Greetings and salutations.
In the recent "US loses the revolution" thread, Tenner mentioned Tom
Fleming's views on the probable consequences, which included this line
"With their wonderful combination of hypocrisy and
arrogance, the King's men would have contined to assure themselves
that
"British liberty" was prospering at home among the 250,000
enfranchised
voters out of a population of 8 million."
But, given the fact that Great Britain was in the middle of the
industrial revolution, and probably the grandest expansion of wealth
in history to that point, how sustainable is that narrow a franchise?
The middle cl***** are going to be expanding, and with them, the % of
people with political power purchasing wealth. On the other hand, we
have a rapidly expanding industrial workforce, which even in the
absence of the French revolution and Karl Marx, is probably going to
find literate people to find theoretical justifications for their
discontent. (Peasant rebellions rarely have gone anywhere, but the
urban proletariat has a better idea of where you live.)
So, proposed: the narrow oligarchy, even in the absence of the example
of a successful American revolution [1], is either going to expand
over the next century in an evolutionary manner as OTL, if perhaps a
bit slower, or there's going to be a messy explosion at some point. On
our TL the British ruling cl***** managed the dilution of their power
very well indeed: would they have been clumsier and less willing to
compromise if they had been victorious over the first great democratic
revolution?
Bruce
[1] Or, for that matter, a French one. It would be an amusing AH irony
if the absence of an American example led to a less radical - and in
at least the short-to-medium run, more successful - French revolution.
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