Class Sessions  

Video | Text Reading | Topics | Text Discussion Questions 

At the conclusion of this session please post your discussion questions as a single set of responses under the heading DQ4.

Viewing Assignment: 

The History Channel’s The French Revolution, Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Part 6; Part 7; Part 8; Part 9

Reading Assignments: 

This session's readings involve two very early socialist/communist thinkers of the late 18th and early to mid 19th centuries. François-Noël "Gracchus" Babeuf, also known as the very earliest revolutionary communist and heir to the French Revolution. Louis Auguste Blanqui (1805-1881) a publicist, revolutionary communist and leading figure behind the French Revolution of 1830 is best known for his assertion that state socialism should outlaw the ownership of private property. These are two of the very earliest communist writers and thinkers.  

This session also introduces you to the naturalism of Jean Jacques Rousseau who asserts that human nature - indeed nature itself - is good but has been corrupted by mankind's social institutions. More specifically Rousseau's philosophy dramatically influenced the most significant figure of the French Revolution - Maximilien Robespierre - as well as other members of Robespierre's Jacobins, to include Jean Paul Marat, and Louis de Saint Just. Rousseau's naturalism laid the blame for inequality among people at the feet of the social order. Since the French monarchy had been responsible for the inequality that characterized France at that time, and since human beings were deemed to be essentially good and redeemable, Robespierre, Marat, de Saint Just and others proceeded to overthrow the monarchy and establish a democracy from among the common people. Unfortunately, dreaming of such a society and realizing it were very different matters, as this session's film and readings establish.

For this session, beyond watching the 90 minute film on the French Revolution, you will be reading Rousseau's 1754 essay "What Is The Origin Of Inequality Among Men, And Is It Authorised By Natural Law?" Thereafter you will read the following essays: Louis Auguste Blanqui (1834) "Communism, The Future of Society." "Who Needs to Eat Soup?" and the "Defense of Citizen Louis Auguste Blanqui." Gracchus Babeuf (1795) "Prospectus for Le Tribun du Peuple,"  "Manifesto of the Equals," and "Babeuf's Defense"

Equality & Inequality, Natural State of Humanity, Foundations of the French Revolution, The Jacobins and their Leaders, Early Pioneers in Communism and Socialism, Rousseau's Naturalistic Ecological Philosophy

    In the interest of preparing you for the context in which this week’s essays were written, I am having you watch the History Channel’s 9 part video on the French Revolution. I think you will enjoy this video and will better appreciate the context within which socialism as a political, economic and ultimately as an ecological philosophy developed. Thereafter pick seven questions to answer between questions 1-11. Your responses to these questions, followed by your answers to the case study constitutes your homework for this session and must be placed in Drop 4 prior to the beginning of class on Session 5. However, you are required to know the answers to each and every one of these questions for the Comprehensive Exam! ick seven questions to answer between questions 1-11. Your responses to these questions, followed by your answers to the case study constitutes your homework for this session and must be placed in Drop 4 prior to the beginning of class on Session 5. However, you are required to know the answers to each and every one of these questions for the Comprehensive Exam! ick seven questions to answer between questions 1-11. Your responses to these questions, followed by your answers to the case study constitutes your homework for this session and must be placed in Drop 4 prior to the beginning of class on Session 5. However, you are required to know the answers to each and every one of these questions for the Comprehensive Exam!

1.   August Blanqui associates human progress and the growth of society with the incremental replacement of individualism (i.e. a narrow emphasis upon the individual and individual rights) to that of "communism" (i.e. an approach where the interests of the community are elevated and prioritized over those of individuals). In this way he sees communism as the logical endpoint for human development. Go the web and explore how satisfactorily communist societies have functioned since 1834 when Blanqui's essay was published and tell me whether you agree that communism is the logical outcome of human culture and development.  

2.   Blanqui asserts that "man must make to society the sacrifice of a portion of his liberty," implying "social equality between individuals, from which it follows that freedom is limited by equality." He then goes on to state that "Only the integral association [communist association] can meet this sovereign law. The old order tramples the shameless and ruthless. Communism is the safeguarding of the individual, individualism is extermination." So while individualism is considered unsustainable, communism is considered sustainable because it safeguards the individual (the community safeguards the interests of the individual according to communally held values) while individualism itself is sacrificed. How would you feel about sacrificing your own individual desires, wants, dreams and aspirations in the interest of having your individual needs taken care of according to what the community deems to be in your best interest. Reflect on this question and explain.  

