Facebook Follies of Friends and Families

[Berkut]

My contention is that it is hard to know if they were extra weights. They might have been balloons, that just didn't matter because the weight he had already was too great to overcome regardless.

The american revolution ended in 1783. The french revolution was in 1789. So even with the ~50% increase in debt the state was able to avoid reckoning for 6 more years. It seems rather counterintuitive to think that France was doomed in 1777 considering how much longer they persisted with additional debt.

Also, the "prestige" of generated for the monarchy in France through the american revolution in no way was going to offset the budget pressures. "Sure we are now insolvent and taxes will have to go way up but the king helped some of the territories of the UK break away" doesn't seem like a winning trade.

They were insolvent BECAUSE they couldn't effectively raise taxes, and that was true before they took on a bunch more debt to fight another war.

You are assuming that France could have survived had they simply decided to stop playing the continental power game altogether. Perhaps they could have, but history doesn't suggest that was much of an option, since they never did, even after their revolution.

I don't see them helping out the Americans as a isolated event, but rather as just another item in a long list of items that all came back to the continued contention between France and England that didn't end until well after the events in question.

You might as well argue about whether they should have fought the Seven Years War. In hindsight, certainly not since they lost that one rather badly.

[The Minsky Moment]

France could fight the continental power game and it could try to build a great overseas empire, but to try to do both at the same time with the available resources was folly. 

Washington's bungling in western Pennsylvania shouldn't detract from the broader point that France was overextending herself by trying to project power into the Alleghany in the first place.   In comparison, Britain, whose financial resources were more considerable, was careful to put limits on its continental commitments, even it meant compromising the security of the ancestral holding of the dynasty.

[grumbler]

They were insolvent BECAUSE they couldn't effectively raise taxes, and that was true before they took on a bunch more debt to fight another war.

You are assuming that France could have survived had they simply decided to stop playing the continental power game altogether. Perhaps they could have, but history doesn't suggest that was much of an option, since they never did, even after their revolution.

I don't see them helping out the Americans as a isolated event, but rather as just another item in a long list of items that all came back to the continued contention between France and England that didn't end until well after the events in question.

You might as well argue about whether they should have fought the Seven Years War. In hindsight, certainly not since they lost that one rather badly.

France was not insolvent in 1776.  Turgot lost his job because of political factors, not economic ones.  It was the American Revolution costs that motivated Necker to move to deficit spending, and thus precipitate the economic crisis that would eventually bring down the regime.

[alfred russel]

My contention is that it is hard to know if they were extra weights. They might have been balloons, that just didn't matter because the weight he had already was too great to overcome regardless.

The american revolution ended in 1783. The french revolution was in 1789. So even with the ~50% increase in debt the state was able to avoid reckoning for 6 more years. It seems rather counterintuitive to think that France was doomed in 1777 considering how much longer they persisted with additional debt.

Also, the "prestige" of generated for the monarchy in France through the american revolution in no way was going to offset the budget pressures. "Sure we are now insolvent and taxes will have to go way up but the king helped some of the territories of the UK break away" doesn't seem like a winning trade.

They were insolvent BECAUSE they couldn't effectively raise taxes, and that was true before they took on a bunch more debt to fight another war.

You are assuming that France could have survived had they simply decided to stop playing the continental power game altogether. Perhaps they could have, but history doesn't suggest that was much of an option, since they never did, even after their revolution.

I don't see them helping out the Americans as a isolated event, but rather as just another item in a long list of items that all came back to the continued contention between France and England that didn't end until well after the events in question.

You might as well argue about whether they should have fought the Seven Years War. In hindsight, certainly not since they lost that one rather badly.

regarding the point in bold, i'm not.

Whatever its limits the old regime didn't collapse until 1789 and had been playing the empire game and the continental europe game until then. Without a massive increase in debt there is every reason it could have avoided a crisis for a considerable time longer. Louis XVI probably would have enjoyed living another 5-10 years, and maybe the situation would have developed more to the monarchy's advantage with more time.

If you are facing an existential debt crisis, don't you think it is a mistake to enter a massively expensive war that, even if successful, won't help you much beyond weakening an adversary you couldn't afford to fight anyway?

[grumbler]

The "success" of the United States in the early years was very much up for debate - including for many Americans themselves. If the United States had any influence, it was in providing vocabulary and expand on concepts - not political models for nation building, which, for an overwhelming majority of French political activists, was moot - because the situation between a colony and a millenial monarchy was so alien to one another. 

The American example, though, showed that prosperity was possible even when the wealthy commoners had a voice in government.  more than anything, IMO, the French Revolution was caused by the desire of the French bourgeoisie to have the kind of voice in politics that, say, the American ones had.

[viper37]

What I mean by "they could afford it" is that a country of their size should have been able to afford that expenditure without it leading to a crisis.

Great Britain, for example, spent a hell of a lot more in that losing war, and their entire political and economic system did not disintegrate. And Great Britain was smaller then France.

