Antagonisms between the developing Bourgeois and the monarchy/nobles

[Deicide]

Can anyone provide a quick summary on this? And perhaps recommend some scholarship for further reading?

I'd like to know how much conflict there was between these ''classes'' and how long it took the developing bourgeoisie to subvert the contemporary power structure.

Thanks.

[Blake's Baby]

Hmm.

I think you're barking up a wrong tree. How much conflict was there between the developing bourgeoisie and the nobles, not very much. The bourgeoisie weren't an oppressed class. Why should there be conflict between them and the aristocracy?

The class struggle in the Middle Ages was between aristocracy and peasantry. The burghers to an extent grew to power in the cracks in the system, not in opposition to the aristocracy (in much the same way as the aristocracy had grown from the equites of the Roman Empire, in the cracks between the Senators and the Slaves).

The bourgeoisie, unlike the proletariat, for instance, was able to develop its own economic power-base inside the social and economic structures of feudal Europe until '...at a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or – this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms – with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto...' (Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, 1859). This is when, the bourgeoisie already having developed itself, and indeed to an extent already having acheived economic power, it overthrows the last elements of feudalism that are holding it back (as opposed to the elements that allowed it to develop).

That process really starts in the 1500s but particularly gets going with the 'English Civil War' (a very misnamed business) in the 1640s - the first explicit war between the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy. If that's what you're interested in, maybe Christopher Hill (who was a CPGB member in the 1930s and was the first explicitly 'Marxist' historian of the English Civil War) is a good place to start.

[Deicide]

Hmm.

I think you're barking up a wrong tree. How much conflict was there between the developing bourgeoisie and the nobles, not very much. The bourgeoisie weren't an oppressed class. Why should there be conflict between them and the aristocracy?

Perhaps I am, but the bourgeoisie began to subvert the aristocracies hegemony, surely the aristocracy felt threatened by this new, rising power?

[Ilyich]

Hmm.

I think you're barking up a wrong tree. How much conflict was there between the developing bourgeoisie and the nobles, not very much. The bourgeoisie weren't an oppressed class. Why should there be conflict between them and the aristocracy?

The class struggle in the Middle Ages was between aristocracy and peasantry. The burghers to an extent grew to power in the cracks in the system, not in opposition to the aristocracy (in much the same way as the aristocracy had grown from the equites of the Roman Empire, in the cracks between the Senators and the Slaves).

The bourgeoisie, unlike the proletariat, for instance, was able to develop its own economic power-base inside the social and economic structures of feudal Europe until '...at a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or – this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms – with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto...' (Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, 1859). This is when, the bourgeoisie already having developed itself, and indeed to an extent already having acheived economic power, it overthrows the last elements of fuedalism that are holding it back (as opposed to the elements that allowed it to develop).

That process really starts in the 1500s but particularly gets going with the 'English Civil War' (a very misnamed business) in the 1640s - the first explicit war between the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy. If that's what you're interested in, maybe Christopher Hill (who was a CPGB member in the 1930s and was the first explicitly 'Marxist' historian of the English Civil War) is a good place to start.

Okay, the bourgeoisie did not emerge as a class in direct opposition to the landed aristocracy; it did not emerge as the antithesis to the aristocratic thesis (I am testing my understanding of dialectics here; please correct me if I am wrong) like the peasantry did. Was the bourgeoisie and oppressed class? No, it was not an oppressed class then in the way that the proletariat is an oppressed class today. Still, did not antagonisms exist between the young capitalist class and the landed aristocracy? It would seem as if there was some kind of major conflict between the early capitalists and the old aristocrats.

Take, for example, the French Revolution of 1789. Could not this event be seen as a political conflict between the dying feudal state and aristocratic class (represented by the king and the nobles) and the emerging bourgeois democratic state and class (represented by the Jacobin Club and other bourgeois revolutionaries). Obviously, the French peasantry and the emerging proletariat played major roles as the bourgeoisie's allies but the bourgeoisie took the lead role in the revolution.

Another example of a possible conflict between the bourgeoisie and the landlords is the conflict over the price of grain in Britain in the early 1800's. The aristocracy wanted the price of grain to remain high because they produced the grain. The capitalists, on the other hand, wanted Parliament to force down the price of grain because their workers would need higher subsistence wages if the price was high. My point is that although the bourgeoisie was not an oppressed class in the modern sense, they still had conflicting interests with the aristocracy that lead to both political and economic conflict. Again, I could be completely wrong. In that case, please correct me.

[Blake's Baby]

...
Take, for example, the French Revolution of 1789. Could not this event be seen as a political conflict between the dying feudal state and aristocratic class (represented by the king and the nobles) and the emerging bourgeois democratic state and class (represented by the Jacobin Club and other bourgeois revolutionaries)...

Yes, you are right. The first bourgeois revolution was the 'English Civil War', there were also the American Revolution, the French Revolution, and others.

But the point is that these represent the remants of the 'old order' fighting against the bourgeois state, not the bourgeoisie per se. The bourgeoisie has already had ... what, 400 years to develop before the English Civil War, 550 before the French Revolution. England was a capitalist country (in that its economy was capitalist) in the 1500s, as capitalism had been developing in England since the 1300s. The Civil War was almost the 'last gasp' of the aristocracy (not quite, those annoying Stuarts didn't give up for another 100 years).

In previous social formations, classes could find a new mode of production (the rising bourgeoisie exploiting wage labour for commodity production) in the midst of feudalism. There was no problem particularly for the aristos, they still held the land and titles, so what if a few merchants had big houses? What did they care, they could trace their descent back to Charlemagne, so what if some people descended from turnips were rich? Many of the aristocracy (everywhere) married poorer younger sons to bourgeois heiresses, to get their hands on daddy's loot. Equally, the bourgoisie was happy to farm its daughters for the sake of titles and seats in the King's Council (and the possibility of Royal Monopolies on trade).

Enclosures and sequeatration -one might say, 'nationalisation, followed by privatisation' - of the monasteries (can you tell I mostly know about this from England?) helped to create a capitalist economy in the countryside, and also lead to the development of towns. Overseas trade (especially in wool and cloth) with the artisans of Flanders also stimulated economic development.

In short, the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy adapted to each other up to thepoint where it became impossible to develop capitalism without smashing the remains of feudalism. That happened earlier in England and the Netherlands than it did in France; and in Germany and Russia, it didin't happen at all; capitalist development in those countries was accompanied by massive overseas investment and heavy state support which began to dismantle feudalism.

I don't mean to imply that there was no conflict between the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie, because there was; but generally it came at the end of the process, it was the bourgeoisie administering the coup de grace to the old order (actually, it was usually the artisans and peasants, if not the actual proletariat, ruined by capitalism, who delivered the decisive blows - egged on by the bourgeois who were getting on with making the money).