Originally posted by hooters950
There was now equality of all citizens before the law, the right of individuals to choose their professions, religious toleration, and the abolition of serfdom. |
The French revolution was simply a development of concepts expressed (to a limited degree) in the English Magna Carta and fully expressed in the United States Constitution. In addition, the French revolution was a short term failure because it did not bring professional choice, equality or religious tolerance. Instead, the French Revolution simply replaced one form of authoratarian government with that of another. For example:
Government: Authoratarian monarch replaced by Authoratarian revolutionaries
Social class: privelaged aristrocrats replaced by privelaged revolutionary academics
Religious Tolerance: Enforced state religion replaced by state enforced secularism quickly followed by state enforced atheism
Professional Choice: restricted in both systems to only those people supporting the "right choices" in government, social class and religion
Napoleon's rise as emperor strongly suggests that most French preferred the stable authoratarianism of the monarchy to the tyranny of revolutionary anarchists whose commands changed weekly. In the end, I think that the industrial revolution more important because it was a true revolution that totally transformed societies and because it was successful.
Edited by Cryptic - 19-Oct-2009 at 16:24