Bourgeois evolution in Britain?

[G4b3n]

Many industrialized nations have sweeping instances of revolution in which the aristocracy is displaced as the ruling class, subjected to revolutionary terror, and so forth, so that the bourgeoisie can establish their new social order. This is of course explained brilliantly by the materialist conception of history.

However, there are countries such as Britain in which there were a series of instances where the bourgeoisie won small victories against the aristocracy and gradually consolidated their position as the ruling class. The house of lords, dominated by aristocratic interests, didn't even give up their dominance until the early 20th century. How can this be explained from a Marxist perspective? It seems to me like this could make for a strong argument for socialist reformism. Considering how the aristocracy still exists today in Britain. It would be much like if a communist society still kept a powerless parliament around simply for historical appreciation and entertainment value.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

One of the main ideas purported by social and economic historians in Britain is that the enclosure movement, whereby wealthy members of the nobility purchased, or expropriated, common land and then leased it out to tenants. In effect, this can be seen as the privatisation of property, and there are records of this beginning as early as the 13th century.

Certainly, one unique feature of British land is the pre-dominance of the individual Lords, and the relative lack of direct control exercised by the monarchy in the middle ages.

By the late 14th century, research indicates that not only did Lords control significant portions of land, but the population collapse precipitated by various outbreaks of plague, amongst other things, exacerbated intra-class wealth divisions within the peasantry. There is evidence that in the middle ages, some wealthier peasants were achieving the wealth equivalent to a minor gentry, employing other, poorer, landless peasants to tend their land. Indeed the 1363 Sumptuary Law was passed to stop these wealthier peasants from outwardly expressing - through banning the wearing of silks by peasants, for example - their new-found wealth through symbols of increasing social status.

Hope this is a somewhat helpful introduction.

[G4b3n]

One of the main ideas purported by social and economic historians in Britain is that the enclosure movement, whereby wealthy members of the nobility purchased, or expropriated, common land and then leased it out to tenants. In effect, this can be seen as the privatisation of property, and there are records of this beginning as early as the 13th century.

Certainly, one unique feature of British land is the pre-dominance of the individual Lords, and the relative lack of direct control exercised by the monarchy in the middle ages.

By the late 14th century, research indicates that not only did Lords control significant portions of land, but the population collapse precipitated by various outbreaks of plague, amongst other things, exacerbated intra-class wealth divisions within the peasantry. There is evidence that in the middle ages, some wealthier peasants were achieving the wealth equivalent to a minor gentry, employing other, poorer, landless peasants to tend their land. Indeed the 1363 Sumptuary Law was passed to stop these wealthier peasants from outwardly expressing - through banning the wearing of silks by peasants, for example - their new-found wealth through symbols of increasing social status.

Hope this is a somewhat helpful introduction.

I am familiar with the unique qualities of British feudalism, but the early years of these qualities does not do much for what I am looking for. I am simply having a hard time explaining these things through your standard materialist analysis. Obviously there was a great amount of class conflict between the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy. Still today, the monarchy takes "hostages" from the house of commons to ensure that parliament does not behead the monarch, like what happened in the 17th century. But how, in materialist terms, was the bourgeoisie able to install itself as the ruling class without one great climatic revolution?

[1xAntifa]

Suggest EP Thompson's Making of the English Working Class and Whigs and Hunters. If you can find G,d,H,Cole's The Common People 1745-1945 it is also useful. Christopher Hill on the English Civil War and Cromwell are from a Marxist perspective.

The rise of the bourgeoisie cannot be separated from the rise of Protestantism, and its Calvinist fundamentalist and Dissenting streams of thought. This had an impact politically via the Anglican church and its dissidents, and socially through the creation of moral panics vis organisation by the working class, and the rude entertainments of the crowd.

This history is the background to your puzzle.

[Tim Cornelis]

As an aside, what country other than the French Revolution has had a terror?

I made a very similar thread a while ago, has some info: http://www.revleft.com/vb/no-bourgeois-revolution-t192354/index.html

[Rafiq]

As an aside, what country other than the French Revolution has had a terror?

All countries which experienced a political revolution, including Britain. There was no "official" terror but the terror was there.

[Tim Cornelis]

All countries which experienced a political revolution, including Britain. There was no "official" terror but the terror was there.

How do you define terror then? I suspect you'd define it very broadly.

[Rafiq]

How do you define terror then? I suspect you'd define it very broadly.

Systematized (state based) violence in a period wherein state-based violence has not yet achieved complete legitimacy - or mass violence used to terrorize the old powers of society into non-existence.