WHAT IS POLITICS? cover image

5. How Do We Know What Left and Right Mean? Who’s who on the left and right: 1789-1917

WHAT IS POLITICS?

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Markets and Capitalism in the French Revolution

Right wing delegates wanted the state to reinforce economic hierarchies of the encient regime. Left wing delegates on the left wanted to eliminate those hierarchies in favor of equal treatment before the law. In this era, capitalism was barely in its infancy and Adam smith's wealth of nations had only come out 15 years earlier. Wealth doesn't just give you power to buy all things he wants; it also restricts political liberty as well. The individual is firmly on the revolutionary left, and the collective is squarely on the traditional right.

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