# What if the American colonies had always been represented in the British Parliament? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 14, 2004, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-american-colonies-had-always-been-represented-in-the-british-parliament/269264 "2004-10-14T21:27:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2013, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-american-colonies-had-always-been-represented-in-the-british-parliament/269264/61 "2013-05-06T23:23:31Z")
> [@Norvaal](#): > > I am reading _The Two Georges_ now, and something I have noticed about this alternate history is that technology lags far behind the level it actually was in 1996 (this whole story has a sort of “steampunk” feel to it.) It’s just not alternate-history without airships. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2013, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-american-colonies-had-always-been-represented-in-the-british-parliament/269264/62 "2013-05-06T23:26:10Z")
> [@Norvaal](#): > > I thought Adam Smith was Scottish… Eh? Oh, it’s just another word for the same thing. [hunkers down, covers head, awaits bombardment of cabers] ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2013, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-american-colonies-had-always-been-represented-in-the-british-parliament/269264/63 "2013-05-06T23:27:28Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > It’s interesting that while capitalist theory was developed by an Englishman (in 1776) it caught on better in America than it did in England. > > I think it was due to geography and history. Mercantilism essentially argued that wealth was a finite object and you could only become wealthier by making somebody else poorer; it saw economics as what would later be called a zero-sum game. Capitalism arguing that wealth could be created and two people could have an economic transaction which left both of them wealthier than they started. > > England, like most of Europe, had developed under a system of land-based aristocracy. Land was the basis of wealth. If you acquired wealth in something else, you translated it into land. And on an island (or a fully populated continent) land was not something you could make more of. All of the good land was owned and wealth was just the transfer of ownership from one person to another. > > America had fundamental differences. Land was cheap and with an open frontier there was no sense that it was limited. People could always travel further west than past people had and find unclaimed land (providing you were willing to ignore the claims of the Native Americans). And the American economy was growing at a rate where people could see it happening - they could see new wealth being created out of nothing. > > So while you could make a plausible argument in defense of mercantilism in England, America was a land where capitalism’s superiority was obvious. N.B.: None of that demonstrated the superiority of **industrial** capitalism, or even of merchant capitalism. Only a different paradigm for agriculture – and of course if you have an agrarian society, plenty of land is better than little. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2013, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-american-colonies-had-always-been-represented-in-the-british-parliament/269264/64 "2013-05-07T00:47:01Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > N.B.: None of that demonstrated the superiority of **industrial** capitalism, or even of merchant capitalism. Only a different paradigm for agriculture – and of course if you have an agrarian society, plenty of land is better than little. But the agrarian focus would effect all of the economy. Industry or finance don’t just happen in a single jump; they’re ongoing series of small steps. But in a society where wealth is measured by land ownership, you’re going to be seeing people starting out in industry or finance and then cashing it in when they reach a certain level so they can buy a country estate and live the way a wealthy person is supposed to live. Your economic growth will constantly be starting and stopping instead of moving on to higher levels. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2016, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-american-colonies-had-always-been-represented-in-the-british-parliament/269264/65 "2016-10-22T18:56:24Z")
Bumped. Game theory and pre-1776 American representation in the British Parliament: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/10/20/what-we-can-learn-from-one-of-the-biggest-mysteries-and-misunderstandings-of-the-american-revolution/?postshare=6471477139424467&tid=ss\_mail](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/10/20/what-we-can-learn-from-one-of-the-biggest-mysteries-and-misunderstandings-of-the-american-revolution/?postshare=6471477139424467&tid=ss_mail) ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2016, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-american-colonies-had-always-been-represented-in-the-british-parliament/269264/66 "2016-10-22T20:10:40Z")
In The March to Folly, Barbara Tuchman argues the American revolt was clear, at the time, to everyone in a decision making capacity. Why they felt they could not change course is the inteteresting bit. The eventualities of an alternate timeline are really just ‘fan fiction’. ---
**Author:** ![Malden\_Capell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malden_capell/32/5274_2.png) [@Malden\_Capell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malden_Capell)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2016, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-american-colonies-had-always-been-represented-in-the-british-parliament/269264/67 "2016-10-22T21:32:26Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Is it possible, do you think, that the Royal Court would have moved from London to New York by now? > > BTW: If America had remained part of the British Empire, I think we would have seen the creation, at some point, of an American Peerage, and Americans in the House of Lords. > > “You’re the Duke of New York! You’re A-Number-One!” Well, there’s the Earl De La Warr (pronounced Delaware), still a peerage in the UK…and the extinct Irish baronage of Baltimore. Although those are peerages which had places in the US named after them. I think, without the US, the French Revolution would not have happened, and under Louis XVI a more limited French monarchy would have arisen, but like Britain France would have been dominated by the rich nobility and jealous of their power. Without the example of the American or French Revolutions, I suspect the British nobility would a) have scoffed at the threat of revolution overturning them and of the undertrodden classes being able to govern. Therefore the British Parliament would not have reformed in the 1830s as it did. Possibly reform would have been much later, if at all, much more bitterly contested, and more limited. As consequence, I wonder if a revolution in Britain _would_ have eventually triggered, and a republic established at some point. Britain’s constitution has changed through gradualism, and without that pressure valve for discontent, perhaps things would have eventually boiled over like in France or Russia… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-the-american-colonies-had-always-been-represented-in-the-british-parliament/269264.md?page=3)