uk oligarchy

The United Kingdom and ternary gradualism
The case of the United Kingdom is of obvious interest, on the one hand because the monarchy
British was at the head of the first world colonial and industrial empire in
Nineteenth century and up to the mid-twentieth century, and secondly because it is about
sort of the opposite case to that of France. While the French trajectory is
marked by the break of the Revolution of 1789, and by multiple breaks
Monarchical, imperial, authoritarian and republican policies and restorations
in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the British trajectory seems to be characterized by
Absolute gradualism.
However, it would be wrong to imagine that it is only by small touches
that the social and political organization of the United Kingdom has moved from
trifunctional to a proprietary logic, then to Labor logics and
subsequent neo-owners. The moments of rupture have an essential importance
which must be underlined, as they again illustrate the multiplicity of bifurcations and
possible trajectories, and the importance of crises and event logic
in the history of unequal regimes. Two points particularly deserve
to be reported: on the one hand the central role played by the fight for progressivity
in the fall of the House of Lords, especially during the crisis
fateful of 1909-1911; and on the other hand the importance of the Irish question in
the general questioning of the dominant order and the British inegalitarian regime
between 1880 and 1920, both in its tri-functional dimensions, proprietary and
quasi-colonial.
Let's start by recalling the general context. The British Parliament has
ancient origins, which are generally traced back to the 11th-13th centuries. The
Council of the king, made up of representatives of the high nobility and the high clergy, becomes
gradually and sometimes includes representatives of cities and counties. The
separation of Parliament into two chambers, the House of Lords and the House of Lords
common, is set up from the fourteenth century. These institutions reflect the
trifunctional structuring of the society of the time. In particular, the Chamber
lords consisted of members of both dominant classes, who initially
had an equivalent weight in the assembly: on the one hand the spiritual lords,
that is, bishops, archbishops, abbots and other representatives of the class
clerical and religious; and on the other hand the temporal lords, that is to say the dukes,
Marquis, counts and other representatives of the noble and warrior class. In the
medieval English texts theorizing social organization into three orders, such as
those of Archbishop Wulfstan of York, we find the same concern for balance as
we noted in the French texts7. The nobles must listen to the advice of
the wisdom and moderation lavished on them by clerics, who in return should not
to think of themselves as warriors and to abuse their power, otherwise
the whole legitimacy of the trifunctional system that could be threatened.
This equilibrium experienced a first decisive break in the sixteenth century. Following
conflicts with the papacy and the dissolution of the monasteries decided by
Henry VIII in the 1530s, the spiritual lords are sanctioned and see their
political role diminish. They then become clearly a minority in the
House of Lords, which will now be almost entirely controlled by the Lords
time. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the number of spiritual lords was thus limited to
26 bishops, while the temporal lords have 460 seats. The high nobility
has also succeeded in imposing, from the fifteenth century, the principle that almost all
seats of temporal lords are occupied by hereditary peers, that is,
say dukes, marquises, earls, viscounts and barons, passing on their
paternal to son, usually according to the rule of primogeniture.
This system gives this thin group durability and prominence
under the protection of both royal and electoral power and
issues of power and rivalry within the noble class (the bass and
mean nobility playing no role in the appointment and perpetuation of
peers). Of course, the king has always kept the theoretical possibility of naming
new lords, in principle without any limit, which in case of a serious crisis can
to allow complete control of the affairs of the kingdom. But in
practice, this right has generally been exercised with extreme caution, and the most
often in very special circumstances, under the control of Parliament, by
example as a result of the union with Scotland (1707) and Ireland (1800), which
led to the appointment of new lords (eg 28 peers and 4 bishops
in the Irish case, have as many as a hundred seats in the House of Commons),
without upsetting the balance of power.
Multiple works have shown the extreme concentration of power and
earthly property characterizing the high English aristocracy within the nobility
European. It is estimated that by the end of the 19th century, around 1880, nearly 80% of
United Kingdom lands were still held by 7,000 noble families (less than
0.1% of the population), of which more than half by only 250 families (less than
0.01% of the population), a thin group that corresponded largely to
hereditary peers making up the House of Lords8. By comparison, the nobility
France held on the eve of the 1789 Revolution about 25% -30% of
earthly properties of the kingdom, in a context, it is true, where the class
ecclesiastic had not yet been expropriated.
Recall also that the House of Lords played a distinct role
dominant in British bicameralism until the last third of the nineteenth century.
Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth century, they were members of the Tory party
(conservative) or whig party (officially renamed liberal party from
1859), the majority of prime ministers and members of the government were
from the House of Lords. It was not until the end of Lord's long tenure
Salisbury, third marquess of the name, and Tory Prime Minister in 1885-1892 and
again in 1895-1902, for this tradition to be lost and for the leaders of
from the House of Commons9.
Above all, it must be emphasized that the House of Commons was itself
composed mostly of members of the nobility in the eighteenth century and during
most of the nineteenth century, until 1860-1870. Adopted following the
Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the dismissal of King James II, the Bill of Rights
had confirmed and protected the rights of Parliament, particularly
adoption of taxes and budgets. But this founding text had not changed anything at the
structure of Parliament and its mode of election: on the contrary, it has led to
a parliamentary regime that was fundamentally aristocratic and oligarchic.
