If you're in the majority, you have the votes to be able to accomplish something with reform. It's not like we live in a monarchy, reform is possible under our system.
If reform isn't working to bring about your goals, either your goals aren't popular enough, or they are popular but the people lack the will and organization to vote for them.
If the people lack the will and organization to vote effectively, they certainly lack the will and organization to topple the government.
My area of expertise is managing complex systems and change implementation. I sincerely don't understand how revolution is supposed to work where reform doesn't. No one has been able to give me an answer that doesn't bill down to idealistic hope. How is this revolution supposed to be implemented, and why can't we build the foundation for revolution while simultaneously using the tools we have for reform? Wouldn't widespread support for reform be the best possible proof of consensus?
Honestly I can't understand how anyone could look at the rolling back of civil rights in the usa, and the falling living standards across the western nations and think "all we need is a bit of reform."
Do you think that reforms of the past were not won by violence? For every MLK jr. there is a Malcolm X who gets erased from the official history books. For every peaceful civil rights march there is a Black Panther Party with guns guarding the protestors while they sleep. Suffragettes engaged in systematic property damage. Gandhi was a middle man between the british imperialists and the militant anti-colonialist movement in India.
The question of the majority
The majority of voters in most western "democracies" want more action on climate change. The majority support higher taxes on billionaires. The majority are against cutting pension and disability benefits. The majority want properly funded public healthcare. The majority are against war.Tell me the majority opinion matters
The fight for reforms
Even when reform does come it can get snatched away. Just look at abortion protections in the usa. The right to abortions was hard fought for decades only to be taken away because democrats get more donations fighting for abortion rights than they would enshrining it into law.A reform is "granted" it is a concession by the ruling class to keep us pacified. They buy our pacivity with the profits of our own labor.
The fight for reforms is an essential part of revolution but only to show people the need for more drastic measures. It proves the point that in the end the ruling class will never give us what we deserve, they will only give us the minimum to stop us from coming at them with pitchforks and torches.
The core of your misunderstanding
You think the ones we are "bargaining" with to get reforms deserve what they have, That they are giving us what they earned. The reality is they are only ever offering to steal less. "Behind every great fortune there is a crime.”You think that some people deserve to exploit the rest and that it is the responsibility of the rest to make sure they aren't overexploited. Reforming a system so that the rich get to exploit people less is still completely unjust and inequitable.
You are under the misconception that the system is inherently just and not made by the people who author genocides. You think that the current system was not built by violence.
The ruling class tell stories of non-violence to pacify fools.
They assassinated MLK 2, and before that tried to destroy his marriage. And yes, he engaged in nonconsensual non-monogamy, which shows our heroes are human, as Che famously reminds us, "Shoot coward, it is only a man you kill."