To be sure, there were issues and abuses preceding French Revolution; France's legislature had been abandoned for nearly two centuries under an autocratic monarchy, and peasants hadn't fared well under a parasitic feudalism. But it turned out they had replaced one form of autocracy for an even crueler version, one which had no qualms about eliminating its potential royal predecessor rival for power or its opposition. It reminds me of a favorite Arabic proverb: "He left us and we rejoiced; then an even more unbearable person came." The FEE article cites how the government imposed price controls resulting in shortages and then stole crops from the farmers (not in power) to accommodate their urban constituents. (So much for property rights under the new constitution/declaration of rights.).
[As aside: writing this essay is a classic example of the difficulties faced by my work ethic, perfectionism, and professionalism, whether I'm preparing to give a college lecture, writing an academic article--or a simple blog post. I ridiculously over-prepare. Although being extraordinarily articulate, I never went to class without detailed lecture notes (some students even wanted to make copies of my notes, no doubt for their convenience). And sometimes I get distracted by some odd thought and go with it. In this case, even titling this essay, which is not really different from other one-off essays in the history in the blog (I often start with a more general title like "Some Thoughts on xxx".) So I had an idea for this essay and started with the title; at this point, it triggered a memory that the famous Whig/Father of Conservatism Edmund Burke's similarly-titled, perhaps most well-known work was "Reflections on the French Revolution". So I ended up spending hours on Burke's work, others' criticisms of that work, and literally dozens of pieces on French history, political theory on French Revolutionary constructs, comparisons and contrasts of the two revolutions, American reflections on the French Revolution, etc. All this for an essay which was not intended to be a history on the French Revolution but a take on current politics. I've written academic papers with literally hundreds of citations, not to impress others but to acknowledge contributions made by others.]
For those of us who are classical liberal (conservative in the American tradition), a good conceptual model is the distinction between negative and positive rights. Whatever legitimate mandate government has, it's for guaranteeing individual rights and market access, the enforcement of contracts, and for purposes of common defense/safety/security and public health. Negative rights are things that the State cannot use force, without due process, to restrict. such as our inalienable rights, e.g., to choose our own livelihood, to relocate, for political speech, etc. Positive rights are things that government must provide or guarantee, e.g., food, shelter, free basic education, an old-age pension, healthcare, legal assistance in criminal proceedings, etc. These latter "rights" are potentially limitless, based on one's operational definition of "equality", the redistribution funding of which is a fundamental restriction on the property and liberty of others.
We (classical) liberals believe that there is no such thing as positive rights. Some egalitarians, e.g., Thomas Paine, think equality of opportunity is vacuous without government providing some kind of level playing field; for instance, he championed a capital grant by government when a citizen became of age. Jefferson championed basic public education and founded the University of Virginia (although he would have been concerned about federal involvement in education, which he considered a state/local issue.
So when do I think this second revolution happened? It probably wouldn't surprise readers, given numerous recent posts about the Civil War and Lincoln that it had a lot to do with that, although massive financing for public spending and interventionist wars really required direct taxation, made possible by the sixteenth amendment during the Wilson era and the Progressive Era in general, for example, the direct election of US Senators, which essentially dissolved a balancing constraint on the US Senate from state legislatures.
Lincoln's refusal to accept secession from the South and willingness to use force to regain control over "rebellious" states made a mockery of the principle of federalism, of decentralized government. We also saw some shadows of the future: issuance of greenbacks, conscription, suppression of civil liberties, the imperial Presidency, direct taxes (income tax), etc.
Nationalism and economic fascism, a softer variation of socialist/government control of the economy, basically persists to today's politics. Economic intervention was FDR's failed playbook during the Depression. SCOTUS, in response to FDR's threat to pack the court, basically surrendered the cause of economic freedom in Carolene Products and Footnote 4, opening the door to Big Government. FDR started social security, whose trust fund (making up the difference from in-flows to out-flows) will be exhausted in 16 years, and attempted to pass a second Bill of (Positive) Rights. LBJ would build on that social agenda with Medicaid, Medicare, and a feckless War on Poverty. Obviously ObamaCare is an expansion of the healthcare positive right. Even Trump's embrace of nationalism and hands off entitlement reforms is a logical extension of the second revolution.
There are so many similar patterns of comparison, it's ridiculous. Let me close this essay by pointing out some obvious ones:
- the politically correct war against Southern statues and flags, even churches removing plaques honoring (former) slaveowners George Washington and Robert E. Lee. This is analogous to some of the excesses during the French Revolution Reign of Terror.
- the Democrats' constant rejection of minority rights (the filibuster, especially during the 111th Congress) and attacks on the federalist electoral college, attempting to de-legitimize the elections of Bush 43 and Trump. ("[The Founding Fathers] even considered direct election of the president, as many today propose, but rejected that idea. It was brought up for a vote twice at the Convention and was rejected by a 9-1 vote on July 17 and by a 9-2 vote on August 24 (each state got one vote.")
