AHC Make a more liberal world

With a POD no earlier than 1800, make the world more liberal socially and politically by the year 2000.


You can do this however you like, and cover any aspect you like, but the general goals are either:
  1. Make democracy and universal suffrage more prominent and develop earlier.
  2. Do away with slavery, serfdom, racial eugenics earlier and make racism decline sooner.
  3. Make the decline of the European monarchies end sooner.
  4. End colonialism sooner/prevent it from happening. You can do this either by giving them independence sooner, or by making them have equal status as other citizens (eg Imperial Federation and people in Kenya can vote for MPs in the Imperial Parliament).
 
Now, erm... when you say liberal you mean it in the modern American sense, right? The thing is, I am not seeing "eliminate protectionism" anywhere in that list, and that is usually considered to be the most fundamental pillar of European liberalism and indeed classical liberalism. Indeed, economics isn't even mentioned. Somehow I get the feeling that President Hayek of the Austrian Confederation and Prime Minister Robert Nozick of the North American Commonwealth isn't really what you're going for...
 
Now, erm... when you say liberal you mean it in the modern American sense, right? The thing is, I am not seeing "eliminate protectionism" anywhere in that list, and that is usually considered to be the most fundamental pillar of European liberalism and indeed classical liberalism. Indeed, economics isn't even mentioned. Somehow I get the feeling that President Hayek of the Austrian Confederation and Prime Minister Robert Nozick of the North American Commonwealth isn't really what you're going for...

Yes you are right. I haven't included economics on purpose. Think of it more as Liberty, Equality and Fraternity as the goals here, as enlightened and open-minded as possible. So maybe end slavery sooner, extend the vote to women earlier, abolish segregation earlier, set the groundwork so Apartheid can never rise in SA, discredit theories on eugenics and anti-semitism etc.

I'm not a fan of the American use of liberal and conservative to simplify politics but it works best here. If you want or need to include economic liberalism or go completely the other way is up to you.


Bonus points if you make the world even more socially progressive than today! E.g. gay marriage legal in all US states decades earlier. :D
 
The 1848 revolutions succeed, in France Louis Napoleon Bonaparte looses the election, in Germany Frederick William IV accepts the crown offered to him by the Frankfurt assembly and in Austria the army refuses to obey the orders to shoot at revolutionaries and both Radetzky and Windisch-Grätz fall from favour, a liberal is named head of government instead of Schwarzenberg.
 
The 1848 revolutions succeed, in France Louis Napoleon Bonaparte looses the election, in Germany Frederick William IV accepts the crown offered to him by the Frankfurt assembly and in Austria the army refuses to obey the orders to shoot at revolutionaries and both Radetzky and Windisch-Grätz fall from favour, a liberal is named head of government instead of Schwarzenberg.

I freely admit that Austro-German history between the Napoleonic Wars and the German Unification Wars isn't my specialty (it extends little beyond the apocryphal scene in 1848 where Ferdinand I asks Metternich what's going on, Metternich informs him that it's a revolution that's going on, and the Emperor nervously replies "But-... are they allowed to do that?"), so I won't even pretend to have the knowledge to comment on that, but when it comes to Louis-Napoleon's election, preventing his victory is going to be a huuuuuuge problem. M. Bonaparte was remarkable in winning over the old aristocracy as being a very monarchical character (which they liked) and entertained a reputation as a progressive, which won him support among radicals and the working class. His victory was... ridiculous in it's magnitude, almost 75%. If you have him lose, you're gonna need a really good excuse, because his victory in that election was about as certain as Putin's victory was back when he last ran for President of Russia.

Now, if you ask me, the best way to prevent President Bonaparte from becoming Emperor Napoleon III is to make Louis-Napoleon's 18 Brumaire end in failure and some sort of impeachment. Such a point of divergence would be very, very interesting. Louis-Napoleon is driven away from Paris, Palmerston denounces Bonaparte as having proven himself to be merely a reincarnation of his late uncle and that obviously, Britain cannot support such a tyrant. Then it would be interesting to see if the next President can somehow charm the British and develop some sort of earlier Anglo-French Alliance, preventing the unification of Germany, and yada-yada-yada...

Would be fun.
 
After collaborating to boot the Brits out of Canada, the French and the Americans form the Confédération des États-Révolutionnaire to impose the Manifest Destiny Of Freedom on the rest of humanity, starting with Spain and going east from there.

Thanks to the above-noted distraction, Toussaint Louverture becomes a revolutionary juggernaut cannonballing out of Hispaniola to spread equality and democracy throughout the Caribbean and then South America.

A slight bloodbath results when CER-supplied weapons course through Africa and some Portuguese slave-traders get kind of eviscerated.

A secret society of Japanese and Chinese intellectuals with a military fetish are sufficiently inspired by the CER that within a decade both China and Japan are up to the latest fashion and are Revolutionary Republics of the People's Freedom, just like France! (And America and what-not.)

The Freedom and Liberty Revolution Bible is then translated into Mongolian, and several descendants of Genghis Khan round up a horde and go west looking for oligarchist swine to round up and re-educate.

A very compelling set of FLRB-inspired Buddhist monks in India gather a rabidly growing following, sweeping away Hinduism and the caste system from huge swaths of the subcontinent. A British imperial effort at crackdown is met by a dozen monks sitting in front of the imperial authority hq and setting themselves on fire. The Brits are appalled, and that's just for starters.
 
