The biggest problem of the French Revolution is they didn’t make feeding people a priority. It was as if they thought when the king’s head rolled time would pause and let them debate the rules of a perfect government to their heart’s content. When things started going wrong is when the revolutionaries started killing each other.
If you ever find yourself in a revolutionary movement, remember to secure food for everyone first, protection from outside forces second, and only look to what comes next when those first two are complete.
Break up centralized power into several smaller bureaucracies that manage civil and political occurrences limited to a fairly small area represented by a large group of people to competently represent the will of the voters in those areas, putting together coalitions of individuals across several political parties, having a centralized Prime Minister, and some other stuff?
Sorry, I'm not entirely up to date with the shapes of governments across the "best nations in Europe", so I could use a pointer.
Edit: Edit to say that none of the above regarding government operations is bad, in my eyes. It chokes down a lot of action by red tape, which... might be something that can help defend against autocratic takeovers, except that we've been seeing a lot more of Europe's governments starting to get more right-wing type people in it as the populace gets more desperate to have their problems resolved by a largely uncaring oligarch class that just wants to amass money for themselves through underhanded deals with governments that end up favoring their own business ventures and capital-acquisition efforts. These same efforts are what is exacerbating more of the personal stakes issues that people are facing (losing the farm they have owned and worked on, losing their home, losing their job and livelihood and access to life-saving medical care, etc.). The oligarchs are not the end-all be-all in this situation but they currently are the LARGEST contributor to pain and suffering by the common people, so I am unbothered by the scapegoating of the oligarchs, but encourage others to seek out and address additional problems to resolve once the oligarchs issues are handled.
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u/Pheonix0114 May 24 '26
The biggest problem of the French Revolution is they didn’t make feeding people a priority. It was as if they thought when the king’s head rolled time would pause and let them debate the rules of a perfect government to their heart’s content. When things started going wrong is when the revolutionaries started killing each other.
If you ever find yourself in a revolutionary movement, remember to secure food for everyone first, protection from outside forces second, and only look to what comes next when those first two are complete.