Debates over economics were pivotal long before the revolution, particularly revolving around the price of grain. The dominant philosophers at the time were known as the physio-crats. But there were also conversations about other kinds of ways to ameliorate those markets. And what happens during the revolution is that as food shortages emerge and prices begin to rise, these debates are renewed.
Featuring Laura Mason on her book The Last Revolutionaries: The Conspiracy Trial of Gracchus Babeuf and the Equals. Mason discusses Babeuf's call to abolish property, his radically egalitarian conspiracy against the Directory government, and the end of the French Revolution. How a centrist government turned its back on popular democracy, presided over growing inequality and working-class poverty, and abetted the rise of the reactionary right that would ultimately overthrow it.
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