Concluding Thoughts on the French Revolution

The English Path to Democracy

Enough of the French, I say, and their crazy revolutions. Let’s look at how the English did things in the nineteenth century. “Reform in order to conserve” was the English way: give a little when you have to in order to keep what’s most important. You’ll see what I mean, in this episode, and as the next few episodes unfold.

The Paris Commune of 1871

Through the English, American and French revolutions and those of 1848, we have been looking at the history of what we call liberal representative democracy, by which today, all adult men and women, periodically have the opportunity to vote for people to represent us, make laws and govern over us. And, actually, we began this journey back in ancient Athens, with Athenian or direct democracy. Well, today, we are going to look at the first attempt at a worker’s democracy because we’re going to look at the Paris Commune of 1871.

The Counter-Revolutions of 1848

I said last week that the French weren’t finished with their revolution but when things flared up again, the counter-revolution kicked in. It seemed that everything the workers of Paris had fought for, the democracy that they thought would usher in more social reform, was not going to happen. Instead, things were being taken away from them. And what happened in France, would happen across Europe.

1848, the Year of Revolutions

Having spent a couple of weeks looking at the thoughts of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, interesting and relevant though they are, it’s time to get back to the stuff of revolutions because it's 1848 and the French, God bless ‘em, are far from done.

John Stuart Mill On Liberty

Having taken a look at the influence Jeremy Bentham has on our world today, I’m moving on to look at someone who had an even greater influence: John Stuart Mill. Why? Because Mill, a man way, way ahead of his time, put liberty front and centre in his political work