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Christopher Hill famously argued the Civil War was the point the bourgeois came to power. Isn't that the clear watershed?

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Certainly I'd see the Civil War - largely a London-organised and London-financed affair - as being a clear breaking point when they seized control. But it seems like things were already heading their way in the decades leading up to it. Possibly even by 1600, it seems like the bourgeois are starting to get policy wins.

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The Christopher Hill model strikes me as very simplistic. Were merchant interests becoming more powerful? Yes, but they had been a serious political factor for centuries. There is a reason why cities had representatives in Parliament from Simon de Montfort onwards.

The aristocracy continued to dominate the upper reaches of politics and the House of Lords remain co-equal in power, apart from not originating money bills, until 1911. From Lord Liverpool to Lord Salisbury, there were still Peer PMs in the C19th. Trying to force history into such simple stages too much overrides the evolving interplays of interests and bargaining power.

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Maybe. Is there a clear example where aristocratic interests overruled capital's interests after the Corn Laws though? a significant one.

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Good question. Though the Corn Laws themselves suggest that the triumph of capital is perhaps over-rated.

With the application of steam to transport from the 1820s onwards, the era of mass trade begins. So, in the Anglo settler societies, capital and labour (both imported, so scarce) combine to force protection on land (which exports). In Germany, land and capital (the scarce factors) combine to force protection on labour (which is exported). In the UK, labour and capital (the plentiful, exported factors) combine to force free trade on land (the scarce factor in a food importing country).

So, we would be looking for an issue where land and labour combined against capital. As land shrinks in economic significance, the more it becomes dependant on alliances and coalitions. Either way, the varying patterns over free trade v protection suggest that “bourgeois triumph” is a bit overdone as a schema.

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