Comments (6)

• Sudha Shenoy

  Two points need to be considered:

  1. The relatively small size of the electorate: somewhat over 650,000 in a population of around 14 million in 1832 (England & Wales.) Also it was a property franchise, so voters had a certain sense of responsibility, & were more open to the influence of ideas.

  2. Until the 1880s, virtually all MPs came from landed families. The aristocracy are only a small handful within this far broader group. So MPs were in effect voting against their own immediate interests, on the basis of a change in ideas.

  Published: June 20, 2007 9:04 AM

• Robert Wattleworth

  This piece reminds me of the current situation in the United States where the price of corn is elevated due to it's use to produce ethanol, which raises the price of food products made from corn. At the same time, there is a high import duty on sugar cane and it's by products, which are more efficient at producing ethanol than corn.

  Published: June 20, 2007 10:28 AM

• Sag

  One usually doesn't hear much about radical revolutions coming about peacefully through the influence of ideas. Much more covered are bloody, violent uprisings. Great article. If only there were more Austro/old liberal histories of England.

  Published: June 20, 2007 11:26 AM

• N. Joseph Potts

  Most Misesians would agree that this was an instance of a GOOD idea triumphing (and the outcome would seem to offer resounding confirmation of its goodness). BAD ideas (Communism?) can triumph as suddenly, but good and bad being what they are in our values, the triumph of bad ideas is much more likely to be accompanied by gunfire and slaughter.

  What would be an equivalent event today? Rudy Giuliani throwing his support at the Republican Convention to Ron Paul, securing the latter's nomination? The two most definitely HAVE exchanged words (few of them) in a public setting.

  Published: June 21, 2007 4:49 AM

• Paul Marks

  First on who had the vote:

  Before the Reform Act of 1832 it was about one man in ten (no women). The Act took it to about one man in five - however this is all to oversimplyfy the situation.

  Due to population movements (related to the industrial revolution) a smaller and smaller percentage of men had the vote over the years had the vote before 1832 - for example back in the 1780's it was about one man in five (just as it was after the Reform Act allowed the new big towns to be represented in Parliament).

  Also the class point:

  For County seats there was a fairly uniform system (the 40 shilling freeholder - established centuries before) but for towns there was not. For example in Preston virtually every man had the vote before 1832 (everyone who had a pot to cook stuff over the fire) and Preston was not alone.

  It was only after 1832 that a uniform system of voting was established for towns, which meant that the sons of some of the people who could vote before the Act could not vote after it.

  Accept that most of them could vote for Poor Law Guardians (under the Act of 1834) and for local councils (under the Act of 1835) as all "rate" (local property tax) payers could vote for these things (if my memory does not play me false this even included, horror of horrors, women).

  So there was the mess of people being able to vote for some things and not for others. A mess that was dealt with by the Acts of 1867 and 1884 and (for women) by the Acts of 1918 and 1928 (the Act of 1918 also allowed men to vote who did not even pay local property tax).

  Still that is the end of the history, back to the article:

  It was very good article.

  History is made (in large part) by the choices of human beings and these choices are influenced by the beliefs of human beings which are (in turn) influenced by argument and reasoning.

  This determinists (with their desire to cut to the "real" causes) miss.

  In the same material situation people may choose to act very differently.

  Even the same person may choose to act differently due to either seeing the results of how he acted last time (the empirical approach) or because he has heard new arguments or just reasoned things out (the a priori logical approach).

  Published: June 21, 2007 5:42 PM

• P.M.Lawrence

  Thank you, Paul Marks. I was going to point out that there was a disfranchising effect (it wasn't just the sons of former voters who lost the franchise, either). It had the overall effect of reducing the vote of the West Country, where there were more voters with an inherited as opposed to a property vote. That in turn strengthened industrial areas.

  This disfranchising goes to show that pious words were hiding private agendas, at least for some people. It would have been a better reform to make the vote widen through inheritance as well as lower property qualifications, concentrating reform on promoting people into enough prosperity rather than just lowering the bar.

  We can also see this disfranchising from the way that similar "reform" in South Africa a century ago brought in the beginnings of apartheid by removing the few coloureds who were getting rich enough in favour of self-selected "citizens".

  Oh, a lesser effect of the UK reforms - spaced over the next century or so - was to assist the party system by removing independents who were coming in via a few multi-member constituencies, university seats, etc. All in the name of making things more democratic, of course. Ironically - and understandably - it was the Labour Party that was most active in kicking away the ladder after them. They had benefitted from their first representatives getting in that way, then they raised the barriers to entry.

  Published: June 21, 2007 10:48 PM