whenever a political figure uses violent means in an attempt to achieve something desirable for most people, everybody says something to the effect of:>he was doing the right thing but he went about it in the wrong wayso my question is: has any political figure achieved something desirable for most people without resorting to violent means? has anything like that ever happened on a large, national scale? is it possible?
and i am obviously talking about revolutionary ideas during times of social turmoil here
>>18617955The state is inherently violent.
There are a lot of pitfalls to argue on anything that would be suggested here. But I'll bite with a vanilla example.MLK consistently called for non-violent approaches to political change. He routinely condemned groups furthering the same goals as him through violent means and never engaged in political violence himself. The majority of humanity would say his achievement in furthering the acceptance and continued progress of civil rights was something desirable.
>>18617955Yes, tons of times. People working within the system and reforming it. Politicians running for office, winning, and passing policies, people in non-democratic systems influencing rulers.A large-scale example would be American Progressive Era reforms or the New Deal.
>>18617982>Politicians running for office, winning, and passing policies, people in non-democratic systems influencing rulers.The state is inherently violent. Voting is an act of violence.
>>18618001Ok, so your question is, has any large-scale positive change been ever achieved without the use of non-state violence or ANY use of state power. Then the answer is no, unless you count successful strikes and strictly private charities as large-scale.
>>18618087Kapp Putsch in Germany was put down by a general strike
