Oh no I absolutely agree with just about all of that, and the colonists were absolutely violent and self interested. I just don’t think you can call them reactionary in the context. The monarchists were the reactionaries that were only limiting settlement to prevent any further costly wars and keep settlers in their zone of control where they could be taxed, not for any noble cause. I feel like I’m just splitting hairs now though and drifting from your actual point which is valid, that most modern Americans have this flowery and childish view that the revolution was a battle of good vs evil. That never really plays out in reality across time. Those Brits garrisoned in Boston definitely had it coming though.
It seems our issue is that you believe only one side of this conflict can be reactionary. In this case your view is that the colonists are a progressive political force while the British colonial/mercantile monarchy is conservative. I understand how you could see it this way from a purely political perspective in regards to liberal democracy and monarchism. However, I view political organs like this as superstructural manifestations of a material reality.
The colonists and imperial core of England lived very different lives and their mode of production or the way in which they made their livings were distinct from eachother. This was the beginnings of industrial capitalism in europe and as such it was quite tumultuous. Semi-feudal aristocracies were trying to maintain control of their domestic growing bourgeois (because the growth of the bourgeoisie sapped the rural peasant labor force that created aristocratic wealth as the new proletarian class concrentrated into urban centers) through taxation and direct limitations on business while also regularly going to war with eachother. I’m sure you know the story of how this affected the colonies.
Things in the colonies were different though. Unlike europe they had so much fucking land ripe for plunder and unlike europe their mercantile bourgeoisie was on a far looser leash (at least for a time) due to their lack of direct threat to aristocratic land holding. Also unlike europe the constant flux of migrants meant they HAD to expand. The primarily scots-irish frontiersman were largely landless and sought the frontier because the metropolitan bourgeois could not provide enough work for the shear amount of them. If they did not expand westward and acquire land for these landless and jobless immigrants they might end up with some class conflict of their own. Problem is, the imperial core was sorta broke and especially after the French and Indian War it saw conflict with indigenous peoples as not worth it. The colonies had also become somewhat unprofitable to them by this point (which I think was due to the actions of the colonial bourgeoisie on the east coast but it could have been more of a structural thing and I am mostly making an educated guess here). As a result the British aristocracy did all the things I’m sure you already know about to maintain their way of life and as a result of that the colonist said no fuck you that would make our way of life impossible and revolted.
Do you kind see what I mean when I say both were reactionary now? They were both desperately attempting to maintain their way of life and in the case of the colonial bourgeois, their power and priviledge. I agree that some good and “progressive” ideas came out of the American revolutionary period but we must also analyze why they came about, who’s interest they served, and to what extent they were applied.
Yeah that all makes sense, I appreciate you taking the time to write it out. I guess the only colonialists I’d really feel comfortable painting as progressive would be the Quakers, and even they had their issues
Oh no I absolutely agree with just about all of that, and the colonists were absolutely violent and self interested. I just don’t think you can call them reactionary in the context. The monarchists were the reactionaries that were only limiting settlement to prevent any further costly wars and keep settlers in their zone of control where they could be taxed, not for any noble cause. I feel like I’m just splitting hairs now though and drifting from your actual point which is valid, that most modern Americans have this flowery and childish view that the revolution was a battle of good vs evil. That never really plays out in reality across time. Those Brits garrisoned in Boston definitely had it coming though.
It seems our issue is that you believe only one side of this conflict can be reactionary. In this case your view is that the colonists are a progressive political force while the British colonial/mercantile monarchy is conservative. I understand how you could see it this way from a purely political perspective in regards to liberal democracy and monarchism. However, I view political organs like this as superstructural manifestations of a material reality.
The colonists and imperial core of England lived very different lives and their mode of production or the way in which they made their livings were distinct from eachother. This was the beginnings of industrial capitalism in europe and as such it was quite tumultuous. Semi-feudal aristocracies were trying to maintain control of their domestic growing bourgeois (because the growth of the bourgeoisie sapped the rural peasant labor force that created aristocratic wealth as the new proletarian class concrentrated into urban centers) through taxation and direct limitations on business while also regularly going to war with eachother. I’m sure you know the story of how this affected the colonies.
Things in the colonies were different though. Unlike europe they had so much fucking land ripe for plunder and unlike europe their mercantile bourgeoisie was on a far looser leash (at least for a time) due to their lack of direct threat to aristocratic land holding. Also unlike europe the constant flux of migrants meant they HAD to expand. The primarily scots-irish frontiersman were largely landless and sought the frontier because the metropolitan bourgeois could not provide enough work for the shear amount of them. If they did not expand westward and acquire land for these landless and jobless immigrants they might end up with some class conflict of their own. Problem is, the imperial core was sorta broke and especially after the French and Indian War it saw conflict with indigenous peoples as not worth it. The colonies had also become somewhat unprofitable to them by this point (which I think was due to the actions of the colonial bourgeoisie on the east coast but it could have been more of a structural thing and I am mostly making an educated guess here). As a result the British aristocracy did all the things I’m sure you already know about to maintain their way of life and as a result of that the colonist said no fuck you that would make our way of life impossible and revolted.
Do you kind see what I mean when I say both were reactionary now? They were both desperately attempting to maintain their way of life and in the case of the colonial bourgeois, their power and priviledge. I agree that some good and “progressive” ideas came out of the American revolutionary period but we must also analyze why they came about, who’s interest they served, and to what extent they were applied.
Yeah that all makes sense, I appreciate you taking the time to write it out. I guess the only colonialists I’d really feel comfortable painting as progressive would be the Quakers, and even they had their issues
explaining history to strangers on the internet is a favorite past time for me. I am glad I described it well enough :)