Making sense of this crazy world

Having spent weeks looking at the different roads to democracy in Britain, America and France, 50% of the populations of Britain, America and France – women - still haven't got their vote. And so, it’s to women that I focus our attention on in this episode.

In this episode I’m going to take us from British democracy in the nineteenth century right up to today: to votes for women, votes for eighteen-year-olds and other important landmarks.

So, having looked at the battle to get it passed, was the so-called Great Reform Act worth all the fuss? We'll take a look at that and we'll look at the Second Reform Act of 1867, what Benjamin Disraeli described as a "leap in the dark".

I spent last week looking at how the aristocratic elite were doing all they could to prevent any breech on their monopoly of power. Well, much as they tried to keep the door tightly closed. That bew breed of  'urban aristocracy' that Asa Briggs had talked about were banging against the door and they’re not going to go away.

Enough of the French, I say, and their crazy revolutions. Let’s look at how the English did things in the nineteenth century. “Reform in order to conserve” was the English way: give a little when you have to in order to keep what’s most important. You’ll see what I mean, in this episode, and as the next few episodes unfold.

Through the English, American and French revolutions and those of 1848, we have been looking at the history of what we call liberal representative democracy, by which today, all adult men and women, periodically have the opportunity to vote for people to represent us, make laws and govern over us. And, actually, we began this journey back in ancient Athens, with Athenian or direct democracy. Well, today, we are going to look at the first attempt at a worker’s democracy because we’re going to look at the Paris Commune of 1871.

I said last week that the French weren’t finished with their revolution but when things flared up again, the counter-revolution kicked in. It seemed that everything the workers of Paris had fought for, the democracy that they thought would usher in more social reform, was not going to happen. Instead, things were being taken away from them. And what happened in France, would happen across Europe.

Having spent a couple of weeks looking at the thoughts of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, interesting and relevant though they are, it’s time to get back to the stuff of revolutions because it's 1848 and the French, God bless ‘em, are far from done.

Having taken a look at the influence Jeremy Bentham has on our world today, I’m moving on to look at someone who had an even greater influence: John Stuart Mill.
Why? Because Mill, a man way, way ahead of his time, put liberty front and centre in his political work

I said last week that I’d look at how British liberals picked up the baton from the Enlightenment and developed liberal thinking. And I’m going to begin with Jeremy Bentham, the man who gave us utilitarianism and much more. And don’t worry about utilitarianism, I am not going to get too heavy (I can’t) but it is very important and pretty straightforward really.