Macroeconomic Features of the French Revolution

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
François R. Velde
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
Budget Constraints ◽  
Government Budget ◽  
Legal Restrictions ◽  
Monetary Models ◽  
The French Revolution

This chapter examines the French Revolution from the vantage point of macroeconomic theories about government budget constraints. From 1688 to 1788, Britain won and France lost three of four wars. France recurrently defaulted on its debt, while Britain did not. After 1688, Britain had reformed its institutions to allow it to raise enough taxes during peacetime to finance debts incurred in times of war, while France sustained institutions designed to constrain the king's revenues. The chapter considers two macroeconomic ideas and three models of money: unpleasant arithmetic, sustainable plans, tax-backed or asset-backed models of the demand for currency, legal restrictions models of the demand for currency, and classical hyperinflation models along lines described by Phillip Cagan. Inflation during the French Revolution are interpreted in terms of a procession of regimes in which the “if” parts of the three types of monetary models are approximately fulfilled.

Is “the Political” a Romantic Concept?

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rüdiger Campe
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
The Political ◽  
German Romanticism ◽  
Radical Constructivism ◽  
The French Revolution

This chapter analyzes Carl Schmitt’s concept of the political from the vantage point of German Romanticism. For Schmitt, Romanticism wasan intellectual attitude that precluded the concept and practice of “the political.” Through an in-depth reading of a preeminent document of political thought in German Romanticism, Novalis’s Love and Faith, this chapter considers and qualifies this view, arguing that “political theology” can be understood as a reaction to the French Revolution rather than as a tradition reaching back to medieval or baroque times. This chapter also argues that Novalis’s famous essay must be seen as a precursor to Schmitt’s own political theory. Overlap exists both in the blend of conservatism and radical constructivism in Novalis and Schmitt and in the interventionist character of both men’s statements on politics. Read as a precursor to Schmitt, Novalis’s philosophy of politics also offers a meaningful critique of Schmitt’s later theories.

scholarly journals The Importance of Being Revolutionary: Oath-taking and the ‘Feeling Rules’ of Violence (1789–1794)

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 218-235
Author(s):  
Francesco Buscemi
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
New Order ◽  
Political Upheaval ◽  
Religious Dimensions ◽  
Political Commitments ◽  
Feeling Rules ◽  
The French Revolution ◽  
The Revolution

Abstract Historians of the French Revolution have identified many cultural and ideological sources of its violence: ideological commitments to virtue, the inevitable clashes involved in founding a new order, the emotions of fear and anger unleashed by political upheaval, and religious commitments to Catholicism. Rarely, however, have they explored how civic religious practices gave rise to violence. This article shows how the practice of oath-taking generated emotional “sacred” commitments and a propensity for violence in maintaining them. Given the legal and institutional weaknesses of the new regime, oath-taking helped establish political allegiances, but oaths often came into conflict with other sacred commitments, old and new. The widespread practice of oath-taking during the Revolution offers a revealing vantage point to understand the sacred, civic-religious dimensions of these various political commitments. The imperative to maintain vows, I argue, prompted contemporaries to see violence as extreme but necessary.

Ancient Revolutions in the Literature of Polish Romanticism

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 207-226
Author(s):  
Maciej Junkiert
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Study ◽  
Classical Tradition ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
European Context ◽  
History Of ◽  
Classical Traditions ◽  
The French Revolution ◽  
Literary Reception

This article aims to examine the Polish literary reception of the French Revolution during the period of Romanticism. Its main focus is on how Polish writers displaced their more immediate experiences of revolutionary events onto a backdrop of ‘ancient revolutions’, in which revolution was described indirectly by drawing on classical traditions, particularly the history of ancient Greeks and Romans. As this classical tradition was mediated by key works of German and French thinkers, this European context is crucial for understanding the literary strategies adopted by Polish authors. Three main approaches are visible in the Polish reception, and I will illustrate them using the works of Zygmunt Krasiński (1812–1859), Juliusz Słowacki (1809–1849) and Cyprian Norwid (1821–1883). My comparative study will be restricted to four works: Krasiński's Irydion and Przedświt (Predawn), Słowacki's Agezylausz (Agesilaus) and Norwid's Quidam.

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