About Napoleon III, he could have been shot during his escape from France after a failed invasion a few years before he ended up being elected the president of France.

Not sure why his death would butterfly away the 1848...
 

MAlexMatt

Banned
Frederic Bastiat doesn't contract tuberculosis in 1850 and, instead, becomes a fiery proponent of classical liberalism in the Second Republic. He is a vital force in creating a coalition between middle class liberals and the working class against the national liberalism of Louis Napoleon, eventually leading to the latter's removal from office before he has the chance to build a political power base necessary to launch his coup.

Also, something something Chartists in the 1830's, something something Frankfurt Parliament.
 

Spengler

Banned
After collaborating to boot the Brits out of Canada, the French and the Americans form the Confédération des États-Révolutionnaire to impose the Manifest Destiny Of Freedom on the rest of humanity, starting with Spain and going east from there.

Thanks to the above-noted distraction, Toussaint Louverture becomes a revolutionary juggernaut cannonballing out of Hispaniola to spread equality and democracy throughout the Caribbean and then South America.

A slight bloodbath results when CER-supplied weapons course through Africa and some Portuguese slave-traders get kind of eviscerated.

A secret society of Japanese and Chinese intellectuals with a military fetish are sufficiently inspired by the CER that within a decade both China and Japan are up to the latest fashion and are Revolutionary Republics of the People's Freedom, just like France! (And America and what-not.)

The Freedom and Liberty Revolution Bible is then translated into Mongolian, and several descendants of Genghis Khan round up a horde and go west looking for oligarchist swine to round up and re-educate.

A very compelling set of FLRB-inspired Buddhist monks in India gather a rabidly growing following, sweeping away Hinduism and the caste system from huge swaths of the subcontinent. A British imperial effort at crackdown is met by a dozen monks sitting in front of the imperial authority hq and setting themselves on fire. The Brits are appalled, and that's just for starters.


Yeah non of that is going to happen. Also I doubt mr Bastitat is going to in any way be able to effect France in any way if Louis Napoleon is still alive. Probably doesn't help thatthe man shared several attributes with his rival Proudhorn. The one way you could ensure a slightly more liberal world might be to achieve the dissolution of the Hapsburg Empire with more chaos. Which will assure at least a few Liberal Nationalist regimes result.
 

MAlexMatt

Banned
Bastiat was a skilled orator with a flair for writing and speaking that would translate well into a career as a member of the National Assembly. As the lower classes were abandoned by other members of the Second Republic's government, Bastiat could easily spin his support for subsidies in some form for the poor as a concession for votes and a political alliance.

Truthfully, alternate history is full of things that are 'doubtful to happen', namely because they didn't. There are always good reasons history happened as it happened. However, in order to alter history in an entertaining way, changes that might seem 'doubtful' from our OTL point of view must be adopted.
 
With a POD no earlier than 1800, make the world more liberal socially and politically by the year 2000.


You can do this however you like, and cover any aspect you like, but the general goals are either:
  1. Make democracy and universal suffrage more prominent and develop earlier.
  2. Do away with slavery, serfdom, racial eugenics earlier and make racism decline sooner.
  3. Make the decline of the European monarchies end sooner.
  4. End colonialism sooner/prevent it from happening. You can do this either by giving them independence sooner, or by making them have equal status as other citizens (eg Imperial Federation and people in Kenya can vote for MPs in the Imperial Parliament).

This actually isn't too hard at all.........well, up to a certain point. though, like you probably couldn't have a majority Universalist America by 1950 or a Eurasian Union run entirely by social democrats and spanning from Paris to Vladivostok by 2000 without some ASBs(although I think the same also goes for the other extreme of the spectrum as well.)

That said, an earlier end to the reigns of the more conservative monarchists and slavery across the world can definitely be achieved with the right POD.
 
This actually isn't too hard at all.........well, up to a certain point. though, like you probably couldn't have a majority Universalist America by 1950 or a Eurasian Union run entirely by social democrats and spanning from Paris to Vladivostok by 2000 without some ASBs(although I think the same also goes for the other extreme of the spectrum as well.)

That said, an earlier end to the reigns of the more conservative monarchists and slavery across the world can definitely be achieved with the right POD.

No this isn't too hard when you first think about it but it leaves several hidden traps that have to be considered. Firstly, this is for a world trend towards greater freedom, democracy and equality so more than one POD will probably be needed to ensure its implications are wide enough and that the forces of authoritarian conservatism don't crush it again. Secondly these trends usually result in a backlash, and the 19th century was dominated by these, which stretched into the 20th century and can be seen responsible for much of WW1 and 2 (fascism in essence was a backlash to this). These would probably be stronger in a world where everything they oppose is stronger, and so you would need a way to stop these from developing or discredit them. Thirdly, much of the social reform of the 20th century were direct or indirect results of the world wars. So if you want to achieve this, you are likely to need a large-scale war of some sort. So all the butterflies need to be considered that can occur from 1800 to the present that could slow down the process and undermine it.

So we have Charles Louis Napoleon die before 1848 or impeached after 1851 coup and Frederic Bastiat survives. The Habsburg collapses completely allowing lots of countries in Central and Eastern Europe to gain independence. Maybe if Austria has taken over by the liberals it would allow the Franfurt Parliament to form Germany under liberal Austrian leadership as opposed to reactionary conservative Prussian leadership?
 
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