French Industrialization

Admiral Matt: So does this mean that the successful middle class (in France), instead of remaining burghers, just becomes new blood aristocracy, and the lack of...whatever it is remains?

Trying to fathom how this means what it seems to mean.
 
Admiral Matt: So does this mean that the successful middle class (in France), instead of remaining burghers, just becomes new blood aristocracy, and the lack of...whatever it is remains?

Trying to fathom how this means what it seems to mean.
Well that's what helped to bourgeoisie in Spain. Once you had enough money you could do the things to get yourself into the lower rungs of the aristocracy like buy rural land and arm yourself to fight, and they did with all the tax emotions and privileges. Combine that with the wool guys being rich enough that they don't need to industrialize for money... Hmm now come to think of it I am off to start a Spanish version of this thread.
 
Damnit, my original post got deleted- stupid new mouse. I lean towards Left-Libertarianism so take this with a grain of salt if you love capitalism :D, but I am of the belief here that improved success in colonial ventures would significantly help the cause of French industrialization. Particularly in India and New France (Quebec AND Louisiana). Here's a few ideas I've had in the past and may explore if I have the time myself butL

- The Edict of Nantes can still happen, just have the King or Richlieu or someone with authority permit huguenots to settle in the New World. New France was sort of governed as a 'Christian paradise'; if you innovate a court official who does not hold this view then it could happen anywhere, but otherwise Louisiana was then a claimed but largely unsettled portion of the territory. If huguenots are given free reign to settle there and form a royal colony, if they're lucky with no significant hurricanes/diseases/angry Native Americans turning off future potential settlers an amerique française colony with portable wealth could emerge- one that the King/bureaucracy probably couldn't ignore over time easily (given wealth = more taxable capital) but one that could also gain the capital that incentivizes industrialization.

- More importantly I think, improved and earlier adventures in India could roll things along nicely. The wealth generated from a more territorially stable French India would likewise create a merchant class with the capital to buy land and subsidize technological innovations to help along industrialization.

These are just loose, haphazard guesses I'm tossing out before my exam so- I'd need to sit down and brush up again on pre-Industrial France and their colonial adventures in America, but I don't think these could hurt :D

EDIT: I realize a problem then emerges in "why didn't Spain industrialize then, given all their colonial adventures around the world?" I'll ponder that for a few minutes and see what I come up with.
EDIT2: The answer I fear is long-winded and my analysis, while incomplete and by no means exclusive, is nonetheless is useful for just conceptualizing some ways to get this TL to happen. The jist of what I'd imagine is colonial wealth, in the hands of an entrepreneurial merchant class with some political clout gives any given regime the capacity to develop industrial technology but reaching that capacity takes a number of different factors (as mentioned, mills, geography, the actual innovation and luck :D) that- if you want to just explore it, I'd say just make them come together.
 
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They do not, but they can produce circumstances that incentivize and enable industrialization. I imagine a key here is that the wealth is not controlled by a monopolistic monarchical regime who are prone to wasting it on bureaucracy or military adventures, but instead a distinct mercantile/commercial class with an interest in wealth-making. Which is a big difference in experiences of colonialism and wealth in Britain and Spain.

Not saying it's exclusive or the only reason- this could easily boil down to Max Weber (and I'm surprised no one's even brought it up), but I think it dose contribute.

Colonial adventures in and of themselves do not produce long term wealth.

There. :D
 
They do not, but they can produce circumstances that incentivize and enable industrialization. I imagine a key here is that the wealth is not controlled by a monopolistic monarchical regime who are prone to wasting it on bureaucracy or military adventures, but instead a distinct mercantile/commercial class with an interest in wealth-making. Which is a big difference in experiences of colonialism and wealth in Britain and Spain.

Not saying it's exclusive or the only reason- this could easily boil down to Max Weber (and I'm surprised no one's even brought it up), but I think it dose contribute.

Agreed. Its just that those elements have to happen, and they are conspicuous by their absence in OTL Spain's colonialism - so naturally the possibilities never amount to anything.

A monarchicial regime isn't necessarily a bad thing, but this particularly monarchy and its ideology (religious and otherwise) is the antithesis of what you need. And France isn't much better. So...we get Britain beating them. Badly.

I think Britain even without any particular colonial success would do about the same simply because it isn't laboring under the burdens Spain and France are. National wealth lead to national power in Britain, rather than being consumed in pursuit of power in Spain.
 
Not to get off topic but is their a way for France to pick up the industrial revolution earliar and right after the Napeoleonic wars... with Napoleon losing of course:D?

How will the French Ideology need to change in order for France to start having a larger middle class in the first case?
 
The British Empire and naval supremacy has to be killed off. Otherwise the British are going to dominate the textile trade and win the race to industrialise as per OTL.
 
I agree with others that you need to knock the British off the perch in addition to getting France in a better position.

One of the biggest things for getting this to happen is the lack of free trade within France until after the revolution. There's so many internal trade barriers, local taxes, municipal guild laws etc, it has a severe disadvantage compared to England. These really need to be cleared for an industrial revolution to have a run away effect.

I also agree that grabbing parts of the low countries would give a bigger middle class base. Keeping the Huguenots would also help, as would maybe having more attractive policies for Jewish immigration.

Potentially give the City of Paris more early autonomy, in an analogue to the City of London corporation, as an early POD. This forms a strong lobby for pro-capitalist policies. Then later on have an Enlightened monarch who decides to make big strides to replicate Paris' success nationwide.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
Does France have the right geography? Advances in coal mining was one of the major drivers of Industrialization, and Britain has more coal (and easier to access coal reserves) than France (situated only in the North-East of the country), as far as I know.

They don't have as much coal, but they do have plenty of iron ore.
 
I just want to ask a few more questions

1. How can you create a more rapid french economic expansion after them losing the Napoleonic wars?

2. After the Napoleonic wars how can you get the French population to grow at a rate similiar to Great Britain?
 
This would go a long way imo, since it centralizing commercialization in Paris could create an influencial commercial class with more political capital than they held iotl.

Potentially give the City of Paris more early autonomy, in an analogue to the City of London corporation, as an early POD. This forms a strong lobby for pro-capitalist policies. Then later on have an Enlightened monarch who decides to make big strides to replicate Paris' success nationwide.
 
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