Social Inequality: The French Revolution

During the 1700s, France’s government was run by a three system estate system. The First Estate was made up by the powerful clergy members, while the Second Estate was made with nobles. Peasants and working men made the Third Estate, also the largest estate. In this large estate there was a little class named the Bourgeoisie was a part of the Third Estate. Though the Bourgeoisie was highly educated and always had stable professions, they were not set aside from the peasants. The Third Estate was treated very poorly during the 1700s. Life was not suitable for the working class. The mistreatment and inequality led to the French Revolution. Inequality during this time period meant that things were not the same throughout each class. Unequal power between the estates, abuse of the Third Estate, and the taxes and price raises were the three reasons that outweighed the many political, social, and economic factors that led to the French Revolution.

The social state of France was the final reason for the French Revolution. The French social class was divided into three classes that included the clergy, nobles, ant the common people. The First estate was made of the higher and lower clergy. The higher clergy lived amongst luxury while the lower clergy were miserable. The Second Estate was made of the court nobles and provincial nobles, the court nobles also lived in luxury and the provincial nobles did not enjoy the same treatment. The Third estate was made of common people such as farmers, cobblers, and sweepers. In document 10 it presents a political carton that shows people of the upper-class standing on and crushing someone of lower class. This shows how the upper class were riding

The French Revolution occurred from 1789 to 1799. A major issue during this time period in France was social classes, which included the First, Second, and Third Estate. The First and Second Estate had freedom, rights, and equality while the Third Estate had almost nothing. Third Estate got no recognition for their work, while the French Church had problems with voting, and salaries. The Third Estate formed the National Assembly to write The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen and The Civil Constitution of the Clergy. They wrote them to help fix the problems that caused the revolution. The causes of the French revolution are the French Church, the inequality of the Estates, and the minimal freedom and rights that the Third Estate has.

During the period of the French Revolution, a quest towards gaining a country with equal rights for all, began flourishing. This was influenced by the want for freedom, equality, and independence. Most of the wealth during the French Revolution belonged to the 1st and 2nd estates, otherwise known as the clergy and the nobles, which made up 3% of the population. The 3rd estate, the rest of society, made up 97% of the population. Unfortunately, the people of the third estate did not receive all of the commodities as the first and second estates, and could not say or do anything about it.

In 1798 utilitarian Thomas Malthus published An Essay on the Principle of Population as an argument against an utopian society based on social and economic equality. Malthus believed that if the human population is left unchecked then the population would outgrow the resources necessary to maintain the population. Malthus’s argued that the population will continue to grow and the burden will unavoidably put on the poor population. However, the inequality of population would be a good thing in terms of controlling the population.

As with many heavily disputed events in the past, the French Revolution would redistribute power between the social classes, primarily by weakening the higher classes while empowering the lower classes. Naturally, this led to criticism from nobles who feared losing their power. On the other hand, this idea was extremely popular with the common people. Due to the fact that the Revolution would place the common people on more equal ground with the upper classes, they would be able to contest extravagant taxes and hold those in power accountable to the same laws as others.

Egalitarianism. It is the belief that all people are and should be the treated similarly despite age, gender, race and social or political status. It is the trend of thought that all people are equal and states that everyone should be handled with the same opportunities in life despite their differences. It’s a popular idea in liberalism: The political philosophy founded on liberty and equality that supports civil freedom and egalitarianism’s basic idea is that everyone has the same fundamental worth. A King can’t be worth more than a peasant… In power and politics: yes – but in terms of vitality, they are both simply human. This one of the reasons that democracy exists; because our worth is important in choosing our leaders so that they never

Feudal society was traditionally divided into three estates, around the time of the French Revolution. The first estate was known as the church (those who prayed) or the clergy. The second estate was the nobility (those who fought), during the time the nobility consisted of knights. The third estate was the peasantry or the commoners(those who supported those who prayed and fought). The three estates were ruled and controlled by the royalty or the king. At the time there were 27 million people in France; society had been lead and based on inequality since the middle ages. In fact the inequality in France is one of the long term

The French Revolution brought with it many sweeping changes in the realm of human rights both to France and eventually the rest of the world. Through Enlightenment ideas, groups previously viewed as second-class citizens, and even those viewed as hardly human, gained greatly enhanced rights and even citizenship with all that this entailed. Amazingly with all the rights and privileges that were being recognized as inherent to various social groups, half the population was left with little or no improvement in their station. This, of course, refers to women. While there were those who fought for women's rights, such as Condorcet, Etta Palm D'Aelders, and Olympe De Gouges; these

The Estate System was a major social cause of the French Revolution. During the 18th century France, society was divided into three unequal estates: the clergy, nobility, and peasants.

This assignment requires us to evaluate and relate French revolution to its politic, social and economic classes. In this introduction we are going to brief a little bit of the information that is going to be explain later. French revolution happened during the 18th century. The politic system is using monarchy whereby the King rules the country and he have the supreme law. During French revolution, social classes are divided into three classes which are first estate, second estate, and third estate.

The French Revolution was a time of great social, political and economic tumult in the closing years of the Eighteenth Century. The motivators pushing French citizenry toward revolution are varied in scope and origin. They range from immediate economic woes to an antiquarian class structure. Modern historians still debate the value of the changes that the revolution brought to modern society. The middle class made gains that would never be rescinded, but do revolutions always end in tyranny? In the years before the revolution citizens were rigidly constrained by the estates of the realm. These social strata had been in place since the medieval ages. The people were divided into three groups; clergy, nobility and everyone else. The clergy

The majority were already struggling with the cost of living, and the addition of extra taxes caused it to be near impossible for them to survive financially. This angered the third estate, and provided an incentive for the revolution. Therefore, it is evident that the social inequality that derived from the three estates system was the most significant cause of the French Revolution.

Social oppression was also a major cause of the French Revolution as well as the Haitian Revolution. In both the French and the Haitian revolutions the class system was the major cause of the revolts. France consisted of three classes also known as estates. Only 3 percent of the population was made up by the 1st and 2nd estate, yet the 3rd estate made up most of France’s population and they were socially oppressed and weren’t given many rights. The Bourgeoisie who were very wealthy people of the third estate were seeking influence in politics and they were dissatisfied with the large amounts of taxes they had to pay. The French government’s debt increased leading up to the start of the revolution. Because of France’s debt the Bourgeoisie was

Before the French Revolution, there were three estates, or classes: the nobility, the clergy and the commoners. The nobility and the clergy had many more privileges than the third estate and that is what caused the French Revolution. The Third estate was composed of the peasants, the workers and the bourgeoisie; unlike the other segments of the Third Estate, the bourgeoisie was able to communicate its grievances to the public during the period after the French Revolution: 1789-1799.