piecemeal social engineering.
Later, following many revolutionary experiences that took place during the second half of the twentieth century, certain scholars have come to grips with the outcome of revolutions, offering us insightful assessments based on empirical data. For instance, Goldstone (1986, p. 13) argues that many experts agree that full-scale revolutions have had the following outcomes: first, more centralized and powerful governments than those that had existed under the old regimes; second, those states that have experienced revolutions have generally given rise to a more equitable allocation of land. In spite of this agreement, an important debate has taken place in the academic community on three important subjects: the first issue centers on whether most victorious revolution have been successful in implementing the goals expressed during the revolution; the second issue is related to the problem that countries that have experienced revolutions do not appear to be better off in terms of income equality or economic growth than countries that have not, and third is the issue about whether revolutions have succeeded in reducing differences in opportunity among citizens, or if they have yielded to “the rebirth of inequality.” (Kelley and Klein. 1977.)

CENTRALIZED, STRONG AND POWERFUL GOVERNMENTS
In reference to the agreement that exists concerning revolutions producing more centralized and powerful governments than had existed under the previous regimes, Muller and Weede (1995) argue that there are three complementary reasons for this phenomenon:
First, revolutionary struggles for power are often won by those contenders who are most ready to kill. According to Tullock's rational action approach (1974):
most people should be bystanders in revolutionary struggles and civil wars, i.e., their actions or inactions are motivated less by the desire to support one of the contenders for power, whether it be the old regime or the challengers, than by the desire to survive the struggle, to avoid being imprisoned and tortured, and to feed their families in hard times.
Muller and Weede (1995, p. 10) conclude that in a cruel civil war or revolutionary struggle, intimidation may help the most ruthless and cruel side to win. Thus, it is to be expected that many postrevolutionary regimes will continue the bloody misdeeds that enabled them to seize power.
Second is the reaffirmation of the “iron law of oligarchy” (Michels, 1970 [1910]) . For Muller, the founding core of revolutionary movements, which often gives rise to the latter’s leadership, must contain a significant number of men who aspire to political power and want to become the new ruling class. If this is so, the establishment or reestablisment of oligarchy after revolutions stems not only from organizational necessity (to overcome problems of collective action) but also from the desires and conscious actions of leaders. Together, rational ignorance from below and the desire to rule from above make oligarchy unavoidable.
Third, the revolutionary leadership attempts to build stronger states and armies for the sake of its own internal and external security, consolidate power (Adelman 1985; Skocpol 1979,1988) and export its ideology. Muller and Weede (1995) consider that by building strong states capable of withstanding external pressures and, by corollary, of extracting resources from their peoples, must have been and was indeed high on the agenda of postrevolutionary leaderships. Revolutions change the balance of power and often may induce miscalculations, since the relative strengths of revolutionary regimes and their rivals are clouded by uncertainty. Also, revolutions may cause international tension because some want to universalize the revolution, while others in non-revolutionary regimes want to support the counter-revolution.

LAND DISTRIBUTION
Concerning the claim that those states that have experienced revolutions have generally given rise to a more equitable allocation of land, it is important to recognize, as Muller and Weede (1995) do, that revolutions are rare events scattered over at least two hundred years of history. This fact poses formidable obstacles to the systematic investigation of their effects. As a result, there is little wonder that systematic and quantitative evaluations are extremely rare. However, Muller considers that “Eckstein’s (1982, 1986) work on Latin American revolutions is an exception.”
According to Eckstein (1982, 1986), revolutionary regimes reduced large land holdings, redistributed land to relatively poor peasants, and made land distribution more egalitarian than it was before. This is the only strong result in Eckstein’s analysis. However, according to Muller and Weede (1995), a closer examination of a sampling of the five cases covered by the Eckstein's study (1982, 1986) on Latin American revolutions (Mexico, Bolivia, Cuba, Peru, and Nicaragua) reveals details that lead to significant qualifications. For instance, in Mexico, there was a rather long temporal gap between the revolution in the 1910’s and significant distribution of land under Cardenas in the 1930’s. By contrast, the Peruvian “revolution from above” resulted in a rapid and significant redistribution of land. Moreover, circa 1970, the Gini coefficient of land concentration in Mexico was 0.93, the highest level of land inequality in the world.
Also, the ideological commitments of revolutionary governments to socialism or capitalism, do not seem to have an strong impact on the magnitude of land redistribution. Along these lines, Eckstein reported that the process of land redistribution in Peru exceeded the Nicaraguan agrarian reform.
Muller and Weede (1995) argue that redistribution of land is not the crucial test for distinguishing between private and public interest interpretations of revolution. This is because one would also expect some redistribution and losses at the top from a private interest perspective. The former elite and the landowners are expropriated and the revolutionary government uses their properties to reward its followers. Such redistribution of land, assets, or income serves to satisfy the revolutionaries’ own private interests.

