The Old Regime: Industry and Trade

The Old Regime: Industry and Trade

• Monarchs primarily drove industry in the Ancient Regime, aiming to revamp production through royal factories
• These factories were essentially large artisanal workshops, not modern industries, mainly producing weapons or luxury items without modern machinery
• Trade faced limitations due to slowness, yet saw progress through merchant societies, technological advances like letters of exchange and improved naval transport, and the end of monetary scarcity
• During the Old Regime, there were two primary types of trade

Foreign Trade

• Foreign trade experienced significant growth due to increased exchanges between Europe and America
• The monarchy granted trade monopolies to specific commercial companies

Domestic Trade

• Domestic trade faced challenges due to guild controls, varying regional weights and measures, and internal customs, hindering trade between regions
• However, this activity solidified the economic power of the bourgeoisie

Economic Doctrines

• During this time, there were two dominant schools of thought: mercantilism, and the physiocats

Mercantilism

• It was an economic theory based on the belief that global wealth was fixed, advocating that each state should secure the largest possible share
• This aimed to gather precious metals and achieve a favorable trade balance by exporting more than importing
• Governments pursued economic nationalism through measures that promoted national industry, regulated production and trade, supported foreign market conquest, and imposed protectionist policies.

Physiocracy

• This emerged in France as a reaction against state intervention in mercantilism
• Its founder, François Quesnay, argued that agriculture was uniquely capable of generating a surplus without harming its source
• It also generated wealth exceeding the costs of seeds and labor
• It favored agricultural development, stimulated individual initiative, advocated for free trade, and pushed for the removal of trade barriers and taxes

The Political System of Absolutism

• In an absolutist system, all political power within a state was concentrated in the figure of the king
• Representative assemblies had limited power
• Government decisions were made directly by the monarch, with advice from counselors
• Some monarchs delegated decisions to a chief minister, someone they fully trusted

Absolute Monarchies

• To strengthen their authority, absolute monarchies relied on a large administrative apparatus staffed by officials paid by the central authority
• they managed tax collection to finance bureaucracy, the court, and external wars

Theoretical Foundations

• Thinkers of the time justified absolutism

Jacques Bossuet

• This French bishop argued in "Politics Drawn from the Holy Scriptures" that the king was God's representative on Earth
• According to Jacques, all the power the king possessed came directly from God
• Monarchs did not need to answer to anyone for their actions, serving as intermediaries between the divine and the people and embodying the law

Thomas Hobbes

• This English philosopher believed absolutism was the only system capable of ensuring social peace
• In "Leviathan," he suggested all people are equal with similar goals, but their simultaneous pursuit makes them enemies
• In order to live peacefully, people had to give up some rights to the State, which thus needed a strong power to maintain peace

Absolutism Characteristics

• According to absolutism advocates, a monarch's power should control external powers, centralize kingdom administration, subject nobility, establish a permanent army, and repress political discord
• Throughout the 17th century, most European countries would engage in struggles between absolutism and its main political adversary, parliamentarianism

Parliamentary Criticism

• The parliamentarians criticized the theses that justified concentrating power in the hands of a king without accountability
• They postulated that power should be shared between monarch and parliament to prevent monarchs from becoming tyrants

France: The Model Absolutist State

• After the religious wars of the 16th century, France recovered under Henry IV, who laid the foundation for future French hegemony
• In 1610, his son Louis XIII succeeded him

The Era of Richelieu

• During the early years of Louis XIII’s reign, he faced a period of internal instability
• Louis XIII turned to Cardinal Armand-Jean du Plessis, Cardinal-Duke of Richelieu, appointing him as his first minister
• Richelieu aimed to strengthen royal authority and consolidate France's power in Europe
• Richelieu subdued the nobility, neutralized Protestants, and strengthened France's military power

Reign of Richelieu and Mazarino

• Cardinal Mazarino succeeded him in 1642
• The next year, Louis XIII passed, and his son Louis XIV prevailed
• Mazarino continued Richelieu's policies and completed the Thirty Years' War

The Government of Louis XIV

• When Mazarino died in 1661, Louis XIV assumed direct control of the government without choosing a first minister
• Under his rule, the French state became the model for subsequent absolute monarchs
• He was supported by efficient but limited ministers
• He developed three primary areas of governance

Economy

• This was led by Jean-Baptiste Colbert
• Colbert, a supporter of mercantilism, encouraged exports, reduced imports, promoted national industry, and improved the tax system

Internal Policy

• Louis XIV fully centralized the administration of the kingdom
• The nobility, while retaining vestiges of feudalism, was reformed into the court, fully dependent on the monarch
• Nobles lived at the Palace of Versailles, focused solely on enhancing the king's majesty
• He revoked the Edict of Nantes in religious affairs

International Politics

• The king based his foreign policy on the principle of France's natural borders: the Pyrenees to the south and the Rhine to the east
• The last was the War of Spanish Succession, which ended with the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht
• House of Bourbon was formed with the unification of the crowns of France and Spain; Philip V was recognized solely as the Spanish king,

Accomplishments

• Among his primary achievements was the Palace of Versailles, which Louis XIV commissioned in 1668 to symbolize Europe’s most powerful monarchy
• Louis also advanced scientific inquiry, founding the French Academy of Sciences in 1666
• He died in 1715, leaving a larger territory and a respected nation internationally, although its economy had been weakened by years of warfare