The Old Regime and the Enlightenment: 18th Century Europe
The Old Regime
The second half of the eighteenth century in England produced a series of transformations that had its main agent in the Watt steam engine, which, incorporated into the textile industry and later the steel industry, allowed a number of economic and social transformations to be extended to the rest of Western Europe. The changes meant the transformation of societies of the Old Regime, based on agriculture, into contemporary industrial societies. It is the beginning of capitalism.
A Subsistence Economy
The term “Ancien Régime” (AR) appeared in France in 1790. It is now used to designate the group of European societies of the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. The AR economy was based on subsistence agriculture, selling only the surplus. It was a stagnant economy dependent on agriculture, with little production leading to poor harvests or increasing population and trade.
Agriculture
Agriculture was the main sector. It occupied 80% of the population and other sectors were dependent on it:
- Trade was limited by the few surpluses.
- Industry was crop-dependent.
- The population was subject to subsistence crises (bad crops meant more deaths and fewer births).
The techniques were archaic, and the system was feudal.
Industry
Industry depended on agriculture. It was handmade. Capital and labor were in the same hands. In the cities, there were corporations (guilds of craftsmen with the same trade that controlled production and price), with a hierarchical organization (master, officer, and apprentice), and workshops (workshop and store). Agriculture and crafts were simultaneous. Work at home or domestic industry (rural artisans who were provided with machines) also existed.
The Enlightenment
The Enlightenment was an intellectual current that dominated Europe during the eighteenth century, which was based on a great deal of confidence and optimism in the powers and capacities of human beings. It was influenced by the Renaissance, Cartesian rationalism, and British empiricism.
The main themes of the Enlightenment were:
- Trust in the power of reason, the only tool capable of solving all human problems.
- Faith in science and progress: reason, aided by mathematics and experience, gives us the ability to alter nature to our benefit.
- Deism: many enlightened individuals believed in a divine creator and organizer of the universe, but one that did not alter their work or get involved in it.
- Apology of tolerance: the enlightened respected the variety of ideas and rejected dogmas.
- Need for education: the enlightened supported the need for an education that makes a man stand up for himself, away from repetitions and dogmas.
- Criticism of political power: the enlightened did not accept the absolute power of a king and performed various theories such as the separation of powers.
Enlightened Despotism
There is talk of enlightened despotism when referring to the eighteenth-century absolute monarchies. Policy reforms attacked several fronts, continuing to work to strengthen the state, seeking to improve the economy through trade and industry, and scientific progress and education. None of these reforms altered the basis of the Old Regime, which remained as the feudal system and society estates. Enlightened despotism tried to reform the power of the state without changing its substance, and after a while, it proved impossible.