1. Most modern capitalist states are now so well-armed...

Is no one going to write a reasoned response to this argument?

Really makes you think :^)

lel what

The argument shouldn't be why nonviolence is necessary, but why violence should ever be necessary. Violence is wasteful and therefore illogical. It would take some elaborate reasoning to suspend logic in favor of seking a violent solution, and this elaborate reasoning would only be obfuscation of the flawed origin of seeking this solution, the materialistic drive of the ego.

1. if workers stop cooperating, the economy collapses, the military either stops working OR a military government takes control - either way, capitalism in its current form cannot function
2. this is why I believe that vanguardism over a society that hasn't embraced class consciousness is doomed to fail - 99% of the proletariat must want the change or you're fooling yourself. I don't expect to see revolution anytime soon unless something incredibly drastic happens to the economy
3. Sure, but how could a legitimate vote take place in the current system? Are you suggesting that the government would let that happen? It wouldn't even be allowed to get that far in the first place if they have their way.
4. What? Do you believe that the minority in control would hand over power because of a majority vote? What world do you live in?

Only because I've already had my coffee.

1. A healthy capitalist state in its prime is unassailable. However, the idea is to engage in revolution when the state is weakened by the contradictions of capitalism to the point that it loses legitimacy with the people. Soldiers and police are still workers, and will be coopted into any successful revolution. Stripped of its popular defenses, the regime falls and socialism can take power.

2. There is no escaping the reality of violence. Even if the world becomes a network of federated pacifist communes, what is to stop one party from raising an army and conquering the rest? Threats of violence and self defense are a necessity in any society, regardless of the underlying ideology.

3. You'll be waiting an awful long time to get that vote. You don't need universal support to conduct a revolution. Ideally you will identify conservative/apolitical elements of the population, and work with them to at least assure their neutrality. You don't need universal support, you just need to prevent mass reactionary/counterrevolutionary movements.

4. Significant regime change by plebiscite has literally never happened. If you do not demonstrate a threat of revolutionary violence, the incumbent leader will always choose violent repression in order to maintain power. Only an incredibly weak leadership would succumb to a bloodless socialist revolution, which would contradict your first point about the unassailable position of capitalist regimes.

On the day of revolution, you and other identity politics nigger lovers shall be the first to be purged.

1. This has lead to many successful revolutions (always with many revolutionaries killed), but importantly only in countries where the proletariat was forced to do so due to widespread food shortage. It's never happened in a country where a large majority of the populace are well fed like in modern western capitalist countries, and I don't think it can happen while there isn't widespread unrest due to shortage of basic resources. It's worth bearing in mind that such conditions (which may even become widespread in western countries in the future due to climate change) are just as likely to engender fascist revolutions as they are socialist ones.
2. And it plainly follows that if 99% of people support the change then they need only vote for a socialist party at the next general election. If one does not exist then they may create one in a democratic country.
3. In a democratic country, the government must leave office if they are voted out at a general election. If they do not abdicate office then it is the duty of the police or military to forcibly remove them. If it seems an optimistic assessment that a police force would actually remove a capitalist government in favour of a socialist one then yes it is, and they may not agree to do so. However, where a possibility however small remains that they would, that is a greater possibility than of revolution to establish socialism. A principle of parliamentary democracy in western societies exists that goes beyond left and right that does suggest that there is precedent to believe that a socialist party could democratically take power without meeting resistance from police.
4. A world in which regularly power is handed from one party to another party once the later has won a majority of seats in parliament, most usually because of a majority vote.

Okay buddy, I'll just wait for the day of revolution then.

READ MARX

Parvus wrote the same thing 15 years or so before the Russian Revolution. The gap between military technology doesn't matter because mass uprising presupposes that a part of the army would join. Without this support there's hardly any point starting an uprising in the first place.

Wrong. A class can only be overthrown by violence, a class can only maintain itself dominant by violence. To say otherwise is like saying that there is no point fighting crime because the crimefighters will become the new criminals.

A revolution's success is pretty much the criterion of whether or not it is resonating with the masses, since without them it doesn't work. If a majority is against the revolution but not against enough to fight or oppose it, then we have as much legitimacy as capitalism, whose politicians are elected in a similar way.

I never picked a history book in my life: the post? Classes maintain themselves in power by monopolization of violence, the ownership of the dominant tools of production and strategic political, cultural and social institutions, not by popular consent. If they're a minority out they can still appeal to force, and history is full of such examples.

1. I accept this completely. There is a difficulty however in that reactionary movements are just as likely to gain popularity in a time of crisis in a capitalist state.
2. Violence in self defence is different to aggressive violence. Threats of violence exist to solidify power relations which exist in capitalism, feudalism and other societies between master and slave, lord and surf, bourgeois and proletariat. The specifics of the relation are not important, what is important is the power relation, and that power relation therefore cannot exist in socialism if it is to be better than capitalism. However, self defence from reactionary forces outside the system is not about preserving power relations but protecting against the establishment of power relations.
3. There is a vote every few years in parliamentary democracies. If socialism ever gets large enough support among the populace that there can be a revolution then there is enough support amongst the populace to vote in a socialist government at the next general election.
4. There is a significant difference between even the elected centre right governments of today and the elected centre right governments 200 years ago, they would have been perceived as incredibly radical by their progenitors. It might not seem that consecutive governments differ an awful lot in ideology, but over time small differences add up.

