The history of the elected pseudogentry

I wondered in the previous post, how anybody could've come up with the idea to periodically elect a gentry for himself and I think the question demands that I put things into perspective.

What happened in England was that the gentry wanted more say in the spending of the taxes, which led to the English Civil War and really all of England's subsequent history until the Reform Act of 1832, but because of the importance of the American Revolution, we have to take it step by step.

So, after a little back and forth, England became a constitutional monarchy, and the power of the crown lay in the hands of the House of Lords, which shared power with the House of Commons, which before 1832 was dominated by the gentry as well. The House of Commons was corrupt, many members of parliament, so called cronies, were in the pay of the crown, i.e. the higher aristocracy represented by the House of Lords. The remaining members of parliament resented this and wanted reform, but for the entirety of he 18th century nothing was done.

A remark on representation. In order for a representation to be effective, it is necessary that the represented party is united, because only then are the representatives bound by the party interest. The higher aristocracy's privileges united it effectively, but the rest of the gentry was not effectively enough united.

That was the backdrop before which the U.S. Congress and Senate were established. It stands to reason to assume that the privileged class in the United States thought that it would be able to control these institutions just like the privileged class in England controlled their counterparts there. At the same time they made every American part of the gentry, excluding only slaves and women.

And hence the periodically elected pseudogentry came into being as a group of quasi-cronies, which gave an appearance of representedness to the public. This was done as a gift of sorts, but also anticipating trouble further down the road.

Back to England. As cities grew more powerful, they excerted more pressure on the crown to be better represented. However, it was clearly not in the interest of the crown to let that happen. But then first the Irish demanded that Catholics be represented, and when that passed under threat of force hitherto sceptical factions within parliament and society started to consider the cities as allies against Catholic subversion. So, again under threat of force, the Reform Act was passed, this time not as a gift or an elegant means of control, but as a recognition of a shift in power, as a compromise between the higher aristocracy and the urban bourgeoisie.

That's why we have parliamentary democracy today: because it lends itself to corruption, but less so than the unreformed parliamentary system before it, as a result of a struggle for more say in the spending of taxes, which stalled at that point, really an artefact of late aristocracy, or more precisely timocracy, which makes it an institution of oligarchy. However, politics these days have turned to other battlefields and parliamentary democracy has become synonymous with democracy itself in a clear sign of civic decay.

Political parties, by the way, have an effect on the corruption of members of parliament, but in today's lobbying culture that effect has become more of a platform than a shackle, and even if it was a shackle: society is only as united as it is, political parties can't create unity and what good is a rabidly partisan parliament? Better then to fight the battles on single issues, as in a direct democracy.