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

  • Bluegrass_Buddhist [none/use name]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Is there a reason you're being so unecessarily hostile toward a good friend of mine, who you've never met, who is absolutely a comrade, and whose only sin you're aware of is offering a good faith, if perhaps flawed, critique of a historical analysis?