I am currently educating myself on the French Revolution; in particular, the gross mismanagement that led up to it. The fact of the matter is that the elites of France bankrupted and destroyed the country due to a combination of selfishness, shortsightedness, and repeatedly kicking the can down the road until the country's economic and social problems became insurmountable. Government positions were bought and sold as status symbols, the treasury was emptied to pay for pointless wars and lavish lifestyles, and only the poor paid any taxes. In short, the French Revolution was an inevitable product of the pre-modern world.
I would argue the contrary; that the French revolution was the inevitable product of the
demise of the pre-modern world. The treasury was emptied for pointless wars, yes. Something I've already indicated is more of a 'modern' problem that a 'pre-modern' one. More accurately: it's a universally recurring issue of bad governance in all ages, but it became a structural failing in the modern age.
Let's look at pre-Revolution France. The Versailles system is completely based on centralisation of power, and the monarch exerting unprecedented control over the aristocracy. The government positions being sold were available to non-aristocratic bureaucrats who actively supported the centralising order (because it served their interests). France, in short, was well on its way to stepping out of the traditional social hierarchy. The French revolution is a significant and useful benchmark for the start of 'modern times', but we can't pretend that France under Louis XIV's reforms was still a traditionally feudal society.
France's problems were not the result of the pre-modern order, but of encroaching modernity. The aristocracy had been politically weakened to such an extent that their power to curtail the monarch and the central government was no longer of enough significance. The entrenched bureacracy had changed the way government worked -- both in fuction and scope -- to a degree unmatched elsewhere in Europe. (Although, in its own way, Britain was going the same route by different steps; a result it its own power-amassing monarchy, as of Henry VIII. But the British process was more gradual, obviously.)
We return to the same underlying issue: my argument is that the "checksand balances" of modernity are a joke, because modern government is inherently monolithic. Centralised, organised and consolidated. The "branches" all serve the same ultimate interest, so they don't really keep each other in check at all. The trajectory is towards
more government power. That's a process that started c. 1500, hit an acceleration with "enlightened despotism", and went into overdrive with the Age of Revolutions. (Which notably eliminated the clergy as a separate power of importace.)
Now compare this to the feudal ordering of society that I've referenced. The monarchy, the high aristocracy, the lower aristocracy, the burghers, the gentry (meaning non-aristocratic land-owners) and the clergy all had reasons to keep the others in check, and to certainly prevent any of the others from becoming universally dominant. This system was far from flawless, of course. The point is that it was amazingly well-balanced. It struck a natural equilibrium of both aligning and conflicting interests. Thus, it prevented unilateral autocracy, but
also prevented universal conflict.
Modernity has eliminated most of these distinct factions. The "middle" has been violently struck out of society. This began with Kings setting up (increasingly burger-dominated) bureaucracies to side-step the aristocracy, the gentry and the clergy. It ended with those newly ascended burghers using the centralised structures to eliminate their rivals... ultimately including the monarch. (In extreme cases, by lopping his head off. In less extreme cases, by stripping him of true power.)
But with centralism firmly in place, and all the traditional checks on central authority removed, the result was a burgher-autocracy. Not a universal monarch (as the enlightened despots had imagined), but a universally powerful
bureaucratic government, dominated by the burgher-class. Theoretically, this government is accountable to all and accessible to all. In practice, that's pure fiction. It's become increasingly obvious that the financial elite (the super-rich) and the governmental elite (the government, and most especially the 'deep state') are really
one undifferentiated elite, pursuing
one shared interest.
My thesis, then, is that modernity has severely unbalanced society; has created vast extremes; preaches egalitarianism but has in practice created a huge gulf between an all-powerful elite and a generally powerless populace; and masks this reality through extensive populism (all sorts of welfare) aimed at keeping the masses docile. It's hard to understate just how dangerous that situation is. You basically have an all-powerful regime with functionally unlimited authority that swears it'll never use its power to hurts you... but has repeatedly shown that when push comes to shove, yes, it
will use that power to hurt you.
I'm not saying we don't have massive wealth inequality; nor am I saying that our rights haven't been gutted. Things are shit right now. What I am saying is that things have been shit for nearly all of human history; with only brief respites scattered throughout. Modern or pre-modern, it doesn't matter; the problem is people, because too many people are, by and large, self-centered jerks who ruin things for everyone else because of their arrogance and stupidity.
I agree with the assessment, without reservation. My only addition -- and that's a pretty crucial one -- is that jerks with unlimited power are vastly more dangerous than jerks with limited power. The elite of the modern world is
exceedingly powerful.
My suggestion isn't that we should -- or will -- go back to the pre-modern world in a sort of leap backwards. Instead, I'm saying that we need to learn the lessons of history. The current system is too dangerous to be acceptable, and isn't remotely stable, either. What we need is a way to emulate the far superior pre-modern "balance of power". We need regional elites who can effectively challenge the central power. We need to divide governmental auithority both institutionally and territorially in such a way that no single entity is powerful enough to rule unilaterally. And we need religion. Specifically, we need a Church that can actively keep all temporal powers in check. Rulers must
fear the threat of excommunication again.
The situation I outline here will not magically prevent injustice. In fact, I'm sure that even cases of people being deprived of their property will still occur -- as they always have. But it won't happen unless
quite a few people (who generally have competing interests) agree that it
must happen. The age of "eminent domain" will be over and done with. It won't be that easy anymore, for a government to take things away from you with the mere scratch of a bureaucrat's pen.
And that's the goal, isn't it?