In particular, all laws should always be adopted in the same
terms of both Houses, which gave the House of Commons a veto
lords (and thus to a few hundred hereditary peers) over the entire
kingdom, especially in tax and budgetary matters, and for everything
which concerned the right of property. In addition, the members of the House of
municipalities were still elected by a minority of owners. The rules
defining the electoral tax, that is, the amount of taxes that must be paid
or properties that had to be held to be eligible to vote, were complex
and constituency variables, and controlled by local elites
power. In practice, they favored landowners, whose influence
was further strengthened by an electoral division giving more seats to
rural areas.
In the early 1860s, about 75% of the seats in the House of Commons
The communes were thus always occupied by members of the aristocracy,
same as the latter represented less than 0.5% of the British population of
the époque10. On the benches of the Commons, there were representatives of the three
main traditionally distinguished components within the classroom
nobility of the United Kingdom: the peerage, the titled nobility (except patry) and the gentry
(untitled nobility). The school was well represented, especially in the form
younger sons of hereditary peers who, with some exceptions, had no chance
to have access to the House of Lords and often made the choice of a career
Parliament and Politics in the House of Commons, generally by being elected
a district where the family lineage held vast estates. We
also counted in the Commons the eldest sons of hereditary peers, pending
their place in the House of Lords. Salisbury was a member of the House of Commons
Commons from 1853, before taking up its seat in the House of Lords at the
died of his father in 1868, then became prime minister in 1885.
Among the deputies elected to the House of Commons a large number of
members of the titled nobility, and in particular baronets and knights
(Knights). This component of the nobility played no direct political role in
United Kingdom and did not enjoy any special legal or tax privileges, but their
title was nevertheless protected by the British State, and its members occupied a
formal place of choice in official processions and ceremonies, just
behind the hereditary peers. It was an extremely prestigious group,
hardly more than to which the monarch could choose to give
access by letters patent, following a procedure similar to that used for
appointments among the lords. The monarch could in principle carry out
appointments without limitation of numbers, but in one case as in the other there
always proceeded in moderation. In the early 1880s, the kingdom
thus included some 856 baronets, who placed themselves immediately below
460 hereditary peers from the House of Lords, followed by a few hundred
knights. The baronet title could also be used as a gateway to the payroll,
for example, in the case where peer lines disappeared without descendants. He does
the object still today of an official list, the Official Roll of the Baronetage
held by the UK Department of Justice11.
Finally, the House of Commons also had a large number of
members of the gentry, that is to say, the untitled nobility, who formed the group
numerically the most important within the British aristocracy to the eighteenth and
Nineteenth century, but which had no official existence of any kind, not even a
title recognized by the state or a place in processions and ceremonies.
The British aristocracy, a nobility
propriétariste
This structure of the British aristocracy into three groups (peers sitting at the
House of Lords, nobility titled except patry, gentry without official status) explains
besides, why is it so difficult to estimate in a perfectly precise manner
the evolution of the size of the nobility in the United Kingdom. The difficulties are of a
nature slightly different from those encountered in the case of France. At
Eighteenth century, the French nobility as a whole had a legal existence,
since all its members had political privileges (such as
choose the representatives of the nobiliary order at the states general), fiscal (as
the exemption from certain taxes such as size) and jurisdictional
seigniorial justice). But the state of nobility was first defined at the local level,
under conditions and in ways that have left disparate traces and
difficult to compare across provinces, so there are uncertainties
the total size of the group12. At the same time, the nobility
British group had on the one hand a slender nobility titrated (less than 0.1% of the
population), which included the hereditary, privileged
considerable political pressure, starting with the Chamber's right of veto
lords on all of the kingdom's legislation until 1911, and immense
land areas; and on the other hand the untitled nobility (gentry), which was by far the
more numerous, since it is generally estimated that the total size of the class
nobility was around 1% of the population in the 18th century and less than 0.5% in
the end of the 19th century (see Figure 5.2), but which had no legal existence
officielle13.
The gentry formed a class of prosperous proprietors, although broader than the
tiny British titled nobility but otherwise finer than classes
plethoric of little Spanish, Portuguese or Polish noblemen. Even if she does
did not have explicit political and fiscal privileges, it is clear that the
gentry benefited greatly from the UK's political regime. The
gentry consisted mainly of descendants of the younger branches of the lineages
titled (peers, baronets and knights), and more generally from groups
old Anglo-Saxon warrior and feudal classes, enlarged to new
groups of possessors, based on alliance and recognition strategies.
The rules determining the right to vote for elections in the House of Commons, as defined in
local level, generally favored land ownership and benefited
so indirectly the members of the gentry who had kept an important
earthly domain in relation to members of the new bourgeois classes and
merchants whose wealth was exclusively manufactured, urban or
financial.
