China s Troubled Bourbons

The Bourbons of Global Finance

WASHINGTON, DC When the Bourbon monarchy was restored in 1815, the French diplomat Talleyrand is reported to have said of the Bourbons They have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.

It is traditionally regarded as a rising of the bourgeoisie against the absolute monarchy of the Bourbons.

ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN Today s International Monetary Fund (and, to a lesser degree, the World Bank) recall Talleyrand s description of France s Bourbon kings it has learned nothing and forgotten nothing.

For Tocqueville, the grab for centralized power by the absolutist Bourbon monarchs, followed by the French Revolution and Napoleon s Empire, had destroyed the good with the bad in France s neo feudal order.

Amidst the rumors of right wing intrigue and or coups by the Bonapartists or Bourbons in 1874, the National Assembly set about drawing up a new constitution that would be acceptable to all parties.

In all likelihood, these leaders sense, either instinctively or intellectually, an impending crisis that could imperil the CCP s survival in the same way that the French Revolution ended Bourbon rule.

For Tocqueville, the grab for centralized power by the absolutist Bourbon monarchs, followed by the French Revolution and Napoleon s Empire, had destroyed the good with the bad in France s neo feudal order. Decades later, the new order was still in flux.