The Advent of the “Isms”

Section 11.53

The Age of Isms

1815 1820 1825 1830 1838 1842 1846 1848 (Springtime of Peoples)

Congress of Vienna

Peterloo Massacre

(1819)Congress of

Troppau (1820)

Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle,

1818

Congress of Verona, 1822

Decembrist revolt

Burschenschaft formed

Carlsbad Decrees issued (1817)

July Revolution

-Reform Bill of 1832

-Factory Act 1833

-Poor Law of 1834

Ten Hours

Act (1847)

Mines Act

Corn Laws Repealed

Chartists Movement

February Revolution

(France)

-March Days (Austria)

-Frankfurt Assembly

Liberalism,Romanticism, Nationalism, Conservativism,

Socialism, & Marxism

Introduction• From the period of 1815 to 1848 the use of new

words to describe economic, social, and political ideas grew

• Liberalism(1819), radicalism (1820), socialism (1832), conservatism (1835), nationalism and communism (1840s)

• Suggests that ideas were being made more systematic

– Development of the social sciences– Analyze society as a whole– Competing with other ideologies

• Leading to the conscious espousal of a doctrine in competition with other doctrines

Conservatism • Basic Tenets

– A reaction against liberalism– Alternative to the violence and terror of French

Revolution– Supporter of restoration of “legitimate” monarchs– Support came from nobility , peasants, early

romantics– Loved order, stability, tradition, and religion– Hated notion of a Revolution (change)– Society is organic

• Reject idea of social contract• History and God were sole sources of legitimate

power– Rejected idea of natural rights– Every people is different– Believed in hierarchical society– Some were born to rule– Hero

• Edmund Burke- Reflections of the Revolution in France

Reflections of the Revolution in France• "I cannot [...] give praise or blame to anything which relates to human

actions, and human concerns, on a simple view of the object, as it stands stripped of every relation, in all the nakedness and solitude of metaphysical abstraction. Circumstances [...] are what render every civil and political scheme beneficial or noxious to mankind. Abstractedly speaking, government, as well as liberty, is good; yet could I, in common sense, ten years ago, have felicitated France on her enjoyment of a government (for she then had a government) without inquiring what the nature of that government was? [...] Can I now congratulate the same nation upon its freedom? Is it because liberty in the abstract may be classed amongst the blessings of mankind, that I am seriously to felicitate a madman, who has escaped from the protecting restraint and wholesome darkness of his cell, on his restoration to the enjoyment of light and liberty? [...] I should, therefore, suspend my congratulations on the new liberty of France until I was informed how it had been combined with government, with public force, with the discipline and obedience of armies, with the collection of an effective and well-distributed revenue, with morality and religion, with the solidity of property, with peace and order, with civil and social manners. All these (in their way) are good things, too, and without them liberty is not a benefit whilst it lasts, and is not likely to continue long.

Isms Roundtable Activity

• In groups of 4 create a chart that lists the roots, key characteristics, and heroes of each ism.

Conservativism Liberalism Romanticism French Socialism

Marxist Socialism

“Classic” Liberalism• Rooted in Enlightenment• Believed that the individual is a self-

sufficient being• The ism of the middle class &

bourgeoisie• Favored written constitution• Reject republicanism (universal male

suffrage)• Love Lockean notions of the right of

rebellion, and natural rights• Favored Smithian Laissez-faire

economics• Favored balance of power, free trade,

Education • Heroes: Locke, Smith, Philosophes,

Ricardo, Malthus

Romanticism• Rooted in Plato, Rousseau and Kant

– Plato-innate ideas– Rousseau- Emile’s praise of childhood, and

nature– Kant- rejected Locke’s notion of tabula rasa in

favor of categorical imperative• Innate subjective sense of what is good and

beautiful• A reaction against the Enlightenment, rationalism,

classicalism, & liberalism• Favored imagination & spontaneity over classical

rules (art & literature)• Highpoint from 1780s-1848• Feeling & emotion over reason• Mucho amour for the medieval times & nature• Rejected notion of “progress” & universal laws

– said each historical period & people were unique, organic, and different

• At the forefront in fighting slavery, industrial evils

Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows, John

Constable

Neuschwanstein Castle

Wanderer Looking over a Sea of Fog (1815

• Caspar David Friedrich 1774 – 1840) century German Romantic painter

French Utopian Socialism• Rooted in a reaction to the evils of the Industrial Revolution,

Renaissance (Sir Thomas More) & French Rev (Convention)• Believed in government economic planning• Hated cutthroat, selfish, individualistic and chaotic capitalism• Private property should be regulated or abolished• Count Henri de Saint-Simon (1760-1825)

– Proposed that the “Doers” or Captains of Industry (scientists, engineers, industrialists) should plan the economy

– Public should own the means of production– Public works projects, investment banking– Parasites (monarchs, aristocracy, Church) should step

aside• Charles Fourier (1772-1837)

– Proposed small units (phalansteries) containing 1,620 people

– communal societies where people worked at what they were interested in

– Total emancipation for women• Saw marriage as another form of prostitution

• Louis Blanc (1811-1882)– Organization of Work (1839)– proposed social workshops (state

supported manufacturing centers) where workers labor for themselves without the intervention of private capitalists

• Robert Owen (1771-1858)• Industrialist and cotton lord of Manchester• Appalled by conditions of mill-workers • Created a model community