But the central point is that the boundaries between these different groups of
owners were relatively porous: no one knew for sure where
began and where the gentry ended, which was only defined by the fact that
members were recognized as such by the other members of the group at
local. In practice, many land and aristocratic fortunes were
gradually reinvested in market, colonial or
during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, so that many members of the
the gentry had diversified heritages. Conversely, many bourgeois
authentic and ancient merchants, with no feudal or warrior origins of any
so, had the good taste to acquire a soil earthen domain IDE, to adopt the mode
of adequate life and to marry properly, so as to enter
undisputed in the gentry14. An alliance with authentic descendants of
ancient warlike and feudal lineages, or with children of the nobility
more recent title, facilitated recognition as a member of the gentry, but this
was not an indispensable condition. The social and political system in force at
United Kingdom in the eighteenth century and for most of the nineteenth century reflected in
to a large extent a form of gradual fusion of aristocratic logics and
propriétaristes.
The conditions for the exercise of the right to vote were also defined by the
elites at the local level. It was not until 1832 that a first real attempt
electoral reform and national legislation. Social protest and
the mobilisations for the extension of the electoral "franchise" led to
that a law be passed for the first time by Parliament, not without resistance.
Some members of the Commons saw this as an opportunity to increase their
legitimacy against the Lords. The number of voters, which represented around 5% of
adult men in 1820, a distinctly smaller but significantly larger group
wide as the only gentry, increased significantly as a result of the 1832 law, all
remaining relatively weak, and clearly a minority. It was about 14% of the
adult male population in 1840, with considerable regional variation,
because the constituencies retained the privilege of defining the exact rules
governing the right to vote, depending in particular on the strategies of local elites, and
especially the gentry. These rules were no longer modified until reforms
truly decisive elections of 1867 and 1884. It should also be noted that the
secret ballot was not introduced until 1872. Previously each individual vote was
announced publicly and kept in registers (which can always be
to consult today, which is also a valuable source for
researchers). Before that date, it was not always easy for voters
display policy choices contrary to those of the owners or employers
the most powerful in the county. In practice, a large part of the seats were
challenged: the local deputy was reelected from election to election, and often from generation
in generation. In the early 1860s, the House of Commons had
a deeply aristocratic and oligarchic nature.
The owners' societies in the novel
classical
The porosity of these borders between nobles and landowners appears particularly
clearly in the literature of the time, starting with Jane's novels
Austen, whose characters perfectly illustrate the diversity of the gentry
1790-1810, as much as their inscription in a logic
common owner. Both hold land estates and
beautiful homes, as it should be, and the action often takes place at the rhythm of the balls
and visits by the various families of county owners. But
to take a closer look, fortunes also include investments
diversified and distant assets, starting with many debt securities
public, massively issued by the then British State to finance its
colonial and European military expeditions. Direct investments in
Overseas, especially slavers and sugar mills, are not absent either. In
Mansfield Park, Fanny's uncle, Sir Thomas, must leave more than a year
West Indies with his eldest son to put order in his business and his plantations.
The novelist does not dwell on the difficulties encountered by our two
owners with their slavery possessions, then at their zenith in the islands
British and French. But we perceive between the lines that it is not easy to
this time administering such placements to thousands of miles away.
However, this does not prevent Sir Thomas from being also a baronet and a member of the
Communal room.
More rural and wiser in appearance than the characters of Balzac, who dream
as for them pasta factories and perfumes or daring financial montages
and real estate in the Paris of 1820-1830 (when they do not think of them
also to comfortable rents in the southern United States, such as
Vautrin in his famous speech at Rastignac) 15, the heroes of Jane Austen
testify to a world where the different forms of patrimonial ownership are
communion entries. In practice, the amount of property seems to count well
more than their composition or the origin of the property. What determines
the possibilities of encounter and alliance facing the different s
characters, it is above all the level of income produced by the capital they
possess. Is there a pension of £ 100 a year (just over
three times the average income of the time), or 1,000 pounds (thirty times the income
medium), or 4,000 pounds (more than a hundred times)? Here is the question
Central. In the first case, we are in the unenviable situation of the three sisters
Elinor, Marianne and Margaret in The Heart and Reason (Sense and Sensibility), and
it seems almost impossible to marry. In the last case, we are more
close to the great ease of their half-brother John Dashwood, who, from
first pages of the novel, seal their fate and their future existence, by refusing all
real sharing of property, in a terrible dialogue with his wife Fanny. Enter
these two extremes, we observe a whole graduation of ways of life and
sociability, possible encounters and destinies, social groups
subtly different, of which Austen as Balzac chisel the secret borders and
unfold the implications with unparalleled power. One like the other
describe owner companies characterized by very strong hierarchies,
and where it seems difficult to live with a minimum of dignity and elegance if
there is at least twenty or thirty times the average income of the time.
The question of the nature of the properties producing these revenues - earth or
financial, manufacturing or colonial, real estate or
finally not enough because all these social groups and all these categories of
patrimonial holdings are now united by the grace of the monetary equivalent
universal, and above all by the fact that multiple institutional developments,
economic and political (starting with the monetary, legal and fiscal regime,
transport infrastructure, and more generally the unification of the national market and
through the construction of the centralized State) allow more and more
plus this equity method practice. The classic European novel from the beginning of
Nineteenth century is one of the most enlightening testimonies on this golden age of
owners' societies, particularly in its British and French variants.
