In this work, Carl Max examines the class struggle and economic relations that transpired in France in 1848, resulting in both physical and economic upheavals. Using historical materialism approach, Marx extensively proposes that the conflict was between various factions within the bourgeoisie and not between the proletarians and the bourgeoisie as many economists have alluded (Bieler, 2012). More specifically, he attributes the conflict to the Industrial and Financial factions of the bourgeoisie. On one side, the industrial bourgeoisie’s wealth, as well as income, stemmed from production and sales of different products and services. On the other hand, the financial bourgeoisie’s wealth dependent on the development of banks and credit facilities and the stock market.
Marx attributes materialism as the motive behind the massive manipulation of policy experienced in France in 1848, particularly in the months leading to the June defeat as the cause the conflict. The materialism is deeply integrated into the political system in which the policy developers and public funds directors are the primary beneficiaries of the executed policies (Bieler, 2012). As such, the manipulation of public policy is geared towards self-enrichment among the financial bourgeoisie who have a strict grip on the nation’s political and economic affairs. As Marx states, part of the enrichment strategy was mainly coined around the indebtedness of the state. With the State deficit increasing every year, the ruling bourgeoisie managed to push the government to get new loans, that presented it with the opportunity to defraud a state that they kept at the verge of bankruptcy. The state’s instability coupled with access to state secrets gave the financial bourgeoisie such as the bankers as well as their acquaintances in the state chambers the ability to evoke unprecedented and massive fluctuations in government securities quotations resulting in rapid enrichment of the financial and ruling bourgeoisie and the ultimate ruin of capitalists masses. The same state defrauding was extended to public works. Marx states that the ruling bourgeoisie exploited the construction of railways. Powerful members of the majority became shareholders of the same railway construction they had carried out at the expense of the state as legislators. While this extreme corruption was intolerable to the industrial bourgeoisie, Marx maintains that there was nothing significant they could do against it. Just like the financial and the ruling bourgeoisie, the industrial bourgeoisie occupied a relatively benefitting position in the society as well as in the government. As Spencer, 1979, contends, this fact placed the two factions in the same camp.
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Marx as well raises the influence of the international dimension of the class struggle in France. As Spencer, 1979, claims, class struggles in one nation are directly influenced by the economic development of other regions, in these case, the financial and economic crises in Europe. Mark states that France’s foreign trade, its position in the world market and the laws of the world market, conditioned the local relations of production. In this light, Marx attributes the situation leading to the public revolt and class struggles to a number of financial crises in Europe that inflected the deleterious economic crisis in France. Particularly, the crop failure and the potato blight of 1845 and 1846 combined with the 1847 famine accelerate the general upheaval among people leading to blood conflicts both in France and other parts of Europe. The 1840’s overall commercial and industrial crisis in England resulted in a wave of bankruptcies and closure of factories all over Britain. As Marx asserts, the after-effect of this economic and financial crisis in England on entire Europe had not yet faded when the 1948 February Revolution erupted. The existence of trade balance between France and England had a devastating effect on the economy of France. Much of France’s produce was exported to England, which in turn exported it to the rest of the world. The devastating effects of this economic epidemic as Marx asserts, forced industrial manufacturers as well as big traders to turn to the local market as they could not manage to conduct business in the foreign market under the existing circumstances. Their large establishments created enormous competition that destroyed the small grocers and shopkeepers and consequently introduced innumerable bankruptcies in France (Marx 1895). This economic crisis combined with the autocracy of the finance bourgeoisie and their accomplices in the Chambers became unbearable to the public leading to the revolution.
In his examination of the 1848-1850 class struggle in France, Marx basis the class struggles in France and Modern European history on the difference between means of production and social relationships of production. Combined, this two constitute mode of production. According to Marx, this mode of production evolves in every society. In this light, modern European’s mode of production changed from feudal to capitalist, which initiated tremendous economic growth due to the inventiveness of the capitalists to reinvest their profits and revolutionize means of production. As such, relations of production have changed less rapidly as compared to means of production generating social disruptions and conflicts as seen in the class struggles. Under the modern capitalist European society, workers or the proletarians sell their labor in exchange of salary or wage to survive. On the other hand, the capitalists or the bourgeois buy the labor and own the production power and they need the proletarians to survive. As Marx writes, “ wage labor is the existing bourgeois organization of labor. Without it there is no capital, and, no bourgeois society.”
As evidenced by class struggles in modern European history, capitalism is susceptible to periodic crises that arise from the collapse and growth cycle of new economy sectors distinguished by increasing acute crises. In the case of France, these crises were initiated by the 1840’s industrial and commercial crisis in England and accelerated by the 1845-47 crop failure and potato blight. The long-term effects of such crises, as Marx illustrates, is the empowerment and enrichment of the bourgeoisie class and the insolvency of the proletariat (Bieler, 2012). As such, this gap cannot be bridged through peaceful negotiations, which necessitates the massive, regimented and violent revolution as witnessed in modern European history.
References
Bieler, A. (2012). Karl Marx, Class Struggles in France and historical materialist methodology. Retrieved October 26, 2018, from http://andreasbieler.blogspot.com/2012/07/karl-Marx-class-struggles-in-France-and.html
Marx, C. (1895). The Class Struggles in France, 1848 to 1850 Part I The Defeat of June 1848 . Retrieved October 26, 2018, from https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1850/class-struggles-france/ch01.htm.
Spencer, M. (1979). Marx on the State: The Events in France between 1848-1850. Theory and Society, 7 (1/2), 167-198. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/657002
