On Jul 7, 4:54=A0am, bm2...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
> 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.
You have to wonder what the influence of alt-New England would have
been on the centre; so many Commonwealthsmen were returnees from the
Colonies (like Hugh Peters and Henry Vane), and a lot ended up there
as refugees.
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