It is not only that Austen as Balzac have an intimate knowledge of
hierarchy of fortunes and lifestyles of the time, or that they master the
perfection of the different forms of possession and of relations of power and
domination that characterize the society of their time. The most striking is perhaps
their ability not to heroize their characters: they do not condemn them or
glorify, which allows them to restore their complexity and humanity.
Generally speaking, the owners' companies follow more
complex and subtle than trifunctional societies. In the trifunctional order,
the sharing of roles and temperaments is perfectly clear. The great story is
that of the alliance of the three classes: the religious, warlike and
laborious roles play distinct but complementary roles in structuring the
society and allow its perpetuation and stability, for the greater good of
the whole community. Corresponding literary creations, from La
Song of Roland Robin Hood, naturally overflowing with heroism: the
Nobleness of attitude, sacrifice, Christian charity, occupy their place.
The trifunctional schema offers roles and functions so well delineated
it has often been taken up in the cinema and in science fiction17. No trace of this
type of heroism in the homeowners' societies: in the novels of Austen and
Balzac, there is no clear relationship between the extent of detentions
heritage and the capabilities and functional abilities of each other.
Some have considerable properties, others have medium incomes, and
others are finally domestic. These last are to say true little evoked, so much their
existence is dull. But at no time does the novelist suggest that they are in what way
less deserving or less useful to society than those who
employ. Each plays the role assigned to him by his capital, within scales
which seem eternal and intangible. Everyone occupies a place in the society of
owners, who, thanks to the universal monetary equivalent, can
contact with vast communities and distant investments, all in
guaranteeing social stability. Austen like Balzac do not even need
to explain to their readers that the annual rent contributed by a capital is equal to
approximately 5% of the value of this capital, or even the value of a capital
corresponds to approximately twenty years of annual pension. Everyone knows that it takes
capital of around 200,000 pounds to produce a rent e annual
10,000 pounds, regardless of the nature of the property in question. For
nineteenth-century novelists as for their readers, the equivalence between
heritage and annual income is self-evident, and one continually moves from a scale to
the other, without any other form of trial, as if
perfect synonyms, or two parallel languages ​​known to all. Capital does not meet
more to a logic of functional utility, as in the ternary societies, but to
its only logic of equating different forms of detention with
exchange and accumulation possibilities thus opened.
In the classic novel of the early nineteenth century, proprietary inequality is
implicitly justified by its ability to connect distant worlds, or
perhaps rather by the need for social stability (it is not the role of the
novelist to imagine another economic and political organization, seem to us
say Austen as Balzac, but rather to show feelings and spaces
of freedom, detachment and irony that individuals preserve in the face of
capitalistic determinism and the cynicism of money), but in no way by
meritocratic logics and speeches (which will only take their full
in the industrial and financial capitalism of the Belle Epoque, and especially in
the hypercapitalism of the years 1980-2020, which is based on modes of celebration
winners and denigrating losers even more marked than all
previous regimes, and on which we will return).
At times, we also feel that another nineteenth century novel
possible justification for heritage inequality, in the name of the fact that it alone allows
the existence of a thin social group with the means to care for others
only from his own sustenance. In other words, inequality sometimes appears
as a condition of civilization in a poor society. Austen in particular
evokes the workings of life at the time: the resources it
must spend to feed, to furnish, to dress, to move. The reader gets
found that if it is also desired to be able to afford books or
musical instruments, it is better to have at least twenty or thirty times the income
medium of the time, which only allows an extreme concentration of the properties and
income from them. But irony is never far away yet, and Austen
like Balzac do not forget to make fun of the pretensions of their characters and
their supposed incompressible needs18.
Burke's almanac,
from baronets to petro-billionaires
Let us also mention another particularly interesting document (although
much less subtle than the novels of Austen and Balzac) to illustrate
the permeability of aristocratic and proprietary logic in the gentry
British at the time: Burke's almanac, whose real name is Burke's Peerage,
Baroneting and Landed Gentry of the United Kingdom.
Genealogist of his state, John Burke became famous in the early nineteenth century
for his famous directories of British nobility, so much so that his lists of
names and lineages quickly became the source of reference for studying
the aristocracy of that time in the United Kingdom. Such directories were authoritative and
fulfilled a need that was all the stronger because there was no definition or list
of the members of the gentry, the group that formed the largest part
of the nobility. Burke's first almanac, published in 1826, was a
a success that has been continually reissued and revised throughout the century. All that kingdom
had more or less proven members of the gentry wanted to figure, and
Delighted Burke's clever analyzes of lineages and fortunes, alliances
and the properties, the glorious distant ascendancies, and the great deeds of the present.
Some editions focused on peers and titled nobility, and in particular
on those baronets so illustrious that Burke openly regretted that they do not play a
official political role in the service of the kingdom. Other volumes compiled by Burke
focused on the nobles without an official title. The 1883 edition did not count
less than 4,250 families from both titled and gentry nobility. All along
In the nineteenth century, Burke's yearbooks were respected by members of the
nobility and their allies, while being mocked by those who were especially struck by
the infinitely reverential tone used by the famous genealogist and his successors
to evoke all those remarkable families who had given so much to the country.
