01-28-2017, 07:13 PM
(01-28-2017, 06:30 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:(01-28-2017, 04:25 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: So, since the US and Britain were presumably on the same secular track up through the Revolution, and then again with WWII, and have had similar social movements since (the 60s in both places, Thatcher/Reagan, Blair/Clinton, Trump/Brexit), we are left with the conclusion that Britain either decided to take the rest of the 19th century off, or it just had unusually competent leadership during the period when the rest of the West was in crisis, defusing both social movements like the Chartists and war scares with the US, France, Prussia, or what have you.
I'm not sure it's correct to consider Britain to be a separate nation from the US, then or now. Separate states, yes, separate nations, not so sure. For that reason, the US Civil War may have served as a crisis war for the UK just as WWII served as a crisis war for the US, despite being overseas wars in both cases. The Civil War did have a domestic impact on the UK, primarily through the cutoff of cotton from the confederacy, and it threatened cutting off much of their food supply as well.
The UK was also indirectly involved in the Taiping Rebellion, an even bigger conflict than the Civil War, and directly in the Second Opium War. It was not a peaceful period for the British Empire, even if it was for the British homeland.
If we believe Turchin's theories about elite overproduction and we believe that fourth turning crises resolve the elite overproduction, then we should remember that elite overproduction can be resolved either by removing some of the elites, or by reducing the density of elites through expansion of the domain over which the elites exert influence. That suggests that the UK's expanded influence in the far east and other areas of the world may have resolved their elite overproduction without requiring culling - again assuming that Turchin's theories about elite overproduction apply to generational crises.
I also strongly suspect that the continuity represented by the British Monarchy and in particular Queen Victoria's reign helped moderate British foreign policy and avoid some of the errors that can precipitate crises.
I think that if the US handled the current crisis era expertly, we could similarly resolve the crisis by growing into the role of worldwide trade hegemon. We became the world's only superpower at the end of the Cold War, but we never really took advantage of it; the window to take advantage of it is still open, if only for a few more years.
You can throw in the Indian Mutiny while you're at it. The Crimean War and the Great Game as well. The UK has a war scare in 1861 over the US Civil War as well, and was involved on the edges with the unification of Italy and Germany, too.
The real surge in Imperial holdings took place after this period though, particularly in Africa. But I think the larger point that Britain did not have the elite overproduction issues because of its surging economy and imperial possessions, which also served as outlet valves for its booming (non-elite) population as well, is worthy of consideration.