True, but these people were not committing civil disobedience. When has the government been able to defend itself against civil disobedience? I only know of twice in history when it was used, Gandhi’s civil disobedience and the civil rights civil disobedience, and both times it was successful. The government had to give in to the demands.
Against those using armed resistance.
Against an ethnic group that cooperated.
I don’t see how this is relevant to civil disobedience.
That were supporting a government using armed resistance.
It is also predicated on popular support, which is why the government would never mass murder its own population.
on the other hand, maybe doesn’t fit your civil disobediance tag perfectly, it only shows that a state was willing to kill 100s of civilians for every armed enemy it felt lived within the town.
It was not civil disobedience, so it does not fit at all.
Was even 1% of the population involved?
Again, this was not even 1% of the population that was involved, it was a tiny fraction. This is why I say it may take up to 5% of the population. However, look at the response of the population to it in the article. Four deaths sparked 4 million to protest. Imagine what would happen if the government tried to kill even a few thousand of 15 million disobedient.
Seems I could write several books to question or refute your assertion that at most all it takes is 5% to bring down a government - an assertion I still don’t see any evidence of being true - and still not satisfy you or answer all of your side questions. Of course no one would buy those books primarily because I don’t think they buy your assertion.
Can 5% bring down a government? I don’t really disagree with that possibility, but is the statement sufficient? You seem to believe the state won’t respond with aggression - specifically imprisonment or in the worst case scenario, murder. I’m all for nonviolent means of overthrowing a state, but I just don’t share your optimism in the response of the state. I’ll just say that the percentage required to bring down a state without the use of aggression is directly proportional to the willingness of that state to utilize aggression. That percentage may be above 5%. In some instances, perhaps extremely rare, nonviolence may not even be an option.
Please share with us the acts of civil disobedience involving the successful overthrown of a government that have lead you to your assertion. You’ve already cited Gandhi’s nonviolence movement in India, but I believe the number of participants exceeds your 5% figure. It’s also not quite clear whether the Quit India movement caused the British to abandon their hold on India or whether they simply weren’t in position to do so after WWII. Other British territories were also given independence in the process. I’d say that the Quit India movement had great influence on Britain’s decision, but was not the sole reason for Indian independence. Perhaps over time that may have played out anyway, but there’s no way we can make any assumptions about that one way or the other.
So you have two instances that you know of to support your assertion that at most it takes 5% to overthrow a government? One of these didn’t even relate to government overthrow (occurring over a span of 300 years to boot, including a civil war) and the other involved more than 5% of the population. That’s not to mention the fact that in both instances the respective government did indeed use force including imprisonment and death. The one instance that did involve the independence of a people from a government wasn’t even a conclusive situation - that the civil disobedience was the sole cause of the overthrow.
Now that I think about it, I believe much more than 5% of the American population already did refuse the authority of their government in the past. We all know how Lincoln (the master manipulator) turned that one around and made it look like the South were the bad guys. All the South wanted was to leave peacefully and they even offered to buy all current federal ground in the South and offered to take their share of the national debt, but somehow Lincoln still made the Union look the good guys and justified the killing of 620,000 Americans to the public in order to “save the Union”.
The American Civil War was my answer too, but then I was expecting another series of additional questions in attempt to refute the obvious and lead the conversation in a different direction (hence the books comment). I’m sure the detailed response is coming at any moment.
Two points of disagreement I have are:
That 5% is all that is required - I don’t see the evidence.
That the state will not respond with aggression up to and including imprisonment and murder/genocide - position based on faith and speculation as opposed to history.
Other than that, nonviolent mass civil disobedience would appear to be an acceptable method for libertarians to overthrow a government.
You could. What I am proposing is of course just conjecture. There is no real way to know for sure until it is tried. But I see no reason to believe it would not work. Nothing in the history of mankind suggests that it would not, from what I can tell.
I believe it does as well. But in reality, as far as I know, that is the only time in history where civil disobedience was used to get rid of a government. And yes, there may have been other factors that helped as them as well, besides the civil disobedience.
But you all seem to be denying reality. 5% of the population is a huge portion of the population. One out of every twenty people. Look at the above scenario where the government killed four people. It enraged 4 million. Just imagine the government imprisoning 15 million non-violent people. The U.S. government has a hard enough time imprisoning 1.5 million people, mostly poor people. Now multiply that by 10 and add in there middle class and wealthy people! I mean come on. It just does not have the resources nor the will to do it.
The wealthiest country in the world has a hard time imprisoning .5% of its population, mostly poor. And you think it could easily imprison 5%, including a lot of middle class and wealthy?
That is because the South attacked the North. Again, using aggression against the state does not work. The only thing history has shown to work is non-violent, non-cooperation.
“1,540,805 sentenced prisoners were under state or federal jurisdiction.” I suppose this was the statistic I was thinking about.
“2,310,984 prisoners were held in federal or state prisons or in local jails.” I guess all the governments combined jail/imprison 2.3 million. But, I would guess, those in jails generally are not held in jail for even close to a year. The real question is, how many are incarcerated for at least a year?
Regardless, 5% of the population would still be ~7 times the current number of people jailed/imprisoned in a year. That is still a hell of a lot more than are currently in prison, and again, they are generally the poorest of the population.
Well, I was saying that your figure of 1.5 million is wrong too. Even check your own links.
I think that the statistics you present are anecdotal and don’t reflect the trend of steadily growing prison populations. Pardoning inmates due to overcrowding in this one jurisdiction in cali does not necessarily reflect the whole system.