Revolutions

All countries, eventually, make the revolution. The first were the Germans, in the XV century, with Martin Luther, then the English, in the XVII, then the French and the Americans, and in the XIX century in South America. In the first half of XXth century it was the time of Russia and then China, and in the 70' s of Vietnam and Cambodia, and now is the time of the Arabs, It seems that there is only one exveption, Italy. According to Emmanuel Todd the age of revolution comes not as a consequence of the clash of classes, but when the number of literate people surpasses a certain threshold. The rule seems to be very consistent across all these revolution. In the case of Italy the basic literacy was reached in the XIX centuty, but maybe functional literacy is a much more recent conqeust, as shown by certain surveys that show a high rates of ltieracy but only very low rates of understanding compex textes. If it is so, maybe Italy will be no longer an exception in a short time. The collapse and the delegimitation of the ruling class may be a symptom.