Lessons from the 19th Century for the 21st Century

These days, it's common to hear that the imperialist excesses of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin hark back to the 19th century. But, imperial issues aside, there are other, perhaps deeper, similarities with that century. The first half of the 21st century, like the first half of the 19th, is an era of romanticism and fear, of technological advances and social crises, of distrust in parliamentary systems and unbridled capitalism.

It's not too risky to say that the most important event of the 19th century was the European revolutions of 1848. Karl Marx studied the one that took place in France, then the epicenter of global political innovation, and used highly pejorative terms to describe it in his work. The 18th Brumaire of Louis BonaparteMarx compared 1848 to the French Revolution of 1789 and coined, paraphrasing Hegel, a famous phrase: "History repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce." Certainly, the events of 1848 culminated, in France, in the election of Louis Bonaparte as president and, in 1851, in the self-coup by which he proclaimed himself emperor. The only truly grand thing about the man who chose to call himself Napoleon III was his uncle's surname, and the most prominent commentators of the time, from Marx himself to Victor Hugo, described him as Donald Trump is often described today: an ambitious, egocentric, and bombastic clown. The revolutions of 1848 had a strong proletarian component, and the bitterness of their failure was perhaps what led Marx to an error in judgment. In 1789 the bourgeoisie seized power. In 1848 bourgeois power was challenged for the first time. There was no repetition or "miserable farce," but an original and transcendent phenomenon.

Since the beginning of the 19th century, the Industrial Revolution, which had begun in Great Britain, had taken hold on the European continent (then hegemonic). Competition and price wars between companies, technological advances (from the locomotive to the power loom), and increasing urbanization were impoverishing and making manual labor more precarious. With the fall of the old regime, the traditional mechanisms for protecting the working classes (guilds, common lands, etc.) had disappeared, and others, such as trade unions, had not yet emerged.

In his book Revolutionary Spring In his 2024 book, historian Christopher Clark describes (better than Marx) the context in which the revolutions of 1848 unfolded. Poverty and precarious employment, with men, women, and children working grueling hours in factories, combined with nationalism and romantic idealism, the rise of the press as a mass medium, and increasing inequality. What happened in Paris? Neither the upper bourgeoisie nor the proletariat felt represented by the National Assembly created after the fall in 1848 of the "citizen king," Louis Philippe of Orléans, and the proclamation of the Second Republic. Paradoxically, the two most opposing social sectors agreed in rejecting parliamentarianism and placing a "strongman," Louis Napoleon, soon to become Napoleon III, in power. His administration was filled with those who, just months before, had been revolutionaries.

Just like now, the richest and the poorest alike opted (this infuriated Marx) for an authoritarian and reactionary government, that of Napoleon III: see the current rise of the far right. Just like now, there was a lack of valid ideological reference points (terms like "socialism," "liberalism," and "communism" only became popular in the second half of the 19th century). Just like now, the rich were getting richer and the poor (including the wage-earning middle class) getting poorer. Just like now, housing was an unaffordable luxury for most. Just like now, capitalism lacked limits and controls. Just like now, democratic ideals seemed defeated. Just like now, warmongering and imperialism dominated relations between nations.

History doesn't repeat itself. It simply continues.