How much did absolutism and/or constitutionalism impact their states?
Throughout Europe new methods of government were being used to try to centralize governments. There is evidence to suggest that Absolutism did prove to be a successful system of governing a state. Absolutism is a system in which sovereignty is ascribed solely to a king, rather than shared rule with an assembly. The monarch was limited in their actual power, but developed state bureaucracies and standing armies to work for them. Absolutism created a rift in social classes between the nobility and the king when the king made himself the main decision maker for the country. The king’s distrust of the nobility blinded the monarch from the bourgeoisie, workers, and peasants who had to work hard for a living. These people began …show more content…
This meant tax had to increase, but the king could not tax the rich nobility when he was using the taxes on them to gain their trust. The king's spending was at the expense of the common people who had to pay taxes and work to support their families, while the king allowed the nobility to not pay taxes and lounge round. Starvation lead the desperate people to start questioning the orders of the king, Louis XVI, whose absolutistic government began to look totalitarian to the starving people of the cities. Anyone who was wealthy, such as the nobles, were swept along into the rage of the mobs that revolted against the king and the Absolutist government. As long as the majority of people was kept satisfied peace would be kept, it was a fight for equality in taxation or the people of France. Putting pressure on the government could not work if the rules could be changed easily by one person, which is how Absolutism led to the revolution rather than reform that tore France’s power structure apart. The only reason the French rallied together was not just the absolutist