3.   Blanqui goes on to assert that "The association, in place of individual ownership, build[s] only the reign of justice through equality. Hence the growing enthusiasm of men of the future to identify and highlight elements of the association." Do you concur with Blanqui’s assertion that there should be equality of ownership (outcome) in order to achieve justice? Please explain.  

4.   Finally, when tried before the French court for his political views, Blanqui asserted that there was a war occurring between the rich and the poor that the rich had instigated and which exploited the poor for the benefit of the rich. He presented a remedy to the political, social and economic inequality existing within French society and argued for the following:

    “We ask that the thirty-three million French people choose their form of government, and appoint, by universal suffrage, the mission representatives who make the laws. This reform is accomplished, the taxes rob the poor to benefit the rich will be promptly removed and replaced by other bases established on the contrary. Instead take the proletariat industrious to give to the rich, the tax will seize the superfluous idle for distribution among the mass of poor people that lack of money.”

   What Blanqui describes here is a reversal of the tax code of the time. Instead of taxing the poor to benefit the rich, taxes would now be levied upon the rich for redistribution of resources to the poor. Comment upon the sustainability of such an approach over the long term and specifically consider from whence the wealth to be redistributed to the poor will ultimately and continually come from.

6.   In “Manifest of Equals” Babeuf asserts the equality of all citizens and calls for France to “reach for something more sublime and more just: the common good or the community of goods! No more individual property in land: the land belongs to no one. We demand, we want, the common enjoyment of the fruits of the land: the fruits belong to all. We declare that we can no longer put up with the fact that the great majority work and sweat for the smallest of minorities. This is the classic conflict between “labor” and the “capitalists” whose resources organize that labor to produce, goods, services and ultimately wealth. My question to you as the reader of this essay is that if the fruits of labor and industry belong to all, where does the ongoing source of capital come from to continually and sustainably keep all people employed? 

7.   Since this socialist model first proposed by Babeuf is the one that is most frequently advocated by many environmentalists as a way to increase justice and protect the environment, make an argument regarding why this approach IS and alternately IS NOT sustainable.  

8.   Babeuf also found himself before a French court defending his revolutionary views. During his defense he asserted that: “WE WERE BETTER OFF UNDER THE KINGS THAN WE ARE UNDER THE [French] REPUBLIC.” Babeuf attributes this state of affairs to what he refers to as the “three roots of public misfortune,” namely (1) “the progeny of property-heredity, (2) alienation and (3) the diversity of value that arbitrary opinion, as sole master, is able to assign to the various types of production and labor,” Accordingly Babeuf assigns “all the vices of society to these ills claiming that they serve to “isolate all the members of society” and  “make of every household a little republic consecrated to a murderous inequality, which can do nothing but conspire against the large republic.” Babeuf proposes rectifying this situation by creating a larger republic dedicated to the needs and desires of the “common welfare” rather than catering to the agendas of each and every individual household.  This concept of a “common household” has become popular again in the ecological literature as evidenced in the poetry of Gary Snyder. Who should be determining the extent of your personal household given the social demands for equality and justice and the ecological demand for sustainability? Please explain.  

9.        “The institution of private property is a surprise that was foisted upon the mass of simple and honest souls. The laws of this institution must necessarily bring about the existence of fortunate and unfortunate, of masters and slaves.” In this way Babeuf he calls for the elimination of private property for the realization of shared property. Is this sustainable over the long haul? Is this a world you care to live in? Please explain.    

10.    Identify and discuss the two forms of inequality Rousseau describes and tell me what   solution he provides for these – if any.  

11.   Rousseau describes the first human beings in this way.

“If we strip this being, thus constituted, of all the supernatural gifts he may have received, and all the artificial faculties he can have acquired only by a long process; if we consider him, in a word, just as he must have come from the hands of nature, we behold in him an animal weaker than some, and less agile than others; but, taking him all round, the most advantageously organised of any. I see him satisfying his hunger at the first oak, and slaking his thirst at the first brook; finding his bed at the foot of the tree which afforded him a repast; and, with that, all his wants supplied.”

 

“While the earth was left to its natural fertility and covered with immense forests, whose trees were never mutilated by the axe, it would present on every side both sustenance and shelter for every species of animal. Men, dispersed up and down among the rest, would observe and imitate their industry, and thus attain even to the instinct of the beasts, with the advantage that, whereas every species of brutes was confined to one particular instinct, man, who perhaps has not any one peculiar to himself, would appropriate them all, and live upon most of those different foods which other animals shared among themselves; and thus would find his subsistence much more easily than any of the rest.”

What are the implications of this naturalistic ecological philosophy when applied to contemporary human culture and society? Does this philosophy imply that human consumption of natural resources is by definition good because human beings, as natural animals, are by nature good?