Middle Class
The previous chapter has shown that between 1000 and 1750 AD, the population of the world has increased by 480 million people, of which 21 %, or about 102 millions lived in Europe. Between 1750 and 1800 AD the world's population has grown by 190 millions, which is not much by later standards, and of which Europe's share was 27 % that adds up to 51 million people. That was the first time in history that Europe's share, which included North America and Oceania, surpassed the world's population's increase. 27 % to Europe, 23 % to the rest of the world. The accuracy of the figures is very much in doubt, so is the ratio between them, but it is not in doubt that the western world was poised at the edge of a major demographic explosion. The trigger to the demographic explosion was probably an improvement in public health services, inoculation of children against contagious diseases that drastically lowered children's mortality rate. It is a historical fact that between the years 1800 and 1950, the number of the people of the western world has grown much faster than in the rest of the world. After 1950, the tendency was reversed, and between 1950 and 2000 AD the increase of the Third World was an astounding 179 %, while the western world still kept a respectable 48 %. The estimate is that between 2000 and 2050 AD, the demographic change of the western world will be 0 %, while the rest of the world will still have 57 %.
That increase is the residual effect of the improvement in health service in colonial times.
Between the years 1750 and 1950, at the height of the demographic explosion of the western world, the Middle Class has replaced the old elite. There is no doubt that there is a correlation between the two events. Most historians point to the French revolution as the event that triggered the change. This study claims that the French Revolution was the culmination of a process that has started much earlier and the French Revolution has only caused it to come out to the open in a violent manner. There are a number of arguments to support this view.
The Industrial Revolution has predated the French Revolution. It was previously shown that the Industrial Index of the United Kingdom and India were about equal in the year 1750, while the index of India was one hundredth of that of England by the year 1900. There are no reliable numbers for the year 1800, but there seems to be no doubt that the rate of the English industrialization was much higher than the Indian one. Not hundred times as much as it was in 1900, but certainly much higher. In 1800 AD, steam power was already in use. It was not yet used in transport, although it was only a few short years before the first steamship came into use. It happened with all new scientific and technological advance. Once the basic principles were found, it was only a question of time and commercial consideration, until the new invention was harnessed to a multitude of application. It happened to steam power, as it happened later to electricity at the end of the 19th century and to the microchip at the end of the 20th century. When the French revolution has broke out in 1789, there were hundreds of factories powered by steam power. It is true that most of them were still in the United Kingdom, but the number of steam powered applications in continental Europe were growing all the time.
Industry follows the needs. The trigger of the Industrial Revolution was the beginning of the demographic explosion of Europe. More people need more goods. Selling more goods means more profit, and if one can create more goods by using mechanical power then the profit will only grow. Our imagination is influenced by the stories about 'the satanic mills' with droves of emaciated workers entering and leaving the factories. Despite that picture, which was correct only in part, it is an undoubted fact that the part of the work per unit of production has considerably dropped. To put it simply, it is possible that the number of workers has increased ten times, but production has increased hundred times. However, the economic considerations of the time are discussed and analyzed in the chapter about the Industrial Revolution. Here, only the socio-political effects are considered.
As it was already shown, the social conditions of Europe and the exclusiveness of the old elite, has channeled the demographic increase mainly to the towns. People from the countryside were drawn to the towns. In the towns, the new population congregated in two major groups. One of the groups was the urban proletariat, which was a highly combustible element in times of scarcity, as it was clearly seen in the last years of the Ancien Regime, The second part of the increase found a better niche in society, what we would call today the lower Middle Class.
The increase of population in general and that of the cities in particular demanded an increase of supply of goods and services. However poor, the members of the increased population were consumers. They were cut off from their origin where they were producers and consumers, in the towns they were only consumers, and someone had to fill their needs. Bakers, butchers, grocers, drapers, bistros, etc. had to be expanded or new enterprises added. It only added to the numbers of the Middle Class. In addition there were the factories too, as creators of the new Middle Class. Despite the ingrained image of the 'satanic mills' with emaciated women and children working around the clock for a pittance, the actual picture was more prosaic and less satanic. There were factories that conformed to that picture, especially in the textiles, but even those enterprises could not survive only on the work of women and children.
