Talk:Causes of the French Revolution
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[edit] Cause of the debt
The following had been recently added at French Revolution. I've cut it from there, and moved it to this talk page as a more appropriate venue to discuss it: "This debt was accumulated because of the refusal of Louis' finance minister (Jacques Necker) to raise taxes to pay for France's role in the American Revolution." Besides being uncited, this is, at best, an oversimplification on two counts:
- Support for the American War of Independence was only one of the many sources of France's debt.
- Necker didn't so much "refuse" to raise taxes as lack the means. The parlements stymied every attempt at raising taxes that would fall on anyone but the poor. This was what ultimately led Louis XVI to call the Estates General, as the only means of overruling the parlements and solving France's revenue gap. (Of course, the long-run effect was a gap between his head and his body, but it seemed like the thing to do at the time.)
Jmabel | Talk 05:19, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
Sorry for not getting back to you sooner. I agree with everything above, I didn't know this page existed and I saw a gap in the main article so I thought I should add it in. Sorry for the mistake I'm still trying to find my way around. Frederick12 22:22, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
The article undersimplifies this section a bit. The article makes out that the bad finances culmulated to bankruptcy, yet France was actually in credit between 1774 and 1778. Sonic Mew | [[User talk:Sonic Mew|talk to me]] 19:31, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
[edit] First Paragraph
"only in Great Britain and the Netherlands did the common people have more freedom and less chance of arbitrary punishment"
Is this true? --Horses In The Sky 13:05, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
- Measures of freedom are pretty arbitrary, but all the other major states, such as Spain, Russia, Austria, and Prussia, were quite a bit more despotic than France during this period. Some of the smaller states in Scandanavia or Germany may have been more pleasant. - SimonP 13:46, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Citations
I think this page is lacking in citations. Yes, it does say that a large portion of it comes from the encyclopedia, but we need more specific citations. TheDavesr 01:31, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, a secondary school exam revision booklet doesn't speak wonders for the wiki's authority. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.173.30.157 (talk • contribs) 22 August 2006.
[edit] Recent addition questioned
"One must note, however, that virtually none of the revolutionaries was an owner of the means of production, and that Marx fails to show any evidence of political links between the liberal professionals, public employees, intellectuals and journalists who led the revolution and any bourgeois organization or movement."
- At least, let's get rid of "One must note, however", which is pure POV.
- Uncited "Marx fails to show any evidence": original research.
- Then we come to the facts: as I understand it, quite a few of these people were investors in enterprises, and/or (for the lawyers and other professionals), their clients were. Some were tax farmers, clearly a bourgeois role.
I think this would all be worth pursuing, but by finding some solid sources and citing what they say on this, not by making uncited assertions and counter-assertions in the article. - Jmabel | Talk 18:46, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
- Since no one seems inclined to address this, I'm cutting it for now. - Jmabel | Talk 02:43, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Problems in content at first paragraph
France at the time of the revolution wasn't AT ALL at a good economic situation. filled with loans to pay and people to feed. but people did not wanted the king out, this is crucial for the very first years of the revolution itself. - Fran loyd
- I took a bit of a shot at the lead; have a look.
- France was in a poor fiscal situation, but its economy was still, overall, one of the strongest in Europe. -- Jmabel | Talk
[edit] Vingtieme
The vingtieme is currently described as "a 5% property tax". I believe that is wrong, but I don't have a citation. I believe it was more like an income tax than a wealth tax: a tax of 5% of what was produced, not of one's property. In any case, according to Adam Smith [1] there was more than one vingtieme. Unfortunately, the passage in Adam Smith seems to be a favorite for people to muck with, making bogus portal pages for black hat SEO, so online research may be very difficult. - Jmabel | Talk 03:02, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Vandalism
Reverted--Slogankid 15:37, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Structural Causes
There is currently nothing in the article addressing structural factors, i.e., ways that French society evolved that prevented it from adapting to commercialism in ways that would have fostered economic reform rather than revolution. For example, the French nobility did not respond to commercial pressures by pursuing land enclosure as did the English. Instead, they left the peasants in place and tried to extract more revenue. For this they needed the support of the King. In addition to creating festering unrest among the peasants, this prevented the nobility from developing a stronger economic base and aligning itself with bourgeois interests and against the crown, as happened in England (though this is an oversimplification) in the 1500s-1600s. A section on structural causes would be appropriate, it seems to me. My source is Barrington Moore, Jr., Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (1966).Aldrichio 15:24, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Who wrote this page??? I am enquiring because i am doing a assignment and i would like to know who is the author
There is no single author of the page. If you're asking who wrote the paragraph about structural factors, I did. It's a paraphrase of the material in the cited source.Aldrichio 12:25, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Strong disagreement
Some of this information is untrue. For example, King Louis XVI was not popular with the people at ALL. Also, it says that France was still one of the richest countries in Europe even with its debt. That is false as well, for its debt was tremendous and its people were starving. Furthermore, your sources are nonexistent besides for one article written my Karl Marx. Please change some of your statements and information on this article, as to not misguide readers. -Ed K. Seattle, WA [March 2007]
