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Alternate History General Discussion

The issue is that after bourgeois capitalism is established, the people defending it by and large aren't radicals- they are moderates and conservatives. If you want Jacobins in defense of capitalism they probably would represent radicals for some idealized form of capitalism (one interesting candidate could be Proudhonism/mutualism if you still want something broadly of the Left) and so they would resemble what we now call libertarians.
 
The issue is that after bourgeois capitalism is established, the people defending it by and large aren't radicals- they are moderates and conservatives. If you want Jacobins in defense of capitalism they probably would represent radicals for some idealized form of capitalism (one interesting candidate could be Proudhonism/mutualism if you still want something broadly of the Left) and so they would resemble what we now call libertarians.
Maybe some form of ultra-neoliberalism that advocates for a weak global state
 
Something I do find annoying is that any latter day Jacobins or any that are inspired by them in the early 20th or late 19th century will inevitably be a variety of hardline communists or socialists.

Now, I know Lenin and the Bolsheviks heavily admired Robespierre and the Jacobins, the Communist International says that Babeuf was the first communist, all that stuff, but I just find it kind of cliche. I mean, yes they were one of the first revolutionaries, but people tend to forget that they were also defenders of property rights, even writing it into their constitution, and also cracked down hard on the left like Hebert and Roux.

It’d be more interesting, or at least more original to see them as more of a social democratic group, definitely left leaning, but still defending property rights and wanting to uphold capitalism.

There are two obvious scenarios where this kind of thing could happen.

The first is the "Jacobins" winning outright and becoming the main established party in a democratic state. Over time these Jacobins become outright centre-leaning and/or the overton window shifts leftwards.

The second, would be to have a state/dominant political party which is undeniably anti-capitalist but also undeniably against civil liberties, while still allowing (through design or incompetence) organised pro-civil liberties movements to exist. In this case "freedom of expression" could very well be linked with "free enterprise" and so our Jacobins are pro-capitalist.
 
I've had a vague idea for a long time for a scenario where the First Republic wins, and seeing how it affects the Europe of the 1820s and 1830s.

One thing I think would be particularly interesting is playing with the evolution of Saint-Just. The Angel of Death as the respectable old face of the Jacobin elite could be interesting.
 
Has anyone written a scenario where countries at war create Burned Zones using biological/chemical weapons as a sort of DMZ or a Fallout Line using atomic bombs?
 
Since I normally drone on about the inherent racism underlying popular images of Western empire, I'll take a different tack and say, let's be generous:

Part of this does come from a misunderstanding of the process of decolonisation. People do a little reading and are stunned by how, in the final years of empire, Britain, France et al seemed to suddenly rush out of their colonies without leaving the infrastructure, educational, governmental and bureaucratic systems necessary to build a lasting state.

The reader sometimes thinks that the lesson here is that decolonisation should have happened, but it should have happened slower. Hence, longer lasting empire.

It's an easy mistake to make, but it breaks down when you consider that any empire interested in building up their colony to that extent wouldn't have colonised them in the first place.

More to the point, before those final years decolonisation was often a process of people delaying and delaying and murdering and delaying for as long as they could.


I don't pretend this explains all of the phenomenon, mind you, but I wanted to change my record.

Avoiding this issue is why decolonisation happens earlier and quicker in OFAHL but also happens better, generally speaking.

I've actually tried really hard to make it a timeline about South Africa as an African state, as a free & democratic African state much earlier than OTL.
 
Silly sports AH question: How much crossover potential is there between cricketeers and baseball players in terms of skill beyond "the games involve hitting a ball with a bat"? There was Andre Rodgers, but he's the only real big-name overlap example I've found. I've snarkily called extreme sinkerball pitchers like Kevin Brown "Bowlers", but want to know a more serious answer.
 
Since I normally drone on about the inherent racism underlying popular images of Western empire, I'll take a different tack and say, let's be generous:

Part of this does come from a misunderstanding of the process of decolonisation. People do a little reading and are stunned by how, in the final years of empire, Britain, France et al seemed to suddenly rush out of their colonies without leaving the infrastructure, educational, governmental and bureaucratic systems necessary to build a lasting state.

The reader sometimes thinks that the lesson here is that decolonisation should have happened, but it should have happened slower. Hence, longer lasting empire.

It's an easy mistake to make, but it breaks down when you consider that any empire interested in building up their colony to that extent wouldn't have colonised them in the first place.

More to the point, before those final years decolonisation was often a process of people delaying and delaying and murdering and delaying for as long as they could.

I don't pretend this explains all of the phenomenon, mind you, but I wanted to change my record.

Didn't the UK build up Hong Kong and Sri Lanka to a fair extent?
 