In modern times, the number of people who actually work in production is a small fraction of the people mployed by the enterprise. There are foremen, maintenance workers, clerks, accountants, salesmen, gatekeepers and uncounted other categories of workers, who are parts of an industry, without actually participating in the production. It is possible that modern technology is much more productive than what was used two hundred years ago, but the categories of service employees existed even then and had to be filled. Even the 'satanic mills' participated in the strengthening of the political power of the Middle Class and not only by making the owners richer.
The Industrial Revolution was the answer to the needs of the population that was expanded by the demographic revolution; it caused the growth of the cities and the corresponding growth of the Middle Classes. It was so in France, but it was so all over the European continent. As the Middle Class was a companion of the Industrial Revolution, it existed everywhere in Europe where there were factories, railways, canals, mines, etc.
The demographic explosion in Europe and the Industrial Revolution that followed it caused an impossible social situation in Europe. There was the old elite, which was mostly impoverished, some absolutely so and some in comparison with the rich Middle Class, but which had the social advantages and the paraphernalia of the political power. Opposite them was the Middle Class, rich in money and properties, but without political power and second class citizens socially. The old elite was based on landed properties, which were constant in size and in income, while the commercial and industrial enterprises of the Middle Class were constantly growing because the number of their customers was increasing. It was a combustible situation and it had to
come to a crisis.
There is a need for classification here. The emergence of towns and the increase in numbers and importance of the bourgeoisie did not start in the 18th century. The start of the process was probably sometime in the 12th century. That was when the economic activities started to revive, after a long hibernation, roads were improved and trade commenced to leave the confines of the towns. The establishment of country fairs extended trade to international dimensions; at least by the standards of that age.
Many of the bourgeoisie were already rich in the days of the Middle Ages. That was the norm in practically the whole of Europe. However, even at that age, being only rich was not always sufficient. The expression of Plato, thymos, the wish of all humans to be someone, was effective in the Middle Age too, and the rich bourgeoisie strove to become nobles, practically the only way to exercise their thymos. Since the time of the Renaissance, or even earlier, members of the rich bourgeoisie tended to purchase estates of offices, which afforded its owners a patent of nobility. In Italy, the practice was even earlier than the time of the Renaissance. Many of the renowned names of Italian history, like the Medicis, Sforzas, Estes, Gonzagas, etc. were either rich town people or condottieries, leaders of mercenary bands. None of them belonged to the original Italian aristocracy. The French language has even a special expression for those people who became noble through purchase of magisterial or judicial posts. They were the 'noblesse de robe' – the nobility of the robe, as opposed to the 'noblesse d'epee' – the nobility of the sword.
Apart of they being rich, which always was an important factor in any social advancement, they had the support of the kings. Until the establishment of the constitutional monarchy, which meant that the kings lost their power to rule, while retaining their power to reign and represent, the kings and the great territorial lords were always in opposition. Until the 17th century with transition to absolute monarchy, the kings in Europe was everywhere 'primus inter pares' – 'first among equals'. It was a throwback to the times of the original Germanic war bands, where the leader was elected by the warriors and that leader had a first obligation to safeguard the rights of his warriors. There were many developments of those times, the Magna Carta was amongst them and so were many others that eventually brought democracy to western civilization.
However, the influence of the old customs in the Feudal Age meant that if the king was indeed 'primus inter pares' than any of the equals could aspire to be the first. That game went all over Europe. In England there was a contest for the throne between the great ducal houses of the York and Lancaster, until the Welsh house of Tudor, allied to the Lancasters, grabbed it. In France at the same time, there was a power struggle between the Orleans and the Burgundy. It is no wonder that the kings preferred to promote people from the lower classes, mainly from the moneyed bourgeoisie, as they were more loyal than the aristocracy. They had no territorial base, neither had they family connections, so they had to rely on the king's protection.