– High wages– Reduced hours– Corrective against vice (drunkenness)– Schools– Housing– Stores

• paternalistic capitalism turned him into a social reformer

French Utopian Socialism

Nationalism• A raised level of consciousness of a particular

peoples’ traditions, history, land, language, culture that say they should be joined together in a nation

• Glued mostly by a “fixed” language & Romanticism– Linguists & scholars had begun to fix national

languages through journals, books, newspapers

• Rejected Congress of Vienna and its principle of “legitimacy”

• Favor idea of popular sovereignty– Although certain minorities came to dominate

national character (Hungary)• Proponents promoted

– idea of nationalisms economic and administrative efficiency

– A nation, like a person, is free & a creation of God

– Religious figure• Poland as the crucified Christ

• Most influential in Germany• Herder –Father of German Nationalism

– Ideas on the Philosophy of the History of Mankind (1784)

– Volksgeist – “Spirit of the People”– common people is where national character existed– Rejected Enlightenment idea of progress– said each nation should develop their own way and

avoid distortions by outside influence– didn’t think that German culture was better but different

• J. G. Fichte– Closed Commercial state (1800)

• outlined a totalitarian system in which the state planned and operated whole economy in isolationist fashion, thus protecting national character

– Address To The German Nation, 1807• there was an ineradicable German spirit, primordial,

to be kept pure at all costs, inner moral universe• German spirit is better than others

Nationalism Continued

• Father Jahn: – known as Turnvater Jahn, or the "father

of gymnastics" – organized a youth movement (political

gymnastics clubs)– did calisthenics for Fatherland, made

fun of aristocrats in French costumes, suspicion of foreigners (Jews, internationalists), IE things that might corrupt the purity of German Volk

– 1810- "Poles, French, priests, aristocrats and Jews are Germany's misfortune."

– Organized book burnings• Grimm’s Fairy Tales• In search of the Volk

• Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel• Friedrick List

– Advocated Zollverein (free trade zones within German states

Nationalism Continued

Scientific “Marxist” Socialism• Based on philosophy of Karl Marx (1818-1883) &

Friedrich Engles (1820-1895)• Brutal and militant revolutionary vision of how the

working class would defeat bourgeiosie• Based inversely on Wilhelm Hegel’s philosophy• German nationalistic philosophy who said history is

the story of Dialectic Ideals– irrespirable tendency for human mind to move

forward by the creation of opposites (dialectic• Dialectic Materialism –explains all human history• All change comes through the clash of antagonistic

elements– Historical development is the result of conditions

created by the interaction of such forces• Economic causation to all human history/Class

struggle– All human history is a story of a struggle over

material (resources) between haves and have nots– Monarch v. Nobility– Nobility v. Bourgeoisie– Bourgeoisie v. Proletariat

• Theory of Surplus Value– the “stolen” portion of the value of the product the

proletariat labored over • The profit of the capitalist

• Inevitability of Communist State– Believed that history is scientific (predictable)– Capitalism contains the seeds of its own destruction– Bourgeoisie will exploit the proletariat until class

consciousness rises & workers destroy capitalism in favor of a Dictatorship of the Proletariat

– A classless society• Work according to one’s ability, take according

to one’s needs• Communist Manifesto (1848)

– A call for revolution– The proletarians have nothing to lose but their

chains. Workers of the world unite!– “..let the ruling classes tremble at a communist

revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workingmen of all countries, unite!”

Scientific “Marxist” Socialism

Congress of Vienna• Napoleon Defeated by 1814• many questions remained unanswered.. • Quadruple Alliance

– Russia, Austria, Prussia, and Great Britain – “First Treaty of Vienna”

• restored the French boundaries of 1792

• Restored the Bourbon dynasty• No indemnity

– Defensive Measures• established Prussia as a "sentinel on

the Rhine" – Prussia got land on Rhine

• created Kingdom of the Netherlands– a new kingdom out of Belgium and

Holland. – balance of power-

• believed that an international equilibrium of political and military forces would preserve peace in Europe.

• Sticky Points– Polish-Saxon Question

• Prussians and the Russians demanded Saxony and Poland

• compensation threatened the balance.

– Castlereagh, Metternich, and Talleyrand forced Russia and Prussia into a compromise whereby Russia got part of Poland and Prussia received two-fifths of Saxony

Congress of Vienna

Congress or Metternich System• Intervention and repression

– Under Metternich, Austria, Prussia, and Russia led a crusade against liberalism.

• They formed a Holy Alliance to check future liberal and revolutionary activity.

• When liberals succeeded in Spain and in the Two Sicilies, these powers intervened to restore conservatism.

• Metternich's policies also dominated the German Confederation--through which the Carlsbad Decrees were issued in 1819. – These decrees repressed

subversive ideas and organizations in the 38 German states» Read German Gynasium

• Metternich represented the view that the best state blended monarchy, bureaucracy, and aristocracy.

• He hated liberalism, which he claimed stirred up the lower classes and caused war and bloodshed. – Liberalism also stirred up national

aspirations in central Europe, which could lead to war and the breakup of the Austrian Empire.

– The empire, which was dominated by the minority Germans, contained many ethnic groups, including Hungarians and Czechs, which was a potential source of weakness and dissatisfaction.

Metternich and Conservatism