jack goldstone, revolution and rebellion in the early modern world (1991)

(xxv): 1850 as pivot point (in most of world, England earlier) -- economic innovation in org. of labour and the tools of production make population pressures moot [this is important, insofar as it spells out the nature of the social institutions that will alleviate the pressures felt by early modern states]

(1-2): concerned, against Eurocentrism, with world-wide problems in (1) late 1500s to mid 1600s, and then again between (2) 1770 and 1850

(5, 8): definition of State Breakdown -- not all political institutions, but a breakdown of central authority's ability to dominate in a confrontation with the elite [using this, rather than revolution, because the latter term doesn't really fit many of the early modern state crises -- as in 'new institutions' new status structure, etc. ]

(11): the binary notations

(13-15): revisionists re: English revolution -- not long-term social causes (unlike Hill, Moor, Anderson, Wallerstein), but conjunctural ('large-scale historical accidents'). noting that this is unsatisfying, insofar as we're not content abandoning explanation.

(19): Skocpol doesn't help

(20): incidence of war (unlike Chorley) doesn't help -- the Second Thirty Years War (1688-1714, under Louis XIV) nor the Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815) wrought revolution in Europe. 1830 and 1848 saw revolutions in places that were relatively free of war

(21): imp. caveat: wars can matter through costs -- military pressures depend on the scale and cost of war

(24): short summary of demographic-structural model -- large agrarian states of this period were not equipped to deal with the impace of steady growth fo population that began throughout N. Eurasia. this led to persistent price inflation, and tax revenues lagged behind these prices because most early modern states were based on fixed rates of taxation. expansion of armies eld to rising real costs. attempts to increase state revenues led to elite resistance, and rarely succeeded. hence (1) fiscal crisis. (2) elite also struggled secure their own relative position--increasing rivalry and factionalism. (3) and population growth also led to popular struggles: rural mistery, urban migration, falling real wages--and an expanding youth cohort.

(25-26, 28): source of population increase was exogenous -- combination of favorable climate and receding disease

(26, 36): key question -- certain States were able to streamline expenses/expand incomes (England and Prussia, during the favorable interlude of 1660-1760). why? [Goldstone has a conjunctural explanation] /"institutional flexibility"

(31): not crude Malthusianism -- 'popular control' kept populations well below the Malthusian limit; moreover, population is not driven merely by births ((1) epidemic disease, (2) growth of food supplies gen. exceeds population increase; (3) distributional effects most important (before Malthusian limits))

(33): population increase has nonlinear effect on marginal groups

(35): earthquake metaphor

(37): a new synthesis:

1. synthesis of economic and political history (against Marxism)
2. synthesis of new social/demographic history with old political history
3. world-wide/holistic
4. cyclic forces, rather than secular [not entirely, of course, insofar as this is demographic-structural]
5. structure + culture [shameful!]
6. methodological

(41-42): centuries between 1250 and 1850 "show relentlessly cyclic patterns"

(64, 65-67): challenging the Marxist vs. Revisionist frame on the Eng. Revolution

(65): Goldstone's argument on , from 1500 - 1830s: (1) ecological crisis eroded royal authority and social stability, resulting in State Breakdown in 1640 (recovery after 1660s -- this is why 1688-1689 was 'painless'); (2) period from 1660-1750 one of relief; political struggles did not threaten the State; (3) from 1750 -1832, another period of ecological crisis, but moderated by the new resources created by the Industrial Rev.

(68): 1640 vs. 1688-1689

(68-69): classic Marxist position of 'bourgeois revolution' undermined by finding that most conflicts were intra-class fights, not cross-class; neo-Marxist position that difficusion of capitalist economic relations undermined traditional life, producing sharp conflicts also doesn't find support--neither enclosures ((1) the Crown was largest encloser in England, and (2) most popular disturbances were not led by enclosure victims, but by rural artisans and squatters) nor overseas trade ((1) Eng. not net exporter of grain, most gentry wealth came from elsewhere; (2) timing of grain expansion doesn't coincide with revolution'; (3) many of the 'new capitalists' were not enemies of the Crown but rather its allies) can do the explaining they want them to do.

(82): Skocpol, Wolf, Paige don't apply here: artisans and uban groups, not peasants, were key in English revolution. Nor does international competition with more powerful states really work (re: Skocpol)

(87): price revolution was not a silver bullion problem

(95): inflation hit the State--the Crown was not well-placed to deal with inflation (cost of maintaining army, etc.)

(109, 123): intra-elite conflict

(125, 128): high mobilization potential

(129-130, 132): also wants to add radical Puritanism to the mix -- but makes it clear, also, that this had material origins ('scapegoats were sought for the decay of the economic/social order')

(137): youthfulness of population

(140): cities

(141): English Rev., in sum




(107): Stuart financial crisis arose from inability to cope with cumulative inflationary pressures due to inflexibility in the early modern English tax system [key question, here, is whence the 'inflexibility'? can the old explanations help us account for inflexibility?]