The old aristocracy did not like it, to say the least. The Duke of St.Simon of France wrote in his memoirs "it has been a century of the vile bourgeoisie". He referred to the rule of Louis XIV. The Duke of St.Simon was not exactly of the old nobility; at least not in that rank. His father was the first in the family who joined the peerage of France, but he was not the only one. There were other nobles who themselves were descendants from the 'vile bourgeoisie" and they resented the intrusion of the new addition to the rank of the aristocracy just like those who could trace their origins to the time of St. Louis. Human nature was identical and learning to be exclusive was an easy lesson to learn. In practice it did not matter much, where and when the aristocrats originated from. At any given time, there were aristocrats and they were jealous of their privileges. It is estimated that in the 18th century there were not many aristocrats whose origin went beyond the 15th century. To be an aristocrat at that time was a hazardous profession. There were the religious wars, civil wars, external wars, etc., so aristocratic families could easier come to an end, than families of simple bourgeois.
The difference between the nobility of France and England, which became extremely visible at the time of the French Revolution, was not in their origin but in their employment. The French aristocracy was in that period an idle class enjoying their privileges in Versailles. It was probably the reaction of Louis XIV who witnessed the revolt of the aristocracy, the Fronde, in his youth. He concentrated the nobility in Versailles, under his eyes and supervision.
The French aristocracy also inherited the principles of the Roman aristocracy. It said that the only clean occupation for a noble was agriculture, which for the French aristocracy of the 17th -18th centuries meant collecting rents and corvees from the serfs. They were not supposed to be in commerce or in industry; politics was the sole privilege of the King, so they had not much to do except whiling away the time at Versailles, and intriguing to receive more from the royal bounty.
The English aristocracy was rather different. First, they were actively involved in politics. They sat in the House of Lords, which at that time was still politically powerful. They were also not locked in a hothouse, like Versailles, so they were free to run and improve their estates. Many of the developments that changed the face of agriculture from subsistence farming to economic enterprise, originated at that time in the manors of the English aristocracy.
The opposition between the old elite and the new commercial Middle Class reached a violent outburst in the French Revolution. Why it happened there and then, will be explained later in this chapter. In general, the French Revolution was not the only European social upheaval that replaced the old elite by a new one. Historians remark on the contrast between France and England at that time, but England had its revolution about 150 years before the French. It was no less bloody; it was accompanied by a long drawn out Civil War, which was ended by the decapitation of the king, just as it was done in France. The French Revolution is better known because it was comparatively recent.
However, placid England was probably more cruel to its aristocracy than France. Starting from the War of the Roses, through the change of religion under the Tudors, the civil war under Charles I and the Glorious Revolution at the end of the 17th century, the ranks of the original English aristocracy must have been pretty well thinned out. In France, the process what in England was played out in hundreds of years was compressed into a few, violent years. In central and eastern Europe there were different processes to allow the new people to take part in government, with a semblance of social equality.
Why was it necessary to replace the old elite, apart of the pressure of the Middle Class for social equality and political rights. There was an important trigger and De Gaulle best expressed it. General de Gaulle has written in his memoirs, that in his opinion the French nation has decided to get rid of his elite in November 1757, when the French army, under Prince de Soubise, has lost the battle of Rossbach. That battle was the decisive one in the Seven-Year War, in which the Catholic powers of Europe, France, Bavaria and Austria, with the support of Sweden and Russia, were fighting against the Protestant powers, England, Holland and Prussia. The Catholic powers lost the war and in addition the French have lost Canada and the Indian possessions too. That was the year that has convinced the French that the old elite became useless. General de Gaulle and the French in 1757 had the same opinion.
