Preservation of Priviliege

With a PoD of after 1848 is it possible for the aristocracy of Europe to halt & then roll back to some degree the extention of liberty and all that follows to the general population of Europe? the object being to preserve their power in law and control of the economy and populations? Preserving all this far into the 20th Century?

I am thinking of some sort of new idea of aristocratic superiority becoming stronger and pushing out the ideals of the Enlightenment that penetrated into much of the hereditary upper class of Europe. Has such a idea become strong enough was it still possible & practical for the aristocracy to regain their earlier levels of power?
 
Pretty darn unlikely.
The underlying reason of the political changes was social change driven by economical and technical factors with an enormous inertia. You'd have to stall and reverse the whole Industrial Revolution business.
The old order might resist longer by adapting earlier, and there are some PoDs that would skew things in their favor locally at least (averting the Crimean War might do) but a full rollback is probably out of question and the trend was fairly firmly set by that point.
A formally egalitarian society is not a guaranteed outcome of course, but "back to the Ancien Regime" won't work.
 
About the only thing I can think of would be some kind of new and massively virulent plague which sweeps the continent. Given the overcrowding in the slums and factories, it's likely that factory workers would be among the hardest-hit groups of people. If the death toll is high enough it might be enough to make large-scale factories unsustainable and halt/partially reverse the Industrial Revolution, which would in turn increase the relative power of landowners, and hence of the hereditary aristocracy.

Also, since any plague is going to hit the cities harder, we'd expect to see the percentage of the population living in urban areas decrease and that in rural areas increase. Given that cities tend to be more fertile grounds for radicalism than the countryside, it's likely that this would lead to society becoming in general more conservative than IOTL.
 
About the only thing I can think of would be some kind of new and massively virulent plague which sweeps the continent. Given the overcrowding in the slums and factories, it's likely that factory workers would be among the hardest-hit groups of people. If the death toll is high enough it might be enough to make large-scale factories unsustainable and halt/partially reverse the Industrial Revolution, which would in turn increase the relative power of landowners, and hence of the hereditary aristocracy.

Also, since any plague is going to hit the cities harder, we'd expect to see the percentage of the population living in urban areas decrease and that in rural areas increase. Given that cities tend to be more fertile grounds for radicalism than the countryside, it's likely that this would lead to society becoming in general more conservative than IOTL.

Except that won't change, for example, the result of the french revolutions in the french rural areas, given that part of the french revolution was done by the farmers who burnt their "lords" castle and the various documents they had. I'd say that a roll back to pre-1789 situation in Europe isn't possible in 1848. It wasn't possible after 1815 after an overwhelming defeat of the more progressive forces, it won't happen after 1848.
 
What about a meritocracy based on education.

Everyone is equal if they have equal skills (and the aristocracy have best access to education and skills)

Voting rights are subject to educational / reading / writing tests

Eligibility for office is based on similar but higher tests

Schooling lags behind OTL as the voters have (unenlightened) self interest in preserving the status quo

Serfdom is justified on Eugenics arguments?
 
What about a meritocracy based on education.

Everyone is equal if they have equal skills (and the aristocracy have best access to education and skills)

Voting rights are subject to educational / reading / writing tests

Eligibility for office is based on similar but higher tests

Schooling lags behind OTL as the voters have (unenlightened) self interest in preserving the status quo

Serfdom is justified on Eugenics arguments?

That's the sort of things I had in mind when talking about the old order adapting. However, it would be an extremely though sell.
The working classes, both rural and, even more so, urban, had clear rivendications by 1848. You'd need some way to tie them into the system. Maybe some sort of earlier proto-Fascism? Not sure how it could work.
However, the privileged would have at least to tie their interest to rising nationalism, that would destroy the old order in its own way.
 
No. Simply because upper middle class has became too numerous to be absorbed into upper class, the old method of dealing with the problem. Once this ceases to be an option these rich but politicaly marginalised people will demand more power and they'll get it, one way or the other.

Only way to prevent it, as others pointed out, is to prevent rise of such newly rich folks.
 
Only way to prevent it, as others pointed out, is to prevent rise of such newly rich folks.

Confisticating their wealth has its pros and cons. Do it very often & you incite revolt.