We find this same type of directories of nobility, royal almanacs and
other worldly books in many countries, from the Livros of linhagens
compiled in Portugal from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries nineteenth and
Twentieth century. These publications allow the nobles and their allies to count
to extol their merits, to express their demands. These directories continue
sometimes to exist long after the official disappearance of the nobility. By
example, if we believe the 28th edition of the Yearbook of the nobility of France,
published in 1872, they are no less than 225 authentic noble deputies (one-third
seats) who are elected to the National Assembly during the legislative elections of 1871,
elections which retrospectively appear as the first of the
3rd Republic, but which are conducted at a time when it was not yet known whether the
new regime, resulting from the military defeat against the Prussian armies, was
to lean towards a republican form or a new monarchical restoration. The
Directory contributor is enthusiastic about what he perceives as "the cry of the
heart of the nation, its spontaneous momentum ":" In which arms could she throw herself with
more assurance and sympathy than in those of the nobility, whose offspring,
worthy heirs of bravery and the virtues of their ancestors, had
generously poured blood to Reichschoffen and Sedan? Also, although all
senior figures rallied to the Empire had withdrawn from the struggle, never since
forty years had we seen the elective Chamber offer such a brilliant meeting of
illustrious names of the aristocracy20. The proportion of noble deputies
falling to less than 10% of seats in 1914, and less than 5% in the interwar period21.
The Yearbook itself appears for the last time in 1938.
What is particularly striking, in the case of Burke's almanac, is
that it still exists today: after counting peers and baronets since
the early nineteenth century, the new versions of Burke's Peerage, throughout the
Twentieth century and up to the beginning of the twenty-first century, began to list "large families
from Europe, America, Africa and the Middle East ". In the last editions,
we thus see new categories of billionaires emerging from oil and
business, a strange mix of crowned heads and big owners of
natural resources and financial portfolios, always with the same
your reverence and admiration. The mind is actually not far from the multiples
rankings of fortunes published by magazines around the world since the years
1980-1990, particularly by Forbes at the global level since 1987, or by the
Monthly Challenges in France since 1998. Often owned by illustrious
multimillionaires themselves, these publications are usually filled with a
stereotyped speech of glorification of deserved fortune and useful inequality22.
Burke's almanac and its transformations illustrate two essential points.
On the one hand, the nineteenth-century British nobility was inseparably
aristocratic and proprietarist. On the other hand, beyond the case of the United Kingdom, and beyond
the transformations of unequal regimes, there are deep continuities
between the trifunctional logics, proprietarists and neo-proprietors of
justification of inequality. The issue of inequality always involves a strong
ideological and conflictual dimension. Several speeches clash, more or less
subtle and contradictory, and incarnate in different types of cognitive devices,
from novels to almanacs, political programs and newspapers,
leaflets and magazines, in order to define and count the number of groups
social networks, as well as their respective resources and merits.
The Lords, guarantors of the proprietary order
Let's come now to the fateful moment of the fall of the House of Lords and the
British proprietorship. Both events are inseparable. All
throughout the eighteenth century and for most of the nineteenth century, the House of Commons
lords govern the country and plays a central role in the hardening, protection and
increasingly fierce sacralisation of property rights. We think classically
Acoculations Acts, these laws adopted and hardened several times by the
Parliament, under the leadership of the Lords, notably in 1773 and 1801, which aimed at
bristle hedges around plots and end peasants' right to use
poor on communal land and pastures.
We must also mention the famous Black Act of 1723, which provided the penalty
capital for woodsongers and hunters of small game, small people
who used to venture out at night, their faces blackened so as not to be
on land that was not theirs, and that the owners of the
House of Lords and their allies in the Commons wanted to be able to keep for
their exclusive use. The target was those who attacked deer, slaughtered
trees, br acted as fishponds, torn coppices, as well as those
who participated in or instigated such acts maliciously. An alleged guilty
could be sentenced to hanging without further trial. Initially
planned for three years, this law will be renewed and hardened for more than a century.
time that these rebellions are silent and return to the proprietary order23.
Rather than seeing the House of Lords as a trifunctional survival
within a proprietary world in formation in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it seems
more relevant to see this political institution as the guarantor of the new
proprietary order and patrimonial hyperconcentration. During the Revolution
French, it is in the name of a proprietary logic (and not a logic
trifunctional based on the balance between nobility class and clerical class, this
which would have been all the more incongruous since the latter had been downgraded since
long) that British elites rebelled against the events in Paris.
Arthur Young, who completes his fascinating travel stories in France then
that the Revolution breaks out, is thus convinced that the country runs to its loss by accepting
in 1789-1790 to make the nobles and the commons (the third estate) sit in the same
Assembly. For our traveling agronomist, there is no doubt that only one system
English-style politics, with a veto power for high nobility, allows a
harmonious and peaceful development, led by responsible people, concerned
the future, that is, the big landowners. In the eyes of British elites
at the time, the fact that representatives of the third estate were elected by vote
censorship is not a sufficient guarantee, no doubt because they feel that this right of
The vote could one day be extended to broader and less responsible classes.
