Joseph Schumpeter famously described ‘creative destruction’ as ‘the essential fact about capitalism’, which ‘incessantly revolutionises the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one’. But the history of capitalism – which is also a history of revolutionary tendencies – is no less prone to glorifying shock and disruption. It would be easy to disregard this as a symptom of Mao’s uncompromising communism. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another. Or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. ‘A revolution is not a dinner party,’ advised Mao Zedong: Those who call for a revolution should be careful what they wish for. – Andy Reisinger, one of nineteen haikus to summarise the IPCC Special Report on 1.5✬ Extract from Chapter Ten of David Hall’s new BWB Text A Careful Revolution: Towards a Low-Emissions Future.
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