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by RedCondor
1144 days ago
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Plenty of societies with castes had no revolution, plenty of societies without castes had some. Post-revolution America also had Black slavery, which made it a caste society. Even if we restrict ourselves to America, Tocqueville betrays zero awareness of the impending Civil War. 1848 also happened all over Europe in places that had already largely departed from caste, to say nothing of the Paris Commune. I find all of this excessive charity towards an incorrect prediction ultimately unconvincing. |
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The 1848 revolutions you talk about occurred in different ways, but a way to generally characterize them is that they were all democratic with the aim of removing the old monarchical structures (regardless of the actual participants). This aligns with Toqueville’s claim that revolution stems from social division (which liberalism eliminates) and not other forms of inequality. The same is true of the Paris Commune; the third republic was initially dominated by monarchists and the Paris Commune as government was organized as a rival to the national government in Versailles/Bordeaux.
The American Civil war is another example that supports Tocqueville. The social stratification of slavery led to war but not the extreme inequality of the 1920s. Neither has the inequality of the present.
Tocqueville’s observation of the connection between social class and revolution also explain why the 20th century movements in Europe played out the way they did. Communist revolution occurred in Russia but not Germany. The fascist movements in liberal Germany and Italy took power without bloody revolution but the movement in Spain was tied to monarchists and thus there was civil war.
His main point is that liberalism provides off-ramps from violent revolution because people have other ways of wielding political power. In societies with strict social classes, the classes without political power have much greater incentives to fight. I imagine you wouldn’t disagree with this claim.