It is the separate vote by order and the veto given to the nobility
through the House of Lords that ensure that no ill-considered policy of
redistribution will not be put in place, and that the country will not plunge into chaos and
the widespread questioning of the right of property, and hence of its prosperity
and its power.
The battle for tax progressivity
and the fall of the House of Lords
In fact, it is the extension of the right to vote for elections to the House of
common principles, coupled with the issue of tax progressivity, which will end
cause the fall of the House of Lords and then of the owners' society in
his outfit. The movement for the extension of suffrage redoubles
mid-nineteenth century, while universal male suffrage was
been tested in France in 1848-1852, and again from 1871. At
United Kingdom, it is necessary to await the electoral reforms of 1867 and 1884 so that the
rules are unified across the country and that the number of voters reaches
respectively 30% and 60% of the adult male population. The suffrage
masculine universal was instituted in 1918, before finally being extended to women in
1928, and this last phase of the reforms accompanied the first decisive successes
of the Labor Party24. But before that, the reforms of 1867 and 1884,
doubled by the abolition of the public ballot in 1872, which completely transformed the
power relations between the Commons and the Lords. From the middle of
In the 1880s, more than 60% of adult men were asked to choose
their deputies, by secret ballot, whereas they were barely more than 10% until
early 1860s, under the control of elected officials and local elites. The extension of
Although the male vote was more gradual than in France, where
directly from a hyper-restricted census suffrage to male universal suffrage
(see Figure 5.3). But she has not completely upset the
conditions of political competition in a few decades25.
Chart 5.3
The evolution of male suffrage in Europe, 1820-1920
Reading: the percentage of adult men with voting rights (taking into account the electoral census,
that is, the amount of taxes to be paid and / or the properties to be held to be eligible to vote)
in the United Kingdom from 5% in 1820 to 30% in 1870 and 100% in 1920, and in France by 1% in
1820 to 100% in 1880.
Sources and series: see piketty.pse.ens.fr/ideologie.
In particular, the first effect of these reforms was to lead the former party
whig, renamed the Liberal Party in 1859, to espouse the cause of the new electors, and
thereby adopting a platform and an ideology much more favorable to
middle and popular classes. The electoral reform of 1867 contributed strongly
the triumph of the Liberals in the 1880 election, which allowed the 1884 reform.
This led to the immediate loss of dozens of rural constituencies held ut interruption for several centuries26. From
the 1880s and 1890s, the Liberals will never stop pushing the party
conservative and the House of Lords (where the Tories reigned supreme) in their
entrenchments, and to assert their new legitimacy to govern the
country. In particular, after having distinguished himself in the fight for the abolition of Corn
Laws in 1846 and the reduction of tariffs and other indirect taxes on
the purchasing power of the workers and wage earners of the kingdom, which enabled them to
to score points against the Tories (suspected not without reason to want to keep
high agricultural prices to ensure the profitability of their estates),
The liberals began formulating proposals in the 1880s
more and more daring in social policies and progressive taxes
on income and inheritance27.
In the 1880s, Salisbury, leader of the Tories, unwisely advanced the
"referendum" theory: on a moral and political level, the Lords had
the right and the duty to oppose legislation passed by the Commons,
from the time when the majority in the House of Commons had not been explicitly elected on
the basis of this precise legislation, clearly exposed to the country before the elections.
At first, the Tories believed to have found the parade: the Lords
opposing in 1894 their veto to the plans of Gladstone (leader of the liberals)
new legislation on Ireland, in the name of the fact that this reform moderately
popular in England had not been explicitly announced to voters. It is
which allowed the Conservatives to win the 1895 election and return to
power.
But the carelessness of Salisbury's strategy, too confident in the ability
Superior of the Lords and Tories to interpret the deep will of the country, appeared
quickly in the open. Back to power under the leadership of Lloyd George, the
in 1909, the House of Commons adopted their famous People's
Budget, with an explosive cocktail at its heart: the creation of a progressive tax on
the global income (the supertax, which was added to the quasi-proportional taxes
which weighed separately on the different categories of income since 1842); the
raising the inheritance tax on the most important inheritances (the death
duties); and to top it off with an increase in property tax (the land tax)
especially weighing on the large estates. The set allowed
finance a new series of social measures, in particular concerning
retreats, in an electoral context where the Liberals feared
gradually replaced by Labor (which would eventually happen) and where he
they had to give pledges to the popular classes. Everything had been perfectly
calibrated to obtain the majority assent of the Commons, and especially of the opinion
country and new voters, while constituting an unacceptable provocation
for the Lords, especially since Lloyd George was not missing an opportunity to
to publicly mock the idleness and uselessness of the aristocratic class. The
Lords fell into the trap and vetoed the "people's budget." They
yet agreed to vote in 1906-1907 on new labor legislation
giving more rights to workers and unions. But by putting their
the veto on tax measures directly affecting them, they took a risk
fatal: to expose their egoism of class.
