The first awareness of class: the French Revolution

During the past century above all in socialist literature was repeated one true concept, this is the awareness of class; this is the conscience of a last class, the workers, that Karl Marx(1818-1883) has expressed in his book, The misery of philosophy, an answer to Proudhon, an French anarchic; in some step of this book Marx explained the consciousness of class, that is the right concept, but absolutely fliting, because if some worker has had the money, he has forgotten the consciousness, the class, the socialism and other; but the concept that I want consider isn’t the right or not of Marx, but the reality of this phenomenal, purely psychologic, this is the awareness that in history has determined a upheaval of a social class, that by now was already died and buried, but the final act, this is the funeral, was celebrated through the French revolution. The bourgeois class was the first in the history that has had the awareness of his importance; we must also consider the economic and social context of French during the reign of Lewis 16^th, by now the bourgeois was a social class definite in his nature, although the name didn’t mentioned, but it was the vital and economic lively that allowed to nations of to live; the taxes that in French there were for commerce and entrepreneurs, were very relevant, the bourgeois already has the true power in French, wasn’t the politic but economic, the 20^th June 1789, the bourgeois class was met in a room of regal palace, celled in history through the name of Real tennis court, and it is the first example of awareness of his importance, but the historical importance, and it is the central argument of this oath, that was alone an formal act; we can today read a chronicle of a English, Arthur Young(1741-1820), that has written, in a diary of travel in French, regard this oath: “26th. Every hour that passes seems to give the people fresh spirit: the meetings at the Palais Royal are more numerous, more violent, and more assured; and in the assembly of electors, at Paris, for send ng a deputation to the National Assembly, the language that was talked by all ranks of people was nothing less than a revolution in the government and the establishment of a free constitution: what they mean by a free constitution is easily understood — a republic ; for the doctrine of the times runs every day more and more to that point; yet they profess that the kingdom ought to be a monarchy too; or, at least, that there ought to be a king.” And the other chronicle of Jean Sylvain Bailly(1736-1793), described the meeting and the oath: “For the form of their constitution, where they have called two superiors orders, the municipalities, that composed almost the totality of nation, and counting the two present orders, they have could without usurpation, they attributed to them the rights of general States…”; it is the first gest of the French Revolution, that has took the principal motive of survival of the bourgeois class, why this reaction? And here the awareness of political class is present certainly, also because the bourgeois  was the intellectual class, of professional, and cultured class, therefore the awareness of to be a class was a sureness, but the question is same, why? The principal cause was the economy, the aristocratic classes and the clergy were exempted from the taxes that instead were on the other classes, this the bourgeois and grangers, that kept other two classes, we can also to doubt of this interpretation, but I ask: “Why the supreme politic organ, was called for  this meeting, after 175 years that it wasn’t met?”, the answer is the following: “Evidently also an idiot as Lewis 16^th has been informed that the economic condition was a disaster”; it is sufficient think that if the French have to go back every debts, the same French would have declared bankrupt. The refuse that to Jacques Necker(1732-1804) responsible of department of economy and finance during the reign of Lewis 16^th, that asked to clergy and aristocratic to pay the taxes, and they refused, the question is why? The obvious answer is: “because they didn’t want lost their privileges”, it is the automatic and ideological explication, but it is so or not? Not certainly, why? Because the clergy and aristocratic class haven’t one money, because the aristocratic has quitted the administration to the bourgeois, that during the time was become aware of its power, and hence the oath in the room of Royal tennis: “We oath that we never will be separate from the National Assembly, and we will meet everywhere the causes ask it, until the Constitution of Reign not is going to issue…”; the principal step is the word “constitution”, that reveled the politic program of bourgeois, this is the limitation of power of king, that occurred in 1791, when form the absolutely monarchy the French become the constitutional monarchy, inasmuch also the king has limited to his power, because the first power was alone the law. It is the first authentic awareness of class, that alone the intellectual bourgeois had, because the common people hasn’t absolutely extrange.

Alessandro Lusana