[tetris11]

The 1830's reform of the UK, which begrudging wrestled power from the Lords and distributed voting power more evenly over the UK (rammed cities like Manchester had almost no voting rights), only happened when some of the Lords houses were close to being burned down.

Thankfully the UK didn't follow France into the anarchy that was the French Revolution, and Earl Grey could make them see reason. But damn did we come close.

The threat of violence that the worker wielded against their employer was indeed a good incentive to keep things amicable.

Nowadays, we don't know where the Lords necessarily live, the size of the Lords private armies don't need to be more than a handful of security guards, and AI/Robotics is diminishing the need for that handful of guards at all.

[deaux]

> Nowadays, we don't know where the Lords necessarily live, the size of the Lords private armies don't need to be more than a handful of security guards

No, the real difference with back then is that "bread and circuses" and "divide and conquer" have been optimized to an extreme degree. A populace on opium isn't going to manage to band together and take it to the Lords.

[Ancalagon]

> Nowadays, we don't know where the Lords necessarily live

I know of a big, white, home where a number of them keep showing up :)

[bell-cot]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_Act_1832

For those unfamiliar - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution . Which from the UK's PoV had lead to a hellishly long, expensive, bloody, and existential series of wars. Right on the UK's doorstep. The memories of which were very much living in 1832, to undermine the usual "can't happen here" motivated reasoning of the 1%.

And it took further horrors, including the Great Famine in Ireland, to get the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corn_laws repealed in 1846. Which, arguably, was a far greater reform - destroying the economic foundations of most of the wealthy land owners, and greatly reducing how many poor folks lived on the brink of "if you can't afford the food prices..." starvation.

ADDED:

> Nowadays, we don't know where the Lords necessarily live, the size of the Lords private armies don't...

Sadly, it's far more complex than that. While amoral billionaires and mega-corps get the headlines, late-stage capitalism has very efficiently allocated nice-sounding slivers of its loot to a huge number of minor stakeholders. Pretty much everyone who has savings (for retirement or whatever) invested in equities. Pretty much every homeowner. And pretty much everyone who still believes that they'll somehow manage to break into those "just sit there and watch your wealth grow" classes.