Why Does the Bourgeoisie Favor Republics?

[Outinleftfield]

Meaning a "republic" with the certain system of representation you see in countries like the US and France as opposed to any existing or hypothetical "people's republic".

I ask because a lot of bourgeois revolutions involved overthrowing monarchies and forming republics.

Why wouldn't the bourgeoisie want a monarchy? It would seem like a monarchy headed by one absolute monarch who brokers between the interests of the competing capitalists(while pretending to represent the will of the people) would be preferable to a representative institution where hypothetically if voters ignored the media and voted for the right people they could redo the whole constitution as socialist.

Of course we know that historically when that even comes close to happening the capitalists launch a coup. Seen in Chile and more famously Spain. But that's very messy and has the potential of exposing the nature of the capitalist system, inciting the population to resist the coup and possibly even establish an even more socialist government. It would seem simpler from the perspective of the class interests of capitalists for the capitalists to just propagate "monarchism" and prevent the possibility of even having to deal with this scenario.

Did Marx or anyone write anything about this?

[Victus Mortuum]

Because if the population believes that the problem is BAD VOTING and not more fundamental (not having any "say" at all) then they will more likely remain pacified. Besides, it's easier to buy candidates for office via campaign financing than try to sway an all-powerful dictator who is already rich...

[Tablo]

The bourgeoisie would prefer a republic because they can buy seats in the senate. This guarantees the biggest stay in charge.

[Manic Impressive]

Because capitalism came into being through a series of revolutions not all of them violent. The aim of these bourgeois revolutions was to replace the existing rulers, the aristocracy or nobility with the capitalists. In some countries which still have constitutional monarchies many of the aristocracy simply became capitalists.

Yes Marx wrote about this a lot.

[RadioRaheem84]

Well, these days there is so much crap in the media that honors royalty, aristocracy, etc. I am surprised any major capitalist favor a republic.

[Rakhmetov]

Because under feudal monarchs the forces of production can not be developed to the extent that the capitalist need to advance their mode of production (i.e. the capitalist mode of production) and their forces of production and relations of production.

Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1850/pol-econ/index.htm) (1859):

The general result at which I arrived and which, once won, served as a guiding thread for my studies, can be briefly formulated as follows: In the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will, relations of production which correspond to a definite stage of development of their material productive forces. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which rises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the social, political and intellectual life process in general. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces of society come in conflict with the existing relations of production, or -- what is but a legal expression for the same thing -- with the property relations within which they have been at work hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an epoch of social revolution. With the change of the economic foundation of the entire immense superstructure is more or less rapidly transformed. In considering such transformations, a distinction should always be made between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, aesthetic or philosophic -- in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out. Just as our opinion of an individual is not based on what he thinks of himself, so can we not judge of such a period of transformation by its own consciousness; on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained rather from the contradictions of material life, from the existing conflict between the social productive forces and the relations of production.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mode_of_production

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forces_of_production

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relations_of_production

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_materialism

http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/lecture24a.html

[Ocean Seal]

The monarchy would be a competing against the bourgeoisie. They can pay senators, but paying an already rich monarch is more difficult.

[x371322]

I would say that by giving the masses the illusion of democracy, and making us think we actually have a say, they can strengthen their respective powers. If the people think they choose their own leaders, they'll be much more likely to stand behind them, more likely to go to war for them, and more likely to remain complacent with even the shittiest of systems. I guess that whole "ordained by God" scam started to become less effective, so now they just try to trick us into choosing our own oppressors.

[Jazzhands]

Because in a republic, it's easier for the capitalist class to drag the rest of the population in with them, and it allows for more development of the productive forces that will eventually increase their wealth, as opposed to a monarchy where everything hinges on technological advancement. It also has to do with the natural evolution of capitalism away from monarchy. Remember that modern capitalism was created when the feudal lord class was overthrown by the merchant middle class, the beginnings of the modern bourgeoisie.

[Rafiq]

It's not that they favor a Republic, but if they tell the masses "They live under a democracy" than the Masses will see no reason to revolt against them.

[B0LSHEVIK]

A republic gives the illusion of a government controlled by the people. A monarchy on the other hand is very hard to pass along as a people's institution.

This isnt always the case however. As many so-called republics have descended into aristocracies. The Roman Republic for one. The first French Republic as another example. But again, a republic makes it seem, on a superficial manner, that people have the power in their votes. When, in reality, power resides in the proprietary class. This final point, is what doomed feudalism, and introduced capitalism, per se.

[Demogorgon]

It has nothing to do with "deceiving the masses". Republican Government is preferred by them because Polyarchy or competitive elitism is the political system that capitalism thrives best under. An absolute monarch ruling is feudal in nature and that is a system that is hostile to the bourgeoisie.

Now naturally, the bourgeoisie want to be careful that polyarchy does not stray too close to becoming democracy because that would be very bad for them indeed. But it would be equally harmful to them (albeit extremely unrealistic) to return to feudal Government.

[Rafiq]

^^ I suppose that makes more sense ^^

[Tavarisch_Mike]

Isnt this what was going on during Marx time? The historical materialisms social change, frome a feudal society to a industrial, where the old aristocraty where replaced by the borgeousie and with that also the replacement of the monarchy to republican parliaments. Very good question thought.

