Liberty, the freedom of the individual, has constantly been belittled and questioned throughout history. Such demonstrations can be seen in the European continent during the 18th and 19th centuries. Here, the motivational ideal of liberty is challenged by rulers and the bourgie as they subject much of the lower and middle-class populations. With the lower classes, so were the ideals of liberalism and those of the rights of the man and of the citizen. Only with the liberty of the individual being challenged through political and economic means would despotism rise in the European lands. This could be seen across the many groups that stood such as workers, slaves, women and all of those of the lower classes.
The liberty of the individual had to be questioned. There was a development of a language, and that was of freedom. This was of freedom from governmental and structural (maybe even class) oppression. As previously stated, workers were some of the groups whose liberty was being questioned. They had to suffer through many in both the 18th and 19th centuries. When speaking of workers, I speak for those that worked in agriculture, workshops and those that worked in the factories. Wage labor was a big issue for many of them. Much of the issues that the worker had to face rose in hand with that of the industrial revolution.
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Much of this can be seen in the worker uprisings of 1848. Quite surprisingly, in the 1940s, as the tension between the constitutional monarchy of Louis Philippe kept and the public, both the workers and bourgeois were on the same side. They had begun the revolution and managed to overthrow the government. Although believing that they were both on the same side, they both had different ideas of what outcome they wanted. But although liberals. And workers believed that they were united in a vision of a republic. The difference between the two was that the workers wished for a republic that would be much more supportive of worker issues and the right of labor. This was while the bourgeoise had the desire of a new republic that was more supportive of property and liberal freedoms. These liberal freedoms were essentially the rights of man and citizen. This revolutionary sentiment eventually spread across Europe. Workers believed that the Second Republic should be more representative of the needs of labor and those of property. Beyond the worker’s subjugation, as women began to join the workforce, much of their lives were now being impacted.
As the suffrage movement in the 19th century began to evolve, so did the ways in which women fought and suffered. As they began to join the workforce in factories and workshops, much of the family aspect was now being impacted. With women no longer being home, the ideal and set family image was now being torn apart. The liberty of one having a family was now being oppressed.
Another aspect of the oppression of the individual was that of which slaves had to go through. As the world became more and more globalized, the access to more and more different materials like textiles grew with it.
If one brings up the workers movement across Europe, so must the formation of socialist ideals. The idea of socialism was to form a party that represented the right to labor and the needs of workers. This can be seen even today. Parties such as the labor party in England are examples of how those same ideals have stayed and held through the times.
The oppression of the individual itself causes various revolutions across the European continent. One of the more prominent one was that of the French in the year 1948. The more upper classes of men were against suppression of censorship and voting rights. In itself, the prime minister that had been appointed by the Louis Philippe, thought there were little to no issues. While this might not have been a complete revolution, the workers uprisings symbolize the idea of the state suppressing the working class and with them, their liberty. People simply wanted to have more power over themselves. What might seem as an essential today, a democracy was being fought over. Even as the rights of the man and of the citizen puts it, liberty consists in being able to do anything that does not injure; thus, the only limits upon each man’s exercise of his natural rights are those that guarantee enjoyment of these same rights to the other members of society.
One has to consider the difference in between what each class considered to be their ‘freedom’. For an upperclassman freedom could mean the rights to own property, while for a member of the proletariat class, freedom could be owning the means of production. Here, two ideals are introduced. That of Marxism and capitalism. One of the most crucial influences of the workers uprisings across Europe was that of Marxism. Marx, himself, believed that class struggle was inevitable. With this in mind, it paved the way for the uprisings. At this point in time, deeming the movements of the working class as mere political. They symbolized much more than just that.
The idea that the governmental body was in place believed that workers were not worthy enough to vote as they had other less important things to worry about was completely unacceptable. Sadly, much of this movement was shut down after the National Workshops were shot down. Soon came the June days. Here the tensions between classes finally lead to warfare on the streets of Paris. Sadly, those worker uprising did not lead to much, besides the spread of this revolutionary fervor around Europe. The workers uprising against the Second Republic were killed by the national guard and by the army. Much of this with the help of other nation states as they knew that the news of those uprisings might just cause stir in theirs.
By all accounts, the liberty of the individual is constantly being challenged as there are those that wish to abuse the premise they hold, with it costing the freedom of many. The events that courted in the late 18th and 19th centuries eventually led to a conflicted Europe in the 20th century.
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