Falecius;8791797.... Maybe some sort of earlier proto-Fascism? Not sure how it could work. ...[/QUOTE said:
My first thought as well. The rich and powerful of Italy did use facism to preserve their power. ..bit I'm not coming up with any obvious method for ensuring this.
What about a meritocracy based on education.

Everyone is equal if they have equal skills (and the aristocracy have best access to education and skills)

Voting rights are subject to educational / reading / writing tests

Eligibility for office is based on similar but higher tests

Schooling lags behind OTL as the voters have (unenlightened) self interest in preserving the status quo

Serfdom is justified on Eugenics arguments?

This could the component of a larger system of repression. It would have to be a well controled and largely false meritocracy. Let just enough lower classes rise to get the work done, but no more than essential.

Te problem with true meritocracies is a portion of the families at the top become lazy, and arrogant about their real ability, leading to failure by the individuals to 'pass the tests'. So, they are replaced in the real management positions & their control of power degraded.
 
Te problem with true meritocracies is a portion of the families at the top become lazy, and arrogant about their real ability, leading to failure by the individuals to 'pass the tests'. So, they are replaced in the real management positions & their control of power degraded.

Is there any "true" meritocracy in the historical record? The closest I know of is arguably China with its examination system, but even there, the system was very heavily skewed to favor candidates from already privileged families AFAIK.
 
The last one who did attempt to restore ancient aristocratic privileges was Charles X and it sparked the July Revolution in which he lost his crown. By this time the industrial revolution had, at least in western and central Europe, already enriched the bourgeois classes to a point that they were no longer willing to tolerate being exempted from political decision making or having to finance the privileges of the ancient aristocracy. There were of course attempts to counteract this by nobilitating those nouveau riches and as a matter of fact more noble titles have e.g. been created in the only 7 decades between 1848 and 1918 in Austria than in all the centuries before, but the problem was that not only did the old aristocracy not accept those newly nobilitated as equals, a steel magnate who had just recently been created a Baron simply didn't share the same economic and thus political interests as the old landed gentry or nobility.
 
Is there any "true" meritocracy in the historical record? The closest I know of is arguably China with its examination system, but even there, the system was very heavily skewed to favor candidates from already privileged families AFAIK.

No, it is difficult to find any "true" system of any type. The reality of human nature modifies any system we use.
 

tenthring

Banned
We already have the most meritocratic system the world has ever seen. I'm sure the average IQ at Harvard is higher then ever before. As are other factors like conscientiousness.

I think the frustration people have is that these traits are largely used for selfish and corrupt ends. A group of meritocratic scoundrels are just people really good at being scoundrels.

Some balance between letting in new meritocratic blood (lets face it, people who rolled well on the genes lottery) and allowing the old group to maintain some of its status across generations is necessary. Both in a practical sense of its what will happen when people pursue their own interests, but in the greater sense that a hypercompetitive and insecure elite is not conductive to principals of good stewardship and noblese oblige. To be honest many of my interactions with people from elite educations, at least at a young age like me, shows that fear of dropping out of the elite is a driving motivating factor. And fear can easily lead to people doing whatever it takes (no matter how immoral).
 
We already have the most meritocratic system the world has ever seen. I'm sure the average IQ at Harvard is higher then ever before. As are other factors like conscientiousness.

I think the frustration people have is that these traits are largely used for selfish and corrupt ends. A group of meritocratic scoundrels are just people really good at being scoundrels.

....

In the past two decades the US Marine corps has been including ethical training in its recruit training program. Jury is still out on how well that works, but there is a concensus that the recruiting pool shrinks drastically if you screen out young men without effective moral values for group function.

An yes the people you describe are a fair portion of my customers and business peers. I have a stiff 'asshole' premium added into my cost estimates for that lot.
 
A swathe of Napoleon III's across Europe perhaps?

That sounds like a recipe for a violent and dark TL.

Napoléon III used to joke that between himself who was socialist, thiers who was a monarchist others whoe were republican there was no Bonapartistes in his government. Napoléon III was an autocrat, but he wasn't a reactionary, he never wanted a return to the old regime (and in fact it wouldn't do him any good, as the old regime was the Bourbon, not the Bonaparte).
 
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