Does Nonviolence Work?

Hypothetical situation:
>Be authoritarian dictator.
>Rule unopposed and with an iron fist.
>FeelsGoodMan.jpg.
>Subjects start reading pic related.
>"198 Methods of Nonviolent Resistance" posters start going up everywhere.
>"Eh, how bad can nonviolence be?" I ask.
>Farmers start refusing to grow food.
>Factory workers strike.
>People start parking cars in the middle of the street.
>Civilians start refusing to obey police, regardless of consequences.
>Prisons start overflowing.
>Economy collapses.
>Only my most loyal and fanatical followers in the military and elsewhere still obey my orders.

Am I screwed? Is there a way to brute strength my way out of this, or do I give into the will of my own subjects?

Take the youngest child and execute the oldest of every family. Enslave everyone else to labor camps. Adopt the children to loyalists.

>Take the youngest child and execute the oldest of every family.
They allow me to do it, but keep protesting regardless. If anything, it only makes them even harder to control.
> Enslave everyone else to labor camps.
And they still refuse to do any labor in the labor camps, even when it means summary execution; because according to men like Mr. Sharp, I can't actually execute everyone with destroying my own country, so either way they win.
>Adopt the children to loyalists.
More disloyal children than loyalist families, and burdening them with rugrats to reeducate risks turning them disloyal too.

What if you just ignore them? They don't make food. They will starve eventually. Who cares? So what if the economy tanks?

There is no such thing as nonviolence. To say there is is to lie.
If I refuse to grow its the same as if I were still growing food but refusing to share it, its as if I'm taking food from your mouth. If I cause domestic chaos there is the real likelihood that someone will be harmed, even if accidentally or vicariously. If I refuse to obey laws I will elicit a violent response from the state.
In the same vein the nature of society and governance is as simple as the threat of violence. "Follow the law or we will hurt you, physically or otherwise."
The world is violence. Existence is chaos. Human nature is evil. This is reality.

>What if you just ignore them? They don't make food. They will starve eventually. Who cares?

Two things about this suggestion. First, if I allow them all to starve (with the probable exception of my own supporters, who are no longer in the majority), I won't have much of a country left to rule, now will I? Second, if I allow them to starve, I'll also starve because these are the people I ordinarily depend on for food and shit. Now, I could start importing food in from other countries that don't have a vendetta against me, but that will probably mean becoming indebted to other countries and institutions that I'd prefer not to have in power over me. Plus, if my economy tanks, then I won't even be in much of a position to feed myself, now will I?

You're actually making the most sense of anyone here, and that's kinda frightening me. My biggest qualm with so-called "nonviolence" advocates like Gene Sharp is that what they tend to use an extremely limited definition of violence in order to make what they support seem more radical than it really is. What I'm trying to figure out in this thread is there's a way to counteract their methods of destabilization through non-cooperation, or if this really is the way all conflicts will be resolved in the future.

>What I'm trying to figure out in this thread is there's a way to counteract their methods of destabilization through non-cooperation,
When faced with non-violent protest, you have three methods to respond that I can think of. First, to respond with extreme violence, which could have either the effect of scaring demonstrators or embossing their cause and giving them support.
Two you can utilize emotional propaganda in order to make their movement seem petty, silly, wasteful, or any other negative connotation. If you can turn a significant proportion of the populace against them they're bound to fail; in the first place it is likely most will only vaguely sympathize anyhow, and emotion is the best way to turn them.
Three, you can use your own denial attacks, by kidnapping leaders, seizing resources, and other "non-violent" tactics. This will have the same effect of making life and the movement more difficult. Democratization is very effective.
Or you could always bargain with them, but I expect that's not an option. Ignoring them is also a bad decision, it will only make them angrier and turn people to their cause.
>or if this really is the way all conflicts will be resolved in the future.
That is unlikely. No matter what many modern thinkers may say, violence will never outlive its usefulness. This is demonstrable by their attempts to create methods of non-violence. They're accidentally admitting that for an idea to succeed there must be some way of resting, of taking the power/agency away from those they disagree with. Physical violence will almost always be the mist immediately effective way to do this. Although a combination of other methods is certainly also good.

nonviolence works in certain situations

>Be authoritarian dictator.
>Rule unopposed and with an iron fist.

>Farmers start refusing to grow food.
>Factory workers strike.

Ah, so you also enjoy communism. Great system, comrade! In soviet Russia, farmers stop growing food and massive famine kills millions!

Nonviolent resistance actually does not work.

See: Islam versus Constantinople.

They just get deemed heretics and 'converted' to hard labor or killed.

The third method seems like the most probable: use the same "nonviolent" tactics as the protesters. Two is a possibility, but in the age of social media it'd probably be harder to create an effective anti-protest narrative; and just shutting down communications would only make them madder. Thank you for actually providing an answer that makes sense.

If you give a choice between digging a hole and dying, I can always just choose death; and if I'm dead, you're going to either have to dig the hole yourself or find someone else who's easier to scare into obedience. And if everyone agrees to choose death... you're going to have to get your hands dirty, one way or another.