Great Britain had a lot more colonies while France lost most of them in the previous war.  13 US Colonies, Canada's founding colonies, Newfoundland, African colonies, Jamaica and other Carribean territories, most of India, Ireland and Scotland.  the UK was making money from spice, the slave trade, sugar trade.

France had France, a few Carribean sugar islands and that's it.  Don't understimate how soundly beaten by Prussia was France in the 7 Years Wars.

UK may have been smaller, but it's empire was gigantic compared to what was left of France.  Had France won the 7YW and kept its empire mostly intact, the monarchy could have survived a while longer.

The problem was not the amount spent, the problem was their fucked up political and economic system that didn't allow the government to manage its expenses or raise money properly. And that problem was going to have severe consequences regardless of taking on yet some more debt they would never manage to repay.

It was an unwise decision in restrospect.  At the time, France certainly hoped to do commerce with the US.  Which would have offset the debt incurred.

I don't think Louis XVI was opposed to any kind of reform, but at the same time, I don't think he would have willingly signed on to a Constitutional monarchy and there's no way the nobility were to accept losing their priviledges, despite what some of them attempted, or more accurately, tried to convince the King of their necessity.

By constantly refusing to tax the nobility and insitute a form of equality between classes (only the nobility could become military officers, and so many other things), the monarchy was doomed.

Militarily, France has lost its edge, and they knew it since the Austrian war of succession; they even knew what they had to do, but couldn't resort to strongarm the nobles and face another Fronde.

Anyhow.  For the debt and the spread of republican & democratic ideals in French, getting involved in the American Revolution, was, in retrospect, an unwise idea for the French monarchy.

Helping the ennemy of your ennemy in 1776 however, that's a wise idea.

[Josquius]

Helping in the American revolution was wise for France ala the nation if you're playing it like a Strategy game. They effectively gained the US as a colony sans having to pay for any admin and defence.

Empowering merchants and showing that anti monarchic democratic republics are viable in large states - less good for the ancien regime.

[Razgovory]

Viper, you suck at history.

[grumbler]

Actually, the "three generations of nobility" requirement for army officers was just a jobs program.  The petty nobility couldn't afford not to work but couldn't get jobs, either. Men like Louis-Nicolas Davout came from impoverished by noble families that could not have provided for him and he had no future except the military.  And the "three generations of nobility" requirement was really only strongly observed in the cavalry and did not apply to the artillery or any of the support services.

[Berkut]

What I mean by "they could afford it" is that a country of their size should have been able to afford that expenditure without it leading to a crisis.

Great Britain, for example, spent a hell of a lot more in that losing war, and their entire political and economic system did not disintegrate. And Great Britain was smaller then France.

Great Britain had a lot more colonies while France lost most of them in the previous war.  13 US Colonies, Canada's founding colonies, Newfoundland, African colonies, Jamaica and other Carribean territories, most of India, Ireland and Scotland.  the UK was making money from spice, the slave trade, sugar trade.

France had France, a few Carribean sugar islands and that's it.  Don't understimate how soundly beaten by Prussia was France in the 7 Years Wars.

UK may have been smaller, but it's empire was gigantic compared to what was left of France.  Had France won the 7YW and kept its empire mostly intact, the monarchy could have survived a while longer.

France had three or four times the population of the Great Britain in 1770.

Sorry, you are not going to convince me that GB was able to finance a war with the Americans on their own without falling apart, and France could not just HELP the Americans, and the difference was just that GB had a larger empire.

Bullshit.

20 years later France was managing to fund wars that made the American Revolution look like a spat between neighbors, and they didn't somehow find a gigantic global empire in the meantime.

The difference was that they threw out their fucked up national system and replaced it with a better one, at least better at being able to fund massive endeavors like a war.

Sending some arms and ships across the Atlantic to help out the Americans stick it to GB should have been completely doable for a nation the size of France, if it had managed to modernize its national economic system.

My point here not being that they should have done that (that seems obvious) but that the cost of helping out the US did not break France - France was already broken. Badly. 

[Razgovory]

Those little sugar islands were worth more than the whole of Canada.

[Tonitrus]

If only maple syrup were developed sooner.

Keep an eye out for my upcoming novel, "Syrup of the North".

[Syt]

[viper37]

France had three or four times the population of the Great Britain in 1770.

Sorry, you are not going to convince me that GB was able to finance a war with the Americans on their own without falling apart, and France could not just HELP the Americans, and the difference was just that GB had a larger empire.

Bullshit.

Great Britain was an Empire in 1776.  France was just a country with a couple of colonies.

France had already lost Northern Canada (Hudson Bay) and Acadia in 1713. They lost everything else in America in 1759.  Can't remember the date they lost India.

It's a world wide empire, not just the country.  The British were still collecting taxes and duties from most of their American colonies for part of the war.  France had zero revenue from the non existent New France and zero revenue from its non existent Indian colonies.

I'm sorry, but as long as you insist on comparing country to country instead of empires, your analysis will be flawed.

[viper37]

Those little sugar islands were worth more than the whole of Canada.

From a certain point of view.