Prevent the rise of liberal democracy

I think this would basically come down to nerfing America; a country explicitly dedicated to liberal democracy with the basically unlimited resources of two continents an ocean away from the bastions of reaction is going to exert a powerful global influence on behalf of liberal democracy over time.
 
America doesn't need to be "nerfed", you just need a North America that is neither liberal or democratic.

This actually isn't that difficult. It may be only necessary to have the Stuarts prevail against Parliament.
 
America doesn't need to be "nerfed", you just need a North America that is neither liberal or democratic.

This actually isn't that difficult. It may be only necessary to have the Stuarts prevail against Parliament.

Even IOTL, the American Constitution contained non-democratic (or at least less-democratic) elements -- e.g., Senators were appointed by their State Legislatures, not by popular election, and the President likewise was only indirectly elected. It would be interesting to see a TL where the Senate was still appointed and the Electoral College had kept its independence and not turned into a rubber stamp.
 
It’s a paradox that the very factor that has allowed widespread, stable liberal democracy has had massive, negative ecological effects. This being agricultural development in Australia, which before the Industrial Revolution had soils much too infertile for any sort of food production due to their extreme age and low levels of phosphorus, sulfur and micronutrients. However, once these problems can be partially overcome, Australia – with 30 percent or so of the world’s non-cryospheric land under 11˚ slope and before the Industrial Revolution less than 0.1 percent of its human population – has a huge comparative advantage in agriculture even with yields one-seventh those common in the rest of the world.

The result or widespread clearing of Australia is that powerful large landowning classes, which in most of Europe and the Americas and all of Asia had prevented or destabilized democracies before the “Green Revolution” of the 1950s, are rendered powerless, and that despite severe and growing problems with salinization, drying of rivers, loss of species almost unchanged from over 30,000,000 years ago, and runaway poleward climate shifts, the free market does nothing to encourage Australia’s landowners to manage their land more carefully because land is just so dirt-cheap. The 1950s and 1960s “Green Revolution” was the time when the large landowners who kept European authoritarians in power could no longer remain wealthy enough to influence politics, and consequently democracy would remain permanent across the whole continent wherever Stalinism had not taken control.

With no agricultural development in Australia and reduced development in the more infertile parts of Africa – the least dissimilar extralimital landmass to Australia – large landowners in Europe, Asia and the Americas would retain sufficient political power to thwart the development of democracy. As Dietrich Rüschemeyer showed in his 1992 book Capitalist Development and Democracy, a powerful large landowning class has only once – in the United Kingdom – coexisted with democracy for more than a decade. Although Rüschemeyer does not go into this detail, it is clear to me that only in cold, humid nations (or subnational entities) dependent upon forestry and fishing – like Scandinavia, New Zealand and the cold coastal parts of the Americas – would liberal democracy have developed with Australia remaining under native flora. As shown by Carlos Botero and his associates in ‘The Ecology of Religious Beliefs’ even primitive societies dependent on forestry and fishing tend to be atheistic and egalitarian in a manner completely opposed to either farming or herding societies. Thus, those societies with large-scale dependence on those industries would have remained islands of liberal democracy (or of some other form).

To prevent large-scale democracy, one would have needed to prevent the large-scale clearing of Australia for agriculture, but I do know know how this would have happened. For one thing, how radically different in age and chemical and physical properties Australian soils are from those of other present-day continents was not known until the 1990s, a full twenty years after severe impacts had began. For another, even if they were known it is not likely entrepreneurs would accept even the severest warnings.
 
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Md139115

Banned
I would argue that it is a very simple POD. Have the Thirteen Colonies be settled by large landowners and tenant farmers. In Britain by the 1700s, the independent yeoman farmer was essentially a thing of the past. We talk about the Highland Clearances in Scotland, but the same thing had pretty much happened in England over the course of the preceding century. America, contrary to many of the plans drawn up by the backers in London, wound up seeing this yeomanry resurrected as an absence of noble or state funding and a need to sell land no matter how cheap to pay the bills meant that the middle and lower classes could become landowners again. This gave those people the sources of wealth and legal protection to advocate for their rights as Englishmen, for the maintenance of their colonial charters, and eventually, for their natural inalienable rights.