Hong Kong, certainly, but that's a very rare case of a colony being massively built up. Decolonisation was then a slow but peaceful process that left Hong Kong with lots of stuff because by that point it had to be. British voters wouldn't accept the tactics from a few decades ago (a good chunk weren't born or were toddlers at the time), and China was a powerful state who really wouldn't have accepted it.
 
With Hong Kong, there's also two other factors: succeeding waves of private investment from the tai-pans and the in-flow of often well-educated refugees, sometimes with starter capital in the twentieth century.

More to the point, Hong Kong should not be understood just as its own colony, but as the jumping off point for British investment in its pseudo-colonial interests in China. It's a Bombay analogue, or Buenos Aires- development there was necessary to the exploitation of the wider market.
 
Hong Kong, certainly, but that's a very rare case of a colony being massively built up. Decolonisation was then a slow but peaceful process that left Hong Kong with lots of stuff because by that point it had to be. British voters wouldn't accept the tactics from a few decades ago (a good chunk weren't born or were toddlers at the time), and China was a powerful state who really wouldn't have accepted it.

I meant I thought Hong Kong and Sri Lanka were exceptions.
 
Considering what happened during the conquest and then during the Uva rebellion, as well as the usual "but the trains!" cry when it comes to the Raj, that is in spectacular bad taste.

I knew almost nothing about the British conquest of Dutch Ceylon. I was refering to the situation of British Ceylon at the time of independence. I have read it was a fairly developed colony.
 
I knew almost nothing about the British conquest of Dutch Ceylon. I was refering to the situation of British Ceylon at the time of independence. I have read it was a fairly developed colony.

It was developed as an export colony, not as any sort of state. Following the conquest of the Kingdom of Kandy and the scorched-earth suppression of the Uva Rebellion, British Ceylon’s economy consisted of plantations worked by indentured labour that grew goods for export, as well as railroads to connect those plantations to ports. When colonies were “developed”, they were not developed in the way that would enable their existence as effective independent states - indeed, it was typically quite the opposite.
 
Rereading Liviu Radu’s novella about football hooligans starting a violent coup in 2000/2001 and uh,he’s certainly going places

It’s 2009 and Bucharest is now a rogue city state called the Footbalist Republic of Romania,where the FRF and the people behind the main football teams of the city are now in charge. Order is maintained by militias of racist supporters of every major team and the Referee Commission,the most important organization in RFR. The story is centered on the representative of said Commission who must stop a civil war happening between the main militias after a football game is rigged.

Now,a few things :

1. Footballocracy is one of the stupidest fucking ideas for a system of government that I have ever heard in my life. You automatically get MPs if you found a football club and only lose funding if you never score a single goal. Despite claiming that it is better than the old rule,the new leaders are objectively as corrupt as the “exiled” political elite-hell,the story even acknowledges that the people running Romanian football are corrupt as fuck. If anything,the only changes (beyond the dumb system of government) is that everyone is even more corrupt and that the minorities of the city have been either kicked out or killed by the new incredibly racist and corrupt fash like Government.

So why would the main character even care that RFR is gonna collapse,beyond “not wanting to lose his job” ? His only other motivation seems to be racism,since he doesn’t want foreigners to be allowed back in the city. Beyond that,he has no real reason.

2. The fact that the Romanian army still hasn’t managed to win back Bucharest from,what is ostensibly just a bunch of football hooligans and corrupt racist football club owners,is goddamn pathetic to put bluntly.

They don’t have any military experience,they’re just goddamn skinheads with bats and maybe an AK or two so how do you not win against them

Not only that but they hate other and are this close of starting a civil war in the city almost every week. You really shouldn’t be losing to them.

3. The main character wanting RFR to have some sort of stability and yet still thinking there is nothing wrong with footballocracy is um...

Look,I get what Liviu Radu is trying to do-create a dystopia and have the character defend it due to ideological blindness but it doesn’t work when said ideology is legitimately stupid and no one would actually support un ironically.

It’s like basing an entire system of government on cricket or golf,you can’t do that and expect anyone to take seriously.

And here’s the thing-it’s not that bad-far from it,it’s alright writing wise-it’s just that it’s an dystopian AH based on something stupid and taken un ironically with a protagonist you don’t really care about and who doesn’t have a real reason to do anything in the story per se. There’s no real point to it.
 
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It’s 2009 and Bucharest is now a rogue city state called the Footbalist Republic of Romania,where the FRF and the people behind the main football teams of the city are now in charge. Order is maintained by militias of racist supporters of every major team and the Referee Commission,the most important organization in RFR.

This is a black comedy, right?
 
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