According to de Gaulle, that was the year when the outcome of the French Revolution was decided. In fact, the French public said that if this is the best what the elite can do for France, then the elite has overstayed its welcome. What did de Gaulle refer to?
The roots of the elite of France and of Europe in general, which had its roots in the western Roman Empire, went back to the last years of the empire. That was the time when German tribes, themselves fleeing before the Huns, the Hsiung-no remembered from Chinese history, came asking for sanctuary within the empire. The pressure of the German tribes was too heavy for the impoverished and denuded empire to bear. Eventually, the Germans entered the imperial territory. It was undoubtedly a conquest, but not everybody has seen it in such a way. When Tacitus has written an essay about the Germans at the end of the 1st century AD, he called them Germani and not Deutsch, or by whatever name they were known to themselves. 'German' means cousin in Latin. He saw the similarity between the Germans of his time and the idealized picture he had of his own ancestors. It is very probable that most of the Romans saw them in the same light as Tacitus.
Of course they conquered by force of arms, but the official version and the terms of their settlement within the empire was talking about them as 'foederati' – allies, and they were settled in separate areas and keeping their organization, laws and rulers. They joined the empire as a new force to defend it against the barbarians. It is true that the Germans themselves were barbarians, but the real meaning of the word was the endless procession of eastern horse-nomads, who came out of the east , like the Huns, the Avars, the Hungarians, the Petchenegs, Kumans, Mongolians and finally the Turks, both the Seljuk and the Ottoman varieties.
The empire's plan was well thought out and it succeeded. When the Huns reached Gaul in the middle of the 5th century AD, the majority of the Roman army was of German origin and they saved the day. It is true that they wanted first to save themselves, but by doing so, they saved Europe from being swamped by the East. What was started in Gaul in the 5th century continued to the end of the 17th century when the Ottoman tide was finally turned.
Judging from the historical evidence, it was a deal between the Roman Empire and a number of extended German war bands, which were given lands within the empire in return for their military service. It was a good deal to both sides. Up to a certain point the Germans kept their side of the bargain. The Roman institutions, customs, laws, language and the culture in general, was carefully kept and nurtured. Even a hundred years after the accepted date of the end of the Western Roman Empire, in 476 AD, there were consuls and a senate in Rome. The Latin language was kept as an international language and as the language of the church. Even the name of the German Empire, which was set up in the 9th century , was the Holy Roman Empire.
Of course, it was an arrangement that had to come to an end because of political, social and economic reasons. Eventually, there was a mixture between the Germans and the Gallo-Romans, Iberian-Romans, etc. The number of the Germans was negligible as compared to the number of the original Romans or the colonials, who spoke dialects of Latin, the result was that the languages of the western colonies became a mixture between that dialect of Latin, spoken there, and the language of the local foederati. The German tribes supplied the ruling elite to Western Europe. There were a number of German tribes, each of them left their names, and languages and customs on the territory they ruled.
There is now a Catalonia in Spain, where the dominant German alliance was that between the Goths and Alans. There is Andalusia of the Vandals, Lusitania and the north-west corner of Spain for the Suebi, Burgundy of the Burgundians, France of the Franks, Lombardia of the Langobards and England of the Angles .However, the basic Latin or Latinized element always remained dominant, except in cases where the German invasion was after the Romans have left, as in the case of England. The influence of the Latin language can be seen very clearly in the case of the Franks.
One of the German tribes, the Franks, lived around the lower Rhine. They became the rulers of Gaul in the 6th century. Eventually, they ousted the Visigoths, who ruled in southwestern Gaul, and the Burgundians, who ruled in eastern Gaul. Their direct descendants today are probably are the northern French from Pas-de-Calais, Artois and Picardy, the Flemish in Belgium, part of the Dutch and the Germans in the northern part of the valley of the Rhine. When the Carolingian branch of the Franks grabbed power, their seat of government was in Aachen in Germany. In 843 AD they had to divide the country into three because there were three sons to split the inheritance. Although the division was supposed to be equitable, still the results had to reflect the situation on the ground. The end result was that the western part became France, the eastern part Germany and the middle, which included the Low Countries, Alsace, Lorraine, Switzerland and Italy. That was the share of the eldest son, Lothair, and it counted then the most valuable part of the inheritance. It is very probable that, by then, the Franks in Gaul were already speaking the local patois, which was Latin with an admixture of German words.
