“Should We Celebrate the French Revolution?” de Frederic Sautet
The main victory of the French revolution was promoting the idea of equality and democracy above and beyond the notion of individual freedom. Many from Edmund Burke to Lord Acton, Benjamin Constant, and Friedrich Hayek have argued that the preservation of individual freedom is incompatible with the satisfaction of the revolutionary views of distributive justice. As Acton explained “the deepest cause which made the French revolution so disastrous to liberty was its theory of equality.” The problem Rousseau ignored is that without individual liberty, there is no extensive and sustained social order possible. The French Enlightenment led to a more egalitarian view of society, even though strong defenders of individual liberty and the market order could be found in France in the 18th c. (e.g. Voltaire, Condorcet, Turgot).
Edmund Burke was perhaps the first intellectual at the beginning of the French revolution to warn against the idea and the desire of throwing away (formal and informal) institutions and starting over a new society. As a son of the Scottish Enlightenment, Burke understood the right use of reason and its limits, and warned against the formulation of grandiose social plans. The French revolution was the primary event that gave social reformers and progressives the idea that societies can be designed by the human mind. In contrast, the “true” individualistic tradition discussed in Hayek’s Individualism: True and False is one of “humility toward the processes by which mankind has achieved things which have not been designed or understood by any individuals and are indeed greater than individual minds.”(…)
Following the Hayekian view, should we think that all revolutions are bad? Hayek warned us: “While it may not be difficult to destroy the spontaneous formations which are the indispensable bases of a free civilization, it may be beyond our power deliberately to reconstruct such a civilization once these foundations are destroyed.” But is it true that any idea of social constructivism is doomed to failure? If true individualism and the hope for liberty had prevailed in France, the legacy of the French revolution would probably have been different. It would have been more like the Glorious Revolution in England a century earlier. (But then the policies of Turgot would have been carried out in the 1770s and there would have been no need for a revolution in 1789.)
Governments should fear their people, and the possibility of revolution is the ultimate check on governments. “Finding” social organizations that enable men and their particular interests to cohabit and cooperate in large numbers has been the most difficult question of political theory and political economy. We still don’t know how to do it well and over a long period. Thomas Jefferson was well aware of this when he famously said that “the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” Perhaps we should conclude that some revolutions will always be necessary not as tools for social rebuilding, but as remedies against the excesses of the state. In other words, Hayekian revolutions may be desirable, not Jacobin ones. That’s how we should commemorate the day the Bastille was destroyed.
Pedro Sette-Câmara
André Azevedo Alves
Carlos Guimarães Pinto
Helder Ferreira
Bruno Garschagen
João Luís Pinto
LA
Bruno Alves
Miguel Botelho Moniz
ruicarmo
Miguel Noronha
Elizabete Dias
António Costa Amaral (AA)
LT
Rui Oliveira
BZ
dos ∫antos
André Abrantes Amaral
planca12
rui a.
Rodrigo Adão da Fonseca
Adolfo Mesquita Nunes
Michael Seufert
Luciano
Carlos M. Fernandes
Maria João Marques
jtcb
Nuno Branco
elisabetejoaquim
filipeabrantes
Tomás Belchior
Bruno Gonçalves
Ricardo G. Francisco
Tiago Loureiro
Ricardo Campelo de Magalhães
Filipe Faria
Ricardo Arroja
“It would have been more like the Glorious Revolution in England a century earlier.”
Não sei se, da perspectiva dos irlandeses e escoceses das Terras Altas, a “revolução gloriosa” terá sido uma coisa tão boazinha (e “liberal”) assim
Comentário por miguelmadeira — Julho 15, 2008 @ 11:22
Caro Miguel
Como é que se podem comparar dois acontecimentos que ocorreram em paises cuja experiência politica é totalmente distinta?
A revolução liberalizante inglesa – com vista a limitar o poder da coroa – ocorreu na idade média e a revolução francesa ocorreu séculos mais tarde.
Mesmo a comparação com a revolução americana é limitada pois as treze colónias não se libertaram de uma coroa absolutista, num contexto europeu (veja-se o que aconteceu aos paises baixos espanhois).
O problema da França foi ter transferido o poder absoluto do monarca para a entidade “Estado”, e este tem muitos pescoços para serem cortados.
Cumprimentos
Comentário por Daniel Azevedo — Julho 15, 2008 @ 21:38
“A revolução liberalizante inglesa – com vista a limitar o poder da coroa – ocorreu na idade média e a revolução francesa ocorreu séculos mais tarde.”
A “revolução liberalizante inglesa” ocorreu em 1688.
Acho que a comparação entre a revolução francesa e a inglesa é errada, mas por outra razão: é que normalmente não se compara revoluções equivalentes – compara-se a segunda revolução inglesa (1688) com a primeira revolução francesa (1789).
Se fossemos fazer a comparação com a primeira revolução inglesa, aí as diferenças seriam mesmo muito poucas (rei decapitado – confere; tentativa de criar uma espécie de “reino da virtude” – confere; general vitorioso dissolve o parlamento, torna-se ditador e tenta passar o poder ao filho – confere; etc.)
Comentário por Miguel Madeira — Julho 15, 2008 @ 21:59
“…ocorreu em 1688″
Não me estava a referir a essa revolução mas aquela que impôs a Magna Carta ao rei – fim de absolutismo, ainda que não tivesse essa designação.
Neste sentido a revolução francesa, que acabou com o “ancien regime” de certo modo impôs a sua carta ao poder absoluto do rei, limitando-o.
Comentário por Daniel Azevedo — Julho 15, 2008 @ 23:59