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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   44990 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 5, 2022

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I think your framing as Napoleon as "absolutist" is wildly incorrect. Napoleon is the central figure of liberalism's history. He more than anyone else is why liberalism won out. France unburdened by the extractive institutions of feudalism was able to fight the whole of Europe and (nearly) win. Massive armies of patriotic men led by officers who gained their positions by merit, backed by an economy not hamstrung by the Church, nobility, and state monopolies forced the rest of Europe's monarchies to make popular reforms, or perish. Even when Napoleon was ultimately defeated he had made 1848 inevitable.

Logically, shouldn't we expect powerful absolutist/totalitarian states to dominate, ceteris paribus?

Market economies tend to very badly outcompete state-directed ones. And that means that in a war, it's the market economies that are vastly more efficient and producing all you need to win one. In WWII the western allies absolutely clowned Germany, Japan, and to a lesser extent the Soviet Union with respect to production of materiel.

French revolution happened before Napoleon and he added little to its constitutional essence. He was an extremely talented commander, who seized national sentiment and usurped power at a time of turmoil. Here are some quotes from AH:

Although the constitution was rather weak (Napoleon always preferred constitutions to be "vague and short") and the plebiscite rigged, the fact that either occurred showed that this was not simply a return to the pre-1789 status quo.

Although Napoleon's plebiscites and Senate decrees supporting the Empire were often manufactured, they do show how deeply concerned Napoleon was over the perception he enjoyed popular support.

The French Revolution was a multifaceted political animal and Napoleon was able to tap into certain elements of French and Enlightenment politics to justify his dictatorship. Yet, as his ignominious disposal in 1814 by the Senate and his appeals to the Revolutionary liberalism in the Hundred Days show, Napoleon could not ignore the various political ideals and concepts the Revolution unleashed in 1789 despite his pretenses of being a figure above politics.

Another one:

I also think it's important to reiterate here that the Revolution was emphatically not about overthrowing the monarchy. The French peoples, for the most part, did not have an aversion to monarchy. They wanted good government above all else. There was not a longstanding tradition of Republican government. Compared with the almost thousand year rule of Kings in France, the Republic had existed from September 1792, to 1799, when Napoleon took power and instituted himself as First Consul in the Directory. During this time the Republic had gone through different phases, and as I mentioned it was not a strong, beloved government in the last few years of its life, but a much-maligned and in many cases despised form of government by both the left and the right.

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