AH Challenge: European Aristocracy Survives!

Would you have a response that addresses my point? Do you accept that societies change inevitably? And that an aristocracy is defined by an outmoded form of production? By outmoded production, an aristocrat by definition is landed and passes it heredically, they are an outgrowth of pastoral lifestyle. As that system dies out due to industrialisation, the political system dies as well.

I thought aristocracy was defined by a particular government form. For instance, while people like to call the planter class of the antebellum US south an 'aristocracy', they actually weren't because there were no titles of nobility in American government. Calling aristocracy an 'outmoded form of production' pretty much IS Marxist rhetoric. There are still aristocrats TODAY, they've just lost most of the power they used to have.

But just before WW1 there were still aristocraties with ruling power. So if WW1 wouldn't have happened their power could at least have been prolongued.

Because of WW1 people lost their faith in the old system. So, with no WW1.....

BTW Workers uprisings will happen, but aristocracy can deal with that, if they are smart enough

This is the most topical post in the thread so far. It brings up the correct point that aristocracy survived well through the 19th century and would have continued into the 20th if it weren't for the disaster that was WWI. The Junker class is Germany was still the prominent class, along with the untitled capitalist class. The House of Lords in the UK still had real power. What you need to do is find a way to preserve that status quo.
 

Valdemar II

Banned
In Denmark the any family which owned 1000 Hartkorn* of land was given the title of Baron, while families which owned 2500 was given the title Count. Which meant that Denmark got a very rich and sociale mobile aristocracy, because rich merchant almost automatic entered it, so the aristocracy ended up the primary capitalistic class. If other countries (France in particular) had adopted this too, it would have made the European aristocracy position much stronger, and could maybe have forced the early attempts of liberal republic into noble republic instead (especially with the greater sociale mobility). While it's unlikely these would survive to modern day I could see them last into the middle of the 20th century.

*unit of land which indicates the lands agricultural performance
 
I thought aristocracy was defined by a particular government form. For instance, while people like to call the planter class of the antebellum US south an 'aristocracy', they actually weren't because there were no titles of nobility in American government. Calling aristocracy an 'outmoded form of production' pretty much IS Marxist rhetoric. There are still aristocrats TODAY, they've just lost most of the power they used to have.



This is the most topical post in the thread so far. It brings up the correct point that aristocracy survived well through the 19th century and would have continued into the 20th if it weren't for the disaster that was WWI. The Junker class is Germany was still the prominent class, along with the untitled capitalist class. The House of Lords in the UK still had real power. What you need to do is find a way to preserve that status quo.

The House of Lord did not have real power in this period. It was on a ticking time bomb, it could have been Parliament Act'd at any point from about 1880, but no one dared. It officially lost all it's power in 1912.
 
The House of Lord did not have real power in this period. It was on a ticking time bomb, it could have been Parliament Act'd at any point from about 1880, but no one dared. It officially lost all it's power in 1912.

I thought that happened in the 1920's?

Oh well. Didn't they still have veto power over Commons right up until the end, though?
 
I pondered this earlier actually, you are correct in much of what you say. The aristocracy effectively WERE the state prior to state bureaucracy. However, by making the the state exclusive to the aristocrats, so that they control the state as opposed to being the state, I believe the disired effect is acheived.

If we wish to do as you say - maintain the aristocracy as the state, as opposed to controlling, well I don't really know.

But there is a problem- once aristocracy ceases to be the state, there is no longer any incentive for the state to maintain aristocracy as a priviliged faction. Aristocrats' priviliges become obsolete the moment their role ceases to be crucial, everything else is just a social momentum.

Of course you can eventually give noble title to majority of state citizens', as some people here are proposing, but that destroys any meaningful categorization of aristocracy as a class apart.
 
But there is a problem- once aristocracy ceases to be the state, there is no longer any incentive for the state to maintain aristocracy as a priviliged faction. Aristocrats' priviliges become obsolete the moment their role ceases to be crucial, everything else is just a social momentum.

Of course you can eventually give noble title to majority of state citizens', as some people here are proposing, but that destroys any meaningful categorization of aristocracy as a class apart.

Well, if the state is controlled by Aristocrats, they will maintain power by self-interest.
 
Well, if the state is controlled by Aristocrats, they will maintain power by self-interest.

Royal absolutism. By 1750 the monarchies are getting rid of the need for aristocracy. Once the king does not need aristocrats to keep the state together he will do his best to sideline the aristocracy.
 
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