>And they still refuse to do any labor in the labor camps, even when it means summary execution; because according to men like Mr. Sharp, I can't actually execute everyone with destroying my own country, so either way they win.
But this is unrealistic because the only way for this to work was if everyone disobeyed, which would never happen because prisoner's dilemma.

Unless the propaganda was so strong they transcended mortal fear

being an authoritariun dictator doesnt mean you have to be evil

you can make speeches to win the hearts of your citizens

Theoretically it does work, but only if your people are superhumanly brave or the ruler is soft. If he goes full Rome and lines the road into the capital with thousands of rebels lashed to crosses people are going to think twice about committing sabotage.

>And if everyone agrees to choose death
Never happens. They just torture you, rape you, raise your rape-babies Islamic.

"Nonviolent resistance" sounds good on paper, until you meet hardasses that have no problem putting heretics on the rack. Remember, you're as good as a disobedient dog to them.

If fuckers have enough support (people willing to risk their wellbeing to overthrow you) to make nonviolent approach effective, you are fucked anyway. At least not as fucked as in case when they choose the violent approach.

Also, if you can organize non-violent resistance on that scale, why not just have a proper rebellion?
inb4 violence is bad :(((

It's unrealistic because it is based on the impossible assumption that a massive number of people would act in unison, while overcoming natural human instincts such as fear for your own life. Generally humans will always choose the path of least resistance. The majority of people would never risk death or discomfort unless the situation became so bad and uncomfortable that it outweighs the risk. Most revolutions in history were caused by famine.

This. You really have to drive people to treat edge and be a dick about it (I.e. not blame it on someone else). Like British in India. An if they get nonviolent, it's good only for the oppressor to save his ass.

>Even hardasses can't work alone: they require a certain amount of cooperation from the people beneath them in order for anything to get done, and if that cooperation is rescinded they will find themselves in a very precarious position. Just saying "Never happens" doesn't actually refute that.

According to Gene Sharp, nonviolence is more effective in that it's harder for a nonviolent movement to get hijacked or co-opted by extremists after the fact; and that it's easier to portray yourselves as he good guys when your opponents are the ones with all the weapons are you're just letting them go ape on you.

>>Even hardasses can't work alone
Right. They don't. They have their crew of enforcers willing to rape and torture you while blaming you for your immorality in not worshiping and working for them.

Then they just find the rebellious organizers, put their heads on pikes, and fearmonger the rest into submission.
A few generations, and your kills will see that they were right, your ancestors were decadent lazy immoral people, and Allah is the only way.

Successful dictators make cults about themselves or religions they control. Enforces itself really.

Even law enforcement is dropping the "non-violent" bullshit. We never carry an impact shotgun or X-26 anymore. There is one taser in 5 of 58 patrol vehicles in our district. I rely on my sidearm and patrol carbine 90% of the time. I only carry OC spray out policy and use my baton for pain compliance.

Nonviolence is just passive aggression. And for passive agression to work, you have to aim it at someone who finds it unacceptable to just mass execute/imprison those who rebel.
I can't see how nonviolence would work against imperial Japanese in Nankin (so you are letting us kill you? How about we torture your family Infront of your eyes first?), or against Stalin in 30s (GULAG will fit as many filthy counterrevolutionaries as needed).

Out of policy*

It's not so much about the acceptability of mass murder as the pragmatic practicality. Simply put, if you kill all your slaves, who's going to do all the slave work?

What nonviolent resisters bank on is the assumption that no dictator is so self-destructively crazy that they would rather doom their own country than look weak.

So you send in the army to rape and pillage the rebelling farmers and union leaders are thrown out of c-130s

You don't have to kill all of them, just enough to let them know you're not fucking around

Hell, as long as a society runs free, and there is some privacy and some freedoms for the people, the majority would support it.
African colonies were probably pretty good under European dictatorship, and only a tiny minority riled people up to overthrow it and turn everything into shit.
If a benevolent dictator can keep society running and the majority of people living well, it would be preferable to a democracy due to its faster governance.

You assume that all people are susceptible to fear mongering and threats, which is not the case; especially if they're dealing with people they hate.

The point of nonviolent cooperation is to force the dictator to put their money where their mouth is: either kill everyone and destroy their own country in the process, or accept defeat and give in to their subjects' demands.

But it doesn't matter if the people organizing these strikes get murdered

>You assume that all people are susceptible to fear mongering and threats
Look man, it's basic history. Look how people get forcibly converted to religions.

It didn't matter how devout the Byzantine empire's best priests were, they got Islamized.

It just takes a few generations to turn any religion into any other, and soon your old dictator is "the Prophet Muhammad" to history.

Sure, if you get goyim to do violence on your behalf, and you bet on both sides.

>Rule unopposed and with an iron fist.
>an iron fist.

Give loyalists farms and make renegades work for food instead of money.

Take one from the jews and have infiltrator's start sabotaging rebel groups