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
I think it's completely fair to call the american revolution a bourgeois revolution, but I also think it would be fair to call it a partial revolution. The american civil war would be, imo, the finishing of this transformative process where the industrialized, capitalist north destroyed the land bound aristocratic class of the south. Also as others have already said slavery in the americas, though similar in economic niche to serfs and roman slavery, was uniquely distinct in its cruelty and level of exploitation
Yeah, I think it's very important to separate these. Not just for the difference in cruelty, which is pretty vast, but also as significantly different kinds of relations of production.
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.
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 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?
Christ. :amerikkka:
If you want to angry up your blood more, take a look at Pheasantland Industries
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.
i wish to know more about your galaxy brain take and i would like to subscribe to your newsletter
The tricky part is actually reaching a prescriptivist definition of a revolution though.
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.
Lets keep it short: answer is yes. It was a revolution of the bougeoise against the late-stage feudalist state in order to abolish it in their region and construct a new state in it's place that represents their class interests. It is concidered progressive in the grand view of humanity as the beginning transition - the opening shot of the new order to come against the old order - of class relations between the majority and the minority. That of the ruling minority maintaining their class position by virtue of blood and birth over all to the more fluid ( in comparison) bougeoise.
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.
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
I think this makes sense. The American bourgeoise gained a lot of power and freedom that was previously held by the British nobility. They had limits on what colonist businesses could produce, in order to force them to buy British goods. I think blacksmithing was literally illegal or something.
They had limits on what colonist businesses could produce, in order to force them to buy British goods. I think blacksmithing was literally illegal or something.
Also that sounds similar to the situation the other colonies found themselves in, with their regional industrial output being stifled in order to generate an artificial market for completed British goods while extracting the raw materials to process into those goods to repeat the process. An example would be how India's textile production was quite literally stomped out - they not only produced enough for themselves but also sold it internationally when they could - in order for the Crown to redirect the raw resources that went into india's domestic industry into the British factories to quickly and cheaply produce textiles to sell back to their Indian subjects for a profit.
Now it's comparing Apples to Strawberries to hold the two on the same plane of exploitation, yet it doesn't change the fact that both colonies were subject to exploitation in the same manner that both Apples and Strawberries are fruit.
I would agree that the American Revolution was not an major economic revolution, it maintained the existing system. But it did change where money was retained vs. sent to the crown - it went to the US ruling class exclusively, which way a bourgeoisie-ifying group that included the landed gentry types of the south as well as more typically bougie greater accumulators of industry and commerce in the north. It should also be noted that the ruling class wasn't either plantation owners or bourgeoisie: few only owned plantations, they extracted wealth and used it on "investments" to extract more through wage slavery and speculation. The revolution increased the power of the bourgeoisie and the governments established were in the interests of that group (and literally written by them).
One important aspect of Marx's analysis of class is that the class conflicts and class dominance described is not one of clean breaks and clean transitions. At a given time, many class dynamics exist simultaneously and vary geographically even within a society. 1776 American colonies had many aspects of feudalism, mercantilism, and capitalism simultaneously and bleeding into one another, but capitalism was already dominant.
Yeah slavery and feudalism are not the same. Though some forms of feudalism can approach slavery in character it is a fundamentally different relationship.
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?
On this site? Said unironically? And as a blanket judgment of character instead of a critique of their premise? Yeah dude, it's a shitty thing to call someone you know absolutely nothing about.
calm down bro, you're just over-reacting bro, it's no big deal bro, you're taking insults at your loved ones way too seriously bro, actually I'm not insulting anyone I just want to help your friend grow, bro.
:very-intelligent:
I don't think, at the very least, the American revolution can be seen as a complete bourgeoisie revolution without the civil war and the abolition of slavery. Still, in some aspects that are important for the developing capitalism, slavery was different from serfdom in key ways. Slaves were not given their own patch of land to subsist on, which meant they could be used to feed the growing population of proletarians more effectively, or even have all of their labor dedicated to industrially useful non-food crops like cotton.
I guess it's more of a Bourgeois Coup instead of revolution, but it did have somewhat the same effect as in France in ending the primacy of the nobility in politics and economy.
I prefer to call it the first creole revolution. That feels like a more charitable categorization. It’s not inaccurate to call it a bourgeoise revolution tho.
How so creole? As in, people who speak creole languages? Sorry, I'm just a bit confused by how you're using that term.
I think Creole was the Spanish term for Spanish settlers in overseas colonies (not counting Spanish territory in north Africa)
Creole in that the leaders of the revolution were descendants of colonizers, but were raised in the colony rather than the metropole. It’s a borrowed word from French. There is a similar word in Spanish. Likely in Portuguese as well, but I’m not sure. It also has a meaning in the field of linguistics, but that’s not how I’m using it.
I’ve found the best way to frame it is a bourgeois coup. The same people who were in power remained in power, rich and white slave owners, but the took the reins from the monarchy in England.
