The discussion is very interesting from my POV. The thing is, what is going to happen is only vaguely planned out by me so I can't even entirely say 'this is right, this is wrong' about your speculation even if I wanted to spoil it. Some of the ideas you raise are close to my own. The main area where you're falling down, understandably, is trying to directly extrapolate the present day (2015) from where we are now (1810s-20s) because a lot of things can happen in between without being directly referred to. As an example, if you tried to understand the 2010 of OTL from history books that cut off in the 1820s, you probably wouldn't realise the Soviet Union had ever existed - you might assume that the Russian Empire collapsed in revolution during a war and then directly emerged as a reduced, democratic(ish) federation.
I will give one hint: Churchill's authoritarian Britain has no influence on what Nuttall & co. have run foul of, any more than Lord Liverpool's authoritarian Britain was derived from Oliver Cromwell's Protectorate 150 years earlier.
Hmm. I guess after the Popular Wars we can't really know anything except that a Combine forms, present-day Anglosphere isn't fond of societism, and that something goes down in the '80s.
The Churchill bit is good to know...I wonder if there is any way to guess? We still don't really know what exactly societism is, though we have ideas, and all we know about the Nuttall place is that they don't like Societism, speak English, and don't seem to mind Whig history. And they have nothing much to do with Churchill.
If societism is indeed a hierarchical, technocratic ideology, then the team could have run afoul of something more akin to OTL's socialism: a left-wing populist ideology that attaches itself to a Whiggish theory of societal progress as opposed to a Hegelian theory of class struggle. In opposition to societism, it would support natonalism.
Why does everyone seem to think Societism is communist? Everything I've seen suggests it isn't. It seems to be to me a kind of totalitarian meritocracy with a strong dose of classism that thinks all upper classes are essentially the same, and should therefore be united. I also think it's a very capitalistic system. There will be social mobility, based largely on education and loyalty but it will be quite rare. Government seems to be more like Ian's Unionism or the technocracy from the Chaos TL.
Adamantinism also looks interesting. It sounds like it might be something like the government of the planet Beowulf from David Weber's Honorverese sci-fi series.
And while, thanks to Thande's excellent points, I won't try to predict much, but I don't think they're in a Societist or adamantine state. I know the Whigs have some influence, and I think this is an isolationist british dictatorship.
Airstrip One!
I'm willing to accept the theory of societism-as-hierarchical technocracy, but I'm not sure where you're getting it because it's always seemed very egalitarian to me. But it does make a certain amount of sense: capitalists of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your boundaries. It also plays into the OTL truth that it's easier to get elites to unite across borders and easier to whip the folks into nationalism.
Thande also mentioned that societism is largely comprised of ideologies he doesn't like, so we can metagame this with his RL politics (hint: he's a Euroskeptic!)
What is Adamantism? I don't remember seeing it mentioned.
My little conspiracy theory is that societism is actually is a good ideology that will work to a degree (the social equality of communism, augmented with a little more liberty than OTL communism, backed up by practical capitalism). It's ideology frees colonies, frees slaves (albeit bloody of course) but its actually the totalitarian nationalism backed conservative states the instigate violence. This leads to our "good" societist state turning into the fairly totalitarian "Combine" (to a degree of course...I don't its going to be the evil state like Nazi Germany by any means or even like the soviet union). In the epic world war (wars?) on crack between societism and the conservatives (we're calling them whigs right?) the conservatives win...government control and totalitarian aspects become the norm which leads to much censorship and semi-dystopia under the guise of constitutional democracies (which very well might be democratic in name only).
It's not exactly "bad guys win" but nor is it "bad guys lose". But then again with the exception of nazi germany neither would OTL from the eyes of someone looking from the outside in...
I have been calling the anti-societists whigs because of the prevalence of whig history in the 20th century works the team has no problems bringing back. E.g., "Great Man" emphasis on exceptional individuals (Leo Bone, Moric Benyovsky or however you spell it, Frederick I who started it all), a somewhat optimistic tone, a preference for constitutional monarchy over absolutism or radical republicanism. Also a complete absence of social history or race/class/gender theory excepting discussions of Linnaean Racialism.
One more clue to understanding the whigs is that they subscribe to an interpretation of 18th century wars as struggles of cultural supremacy, which the British and Spanish win.
I have a feeling we're going to see some wars in the future without any clear side to root for.
I think you may have got it the wrong way round. Sanchez seems to believe the upper and possibly middle classes should unite and form a single worldwide dictatorship (though that may not be his original intention), without regard to race or language. The reason it rises to power in the UPSA so quickly is it meshes well with the abolition of the limpieza, and the fact the UPSA has less of a working class than other nations. When Societism becomes bad is when it develops one and they rebel. As the rulers believe that they have the right to rule due to superior intelligence, this leads to repression and a technocratic dictatorship elected by those who say, have paid enough tax per year for five years running and never dropped below a lower amount and have high enough scores on tests (maybe even the the equivalent of a degree) and have never shown disloyalty to the state. This state thus has in-built classism, and though it's possible, social mobility is rare and usually downward.
This state is actually more Khrushchev/Brezhnev etc communism, by which time it was largely socialist in name only.
The reason it's called Societist is because they believe in a Societal Unity of all societies.
I had thought he'd meant societal unity within one society but I am now convinced that it refers to between societies, like you say.
The technocratic interpretation makes sense, but I can't think of anywhere in the text that indicates it. The parallels to socialism are obvious, but that doesn't make the content the same. That would be an interesting change, though: people are divided more by class than nationality, and therefore the ruling classes should consolidate their power across borders.
I think this must be a bourgeois ideology rather than an aristocratic one, since the upper classes have no reason to disrupt the post-Jacobin status quo, though they may change their mind after the Popular Wars. This does seem like a classic Goldsteinian Middle-overthrow-the-High-by-disingenuously-enlisting-the-low situation, though. The High is the linnaean slaveholder, the Low are his slaves, and the Middle are Sanchez and his buddy kicking the tar out of the first guy.