The testimony of the Treaty of Verdun from 843 AD is clear enough. The ruling aristocracy was there; they certainly were aware where they came from, but they were already in the process of becoming French, Spaniard, Italians and Spaniards, and spoke a patois common to them and the population they ruled.
It was not a one-time process. The Visigoths in Italy, who were the first of the German tribes to settle there, were chased out by the Ostrogoths and the Heruli, who were in turn ousted by the Langobards. The Visigoths moved on to Spain and southwestern Gaul, from where they were evicted by the Franks. It was like a game of musical chairs, where everybody was against everybody, sometimes with curious results. The Angles and the Jutes, from Jutland in Denmark conquered England, together with the Saxons from the area of the Elbe estuary. They founded a number of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in England, Five hundred years later, their descendants were ousted by the descendants of the area from where the original conquerors originated. The new conquerors came from Denmark through Normandy. It seems complicated but it is not. There were always challengers; some succeeded some not.
However, as far as the simple people were concerned, the question of rule was really unimportant. It was always a matter of who sits in the castle and who collects the rent and the taxes. It was true for Europe but also true for every conquest of the original Indo-Europeans in Europe, Iran and India to the conquest of the Ottomans in the Balkan.
There was a basic, unwritten understanding, accepted by the conquerors and the conquered. The warlike nomad tribes formed a standing army. The feudal system was really the only possible solution to pay for a standing army in a moneyless economy. The unwritten agreement was that the standing army defends the people against all comers, and as a reward they receive landed estates, taxes, rents, corvees and tithes, and a paraphernalia of power and social standing. This solution does not differ much from the modern solution of the same problem, which is paying a standing army out of the taxes collected from the population, and providing it with a paraphernalia of power and social standing. It is a basic need with a basic solution. The variations are caused solely by the demography of the territory, and the economic and social circumstances.
A small city-state did not need a standing army. Everybody was a citizen and a soldier in time of need. Socrates from Athens participated in battles, so did Horatius in Rome. In the old times, even single clans, like the Horatii in Rome, took on themselves to defend the Republic against its enemies. The same system exists even today There are states even today who prefer to have a citizen army that can be called to arms at short notice, to an army of professionals. There are two categories of states using this practice. One of the categories are states under constant threat needing a large army to counter those threats in times of emergency. Maintaining such a large professional army is beyond their economic capability, so they have a small standing army, and a large body of citizen-soldiers who can be called to arms in a short notice. Such a state is Israel. The second category are states who are not threatened, at least not in modern times, so they maintain a citizen militia, mobilized in case of extreme danger. Such a country is Switzerland.
The system of keeping a professional army is more common and the methods from the old times are still very much in existence. Kuwait was a small trading city on the Persian Gulf, ruled by a council of elders. At the end of the 18th century, a tribe of Beduin from somewhere in the desert of Arabia appeared and offered their services to the council of elders of Kuwait, as protectors against marauding Beduin. Their offer was difficult to refuse and it was accepted. Eventually the leaders of the tribe became the hereditary rulers of Kuwait. Today, it would be defined as a protection racket, which indeed it was, but it was no different than the beginning of the rule of each European country, or any country on earth, for that matter.
The feudal system was really an agreement between a landed aristocracy, in most cases of foreign origin, and the simple people, who became degraded to the status of serfs. The system did not start with the Germanic invasion. It has already started at the end of the western Roman Empire. That was the time when independent farmers put themselves under the protection of powerful landlords. Some historians predated the system even more, and claimed that the system of clients in Rome was a sort of rudimentary feudalism. It is difficult to see in the case of urban or foreign clientele, but when one examines the rule of the Pompeii in Picenum in the last years of the Roman Republic, then really there is not much difference between that and later feudalism.