(150-151): imp--the reason that the crisis didn't hit immediately (and pressures built up) had to do with the flexibility of English institutions (Crown could survive rising prices by selling assets, could borrow, had to sell offices, etc.) -- again, a path back to structure? / 'psi' as a political measure

(157, 161-162): the Fronde -- though this wasn't as radical as in England b/c no cross-class coalition could be built [to some extent the explanation is ideology, which is just silly; and more to the point, it is immediately question-begging -- why, if France was no less capable of absorbing stress, was cross-class coalition not possible?]

(167): why no crisis in Spain of comparable magnitude? peripheral crises, but the heartland was intact

(171): sum of French Rev. historiography (parallels developments in English Revolution debates)

(172): three problems with Skocpol:

1. France was not a laggard; in fact, its output in trade and industry was larger than England's; American War of Independence was France's least costly.
   
2. Skocpol tells us little about why conflicts within the elite were so intense
3. understates the importance of urban unrest in Paris

(175-176): key, Goldstone offers a contingent explanation for why England was rebuilt along more flexible lines ('unique events had to do with a change of dynasty' -- tax system transformed, and resolution of elite conflicts as well). [you are forfeiting a large part of what you set out to do, with this, given the importance of the 'structural' in your argument; the discussion of France, for example, is simply an assertion, rather than an argument].

(191): most Frenchfolk did not benefited from growth in industry/trade, as they were in agriculture

(193): Louis XIV had been fine, because of stable prices and fine agicultural sector; this was to change.

(197, 199, 202, 207, 208-209, 214, 218, 317): key--French tax system and the 'mysterious' fiscal crisis of 1999 -- too much emphasis on land taxes, viz-a-viz indirect taxes on industry/trade [again, is the explanation for this simply 'accidental'? to do this the State would have had to move against its elite--p. 214, 218; it couldn't do this in France, but managed to do this in England. why? given the work that the 'structural' is doing, then the Rev will not be much more than a 'large-scale historical accident'. we have to ask why the State didn't move to impose 'indirect taxes' on industry/trade; comparison with England and Prussia.

(227, 238): not social immobility, but social mobility -- there is no distinct, disenfranchised 'bourgeois class' to be found, in France. wealthy nobles and wealthy commoners were indistinguishable, re: sources of their wealth

(249): popular element in French Rev

(251): Skocpol re: peasants -- grievances always present; Goldstone after a more dynamic understanding of the causes behind rebellion than collapse in State authority)

(253): mention of Brenner on France (as nation of smallholders)

(259): in NE during French Rev, peasants were particularly vulnerable to population pressures (b/c of cash tenancy and wage labor) [this might be another way to get at the defects of his position that 'capitalism' solves population pressures; there is no doubt that there is a grain of truth in his argument, but it needs to be properly specified: what about capitalism?]

(261): French agriculture not 'backward'

(271): army's disintegration was important [but in this entire way of thinking about State breakdown, this is relegated to the background -- it depends on the larger price movements, and the question of when it is no longer possible to afford an army]

(272): both nobility and revolutionaries used the language of the Enlightenment

(287-288): vs. Marx on capitalism's advance, re: 1830 and 1848 -- most backward areas should have been most rebellious, etc.

(296-297, 299): Napoleonic stability, which was temporary

(313): 1848 wasn't 1789 primarily because of the relative health of State finances

(314): interesting -- a different way to understand the 'treachery' of the 'bourgeoisie' in 1848, which had to do with the fact that there was 'much displacement, but little turnover' (counterrevolution from the Right was, thus, not a big threat -- there wasn't a large cohort of disgruntled surplus sons calling for a return to more tradition). and there were continued threats on the Left.

(322): periodization of the poor laws -- the 'calm', 1660 - 1750, didn't need them

(332-333): again, interrogate -- we have a contingent explanation for why 1830-1832 was a 'reform crisis', rather than a revolution (William called Parliament)

(333): Eng 1848 vs. France 1848 was really a question of industrial 'take-off'

(335-337): key--Elbe avoided revolt, in Germ, unlike Southwest [in the explanation, though, this doesn't seem to have too much to do with 'capitalism' (almost the opposite) -- rather, down to the availability of land and the fact that peasants were 'better off' b/c of the requirements of Junker landlords (they gave peasants independent access to their means of subsistence, in effect)]

(362): in Ottoman and Ming states, bulk of income was drawn from fixed, land taxes -- which left them vulnerable when the ecological crisis hit

(389): interesting parallels between discussions of Puritanism, 'Sufism' and heterodox Confucian strands [hints at a kind of ideological flexibility that he's going to turn around and wholehartedly deny in the post-breakdown phase]

(399): failure of leadership in the Taiping rebellion made revolution impossible? (didn't cast its ideological net wide enough... odd]

(414): key difference in Japanese case was the fact of 'in-kind' taxes, which made stable population growth crisis producing; this affirms position that he's not a crude Malthusian, but a demographic-structuralist

(426): no marginal elites in the East (b/c they had been more fairly organized at the top?), who could attack the very principles of Ottoman and Confucian rules (those broad-based attacks that did emerge, as in the Taiping rebellion, alienated too many elites to have much hold). no 'clear alternative' was produced.