You want to butterfly away liberal democracy? Have the Thirteen Colonies get serious hacienda style plantations. Let the crown fund the colonial companies and the king award large estates to the lords of the realm for their support. Forbid the more egalitarian minded sects like Puritans or Quakers from settling. Rework indentured servitude contracts so they’re more appealing than slaves. Make America into Britain, and you wipe the American Revolution, the French Revolution, the Chartist Movement, the 1848 Revolutions, and countless more.
 
It’s a paradox that the very factor that has allowed widespread, stable liberal democracy has had massive, negative ecological effects. This being agricultural development in Australia, which before the Industrial Revolution had soils much too infertile for any sort of food production due to their extreme age and low levels of phosphorus, sulfur and micronutrients. However, once these problems can be partially overcome, Australia – with 30 percent or so of the world’s non-cryospheric land under 11˚ slope and before the Industrial Revolution less than 0.1 percent of its human population – has a huge comparative advantage in agriculture even with yields one-seventh those common in the rest of the world.

The result or widespread clearing of Australia is that powerful large landowning classes, which in most of Europe and the Americas and all of Asia had prevented or destabilized democracies before the “Green Revolution” of the 1950s, are rendered powerless, and that despite severe and growing problems with salinization, drying of rivers, loss of species almost unchanged from over 30,000,000 years ago, and runaway poleward climate shifts, the free market does nothing to encourage Australia’s landowners to manage their land more carefully because land is just so dirt-cheap. The 1950s and 1960s “Green Revolution” was the time when the large landowners who kept European authoritarians in power could no longer remain wealthy enough to influence politics, and consequently democracy would remain permanent across the whole continent wherever Stalinism had not taken control.

With no agricultural development in Australia and reduced development in the more infertile parts of Africa – the least dissimilar extralimital landmass to Australia – large landowners in Europe, Asia and the Americas would retain sufficient political power to thwart the development of democracy. As Dietrich Rüschemeyer showed in his 1992 book Capitalist Development and Democracy, a powerful large landowning class has only once – in the United Kingdom – coexisted with democracy for more than a decade. Although Rüschemeyer does not go into this detail, it is clear to me that only in cold, humid nations (or subnational entities) dependent upon forestry and fishing – like Scandinavia, New Zealand and the cold coastal parts of the Americas – would liberal democracy have developed with Australia remaining under native flora. As shown by Carlos Botero and his associates in ‘The Ecology of Religious Beliefs’ even primitive societies dependent on forestry and fishing tend to be atheistic and egalitarian in a manner completely opposed to either farming or herding societies. Thus, those societies with large-scale dependence on those industries would have remained islands of liberal democracy (or of some other form).

To prevent large-scale democracy, one would have needed to prevent the large-scale clearing of Australia for agriculture, but I do know know how this would have happened. For one thing, how radically different in age and chemical and physical properties Australian soils are from those of other present-day continents was not known until the 1990s, a full twenty years after severe impacts had began. For another, even if they were known it is not likely entrepreneurs would accept even the severest warnings.
what the fuck
 
Part of the problem is that the more relatively liberal democratic nations tended to also have freer economic models, meaning that over time money and markets went to them, which also drove progress in private industry.

A great power like Spain could refuse permission to other countries to trade with its far-flung reaches but that wouldn't stop them from doing it. Where Spanish merchants weren't providing what was wanted, the locals were happy to trade with others, even if sometimes having to do so surreptitiously.

Also, if you look at Spain you are looking at a power who is financing itself with colonial wealth, which 1) is finite and 2) prevents the developments at home which would develop the economy in line with its competitors

You could SAY that a way to prevent the rise of liberal democracy would be to have the Spanish Armada victorious and Spain subjugate both England and the Netherlands, but history will not comply with remaining on a parallel track. instead what will happen is that
 
what the (expletive)
My message is not really hard to understand – it is how the clearing of Australia’s ancient soils, by impoverishing the old large landholders of Europe and Asia whose agriculture was made uncompetitive, allowed the creation of stable democracies. (If you want to understand the true nature of Australia’s soils read Tim Flannery’s The Future Eaters: An Ecological History of the Australian Lands and People and Gordon Orians’ and Antoni Milewski’s ‘Ecology of Australia: The Effect of Nutrient-Poor Soils and Intense Fires’.

Finding a way to prevent Australia being cleared is equivalent to these large landholders maintaining their power even with improvements in agricultural technology.
Make America into Britain, and you wipe the American Revolution, the French Revolution, the Chartist Movement, the 1848 Revolutions, and countless more.
As I said, once agriculture spread to nations with greater flat land supply, and large landholders lose their grip on the political system, one inevitably sees major political changes even if the bourgeoisie prefers to maintain old oligarchical systems. The peasantry would have become even poorer, and the working classes in Europe have never had tolerance for the old political order once they have been numerous enough to smash it.

