

Democracy and anti-democratic forces through history

Portrait of Henry VIII

Portrait of Henry VIII (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When talking to  neighbors yesterday afternoon (in Florida, where I am spending the winter) they asked me about the origins of democracy. They heard me give a talk last week in which I touched on the subject of parliamentary government during the reign of Henry VIII.

The king wanted a divorce, which his adviser, a cardinal in the Church, was unable to secure from the pope, so Henry VIII turned to Thomas Cromwell, a lawyer who was steeped in English law.  It was Cromwell who made Henry VIII’s divorce possible. To do this, he had to sever ties with Rome and the Catholic Church. He made the king head of the newly-formed Church of England.  The key was how he did it, through statutes that defined the king’s sovereign power; his sovereign authority resided IN parliament.  Up to this point Parliament had been in decline, as had representative institutions throughout Europe.  Absolutist governments represented the way of the future, not governments of the parliamentary type.



Oliver Cromwell, by Samuel Cooper. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Troubles began to brew between monarchy and parliament during the reign of Elizabeth. It was under the Stuart monarchy that push came to shove. Charles I went to the scaffold. It was the leader of the parliamentary forces, Oliver Cromwell, who saw to the execution of Charles I and formed a republic that ended after he died.  There was another revolution in 1688, when Parliament won a decisive victory over monarchy. From this time on, Parliament would be a permanent part of English government, and in time the dominant part.

This was not a victory of democracy over despotism.  Parliament was dominated by the landowning class. To retain power, the members of this class had to persuade those who had the vote to cast their ballots for them, but this was expensive.  It came down to bribery, in the form of entertainments and other favors.

The response to this problem was statues passed in Parliament that reduced the electorate. As the historian J.H. Plumb wrote, there was a “crushing” of the electorate in eighteenth-century England.  Only with the Reform bills of 1832 and 1867 would power flow outward from a narrow landowning class to other groups beyond its circumscribed and narrow base.  This process would continue until there was a democratic electorate in 20th-century Britain, including women.

My neighbors, Sasha and Oliver, told me that I should write a blog about this. They said that efforts to reduce the electorate are playing out in America today, and they are right. Several states are passing or have passed laws that will make it difficult for economically marginalized groups to vote. Voting times are being imposed that will make it difficult for some voters to get to polling places under the restrictive measures.

This is part of a social struggle in America to enlarge the power of a reactionary and increasingly powerful right-wing political class.  Anti-democratic forces are asserting themselves in today’s America.

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Warren Roberts

One Response

  1. Don't Think Twice says:

    Moneyed interests are inherently conservative, if not reactionary.

    But those moneyed interests constitute a small minority. In a democratic republic where the vote is distributed equally, the moneyed interests are wary, simply because they are outnumbered. And thus they will do all they can to diminish the power of the masses.

    Institutionally, these conservative influences can be seen in the Electoral College, which increases the power of small, rural states (with their more-conservative populations) over large, urban areas (with higher concentrations of the poor, minorities and folks with more metropolitan, progressive outlooks) and gerrymandering, where Congressional districts are drawn to minimize the power of the poor. It can also mean passing laws that disenfranchise the perceived political enemies of those moneyed interests – e.g., taking away the vote from former felons – or that simply make it harder to exercise that right – e.g., limiting polling hours, requiring ID to vote, etc.

    There is a history in the US of moving towards MORE democracy. A few examples of the trend towards more democracy would include: removing land ownership requirements for voting; replacing the original Constitutional scheme with the direct election of US Senators; allowing blacks, women & 18-year-olds to vote; the one-person-one-vote Supreme Court decisions; etc. But what we’re seeing now is a conservative bloc that doesn’t like the results of majority rule and thus is attempting to “back track” on our history of providing for MORE democracy and greater enfranchisement. I suspect that this conservative bloc can see the future in the form of the electorate’s changing demographics and fears for its ability to continue to maintain power legitimately (i.e., through winning elections). As a result, it will do everything in its power to make it harder for its opponents to vote (those voter ID laws, limited polling hours, etc.), while also making it easier for moneyed interests to ensure their influence remains (e.g., Supreme Court decisions like Citizens United & McCutcheon that gut campaign finance reform laws that are designed to limit the corrupting influence of big $ on elections).

    These moves are troubling in a republic where the govt is ostensibly of, by and for the people. But as you point out, it’s really nothing new.