Lloyd George then chooses to double the stake by passing a new law
by the Commons, this time constitutional in nature, according to which the Lords
could no longer amend the finance laws (which would then be
only Communes), and stipulating that their power to block others
laws could not exceed one year. The Lords unsurprisingly opposed their veto
to this programmed suicide, and new elections were called, which resulted in
a new victory for the Liberals. Under the Salisbury Doctrine, the Lords
would have had to resign voluntarily and agree to vote the legislations
contentious, which were now both fiscal and constitutional. But count
Given the historical scale of the issue, many lords were ready to revisit
this commitment of their leader, who was basically only informational. According to the testimonies
the most skilled, it would seem that the king's threat to create up to 500 new
seats of lords (following a secret promise he would have made to Lloyd George before
elections) played a decisive role. However, it is very difficult to say what
would have really happened if the Lords had finally resolved to adopt in
May 1911 the new Constitution Act  Still, it is at this moment
that the House of Lords has lost all real legislative power. Since
1911, it is the majority will expressed in the ballot box and in the House of Commons
the United Kingdom, and the Lords have only one role to play.
purely advisory and largely protocolary. The political institution that had
ruled the United Kingdom for centuries, and which had presided over the formation and
the destinies of the first colonial and world industrial empire throughout the eighteenth
and the nineteenth century, had in fact ceased to exist as a decision-making body.
Other constitutional reforms of lesser scope followed:
the possibility of appointing members for life (and no longer on a hereditary basis) was
introduced in 1959, and especially their number was sharply increased in 1999, to such an extent
that the House of Lords became at the beginning of the twenty-first century composed
majority of members appointed on the basis of their skills or their
actions in the service of the kingdom, but which can not inherit their
siège29. Yet it was well during the crisis of 1909-1911, about the question of
tax progressivity and the reduction of social inequalities, which took place on
a fateful moment when the Lords lost their power. Barely more than thirty years
later, in 1945, the United Kingdom was ruled for the first time by a
absolute majority of Labor MPs from a political movement whose
purpose was to represent the popular and proletarian classes of the country, and
set up the National Health Service and a set of social and economic policies
which would contribute to radically transforming the structure of inequalities
British, as we will see later.
Ireland, between trifunctional ideology,
proprietarist and colonialist
Even if it is the question of tax progressivity and the reduction of inequalities
which played the central role during the fall of the House of Lords in 1909-
1911, the importance of the Irish question in
general cause of the unequal United Kingdom regime between 1880 and 1920, both
in its trifunctional, proprietary and quasi-colonial dimensions.
The case of Ireland illustrates a situation of extreme inequality that combines
elements from different political and ideological backgrounds. In the eighteenth and
19th century, Ireland is much poorer than England: the production
agricultural and manufacturing per inhabitant is twice as low. The level difference
is aggravated by the fact that the bulk of Irish farmland is
held by large landowners who reside in England and, for one
on the other hand, are members of the House of Lords. It is in the background of the same
situation of extreme concentration of land ownership that prevails over
the island of Britain except that the theme of absentee landlords, these
absentee landlords who receive land rents from their English mansion,
gives the Irish situation a particular resonance. It should be added that
Catholics, who make up 80% of the population of Ireland, have civil rights
and highly restricted policies. They are required to pay tithing to the Anglican Church
Irish, although they are not members, and they are not entitled to elect
representatives to the Irish Parliament, which in any case is subject to the
Westminster Parliament since 1494 and can not decide anything without its approval.
So this is a situation of colonial type.
However, worried by the bad example of the war of independence
American (1775-1783), and more by the recurring risks of invasion
French in 1796-1798, the British monarchy and its Parliament adopt in 1800
the act of union with Ireland, which in fact is similar to a recovery in hand of
the island, or rather a market of fools. The most affluent Irish Catholics
the right to vote, on a census basis, and Ireland can now
elect 100 representatives to the Commons. The demographic report is, however, very
unbalanced: while the census of 1801 counts more than 5 million
Irish and only 9 million English, they are entitled to more than
500 seats. This representation in the London Commons is also accompanied by
the removal of the Irish Parliament, clearly in order to avoid
to exist a pregnant majority Catholic. In addition, Catholics continue to
tithing to the Anglican Church, which will become a ground for conflict
more and more violent.
The situation is going to be stretched even more as a result of the Great Famine
1845-1848, a scale unique in Europe in the nineteenth century.
1 million dead and 1.5 million emig in the years that follow, for a
initial population of about 8 million30. Evidence abounds for
show that British elites were aware of the events and refused to
take the necessary measures to avoid the tragedy, with in some cases
the almost explicit objective of Malthusian regulation of a poor and
rebel moreover. The comparison has often been made with the Bengal famine of
1943-1944 (about 4 million deaths for a population of 50 million). She
is not totally unjustified, in the sense that the food stocks were
sufficient in both cases, but that they refused to plan their transfer
immediately to areas in distress, partly because of the need to leave
the increase in prices play its signal role and thus incite the holders of
grain reserves to meet this demand through market forces31.