Even had there been no French Revolution, liberalism critic and Catholic ethicist Benjamin Wiker has noted in many books (Moral Darwinism, Ten Books that Screwed Up the World) that the belief systems associated with liberal democracy were already developed to a considerable extent beforehand and can be traced back in Wiker’s view as far as The Prince in the sixteenth century and Thomas Hobbes in the early seventeenth.

In contrast, if we were able to eliminate Europe’s and East Asia’s present comparative disadvantage in agriculture – as keeping Australia under native vegetation would very substantially have done to enormous global ecological benefit – Europe and East Asia would still have been ruled by large wealthy landowners eager to ensure they were not taxed, and willing to repress the lower classes in a way industrialists substantially dependent upon lower class consumption are not.
 
My message is not really hard to understand – it is how the clearing of Australia’s ancient soils, by impoverishing the old large landholders of Europe and Asia whose agriculture was made uncompetitive, allowed the creation of stable democracies.
There were stable democracies before Europeans started settling Australia, never mind before they could make any significant economic impact. As such, your message may not be hard to understand, but it is also wrong.
 
There were stable democracies before Europeans started settling Australia, never mind before they could make any significant economic impact. As such, your message may not be hard to understand, but it is also wrong.
Jared,

I did not deny the possibility of stable democracies before Europeans started settling Australia, but merely said the power of large landholders would severely limit their geographic extent.

Moreover, what exactly were the “stable democracies before Europeans started settling Australia” – I have severe doubts as to whether Rüschemeyer would qualify these as “democratic”.
 
Jared,

I did not deny the possibility of stable democracies before Europeans started settling Australia, but merely said the power of large landholders would severely limit their geographic extent.

Moreover, what exactly were the “stable democracies before Europeans started settling Australia” – I have severe doubts as to whether Rüschemeyer would qualify these as “democratic”.
Literally what did the level of democracy in the United States have ANYTHING to do with Australia's agriculture(???)
 
I did not deny the possibility of stable democracies before Europeans started settling Australia, but merely said the power of large landholders would severely limit their geographic extent.
Even if the large landholder part made any sense - which it doesn't - I'm baffled why you focus on the agricultural exports of Australia as playing any role in such things when meaningful agricultural exports from North America were (a) earlier and (b) many times larger.

Moreover, what exactly were the “stable democracies before Europeans started settling Australia” – I have severe doubts as to whether Rüschemeyer would qualify these as “democratic”.
I couldn't care less what Rüschemeyer does or does not define as a democracy. By the usual definitions of the term, Britain, the United States, the Isle of Man and San Marino would all qualify. Iceland may as well, though it depends how much credit is given to the power of the Althing, and there was a temporary dissolution of the Althing soon after the settlement of Australia.
 
Even if the large landholder part made any sense - which it doesn't - I'm baffled why you focus on the agricultural exports of Australia as playing any role in such things when meaningful agricultural exports from North America were (a) earlier and (b) many times larger.


I couldn't care less what Rüschemeyer does or does not define as a democracy. By the usual definitions of the term, Britain, the United States, the Isle of Man and San Marino would all qualify. Iceland may as well, though it depends how much credit is given to the power of the Althing, and there was a temporary dissolution of the Althing soon after the settlement of Australia.
Rüschemeyer does demonstrate that the northeastern United States – a hilly region and resource-poor to an extent unequalled anywhere else in North America – was a “restricted democracy” even before Australia was settled. By the definitions of Rüschemeyer in the appendix of Capitalist Development and Democracy, those remaining nations would be “constitutional oligarchies” as their male suffrage was (correct me if I be wrong) limited to less than sixty percent of adult males. However, I want to emphasise yet again my thesis does not say there would have been no democracies without large-scale land clearing in Australia and perhaps Africa, but that democracy would exist only in fishing- and forestry-based economies and perhaps in small-city states.

North America’s agricultural exports were larger than those of Australia before the 1950s “Green Revolution” – I do not deny that. I have not even looked at how Australian farm exports changed during the time of the “Green Revolution”. However, how much larger are North America’s exports vis-à-vis Australia’s today, and more importantly, would North America without its present large farm subsidies become an importer of food due to its generally short frost-free seasons??
 
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