[penguinfoot]

The view that there's some inherent tie between capitalism and bourgeois democracy, be it in the form of a republic or any other form of government in which there are some forms of election and democratic decision-making, is a false one, and, following Luxemburg, is the core of revisionism in the political sphere, because it assumes that the bourgeoisie would never be able or willing to adopt more blatantly dictatorial forms of political rule in the event of being faced with an energetic class movement or a series of attempts to use the institutions of the parliamentary state as mechanisms to effect a transformation of social relations, when the entire history of revolution and class struggles shows that this is precisely what the bourgeoisie does do, and that whatever ties they might have to bourgeois democracy are incidental and contingent rather than being the expression of historical laws - if republics were prominent in the early history of capitalist development, in France, for example, it is because they gave the bourgeoisie an effective means of eliminating political and social divisions such as internal trade barriers within what have since become the major capitalist nation-states.


I ask because a lot of bourgeois revolutions involved overthrowing monarchies and forming republics.

Really? France and Latin America seem about the only immediate examples I can think of, and I would argue that the most common form taken by a bourgeois revolution, in the Marxist and historical sense of the process that eliminates the remaining impediments to the establishment of capitalist relations of production and the development of the productive forces through capitalist accumulation, has not really been a revolution at all, in the sense of a popular seizure of power by the bourgeoisie at the head of the mass of the population, but has taken place either through state direction, as in Germany, or through the imposition of capitalist relations from outside, as in the experience of colonialism.

[Luís Henrique]

This:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18th-brumaire/index.htm

Beware of conspiracist theories of the kind "because it is the best way to delude the masses". Such a-historic stupidities are by no means Marxist or leftist.

Luís Henrique

[CAleftist]

Because the bourgeoisie is a class, while a monarch is from one family or bloodline. What if the monarch was hostile to the bourgeoisie? But with a republic, the means of production can be effectively developed and utilized, because private property and wealth is protected by the state, rather than the "divine rights of monarchs."

[Luís Henrique]

It has nothing to do with "deceiving the masses".

Quoted for truth.


Republican Government is preferred by them because Polyarchy or competitive elitism is the political system that capitalism thrives best under.

And it is the political system that capitalism thrives best under because it places the State as an outside ruler to capitalist competition. Other forms of government will easily result in the State favouring some groups of capitalists over others, which is detrimental to the system.


An absolute monarch ruling is feudal in nature and that is a system that is hostile to the bourgeoisie.


Now naturally, the bourgeoisie want to be careful that polyarchy does not stray too close to becoming democracy because that would be very bad for them indeed. But it would be equally harmful to them (albeit extremely unrealistic) to return to feudal Government.

True but besides the point. The bourgeoisie's choices aren't bourgeois democracy or feudal absolutism, but rather bourgeois democracy or bourgeois open dictatorship (which comes in many flavours, such as military dictatorship, bonapartism, fascism, etc.) Obviously feudal absolutism doesn't fit the necessities of the bourgeoisie, but the question is, why democracy and not a dictatorship like Franco's, Mussolini's, Dolfuss', Bonaparte's, Pétain's, Papadopoulos', etc (or, to give it an entirely different flavour, like Robespierre's or Cromwell's), none of which were, in any meaningful sence, feudal or absolutist.

Luís Henrique

[black magick hustla]

I don't think the bosses favor liberal democracy over dictatorship. I think it depends on the stability of a region. Stable societies favor liberal democracy. Unstable ones, favor dictatorships.

[Misanthrope]

It promotes an illusion of "freedom" which make it easier to control the proletariat.

[Demogorgon]

Quoted for truth.

And it is the political system that capitalism thrives best under because it places the State as an outside ruler to capitalist competition. Other forms of government will easily result in the State favouring some groups of capitalists over others, which is detrimental to the system.

That's true to an extent, but liberal political systems do blatantly have Governments showing favouritism too, though perhaps not as much. The reason it suits the system best is I think because competitive elitism matches the market structure quite well (Schumpeter's idea of elections actually being a market for leaders), reflects the spread out distribution of power in capitalism and of course because it also acts as a "safety valve" for the system, allowing the public to vote out a Government and prevent the system from first of all outraging people so much it threatens itself and secondly to allow individual Governments to take the blame when the system itself is being particularly harmful.


True but besides the point. The bourgeoisie's choices aren't bourgeois democracy or feudal absolutism, but rather bourgeois democracy or bourgeois open dictatorship (which comes in many flavours, such as military dictatorship, bonapartism, fascism, etc.) Obviously feudal absolutism doesn't fit the necessities of the bourgeoisie, but the question is, why democracy and not a dictatorship like Franco's, Mussolini's, Dolfuss', Bonaparte's, Pétain's, Papadopoulos', etc (or, to give it an entirely different flavour, like Robespierre's or Cromwell's), none of which were, in any meaningful sence, feudal or absolutist.

Luís Henrique
I know, but the question was "why not an absolute monarchy" rather than "why not another kind of dictatorship", to take it more broadly, capitalism requires Polyarchy (I hate the term "bourgeoisie democracy", by definition it is not democratic) because the nature of the system is multiple centres of power operating in a kind of coalition with one another. The Government is one of the most important of these centres and if it fails to properly reflect the balance of power in the rest of society it will end up shutting some aspects out and destabilising the system.

Moreover of course modern capitalism needs the people to have their say too, jut not too much of a say due to the "safety valve" principle I mentioned.

[Kiev Communard]

The liberal republic is favoured by the bourgeoisie due to the reasons Demogorgon has already outlined, and also because of the ideological factor: as the ideology of bourgeoisie rests on the fiction of "free exchange" and "free contract of equal parties", then the political form of their class rule, as long as bourgeois ideology dominates the consciousness of the dispossessed, must reflect such illusionary notion to prop up the cultural hegemony of the ruling class. When the ideological chains of the masses break up, however, the very real essence of the state as the instrument of coercion necessarily reveals itself, and the direct political dictatorship of the bourgeois (in comparison with the economic one, which is always in place) manifests itself.