KEEPING PROMISES AND DELIVERING PUBLIC GOODS
With regard to whether most victorious revolution have been successful in implementing the goals expressed during the revolution, Muller and Weede (1995, p. 1) argue that ’revolutionary leaders find it even harder than other politicians to keep their promises and to deliver the public goods expected by their followers.“ Citing the cases of the USSR, Communist China, Castro’s Cuba, Vietnam, and Cambodia, Muller and Weede (1995, p. 5) conclude that "In our view, the evidence for revolutionary struggles producing even worse regimes than their predecessors is simply overwhelming—most of all in the twentieth century.” Similarly, Goldstone (1986, p. 207) concludes that “revolutions have generally failed to deliver on their chief promises: greater freedom, material well being, and equality for all. In many countries, revolutions have led to more powerful and authoritarian regimes than the ones they replaced.”

INCOME DISTRIBUTION
Finally, we have to deal with the association and direction of causation between revolution on one hand, and income inequality, economic growth, and the reduction of differences in opportunity among citizens, on the other. On this subject, the general consensus among scholars is that countries that have experienced revolutions do not appear to be better off in terms of income equality or economic growth than countries that have not and that revolutions have not succeeded in reducing differences in opportunity among citizens. In his seminal work, Huntington (1968, pp. 308-9, 311) considers that “the immediate economic results of revolutions are almost entirely negative.”
Muller and Weede (1995) consider that it is theoretically possible to distinguish between two broad approaches: the private and the public interest schools of thought. They depart from a different schools of thought, and thus, arrive at different sets of conclusions. While the Private Interest school claims that revolutionaries are motivated by the pursuit of private goods, the Public Interest school holds that they are motivated by public goods. Therefore, it is conceivable that according to the latter, revolutions may succeed in improving the economic performance of revolutionary societies. An example of this approach is Marx's theory (1970 [1859], p. 21) that revolutions become a public interest, once property rights and authority patterns in society become “fetters” that retard “productive forces,” i.e., economic development. According to this line of thought, post­revolutionary economies, in which the “fetters of capitalism” have been broken, should perform significantly better than prerevolutionary economies. At the same time, socialist revolutions overcome oppression and exploitation via a reduction in income inequality. At this stage, Muller and Weede (1995, p. 12) warn us that the “public interest view of revolutions should not be evaluated by an analysis of revolutionary rhetoric but rather by an analysis of revolutionary achievements.”
Eckstein (1986, p. 345) reports that revolutionary regimes do not significantly improve per capita output. Relative to regional standards there were two cases of improvements and two of deterioration, along with another case of no change. Muller concludes that “Revolutionary regimes do seem to be more efficient in redistribution than in growth promotion.” This is due to the fact that “In those still largely agrarian societies, the redistribution of land can be presumed to have had some positive impact on the size distribution of income. Together with some improvement in health services, this redistribution is probably responsible for the improvements in life expectancies that Eckstein (1986, p. 345) observed in three out of her five cases.”
However, Muller and Weede (1995, p. 13) feel that income equalization is not a good test case for the relative merit of private and public interest views of revolution. He considers that even if it could be demonstrated that a transition from capitalism towards socialism (which have been the case for five out of the six that occurred after World War II) tend to equalize the possession of assets like land or monetary incomes, one might ask whether the inequality of monetary incomes is as important an inequality in communist countries as it is in capitalist countries and mixed economies. Muller and Weede (1995) argue that communist countries may have enjoyed a more equal distribution of monetary income[1] precisely because political power and possibly other sources of privilege are less equally distributed and more important. Historical experience demonstrates that in communist societies it was most important to have access to political privileges and state-owned property (usufruct vs. property) than to have useless currency good to buy non-existent goods at empty public stores (Dilhas. 1957). Consequently, for Muller and Weede (1995, p. 15), “the investigation of the issue of income distribution is neither decisive from a theoretical perspective, i.e., for distinguishing between private and public interest interpretation of revolution, nor meaningful because of difficult issues of interpretation of available data.”
In addition to this, Muller and Weede (1995) dismiss Moon's contention (1991, p. 91) that communist societies reduce the level of absolute poverty by improving the quality of life significantly, and argue that if, according to the available evidence, state socialism has some depressing effects on economic development and growth, then the reduction of absolute poverty by better sharing of a restricted rather than expanding pie is not so attractive. Thus, in general, revolutionary regimes have succeeded in redistributing poverty rather than wealth. This was the case reported by Morrison (1984) who found that income distribution was more equal in Britain or Sweden than in the USSR or Poland. According to Muller and Weede (1995, p. 23), by taking non-monetary income and elite privileges into account, Morrison (1984, p. 133) estimates that the most privileged decil in the former USSR received 8.5 times the income of the poorest deciles in 1973, to be compared with a ratio of 4.7 for the United Kingdom or 9.9 for the United States. Also, the case of China presented the same conclusion. Domes (1985, pp. 208-9) found that the coefficient of income inequality (Gini) of the People's Republic of China was 0.42 while the same indicator for Taiwan was 0.28.

