Depression and social revolt
Analysis of possible causes raised by the revolutionaries former prime minister seems a bit light, and his warning against a revolutionary risk a little presumptuous. First, because revolutions are events extremely complex and varied that it is difficult to predict.
Secondly, because there is no mechanistic relationship: the existence of revolutionary causes does not always revolution. To put into perspective the alleged risk revolutionary current interrogate the origins of one of the biggest social revolutions the world has ever known - the French Revolution.
Social origins?
Social Interpretation - Marxist - characterized the French Revolution as a class conflict between aristocracy and bourgeoisie, which has its origins
This interpretation of the French Revolution would lead us to consider the "potential revolutionary" in France today in terms of conflict of classes. So firstly, whether classes still exist? If yes, what are they? And if so still, an alliance of classes followed by a class conflict is it more likely today than yesterday? Debate oh so exciting and heated, which would require thinking about the polarization of society, social justice in our country, the link between social class and proximity of power, class consciousness.
But that debate is not worth entering because the social interpretation of the origins of the French Revolution of 1789 is flawed, it seems that incorporate this interpretation in the current situation would be equally. I will explain. The men of 1789 were simply not capitalist because capitalism was not the major forms of economic production, which e
silent majority then linked to the property. If capitalist interests he had when they were not a monopoly bourgeois, as the citizens did not all capitalist interests. The definition of the nobility and the bourgeoisie as a class is also questionable, since these 2 groups were actually very (too?) Heterogeneous. Finally, the revolution has clearly hit the development of commercial capitalism, at least in the beginning.
The structural origins?
Theda Scokpol in his reference book became "States and social revolutions," has sought to compare the great social revolutions French, Russian and Chinese to identify the underlying causes. The conjuncture of three factors - weakness of the state (administrative and military failure against the modernization of the agrarian bureaucracy), insurrection sansculottes and political exclusion of marginal elites (the bourgeoisie) - is the source of these large revolutions. Potentially therefore, a social revolution might occur in all agrarian bureaucracies in Europe.
According Scokpol, if it occurred in France precisely because the French government was particularly weak because of his involvement in the War of Austrian Succession, War of Ages 7 and the American Revolution. His inability to cope with the military competition with rival states has led to bankruptcy and its subsequent collapse, allowing the revolution taking place. The major consequence of French Revolution is not so much the arrival in power of bourgeoisie, but the creation of a stronger state, central and modern could effectively compete is to say, and win pay for the war.
If we make a parallel with the France of today, it is clear that the structural conditions of a social revolution does not exist. The French State is a powerful State and, in a context of peace never equaled, it is no big cloud on the horizon that might come to question that power. Demonstrations, strikes and other demonstrations of recent months are not the same as spontaneous uprisings of the "little people" in the 18th century, who was fighting to be able to eat ... If revolutions require structural causes to occur, then it is largely relative "risk" revolutionary today in France.
The intellectual origins?
Many draw the origins of the French Revolution in a conspiracy led by intellectual philosophers of the Enlightenment. Marxists in particular, for whom the Enlightenment helped to develop a Western bourgeois thought, thus preparing the bourgeoisie in the revolution. The Enlightenment has had an impact on the Revolution: The Encyclopedia of Voltaire has spread throughout the country, remonstrances to parliament were full of ideas of Montesquieu, pamphlets regained the language of Rousseau's social contract.
However, the theory of "intellectual origins" must be mitigated. First, because many citizens were hostile or indifferent to the Enlightenment and, in parallel, many have embraced the noble ideas of lights (because they were fashionable or simply because they were stupid).
Moreover, because the Enlightenment was very heterogeneous and that in no case it was against all the former regime. Assuming that it was an absolutist, Catholic privileged hierarchical particularistic and land, then the only characteristic that all philosophers rejected was undoubtedly "Catholic." As an idea, Catholicism was dismissed as irrational, as an institution, for its wealth, power, corruption and intolerance.
Philosophers did not fierce opponents of the regime, nor that their ideas were revolutionary. Nobody, and certainly not the philosophers, not dreaming of revolution, in fact nobody would even have understood the idea. Philosophers suggested a change but it is only when the old regime collapsed as their ideas have led the French in a revolutionary direction.
Finally, we must remember that the enlightenment was a movement for the intellectual elite intellectual elites whose impact on the general public, outside of fairs, academies and other places of intellectual life, is more than questionable. Moreover, except Rousseau, touching the ground was not even the aim of Enlightenment philosophers. They considered illumine the little people was neither possible nor desirable, and that ordinary mortals would always fanatic.
The key question is whether the chicken or the egg: Is this the enlightenment that made the revolution, or rather the revolution that was the Enlightenment? Key issue because it is clear today that revolutionary ideas are there before the revolution, simply because there was revolution revolution so we can conceive. And those ideas have a revolutionary impact far greater: in a literate society, networked and with free media, they are largely democratized.
However, is it truly revolutionary ideas under "very different / new" that is to say ideas suggesting a new scheme, a new company yet known, or simply old ideas that the it broods? Make a difference between revolutionary ideas and revolutionary discourse. And if ideas create events - the invention of the new discourse helps to create new modes of political action and to give them a sense - then it is clear that the "potential revolutionary" in France today is limited because the ideas are revolutionary. But do not forget that the opposite is also true: language policy elaborated in the course of political action events help create ideas.
Therefore, if the "risk" revolutionary it is, it lies rather in the social mobilization that we see today in France because it could give rise to political consciousness and, eventually, revolutionary ideas.
Cultural origins?
The thesis of cultural backgrounds, that is to say the theory of political revolution, is extremely interesting. It is to understand how new ways of conceptualizing the social and political order could emerge within the old regime.
The development of capitalism, the increased trade of goods and information, increased literacy, changing the nature of the family ... so many factors that Blanning, have led to the emergence of a new space office outside of government control and in which people could exchange information and opinions. This public sphere was born around 1750, a public opinion whose legitimacy and authority were separated from the divine power.
And, once the political leadership was no longer conceived in divine terms, the idea of nation and the development of a rational consensus implies that became possible. The French Revolution helped to institutionalize the power of public opinion within the state itself by establishing elections and constitutional guarantees in terms of freedom of thought, expression and presse.3 Today in France The question is not whether there are areas of speech and debate (of course there are), but places of expression and debate outside the power, outside of political parties and organizations or movements institutionalized. It seems that this is the essential condition for the formation of a revolutionary public.
To conclude, I do not think there is "risk revolution" in France today, but rather an "evolutionary risk, that is to say a return to greater democracy and social justice without, provided, invention and experience a new social and political order.
For a revolution to occur, it would require structural causes are met - hungry, weak state, excluding political elites neither pen nor sword can not suffice. Also, maybe the current economic crisis will provide the structural conditions necessary for revolution, which he will add actions and ideas. A revolution is not a historic change blind but a human invention that requires, first, the invention of a revolutionary discourse.
Equally, the interest is not a social reality pre-existing and they are the symbol of a political construction. A revolutionary situation does not create a revolution, it must first be revolutionaries are aware of this situation is to say they are politicized. The warhorse is here, both for those who fear the revolution and those who believe: everything is in the political consciousness of citizens.