(429): profoundly odd and anti-theoretical approach to the relation of ideas to structure

(434): summary of his very bad ruminations on ideas in the course of revolution -- a wide mix in the first phases, but then an elite group has to emerge to build a cross-class coalition, post-revolution

(436): in England in 1640 and France in 1789 you got profound 'ideological' breaks with the past; in Ottoman and Ming-Qing transition you got lots of institutional change (more, in fact), but you didn't get 'ideological' breaks with the past [and I, thanks to you, am profoundly disgusted and confused, in equal measure]

(438): not an argument about the degree/scope of institutional change, which was more in the Asian cases

(443-444): odd argument that revolutionary ideology and revolutionary results don't go together (ranks the revolutions by ideological radical-ness, and results radical-ness, and notes a disconnect) [but how do you measure the former? seems completely arbitrary. subordinate groups? elite groups? pamphlets? speeches? what?]

(446-448): [and here we get the WTF moment] Westerners had an 'eschatalogical' view of history, whereas Easterners were locked in a 'cyclic' view of time [incidentally, the proof for this is quoting a couple of Westerners and a couple of Easterners (oh, and Chinese peasant revolts looked backed to "idealized past dynasties" -- French peasant revolts?)]

(448): ridiculous! they smashed everything, but their smashing everything (b/c it occurred with non-eschatalogical framing) was restorative, not progressive.

- - - - - -

[1] conjunctural explanation of institutional reform -- if it's a demographic-structural model, can we afford a contingent explanation for structural change? alternatively, can old structural models explain these specific patterns? (p. 26, p. 36, p. 107, p. 150, p. 175, p. 202)

[2] take on the Fronde vs. English revolution explanation, which is tied to the above but distinct. why was it that no cross-class alliance could arise in Fr? ideology? come off it. [the Moores review makes this point. when demographic trends are similar, then culture is called in, as an exogenous factor, to explain things. but why not structure? Moores notes that in France there were real-material ties to the king that didn't exist in England, where instead you had a group of self-confident agrarian capitalists (does this hold up to historical evidence?)] (p. 161-162)

[2b] we can add to this the contingent explanation of the 'reform crisis' of 1830-1832. didn't erupt because William called Parliament?

[3] capitalism solves the problems of population pressure? (1) this needs to be properly specified [what does it mean to say that 'capitalism' has or hasn't arrived? Junker 'agribusiness' estates -- was it 'wage-labour'? see p. 335] ; (2) what is related, this requires an inability to think holistically, in contrast to his aims, which comes out obviously in his treatment of China and Russia ('combined and uneven development'). in other words: yes, some features you see in other capitalist economies haven't arrived (productivity, namely--'capitalism as productive forces,' almost), but this is not because capitalism hasn't arrived.

[4] confusion of variables in the Psi measure [as per the Arjomand review -- using what he wants to prove as a measure that is supposed to prove it]

[4] not even worth taking the ideological crap at the end seriously, but still. the causal argument can be undermined (1) at the level of the argument itself; (2) at the level of the empirical 'facts' he summons to justify each link in the causal chain

the argument:

marginal elites who want to change the principles = C1 (structural)

cultural framework posesses an eschatalogical element = C2 (ideological)

C1 + C2 --> 'symbolic transformation and revolutionary political reconstruction'

absence of C1 + C2 --> 'conservative state reconstruction'

(some of) the problems:

1. the marginal elites come from unfairness in State construction. correct? if not, then where and why? structural explanation?

2. marginal elites --> revolution link [surely this is contingent? what about claims around 1848, and treachery?]

3. absurdity of the claim around West as uniquely 'eschatalogical'. [quote a bunch of bigots, or quote a couple of Westerners to make your point. ]

4. absurdity of the C2 --> transformative settlement [setting aside the problems in measurement, what is a defensible mechanism for this? elites mobilize a radical language and, voilah!, you have ideological dynamism?]

5. arbitrariness of what's being measured [how do you measure ideological dynamism?]

6. idiocy of explandum --> rise of the west link [ideological dynamism is supposed to produce the rise of the West? this is unvarnished idiocy!]

7. it's worth going through the counterfactuals, which clarify the transparent stupidity of this argument: (a) marginal elite and/or(?) eschatalogical cultural framework in Ming-Qing transition/Ottoman State breakdown would have produced ideological dynamism/institutional innovation, which would have produced the rise of the East; (b) absence of marginal elite and/or(?) eschatalogical cultural framework in Eng/France would have produced absence of ideological dynamism/institutional innovation, which would have presented the rise of the West.