Dimentio
12th April 2010, 11:10
I think it is quite simplicistic to claim that capitalism was born in the French revolution of 1789, neither does it address why the Bourgeoisie took power just then. It is quite fair to assume that the bourgeois class did not come into being in 1789 or even in the 18th century, but had existed for a long time in western Europe when the French Revolution occurred.
Urban revolutions had happened before in Europe during the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries, as well as peasant uprisings. The difference between urban revolutions and peasant uprisings was that the peasants often rallied against injustices of the moment and wanted to overthrow "the evil advisors of the good king", where as the urban uprisings often wanted to transfer power from the landed aristocracy to the burghers of the city, either by creating some form of parliament or an overhaul of the existing order.
The French Revolution of 1789 was a bourgeois revolution, but I would argue it hardly was the first bourgeois revolution. In Prague in the 1410's, the burghers overthrew the monarchy and installed some form of republic, as well as in Florence in the 1490's and in Münster in the 1530's. These early burgher-led revolutions were mostly expressed in a search for religious and doctrinal purity, against the corruption of the Catholic Church and the political authorities.
The most successful of these experiments was the Cromwell regime in England, which managed to actually bring a small fundamentalist cult into power, by the support of the English urban population (who later abandoned the new government quickly when it became even more repressive than the earlier absolutist monarchy).
I think the pre-French revolutions were a failure not because of ideological confusion (radical protestantism), but because the means of production and the technology had not been properly developed to sustain such experiments for a long time. What happened in each of these revolutions was that power naturally gravitated back due to the shortcomings of the economy (it was still too agrarian to be able to sustain a bourgeoisie with vast economic influence).
It was first in the late 17th and the early 18th century when the establishment of centralised governments created an opportunity for burghers to exercise influence in bureaucracy. The economy also grew tremendously with focus on overseas trade during that time, creating the opportunity for the industrial revolution to occur in the late 18th century.
I think that is relevant for us today because we are in the beginning of a new series of technological innovations which are rendering capitalism moot. I am for example thinking about the reprap machines, open source technology and the fact that the working class in general today are faster to apply new technologies than the bourgeoisie are able to stop them.
I don't think revolutions are born out of squalor. On the contrary, impoverished proletariats overthrowing their governments are often just establishing another part of the elite as their rulers. It is first when a class has long experience of the exercise of the control of the means of production as it dares to establish political control.
The French Revolution was probably the last step in the establishment of capitalism, not the first step. Political power is the expression of economic power, not the other way around (except for in patrimonial and absolutistic palace economies).
Urban revolutions had happened before in Europe during the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries, as well as peasant uprisings. The difference between urban revolutions and peasant uprisings was that the peasants often rallied against injustices of the moment and wanted to overthrow "the evil advisors of the good king", where as the urban uprisings often wanted to transfer power from the landed aristocracy to the burghers of the city, either by creating some form of parliament or an overhaul of the existing order.
The French Revolution of 1789 was a bourgeois revolution, but I would argue it hardly was the first bourgeois revolution. In Prague in the 1410's, the burghers overthrew the monarchy and installed some form of republic, as well as in Florence in the 1490's and in Münster in the 1530's. These early burgher-led revolutions were mostly expressed in a search for religious and doctrinal purity, against the corruption of the Catholic Church and the political authorities.
The most successful of these experiments was the Cromwell regime in England, which managed to actually bring a small fundamentalist cult into power, by the support of the English urban population (who later abandoned the new government quickly when it became even more repressive than the earlier absolutist monarchy).
I think the pre-French revolutions were a failure not because of ideological confusion (radical protestantism), but because the means of production and the technology had not been properly developed to sustain such experiments for a long time. What happened in each of these revolutions was that power naturally gravitated back due to the shortcomings of the economy (it was still too agrarian to be able to sustain a bourgeoisie with vast economic influence).
It was first in the late 17th and the early 18th century when the establishment of centralised governments created an opportunity for burghers to exercise influence in bureaucracy. The economy also grew tremendously with focus on overseas trade during that time, creating the opportunity for the industrial revolution to occur in the late 18th century.
I think that is relevant for us today because we are in the beginning of a new series of technological innovations which are rendering capitalism moot. I am for example thinking about the reprap machines, open source technology and the fact that the working class in general today are faster to apply new technologies than the bourgeoisie are able to stop them.
I don't think revolutions are born out of squalor. On the contrary, impoverished proletariats overthrowing their governments are often just establishing another part of the elite as their rulers. It is first when a class has long experience of the exercise of the control of the means of production as it dares to establish political control.
The French Revolution was probably the last step in the establishment of capitalism, not the first step. Political power is the expression of economic power, not the other way around (except for in patrimonial and absolutistic palace economies).