Abe Streep
Link 4: The limits and the failure of Ringstrasse Liberalism

Though the growth of the Ringstrasse seemed for fifty years to be socially ground breaking, by the turn of the twentieth century it became clear that the development of this region had been ineffective in breaking Vienna’s strict conservatism, and was therefore not nearly as liberal as it had once seemed to be. Though the physical gap between classes was bridged by the Ringstrasse, the promise of mobility that had existed during the 1880’s was gone by the beginning of the twentieth century. In fact, it took two devastating world wars to completely reshuffle the Austrian social system and finally establish the free, modern, liberal nation that had been hinted at during the years of Ringstrasse prosperity.

The downfall of Ringstrasse liberalism was in part due to the fact that the under represented Viennese, the peoples who had long been isolated and kept out of the splendor of the aristocratic inner city, were themselves conservative. As a result, the prosperous, bourgeois Ringstrasse liberals were reluctant to give any power, or the franchise, to the real working classes. They increased liberalism and individual opportunity and freedoms for their class, but were slow to grant opportunity to many ethnic minorities and manufacturers. Though they were “liberal,” members of the Ringstrasse bourgeoisie were not anxious to give too much social mobility to the lower classes, for the bourgeois liberals, who were for the most part German and Jewish, did not want to lose their empowered position. The resulting paradox was that by the 1880’s, when the liberals had succeeded in building up a modern Ringstrasse culture that allowed for individual liberties, they began to lose their power: even as Wagner developed the secular metropolitan ring around the Hofburg, the liberals began to feel their grasp on the city weaken because of pressure from the conservative artisans and peasants. Many of these workers belonged to either the Pan-Slav or far right Christian movements. Both of these groups were influenced by anti-semitic ideals, especially the Christian groups. By 1895 the poorer classes could vote, and they elected Karl Lueger, a conservative Catholic anti-semite, as their mayor. The emperor Francis Joseph originally refused to ratify this election, but he was forced to do so two years later. Lueger’s reign saw a return to conservatism, and the introduction of the “Jewish problem.” By the time of the election, the liberals had achieved enough individual freedoms for the people of Vienna so that they had enough power to make their own demands, and the emperor could not deny them. The result of this was a conservative resurgence, for the ethnically-influenced lower classes did not support the Ringstrasse liberals who had reluctantly granted them an increase in liberties. The liberals failed because they were too liberal: once they empowered the lower classes a wave of strict conservatism rushed back over Vienna. By 1900 the Ringstrasse liberals were dead, and a new, ethnically-charged conservatism had taken over the city. By 1910 there were an average of 4.4 people per Viennese household, and 1.24 people per room. It was not unusual for an average artisan or manufacturer to have a seven day, seventy hour work week. Though there was a new upper middle class that possessed its own style of art and architecture, and though the physical area between the inner and outer cities had been filled in, the Ringstrasse liberalism of the late nineteenth century had failed. Social mobility was a dream of the past, and Austrian liberalism was long gone, not to be heard from again until after the second World War.

Typical Viennese apartment buildings

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