It should be admitted that the landed aristocracy has kept its part of the bargain as far as keeping a standing army was concerned. It is true that the simple people paid a terrible price for that actual, or imaginary, protection. European history is full of revolt by peasants. There were always revolts by discontented peasants, but the revolts became more violent near the end of the Middle Ages. That was the time of Jacqueries in France, the revolt of John Ball in England, and the great peasant revolutions in Germany, Czechia, Spain and Hungary. Each peasant uprising had its specific causes, but all of them had a common ground.
Until the end of the Middle Ages, the landed aristocracy kept its side of the bargain. Whenever there was a need for the army, the feudal host was there. It was not an idle claim. It was a period when fighting was steel against steel, man against man. Lucky people got out of the melee unscratched. If not, then they either remained on the battlefield or they went to the same end after a period of suffering. Medical knowledge of that time did not give much chance to the wounded. So, they were the elite, they had serfs to work for them, they enjoyed a good life, without contributing to the general good, but they put themselves to personal danger, whenever it was needed. It is true that they embroiled their countries in countless, unnecessary dynastic wars, like the Hundred-Year War between France and England, and caused untold suffering to the common people, but until they performed their duty as a heavy cavalry they were accepted.
At the end of the Middle Ages, from the 14th to the 16th centuries there were a number of developments that changed everything. Armies became bigger, because the population has grown. Distance weapons started to dominate the battlefields. At the beginning it was the longbow, followed by various gunpowder weapons. The primary result of the changes was that the heavy armored cavalry, the aristocratic elite, has lost its primacy on the battlefield to the infantry with distance weapons. It happened at Agincourt and it happened in Pavia a hundred years later. Whether the infantry was formed from English bowmen or from German landsknechts, they were all enrolled from simple people, either as mercenaries or as soldiers pressed into the army. Eventually, the people saw that they pay for protection, but when the protection is needed they have to provide it. Hence the spread of the popular revolts in Europe at the end of the Middle Ages.
One of the popular objections to the feudal way of waging wars was the trivial manner in which they were conducted. Feudal war was a game with strict rules, which had to be followed, like soccer or hockey. When the English invaded France in 1415, as part of the never ending Hundred-Years War, they met the French army when they were marching from Harfleur, the port of debarkation to Calais, which was then an English possession.
John Keegan, wrote about that battle in his book The Face of Battle, Vol. I, 1979, p.112:
"In 1415 the English and French heralds watched the battle together from a high place. When the French had fled, King Henry (of England) waited anxiously until the principal French herald confirmed that the English were the victors. And it was also for him to name the battle. He named it Agincourt."
It is difficult for us now to accept that an outcome of a major battle can be a matter for a decision by umpires, like a game of cricket. But then, we were educated on the wars following the French Revolution, and we look at it differently. It was not less difficult to accept it for those people who were beyond the rules of the game; who were not captured for taking ransom, but were usually slaughtered out of hand. The common people were not protected by the rules of chivalry; not being worth a ransom. Still, until the system brought results, lacking something else, it was accepted.
In France, there was a special development. The religious wars at the end of the 16th century and the wars of Louis XIV at the end of the 17th century still kept the warrior halo of the aristocracy in place. The policy of Louis XIV has changed that. Probably, the religious wars and the Fronde of the mid-17th century, gave an impetus to Louis XIV to neutralize the aristocracy. He deliberately instituted a policy to remove the nobles from their estates and concentrated them at the royal court of Versailles. That turned the descendants of the warrior aristocracy into powdered lacqueys. Hence, the shock of Rossbach, and the year 1757 in general. Add to it a weak king, an unpopular foreign queen, a few years of bad harvest, the pressure of the growing middle class, an intellectual ferment, a few scandals of the elite, and the stage was set to the French Revolution.