So, and I ask this sincerely, how do you view the media and lobbyists? Big business has their fingers everywhere, spreading misinformation and lies to warp how people view reality - case in point, the red scare. People believe in bullshit like cultural marxism, or that liberals are communist, or that atheism leads to crime or whatever other nonsense they can pull out of their asses.
The capitalist hegemony doesn't allow for radical ideas to exist on a major scale - the average worker is too busy working/tired from working, to read into theory so the majority of us on the left are intelligentsia. Why would someone vote socialist and not for someone like Trump? Its those damn immigrants ruining the economy! Or why not Clinton? A woman in power would make my life better, surely, the media keeps telling me so.

Sorry for the late reply, I was having dinner. The media are snakes that work in the interest of the bourgeoisies, I agree with your analysis there. I've long since lost any hope in the likelihood of the masses becoming class concious and voting for socialism, the best I can hope for is social democratic ideas gaining more traction and softening the impact of capitalism. Hopefully under social democracy people will have more time to educate themselves and eventually belief in socialism will grow, but I don't really expect the bourgeoisies to let that happen. Unfortunately I don't expect socialism to be instituted by democratic reform or revolution, except maybe on a much greater time scale than a single generation, hundreds of years maybe, feudalism lasted much longer.

Oops, was meant for .

No, broski. I'm telling you as a guy that did this for a living for a long time, you need bodies on the ground knocking on doors and getting into shootouts. A determined and entrenched insurrection cannot be defeated by bombs and tanks, or even guys with guns, you have to get the populace to see the government as the more desirable ally. This is how you fight a counterinsurgency.

See also: Afghanistan

I've recently adopted a philosophy I like to call "revolutionary reform". Essentially I'm envisioning a kind of quasi-peaceful revolution that would entail mass strikes, workplace occupations, mass demonstrations, etc. that would be done with radical demands in mind, such as the abolition of the capitalist system. However the goal would be instead of overthrowing the government, to force it to act on these demands by effectively making governing impossible.

You don't get the endless grind of normal reformism, but you also don't have to deal with the chaos and easy degeneration of violent upheaval.

The US government has done studies on their military capacity to deal with insurgencies and a potential civil war. Their conclusions were something like 10% of the population in some way actively supporting a rebellion would be able to defeat them. Retards like OP don't understand the military isn't some distinct group of people separate from the general population. Any revolution would also include the defection of large portions of the military and the government would have a constant struggle dealing with double agents everywhere. This is all, of course, ignoring the most important part of waging any war, the logistics. The US military would not be able to function in any meaningful capacity without civilian workers supplying them. While a legitimately communist revolution wouldn't likely receive any foreign aid, just about any other overthrow would be guaranteed support from the Russians whose military has said openly they would support any opposition in an American civil war. Even in the worst case scenario a large truly determined group can't be stopped and would even be emboldened by a few drone strikes. That should be plainly obvious from the various failed escapades of the US military.

There would have to be overwhelming support for the revolution amongst the populace to shut down the production supplying the military. Taking the US as an example, if half the population supported the government then there would still be a workforce on the order of 160 million supplying them.
I understand there would be defections in the military, the question is how much of it would defect? Even if a sizeable portion defected then the country would be dragged into a bloody civil war. If we are to learn anything from similar occurrences in the middle east, we should expect the country to be reduced to rubble, millions of deaths and causalities, and potentially hundreds of millions of displaced people. Entirely ignoring the populace loyal to the government, it's almost certain that the government would receive logistical aid from their allies to fight the revolutionaries. Taking Syria as a demonstration of this principle, the government has received weapons and other resources from Russia, Turkey and Iran. The revolutionaries have received weapons and resources from the USA, Britain and France, and yet they're still losing the war; it's worth remembering that in a socialist revolution the revolutionaries wouldn't receive any support from abroad.
Even if these difficulties were surmounted, tens of millions of people would be killed, including millions of the proletariat whom are supposed to be the beneficiaries of socialism. I'm not here arguing that it would be impossible to win a civil war against the US government, but that in doing so you would destroy the very thing you were fighting for, and what would emerge from the ashes? Could you be sure that it would be in any way, shape or form resemble a society preferable to the one that died birthing it?
An immediate vacuum of power would be created, and it would be open to anyone able to accumulate enough power to seize control. Just as we see factions seize land and power, and enforce their barbarous or beneficent will upon those who live there in Syria, we might expect those with the will to do so, to form militias and seize power, and enact their barbarous or beneficent will upon the populace. There is no guarantee that the motivation of the revolutionaries whom overthrow the government will have a single vision of the society they wish to establish. As I've pointed out before, it's just as likely that they will wish to establish fascism.