1848: The Roots of Protest

The 1848 rev­o­lu­tions and 1960s protests had much in common.

((1849Uranus-Pluto1965)) spans most of the Com­mu­nist Episode. 1848 to 1965 takes us from the Com­mu­nist Man­i­festo to the height of the Cold War. Other devel­op­ments, such as indus­tri­al­ism and fem­i­nism appear in exact par­al­lel. Most help­fully, the progress across the wave can be mea­sured at the quad­ra­ture align­ment. At the end, in the decade of Mad­Men. shad­ows of 1848–1849 fade into the new wave rep­re­sented by 1966Uranus-Pluto2100. The indus­tri­al­ism that sup­ports the implied con­sumerism served by Sterling-Cooper found its mod­ern foot­ing at the end of the 1840s, cre­at­ing new demands the old world could not meet. 1849Uranus-Pluto1965 helps recite the story of tran­si­tion from begin­ning to end.

The 1848 Rev­o­lu­tions and You

1848 does not stand out like 1789 with its French Rev­o­lu­tion, but really book­end one another. 1848 in many minds would answer the short­com­ings of the French Rev­o­lu­tion; the peo­ple would rise, cease their power and choose com­mu­nity over cap­i­tal. In real­ity, finally estab­lished stand­ing armies removed any chance of cit­i­zen vic­tory. The 1848 Rev­o­lu­tions had petered out by 1851, seen as a fail­ure, unable to reach stated goals. In the long run, how­ever, the def­i­n­i­tion of vic­tory and defeat gets murky when speak­ing of this time. After 1848 most Euro­pean gov­ern­ments ended up grant­ing free­doms they pre­vi­ously resisted. Rus­sia even freed its serfs by 1861. After this date, many work­ers grad­u­ally won the right to work fewer hours, child-labor laws emerged or stiff­ened. Even­tu­ally, work­ers even earned the right to strike. Obvi­ously, these devel­op­ments unfolded across time, but the roots of mod­ern class sta­tus changed dra­mat­i­cally after 1848–1849, a time con­nected to many other impor­tant episodes.