******************** POSTING RULES & NOTES ********************
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*****************************************************************
Washington Post, June 4, 2020 at 6:00 a.m. EDT
Are we on the brink of revolution?
By Christine Adams
The protests that have erupted across the United States following the
brutal deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others at the hands of
the police fit a pattern of long-term structural problems meeting sudden
crises that historically have shaped revolutions in the past.
As we grapple with what might change in the wake of covid-19 and unrest
across the country, the case of the French Revolution of 1789 reminds us
of the contested nature of social change. Revolutions do not necessarily
erupt at the moment when people are most oppressed. Rather, revolutions
have more often been the result of “rising expectations.” Periods of
progress followed by crushed hopes can be especially dangerous, leading
to rage and violence.
Alexis de Tocqueville was one of the first political theorists to
highlight what he viewed as a curious paradox: the French Revolution
erupted not when the nation was in the throes of decline, such as during
the War of the Spanish Succession (1701—1714) in the later years of the
reign of Louis XIV, but rather, at a time of relative prosperity in
France. In his words, “A study of comparative statistics makes it clear
that in none of the decades immediately following the Revolution did our
national prosperity make such rapid forward strides as in the two
preceding it.”
In fact, those parts of France that had experienced the greatest
improvement saw the most pronounced popular discontent in the late 1780s
and these became centers of revolutionary activity. Tocqueville
attributed this to King Louis XVI’s (r. 1774-1793) relatively light hand
over the country, and his desire to lessen the weight of absolutist
rule: “For it is not always when things are going from bad to worse that
revolutions break out. On the contrary, it oftener happens that when a
people which has put up with an oppressive rule over a long period
without protest suddenly finds the government relaxing its pressure, it
takes up arms against it.”
However, historians have identified other factors. Yes, the lives of
many French people were improving in the second half of the 18th century
as epidemic disease and food shortages became less common, allowing for
a decline in mortality. Overseas and domestic trade increased over the
course of the century, making consumer goods such as sugar and coffee
more widely available; the slave trade and the labor of enslaved people
on plantations in France’s Caribbean colonies fueled the availability of
these goods as well as French prosperity more generally. And Louis XVI,
influenced by Enlightenment philosophy that called upon kings to rule in
the interest of their subjects, did take into consideration the
well-being of the French people. But things were not, in fact, going
well in France in the years immediately preceding the Revolution in 1789.
The economy was in a downward spin. The Eden Treaty of 1786, negotiated
to open trade between France and Britain, created terrible pressure on
French industry and many thousands of textiles workers lost their jobs.
The year 1788 was a terrible one for agriculture, and led to food
shortages throughout the country, pushing many to leave home in search
of employment. These roving bands of men triggered fear among the
broader population already living close to the edge.
At the same time, the French government was grappling with bankruptcy, a
legacy of its 18th-century wars, including its assistance to the
American revolutionaries. The dire state of French finances was made
public in 1786 when the last of the wartime taxes expired and it became
clear the government was running a serious deficit. The
controller-general tried to impose reforms to solve the fiscal crisis,
including a broad-based tax, but was met with stiff resistance. The
decision to call the Estates General to bring about financial and
political reform, including a new constitution for the country, provided
the catalyst for social unrest and violence, including the storming of
the Bastille and the Great Fear, peasant riots fueled by panic and
conspiracy theories that spread across the French countryside in the
summer of 1789.
The grim situation the French faced in 1788 was made even worse by the
fact that those suffering knew that life could be better. Why? Because
they had a glimpse into a better future. The popularization of
Enlightenment literature that critiqued inequalities in the social and
political system along with the politicization of the French citizenry
that had accompanied elections of the Estates General convinced many
French men and women that political representation and a more just
polity could bring about genuine change.
This fuller picture conforms to the late sociologist James Chowning
Davies’s theory of political revolutions, which suggests that
revolutions are a response to a downturn in the economy after a
significant period of growth that allows individuals to envision a more
promising future. A population subjected to unmitigated poverty and
oppression cannot imagine a better alternative, and consequently, is
unlikely to revolt. However, as life begins to improve and a happier
life is conceivable, a sudden reversal of fortune can seem unbearable
and trigger revolutionary activity.
This theory offers one way of thinking about the outbreak of revolution
in France in 1789. The economic crisis of the years 1787-1788 created
new and insufferable hardship throughout the country while a changing
political culture, informed by Enlightenment philosophy, convinced many
people a more capable government could alleviate the hardship of its
citizens. Rising expectations, dashed by economic downturn and royal
incompetence, meant the people of France were ready to take to the streets.
This theory may be playing out once again today. The gains of the civil
rights movement made it possible to imagine a future of racial equality
was within reach. When Barack Obama became president, it represented to
many a powerful symbol of progress. But enduring inequality and police
violence, and a highly visible white backlash that emerged in response
to Obama’s election have been crushing. The covid-19 pandemic and the
collapse of the economy have thrown into prominence the sharp
disparities in this country and exacerbated the stress and anguish of
those suddenly facing economic catastrophe. These dashed expectations of
a better life made recent incidents of police brutality, assertion of
white privilege and other acts of racial violence all the more
intolerable. It is not surprising the killing of George Floyd was the
match that lit the fuse.
_________________________________________________________
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at:
https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
