The Enlightenment and the American and French Revolutions
The Old Regime Economy
Farmers usually worked for subsistence, not for the market. Drought or pests caused subsistence crises (famine).
Farmers working in a domain had worse conditions: they paid more taxes, had to work for free a few days a year, and had no freedom of movement.
Crafts
Crafts were manual, performed in small workshops. Supplying the needs of the local population, artisans had no business sense. Some women elaborated beadwork sold to merchants.
The artisans of every city were grouped into guilds, associations leading the craftsmanship, design, prices, wages, etc. The rules were so rigid that you could not innovate or improve, and there was no competition among artisans, holding back the aspirations of the bourgeoisie.
La Casa Real had actual manufacturing plants producing high-quality and luxury goods (tapestries, porcelain, glass, etc.).
Trade
Trade was very limited by the restricted means of transport, which dominated the local market.
Since the sixteenth century, long-distance maritime trade with the territories colonized in the Americas, Asia, and Africa began to produce large benefits. The gold from the Spanish colonies revolutionized the economy. These traders belonged to the Third Estate and made great fortunes, gaining prestige and social influence and beginning to demand more freedom to invest their profits.
Thought: The Enlightenment
In the eighteenth century, some intellectuals of the Third Estate (bourgeoisie) began to criticize the Old Regime. This is how the ideological movement of the Enlightenment, whose thinkers were called enlightened, emerged. They did not intend to end the Old Regime, only to improve and reform it peacefully through the use of reason and education. The instrument for understanding the world was going to be science, not religious beliefs.
Features:
- Human reason is considered the only means to knowledge and truth.
- The learned have blind faith in progress, based on science and technology. Nature is regarded as a source of truth and goodness.
- Happiness is the true goal of human beings, and politics should be the art of making people happy.
The Enlightenment began as a minority but managed to extend its ideas through discussion groups, partnerships, and the publication of its writings, notably the appearance of the Encyclopedia.
The enlightened critique of the Old Regime led to its downfall.
The American Revolution
Enlightened ideas were implemented for the first time in North America, where there were 13 English colonies. England’s King George III sought to raise their taxes, and representatives of the 13 colonies met in Philadelphia in 1774 to claim their rights in a statement that reported, for the first time, the ideas of the Enlightenment. They became rebels against England by not abiding by a decision of the king.
George III sent troops to subdue the rebels, but they proclaimed an independent state on July 4, 1776, and a new Bill of Rights, also with Enlightenment ideas. Article 1 provided that “all men are equally free and independent.” Britain launched a war against the colonies, which it lost in 1783, recognizing their independence. In 1787, the Constitution was passed, and the colonies were now called the United States of America.
The Constitution and Bill of Rights brought new concepts such as equal rights and free participation of citizens in government, but neither women, nor Native Americans, nor black slaves were considered citizens.
The Importance of the French Revolution
It was the first time in history that the Third Estate, or commoners, took power.
It can be considered a bourgeois revolution because it was the bourgeoisie that led the development of events, although at times, the most humble people came to almost take over the country. And, although many social groups participated in the revolution, not everyone had the same ideas about the type of organization that should be implemented to replace the Old Regime:
- Some moderate revolutionaries just wanted to change the absolute monarchy to a constitutional parliamentary monarchy.
- Others wanted to eliminate the monarchy and establish a republic to defend the interests of the wealthy bourgeoisie.
- The most radical, in turn, hoped that the revolution would overcome the economic inequalities between rich and poor.
Causes of the French Revolution
The French Revolution was caused by the accumulation of ideological, social, and economic policies agreed upon in France in the late eighteenth century.