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
It's not uncommon for Marxists to consider the American Civil War either a second bourgeois American Revolution or the end of the bourgeois revolution. Usually the 1776 revolution is seen as an alliance between the domineering classes of two distinct modes of production with the Civil War being the culmination of bourgeois hegemony over the southern plantation owners. Many of the prominent figures of the 1776 revolution were slave owners, but almost all of them actually acquired their wealth through bourgeois means (Washington for instance was primarily a land speculator, his plantation was not very profitable)
Of course the settler-colonial nature of the country complicates things. The northern bourgeoisie were tolerant of a lot of relics from the days of slavery and were happy to mold most of the southern slavers into bourgeois proper. This allowed for the widespread reestablishment of the slave based (slavery in all but name) economy, but it also proletarianized many blacks as well as turning many into sharecroppers (a semi feudal relationship which was nonetheless, slightly more advanced than slavery or serfdom).
Calling the 1776 revolution a secession might be more appropriate. The British bourgeoisie were the dominant political force in Britain by that point. The mode of production and entire social order didn't change. The tricky part is actually reaching a prescriptivist definition of a revolution though.
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I don't if I'd say the U.S. isn't fully capitalist, but I've heard the argument put forth that the farm work system in Califronia and the southwest, largely built on the backs od exploited migrant workers, constitutes a modern-day semi-fuedal system. Is that the kind of thing you're thinking about?
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Christ. :amerikkka:
If you want to angry up your blood more, take a look at Pheasantland Industries
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Serfdom isn't just a form of slavery. It is a reciprocal three way relationship between a lord a worker and the land. Now this relationship can be abused and pushed and twisted, and at times be similar to slavery in appearance, but fundamentally serfs are not legally property and are entitled to reciprocal rights from their lord.
That's true, and something neither of us really considered when he had our discussion the other night. And here we were thinking we were Very Smart Marxists.
I might as well put my Medieval history degree to some use! For me fine distinctions of the fundamental material relationships of society are critically important, because even though any given individuals life may potentially take any given shape, the ultimate shape of society at large depends on these individual social relations. Both slaves and sharecroppers differ from serfs in that they did not have this three way relationship, slaves had no rights over their lord or over the land or their own labor, while sharecroppers have rights to land and their labor but no rights over their debt holder.
Yes and the poverty the sharecroppers were kept in was absurd. I've seen photos that looked like they were straight out of some war ravaged country but it was actually just rural Mississippi or Alabama. Starving kids. Shacks with dirt floors, no running water, no doors nor windows. Easily treatable diseases maiming and killing people. Unfortunately blacks in this country still face a lot of this even if it's urban rather than rural.
Your take isn't galaxy brained. Capitalism emerged out of feudalism and it emerged unequally across the globe. Those different, unequal developments are the contradictions which drive history. Idk if you've read Hammer and Hoe (you should if you haven't) but some of those sharecroppers organized with the CPUSA in the 30 and 40s. They would go on be crucial advisors for the civil rights/black activists of the 50s, 60s, and 70s. The semi-feudal system of the south, distinct from its marginally better counterpart in the north, would be the locus of civil rights organizing for decades.
i wish to know more about your galaxy brain take and i would like to subscribe to your newsletter
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I guess that's the criticism that potentially undermines this entire line of questioning. I remember reading (I think, it's been a while) that Luxemburg called revolution the overthrow of one socioeconomic class by another, but it rarely works out quite so cleanly.