It happened in France but it was an all-European event. It has drawn the intellectuals of Europe and inspired them. It affected England too, despite the safeguards provided by the earlier revolutions there, but the main and the most visible outcome was in France. If it is true that the French Revolution was, at least partially, a popular reaction to the debacle of Rossbach, then it was more than justified. The victories of the armies of the revolution and the armies of Napoleon more than revenged the failures of the monarchy. Of course, revolutionary fervor, fueled by a demographic explosion, was insufficient to crown France as the uncontested leader of Europe, but neither the attempt nor the failure had much historical significance. It was one of the attempts to unify Europe, The victory of the principles of the revolution was more important. It was really the victory of the middle class, and it did change Europe and the world.
The principles of the revolution : "Egalite, Liberte, Fraternite" were accepted by most of Europe by two different ways. The first way was the practical one. Even countries that were diametrically opposed to the principles of the Revolution opened up their society and governing class to talented persons from the middle class. They had no choice. They industrialized together with rest of Europe and the same laws were applicable to them as well. It is possible that the road to the top for talented persons led through a process of ennoblement, as was the practice in Germany, Austria and Russia, but the result was the same. The second was the official acceptance of the principles of the revolution and it was much more difficult. A century after the French Revolution, a newspaper editor in Berlin was sentenced for three months imprisonment, because his paper published a positive critique of a new play, which praised the French Revolution. In fact, Germany accepted the principles only after the Second World War and Russia after the collapse of the communist regime.
There are historians who see in the victory of the middle class the victory of money, and in a sense it was. It was not only the victory of money over the principle of hereditary aristocracy, it was also a complete change in cultural preferences. The world of thoughts, literature, plastic arts and even music underwent a sea of change between the 18th and the 19th centuries. There is a simple explanation for that change.
If one looks at society at the end of the 18th century then society was divided into three classes. (There were internal divisions within the classes, some of them were meaningful, but for the sake of this explanation, they are superfluous.) There was the class of the ruling elite, it was a small caste at the top. Below it was the middle class, much more substantial in numbers and below them the class of peasants and workers, which was then the largest majority. Since those times the middle class became the dominant caste. Indeed, since then until today the proportion of the middle class within society has constantly grown and in some cases it became the only class. Those, who are still farmers or manual workers, have joined the middle class, and the lower classes, if they still exist, were handed to foreign workers, either in the form of immigrants, legal or illegal, or as providers of goods or services in the Third World.
Although the last sentence is similar to a saying of Lenin, that "imperialism is the last stage of capitalism", but here is a capitalism without explicit imperialism. If the global economy exports a factory to some country in the Third World, there is no need for a gunboat to operate it. The local people will be just happy to work in that factory because it will be their only opportunity to make a living. Is it capitalism? It is. Is it imperialism? Not in the accepted sense of the word.
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By looking two centuries ahead, the changes wrought by the French Revolution were justified, at least as far as the western world was involved. There were oppositions to those changes, not only from the ousted elite, but also from the lower classes who felt of having been left out from the benefits of the fruits of the revolution. Even from the victorious middle classes there were oppositions. As it will be later seen, the opposition to the victory of the Middle Class was not restricted to specific social or economic classes. It was a reaction with roots elsewhere.
Still, even if we look at the results of the French Revolution in a time frame of a few dozens of years after the event, then it is obvious that the governing elite was based on a much wider base than the old aristocracy. This can explain the changes of taste as far as art is concerned. In the old times, Mozart composed beautiful music for the Emperor in Vienna, and Haydn did the same for the Prince of Esterhazy. The cultural needs of the new, emerging middle class were thought to be too vulgar to be noticed. Instead of Mozart, Handel and Haydn the new middle class received Johann Strauss, Offenbach, and Gilbert and Sullivan. It is worthwhile to notice that as a sign of times, the last major vocal work, composed by Mozart, The Magic Flute was already in the style of the new class.
