Could something resembling this, with legal class divisions, restricted franchise, high concentration of wealth, internationalist-mercantilist tradition, and a military-economic-religious-political complex have developed from Cromwell's government? Like, if the monarchy was never restored?
WI/AHC: A far-right equivalent of communism?
- Thread starter Emperor Constantine
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In the alternate ideologies thread, I proposed something similar as an alternate path between the enlightenment and romanticism called martialism. To copy/paste my own work:
he ideology below is one that, if I ever had the time, I would love to make into it’s own thing, but it essentially exists as a “third way” between Romanticism and the Enlightenment. Just to be clear, below isn’t my views on the military (I am a pacifist), but a generalisation of a trend counter to the other two dominant movements.
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Martialism
This ideology starts in an AH Cromwellian England where the Major Generals are more popular. Over time, a distinct ideological trend in the Anglo sphere comes into dominance, which essentially rationalises the military as the ideal over the state, nation etc. This isn’t in the same sense as militarism say, for Prussia (which was a distinctly romantic militarism), or for Bolivarian regimes (which was a distinctly enlightenment militarism), nor is it the belief in military rule as a temporary state of order.
Martialism views the nation state and the kingdom (in most cases) as a political fiction, believing that political power is only meaningful in relation to the ability to enforce it and that it is a military which solely defines and/or uplifts a person in meaningful terms and thus is the most important arbiter for rights. Citizenship is most deserving for those who enable the rights of citizens (the military), Conscription is seen as empowering and a martial lifestyle is the most virtuous because of it being the only one where an individual acts to uphold morality in real terms.
in short, think Agrarianism but with an emphasis on power (as opposed to tradition or liberty) as the ideal and with the soldier in place of the farmer.
Forms of Martialism
Democratic: A democratic martialism could rely on something similar to that of Starship Troopers, or be akin to a Jeffersonian democracy. Voting isn’t about the structure of society, but is instead for the establishment of military judges/tribunals who represent the citizens wishes in a senatorial fashion.
Oligarchy: Everyone is a conscript in some fashion, even if they work in the private sector (presuming there is a private sector) on the justification that mass conscription ensures responsible power to the citizenry who can rise to any heights
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To be clear, the above isn't inherently intended to be an evil thing, and could also be described as "realism" in the political sphere to the extreme. Whilst seeing power as a virtue would naturally rub a lot of people the wrong way, the hypothetical martialist would find said sentiment absurd. "You can believe that God or a piece of paper grants you all rights you want, but it's because someone is wielding power that my wife and kids live safely in their homes".
Restricted franchise will fuel revolutionary liberalism which would be interesting.
FairlyUninformedGraduate
Gone Fishin'
Well Cromwell was a callous hypocrite who was very good at killing people...
It's my understanding that after Cromwell I died, there was a succession crisis brought about by his relatively incompetent and/or unpopular son.
I agree, if the Major-Generals step into rule as a Junta, and then can fix the issues Cromwell had with his parliament, perhaps by creating a second house composed of Religious leaders and High-Ranking Military Officers, maybe called "the House of the Elect" or something, they could create a stable government which could then follow itself down this rabbit hole...
FairlyUninformedGraduate
Gone Fishin'
For all Charlie twos faults, he was self interested and lazy enough to not rock the boat too far. A junta which believes it rules as a Calvinist elect and is actually competent is a horrible prospect
Not as far as I know. It's a bit of an Anglosphere phenomenon but it had at least some following in the US, so if it had taken root in a superpower it could have spread much further than it did OTL. Alternatively a British Commonwealth that is a) a powerful international alliance and b) embraces Social Credit would be interesting.
No they are absolute, in that they reference the seating arrangements of the French Assembly in the 1790s. Why people today want to categorise political discourse on the basis of those arrangements as interpreted by the Comintern circa 1930 is just one more example of the idiocy of journalists, and the skill of Comintern propagandists.
This is, actually, a very interesting point (no matter what he was asked about). An assumption that communism or any other totalitarian regime is all about government ignores the (seemingly obvious) fact that all of the known communist (and totalitarian) regimes had certain degree of a popular support which allowed them to come to power. "Oppression" is a tricky and complicated thing and there are always people who are not a part of a government but expect to gain from that regime (for example, denouncing someone as "enemy of the people" and getting his apartment or some kind of a promotion, etc.).
Then, there are numerous people who are not a part of a government but are serving in some capacity to the government's officials and are getting some benefits and so on. Basically, it is a pyramidal schema in which specifics of the ideology are rather irrelevant comparing to the structure (Ribbentrop after visiting Moscow claimed that he felt himself as being among the old party comrades).
As far as the anarchism is involved, as far as I understand, a society can't exist in a state of a "perfect anarchy" (as a complete absence of any administrative structures) so it will end up with at least some ruling/planning institutions. There must be some institutions responsible for coordination and distribution of the production. aka, people who are not producing anything but are exercising a considerable power (IIRC, the issues of planning and distribution are totally absent from Marx's pipe dream about post-capitalism society) . IIRC, even Kropotkin was cheering the Bolshevik coup initially even if later he complained that the Bolsheviks grabbed too much power.