ECONOMIC GROWTH
In Muller and Weede’s view (1995, p. 20), “economic growth rates are more useful for a test of any conceivable public benefit which revolution may bring.” Most scholars (Maddison 1970, p.134; Pyor 1985; Murrell and Olson 1991) agree that in the case of the Soviet Revolution, the growth rate of the former USSR’s economy was not inferior to that of the Western countries until the 1960s. However, the Soviet economy was not able to sustain its high and steady growth rate of growth during the 1970’s and 1980’s (Rostow, 1991), period in which it deteriorated significantly. This comparison is also valid for the former USSR and Japan.
Muller and Weede (1995, p. 21) maintain that “If one accepts the view that the Soviet performance deteriorated sharply after the 1960’s, i.e., that the root set in only about half a century after the revolution, then it is difficult to blame the revolution as such for the difficulties that the Soviet economy experienced in the 1970’s and thereafter.” Rather it seems that it is not revolution per se that reduces economic performance but the establishment of sclerosis-prone socialism after revolution. In Olson’s view (1982), distributional coalitions generate “institutional sclerosis” that interferes with the allocative efficiency of the economy and reduces economic growth rates. But in any case, Muller and Weede (1995, p. 20) argue that “As with the Soviet Union, Mainland China seems to stand out more in human cost than in her achievements.” In addition, Muller and Weede (1995, p. 20) consider that in some of these revolutions millions of people—including millions of poor people like peasants—were killed and therefore could not benefit from any postrevolutionary improvements in quality of life. They also maintain that there are alternatives and more attractive paths to the same achievements, including the establishment of democratic institutions, or in others words, a piecemeal social engineering process.

DESTRUCTION OF PREVIOUS ACCUMULATION OF CAPITAL
Finally, in order to explain poor outcomes of revolutions, Muller and Weede (1995, p. 26)—following Popper's line—propose an interesting theory: revolutions destroy previous accumulations of social capital, and given their lack of discrimination between obsolete and productive social capital that have to be destroyed, they preclude and/or retard its reconstruction. Thus, it seems that the drive to destroy and attempt to replace the whole institutional framework of the society through a utopian social engineering process, do not leave room for the conservation of key social, political and economic assets, badly needed for economic growth and development.
Muller and Weede (1995, p. 26) argue that “It seems important to acknowledge the dependence of productivity on social norms, institutions, or laws that either may generate incentives or disincentives for production. which in turn either may increase or decrease transaction cost.” At the same time, Muller and Weede (1995, p. 26-28) builds upon Coleman's definition of social capital (1990, p. 302):
It is defined by its function. It is not a single entity, but a variety of different entities having two characteristics in common: they all consist of some aspect of social structure, and they facilitate certain actions of individuals who are within the structure[...]. Unlike other forms of capital, social capital inheres in the structure of relations between persons and among persons. It is lodged neither in individuals nor in physical implements of production."
In brief, Muller and Weede's theory (1995, p. 26-28), asserts that since social capital encompasses trust, the relations of authority, norms, and political and economic institutions, social revolutions defined by structural change cannot avoid some partial destruction of the stock of social capital. The more radical and sweeping the revolution is, the more of the prerevolutionary total capital stock is destroyed. Like physical capital, social capital may be obsolete and its destruction may be a precondition of progress. However, it seems quite unlikely that fine distinctions between more or less obsolete social capital, or between more or less easily replaceable pieces of social capital, will be recognized and respected during a violent struggle for power. The ordinary and proximate outcome of revolutions therefore should be some loss of social capital, which, though defective, might still be missed after its destruction. Since destruction tends to be easier than reconstruction, and since radical destruction tends to be indiscriminate, the typical proximate outcome of revolution will be some loss of productivity.
Finally, Muller and Weede (1995, p.28) arrive at the grim conclusion that:
Revolutions devour human lives; they do not promote rights or individual freedom; and they destroy social capital without speedily replacing it with something better. Postrevolutionary regimes register undistinguished economic performance and successes, if they occur at all, tend to be transient, Nor do postrevolutionary regimes overcome inequality. Even where economic inequality is reduced, this is brought about by an increase in political inequality between rulers and ruled, between those revolutionaries who command the firing squads and their “counterrevolutionary” targets. This balance sheet of revolutionary outcomes leads us to see an unavoidable “bottom line” contrast, namely, that between certain, immediate, and severe costs in the most precious currency, human lives, versus uncertain, distant, and more marginal benefits in lesser currencies.






[1]Here the available evidence is mixed: Ahluwalia 1976; Eckstein 1982, 1986; Weede and Tiefenbach 1981 support this statement; while Morrison 1984, challenges it.