The comments on the change of taste in art, especially in music, are not value judgments but factual observations. Mozart, Handel and Haydn are still there, and the number of their audience has probably grown as a result of the revolution, but for those who previously had no share in art and had no centuries to develop a refined taste, there are the lighter composers. The same cultural process happened when the middle class expanded even more, and the Beatles, Rolling Stones and Andy Warhol became the cultural idols of the new members of the middle class.
The victory of the middle class was the result of the demographic increase in Europe in the centuries preceding the Modern Age. The economic effects of the Industrial Revolution and the socio-political results of the French Revolution were all logical outcome of that demographic increase. They gave them an increased political power but also wealth on an unprecedented scale. There were other changes too. Probably, for the first time in history, students and intellectuals became a major political force. They were the main force behind the events of 1830 and 1848, which expanded the base of society even more.
There are a number of points that should be added here. The first point concerns about the political changes brought by the victory of the middle class. The previous pages explained that how the demographic increase in Europe has shifted the base of power from the old elite to the middle class, which eventually led to a change of regime and the replacement of the old elite by a new one. The question to be asked here is replaced by what? Eventually, as the legend says, rulers who were elected by universal, popular ballot replaced them. Of course, they were not. Popular and universal ballot was still in the far future, and it is doubtful that even today the election of the rulers is so popular and universal as it is proclaimed.
It is possible that in the Greek cities of old, or in the old Roman republic, there were free and democratic elections, although there are serious doubts about that. So, if the new rulers were not elected by free and popular vote, where was the victory then? There is no doubt that Napoleon was not elected by general vote, and still he had an overwhelming popularity, at least until his luck failed him. If de Gaulle's opinion on the effect of Rossbach was correct, then the French saw in Napoleon the avenger of Rossbach. It is true that the bridge of Iena is still in Paris with an unchanged name. So, the Parisians even today see everyday the symbol of their revenge on the Prussians.
Political science claims that it does no matter what form of government a country has, monarchical, democratic and even dictatorial, the real power is always in the hands of a ruling oligarchy. They do not have to be in the actual government, it is sufficient that the government represents their interests. The stability of the rule is the popular opinion that stands behind the oligarchy and the government.
In France, before the revolution there was a government, which was supported by an oligarchy of the aristocracy. It was not supported by a popular opinion, hence the instability and the revolution. The members of the middle class did not have to be in the government and did not really mind that the generals and the politicians assigned themselves aristocratic titles. However, they did mind that the government should support their interests. When Guizot, the Prime Minister of Louis Phillip said: Enrichiez-vous, Messieurs- meaning "Get rich, Gentlemen" – it was what they wanted to hear. However, when in 1871, the communards of Paris wanted to extend the exhortation of Guizot to the lower classes too, the representative of the ruling oligarchy, Thiers, a good republican and democrat, destroyed the impudent communards. Public opinion, meaning the opinion of those who counted, was behind him and the Republic was stable.
The second point is a basic question that applies to all the way stations leading from the feudal age to the present. It is axiomatic, that the curve of the demographic explosion and the bulge of the population increase of the West over the increase of the rest of the world were behind the events as they are listed in the chapter 'Yesterday'.
Granting that the emergence of the Middle Class as the dominating factor in European politics in the Modern Age, in what way that process contributed to the events followed it in the list? The answer is that it was not only indispensable but without it no other events in the way stations could occur. The question itself, is very near the typical 'what if' questions, The real question is what would have happened if there is no demographic explosion?
In the chapter Demographic Trends, it was explained that the main spring of the demographic explosion, first in the West and after that in the rest of the world, was a direct outcome of advances in public health, which reduced the mortality of children.
So, the answer is simple indeed. No advances in science, no population explosion, no victory of the Middle Class, and none of the way stations following it. It is difficult to imagine the 20th and 21st centuries with the concepts of the Renaissance, but in history centuries of stagnation were the rule rather than exceptions.
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