These events will fuel a rancor increased by the Irish in the face of
absent owners, who, not content to touch their rent at a distance, have left
the drama unfolds on the other side of the sea. More generally, we see
develop in Ireland, but also in Scotland and Wales, a movement
protests against landowners from the 1860s onwards.
1870: there are refusals to pay rents, and more and more often to
occupation of plots, which sometimes degenerate into violent clashes with
law enforcement and the militias of the owners. The first claim of the
rural population, particularly in Ireland, is first of all to be able to work on its
own land, so to access the property.
The Gladstone government then passed a first law in 1870 (the Irish
Land Act) limiting the possibility of eviction of tenant operators, opening up
government loans so that farmers can buy land and planning
compensations for peasants in case they are evicted from the land after
have made improvements (eg in the form of drainage or irrigation,
typical scenario that has always nourished powerful demands on the part
non-owner farmers in all the agrarian systems of the world). But,
under the legal system of the time, extremely favorable to the owners,
these measures had almost no effect. It was enough that the landlords
sufficiently raise the level of rents to initially push the farmers who
were problematic No court, no government, would have thought of this
time to intervene in this contractual freedom. If we went further, do not
could we not call into question the whole relationship between owners
landless peasants, not only in Ireland but also in
England? All this would not inevitably lead to claims
in other sectors than the rural world, and to a general weakening
property rights, including by extension in urban real estate and in
the industry? If each occupant of a property, each user of a capital
any of them, could henceforth ask to become the owner on the ground that
would have worked long enough using this capital, so that's the society
as a whole that could collapse. We find in these debates on
Irish land the same arguments heard about chores and lods
during the French Revolution: any questioning of the legitimacy of human rights
property established in the past may open a Pandora's box whose company
will not come out unscathed, because nobody will know where to stop.
The situation became more and more violent in Ireland, however, with
generalization of land occupations and refusals to pay rents. That's what
moment, in the years 1880-1890, when the right to vote in the Commons
to be considerably expanded, that fear would change sides and that
owners began to realize the unsustainability of the situation. When
they were in power in London, the Tories certainly continued to display a
a ruthless security approach to agitators, for example with Crime
Act of 1891, which hardens the police powers already reinforced in 1881 to proceed
arrests of "terrorists" and imprisonment deemed necessary. But,
at the same time, both, tories and liberals, and especially landlords
themselves, began to realize that if one did not proceed quickly to a
redistribution of Irish land for the benefit of small Catholic farmers, in
as legal and peaceful as possible, then the deterioration of the situation was
quickly lead to a complete expropriation of the absentee landlords, through
the independence of the country.
It's final what happened, with the creation of an Irish Free State in
1921 and the Republic of Ireland in 1937, after violent clashes of which
traces are still present today. But it is interesting to note that
this very real independence threat led the British political system to
put in place between 1880 and 1920 more and more voluntarist forms of
land reform and redistribution of Irish land properties, which were
so many knives in the dominant proprietarist ideology. In concrete terms, the
government gradually decided to spend more and more money
to help the Irish buy the land. In the end, it is well
a redistribution of land organized by the government, but with a broad
compensation of the owners financed on public money. A law was passed in
meaning in 1891, much more voluntarist and better funded than that of 1870. She
was followed by a new Land Act in 1903, which allowed former tenants
to buy their land and repay the purchase for seventy years at a rate
nominal interest rate of 3% (at a time when we could not suspect the episodes
inflationists who would follow, and who would in practice reduce these repayments
pretty much), with 12% government subsidies
the value of the parcels. The whole was completed by a law of 1923, binding
this time the remaining owners to sell their land to the new government
Irish, who gave them to the tenants at a low price. According to some estimates, this
are almost three-quarters of the land that had already changed hands before the war,
in favor of the successive laws of 1870, 1891 and 1903, and especially of the mobilization
Irish peasants32.
This Irish experience is revealing in more ways than one. First, this
situation of quasi-colonial inequality contributed to a more general questioning of
the legitimacy of the private property system and the persistent inequalities it
resulted. To stop accusations of hyperconcentration of property
landowners, particularly in Ireland, the Lords agreed, for example, to
large surveys throughout the United Kingdom in the 1870s, land
surveys which, in this case, led to the conclusion that the property was still
more concentrated than in the most pessimistic estimates. These investigations played
an important role in the general evolution of representations of inequality and
redistribution, because they showed that the country was certainly at the forefront of
industrial modernity, but was at the same time at the forefront of a certain
unequal archaism, and that the two realities were not contradictory,
contrary (a bit like in the France of the Belle Epoque). The Irish case is
all the more interesting that we will find problems similar to
redistribution of property and agrarian reforms in other contexts
postcolonial, for example in South Africa in the 1990s and up to our
days. More generally, this Irish experience illustrates the close links between
the issue of borders and redistribution, between the question of
political and property ownership. These interactions between border systems
and structures of inequalities, related to both political dimensions,
heritage and sometimes migration, still play a key role at the beginning of the
21st century, in the British Isles, Europe and the world.