J-Curve Theory of Revolution

I consider myself a friend to professor Davies who developed this J-Curve Theory of Revolution. He was a remarkable intellect and very liberal I might add. His passing a few years ago was a considerable loss for me but his voice can still be heard by this theory of revolution. If I understand what Professor Davies meant, the Trump phenomena is based more on Maslow's hierarchy of needs around self-esteem than economics. He also believed that it only took 30 percent of a population to trigger a revolt or eventual revolution. I believe we are entering into that phase of this Trump era.

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"After a reversal of fortunes, people will subjectively fear that what they have earned will be lost, and thus their mood becomes revolutionary. Davies claims that political stability and instability are dependent on the mood of the society. In other words, poor people who are satisfied will not revolt, and rich people who are dissatisfied may revolt. What is important is their state of mind rather than how much goods they possess.

"Revolutions do not usually occur in impoverished societies. The reason is that when people are preoccupied with their physical survival, the community-sense and consensus on joint political actions goes down and thus also the likelihood for revolutions to occur. Even though physical deprivation is to some extent present at the onset of revolutions, it is seldom the primary cause.

"The main factor is rather the fear that ground gained over a time period will be quickly lost. Davies found evidence for this when studying three revolutions using John Stuart Mill’s method of difference. When employing this method the researcher collects cases of a particular phenomenon in an attempt to find common factors in these cases that are otherwise quite different.

"He thus chose three different cases, where revolts had occurred, and found the common explanatory variable to be the presence of a sharp reversal of fortunes after a period of prolonged growth."

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http://www.popularsocialscience.com/2013/04/17/james-c-davies-j-curve-theory-of-revolutions/