Question: What were the most important causes of the French Revolution (Discuss Three causes) - Essay Example

This occurred such that the state of financial difficulties was experienced at the monarchy level. The distress was because of costly wars that accumulated debts and bit deeply into the annual revenue collection system. Moreover, technological revolutions occurred outside the country putting the country in more distress owing to the agricultural basis of its economy. This led to increased deficits in trade while other European economies made profits while France was stuck to traditional systems.

This built the basis for economic unrest among French citizens but was not the last stroke of financial chaos. Considering the expensive funding of wars, France ran into massive national debt, especially with financing of the American Revolution. This led to the monarchy spending national pensions in order not to raise the national taxes. However, matters were made worse monarchial frivolity in spending recklessly for personal gain, and ignoring the plight of ordinary citizens thus, enraging them.

In addition, the unemployment rate in the country was quite high in spite of the unemployed individuals having literacy skills and an education. This economic factor led to increased anxiety and fear across the French society. Not only did this happen, but also incomes diminished for workers and welfare opportunities became scarce for those with financial challenges. This led to social unrest due as the French citizens became dissatisfied with the leading authorities, monarchy. Economically, the last straw was with the massive crop failure in the late 1780s leading to famine.

In turn, bread prices saw a sharp increase making the staple food out of reach for most (The French Revolution 1). This was, in addition to a substantial strain, on the economy as most of the peoples’ income was spent on bread bringing down sales of other goods. Socially, the French were a highly sophisticated society as power was often handed down to one’s descendants, meaning that little change occurred in the system. As a result, those that were powerful remained powerful in all cases, while peasants remained with their poor status.

With this system in place, peasants were expected to maintain the rich in society by being the workers generating the income that the rich spent. This meant that peasants made little for themselves and their families. The society was divided into three social groups: the first estate, the second estate, and the third estate with numbers of members in each estate varying according to the wealth they controlled. The first estate was that of the clergy; the second was of the nobility while the third was that of the commoners or peasants with the largest population falling into this category.

With this social stratification, the cause of the revolution was evident concerning the poor fighting for improved economic and political freedom and equality. The nobility in this case referred to the king and other members of royalty as France based its ruling system on traditional governance systems. This was such that there did not exist a constitution meaning there was no single law universal to apply to all citizens in the country. In addition, the king declared absolute power based on divine right making the monarchy responsible for finances.

Stemming from this issue, finances could not be spent by the king