Three ideological what ifs

...because making three separate threads in a row would be pushing it a bit too much.
What would the ideological landscape of the XXth century look like if:
  1. The French Revolution had never happened (and no other revolutionnary state had ever conquered much of Europe)
  2. Hegel wasn't born, or had never written any philosophy
  3. Marx wasn't born, or had never written politics, sociology or economics
?
 
Really Scenario 1 takes care of the other two, as Hegel's views on history were shaped by what he saw during the era of the Revolution and Marx was heavily influenced by Hegel.

Beyond that observation, my knowledge in this era is thinner than I'd like, but I'll take a stab at it.

No Hegel means less determinism in the study of history (that's a good thing, IMO)... We'd get none of this "end of history" bull crap, or at least not in OTL's form.

No Marx obviously means no Marxism/Communism, etc... At least not as he envisioned it. Though it should be noted that the ideas Marx used were floating around well before his time, and even if he doesn't pick them up and try to warp them into a coherent philosophy, someone else probably will... It'll just look a bit different from OTL's "communism".
 
that whole "end of history" thing makes my blood boil! So the USSR falling apart = Capitalism has triumphed over the planet?

Since the French Revolution and before the very idea of Communism has existed. The French were just the first to stoke the embryos. arguably the Paris Commune created the flames. The USSR extinguished the fire for the most part.
 
To prevent the French Revolution from happening, you really need to significantly change the way France operated. The Three Estate system was doomed for failure, especially with the arrogance that the clergy and nobility embraced(this coming from a descendant of a powerful Breton family). The best that you can hope for is that the Revolution goes in a much less radical fashion. This is somewhat easy with two changes:
1) Members of the Estates Generals can serve in the national assembly (thus providing cohesion and giving Siese, Lafayette, and other moderates some real power)
2) The King never attempts to flee. There are some really odd moments where the Revolutionaries chant "Vive le Revolution! Vive le Roy!" There wasn't so much anger at the monarch as there was at the nobles and clergy. If the King stays on the good graces of the people by not attempting to dip out, then it's quite likely the Girondists stay in power and create a Constitutional Monarchy.

If these two things happen, then Napoleon never comes to power and you never see a revolutionary nation dancing on top of Europe.
 
What, you want more?

OK, I think we need to bear in mind the 19th century was a period of dual revolution. Quite aside from the specific confluence of events of 1789 and immediately after in France, capitalism was reshaping society in Britain, in the Lowlands, and of course in France and Germany, the rest of Europe and the world.

I don't think the Revolution in France was simply the sprouting of a seed of a mere idea that blew over from the American Revolution across the Atlantic. All of these revolutions were earthquakes driven by the deep strains of new economic modes that shifted the pattern of social relations.

No major political revolutions means one of two things--either the ongoing transformation of society due to the evolution of capitalist economy had to slow down toward an effective halt (which I see absolutely no mechanism to cause, as it was a pervasive trend based in the nature of economics and private enterprise, scattered all across Europe and indeed the world); or we imagine a long and broad succession of political leadership atop the old regimes possessed of an incisive political and diplomatic wisdom far above the standard that actually prevailed, making one astute adjustment after another in careful and considerate concert with each other, to gradually and empirically modify the old political and social forms to accommodate a new economic order the like of which the world had never seen before, in such a fashion that the alarms and discontents of both the common working people and the ranks of their social "betters" were sufficiently considered and balanced that no configuration of them would, as Alexis de Tocqueville defined revolution, "see a way of solving their problems with one bold step."

The latter being just as ASB, or more so, than the former. At least we can imagine a sweeping reactionary panic willing to brutally sacrifice the obvious gains and benefits of the expanding global economy in fear of the unpredictable tomorrow they might bring, and crude methods to nail down society in place. It would be a Revolution as disruptive and bloody as 1789 and all that of course, and in the service of a fearful and defeatist vision, and offering by definition no progress unless it failed. But at least we can credit such a negative foresight. To have a positive foresight would indeed require something like divine prophecy.

No, I think that political revolution in some form, somewhere, was as inevitable as earthquakes, due to inexorable subterranean forces building up stresses in material not supple enough to always flow smoothly along the course they drive toward. Preventing or postponing it in France around the 1790s just means other pressures diverted OTL by the polarization of Europe caused by the great French revolution built up elsewhere and elsewhen taking some other unforewarned European Old Regime (Great Britain, for instance) by surprise.
 
What, you want more?

OK, I think we need to bear in mind the 19th century was a period of dual revolution. Quite aside from the specific confluence of events of 1789 and immediately after in France, capitalism was reshaping society in Britain, in the Lowlands, and of course in France and Germany, the rest of Europe and the world.

I don't think the Revolution in France was simply the sprouting of a seed of a mere idea that blew over from the American Revolution across the Atlantic. All of these revolutions were earthquakes driven by the deep strains of new economic modes that shifted the pattern of social relations.

No major political revolutions means one of two things--either the ongoing transformation of society due to the evolution of capitalist economy had to slow down toward an effective halt (which I see absolutely no mechanism to cause, as it was a pervasive trend based in the nature of economics and private enterprise, scattered all across Europe and indeed the world); or we imagine a long and broad succession of political leadership atop the old regimes possessed of an incisive political and diplomatic wisdom far above the standard that actually prevailed, making one astute adjustment after another in careful and considerate concert with each other, to gradually and empirically modify the old political and social forms to accommodate a new economic order the like of which the world had never seen before, in such a fashion that the alarms and discontents of both the common working people and the ranks of their social "betters" were sufficiently considered and balanced that no configuration of them would, as Alexis de Tocqueville defined revolution, "see a way of solving their problems with one bold step."

The latter being just as ASB, or more so, than the former. At least we can imagine a sweeping reactionary panic willing to brutally sacrifice the obvious gains and benefits of the expanding global economy in fear of the unpredictable tomorrow they might bring, and crude methods to nail down society in place. It would be a Revolution as disruptive and bloody as 1789 and all that of course, and in the service of a fearful and defeatist vision, and offering by definition no progress unless it failed. But at least we can credit such a negative foresight. To have a positive foresight would indeed require something like divine prophecy.

No, I think that political revolution in some form, somewhere, was as inevitable as earthquakes, due to inexorable subterranean forces building up stresses in material not supple enough to always flow smoothly along the course they drive toward. Preventing or postponing it in France around the 1790s just means other pressures diverted OTL by the polarization of Europe caused by the great French revolution built up elsewhere and elsewhen taking some other unforewarned European Old Regime (Great Britain, for instance) by surprise.
Why couldn't what happened IOTL in the UK (gradual reform to bring the state in line with the new reality the industrial revolution had brought/was bringing about) happen elsewhere? Of course liberalism must sweep across Europe, but I don't see why there should necessarily be at least one violent revolution and subsequent conquest binge.
Anyway, thanks for your interesting post.
 
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