I've always considered the American Revolution a textbook example of a bougie revolution, in that a fuedal aristocrat's rule was overthrown by landowning capitalists not of the old fuedal nobility. IIRC Marx said something similar about it.

But last night a friend challenged that idea by pointing out that the fuedal base of society was de facto maintained via slavery, even if de jure there was no longer a king. In their interpretation, the war for independence wasn't actually a revolution, as the old divisions of nobility/serfs were maintained and simply rebranded along racial lines of white/Black, with indigenous peoples being considered almost completely outside the polity, similar to how many Jewish and Roma communities were regarded in Europe.

Thoughts?

Also wasn't sure if this went in history or askchapo

  • CrimsonSage [any]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Britan can't really be considered to be archtypically feudal though. It was rapidly industrialized and proletarianizing its rural population. Like yes there was still a king and some semblance of aristocracy, but the bourgeois was still firmly in the drivers seat.

    • Alaskaball [comrade/them]A
      ·
      3 years ago

      No they weren't. The bougeoise only controlled, at the point of the American Revolution, the house of commons, with majority of power being invested in the house of Lords, and the monarch - both governmental positions obviously being held by the feudal lords.

      Capitalism and the bougeouse were fledgling in a world of giants. It had only begun its ascension recently in contrast to the period