Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty

by Daron Acemoğlu

Whigs dominated Parliament from 1714 to 1760. Once in power, they were tempted to use their newly found position to prey on the rights of others, to have their cake and eat it, too. They were no different from the Stuart kings, but their power was far from absolute. It was constrained both by competing groups in Parliament, particularly the Tory Party which had formed to oppose the Whigs, and by the very institutions that they had fought to introduce to strengthen Parliament and to prevent the emergence of a new absolutism and the return of the Stuarts. The pluralistic nature of society that emerged from the Glorious Revolution also meant that the population at large, even those without formal representation in Parliament, had been empowered, and “blacking” was precisely a response by the common people to perceptions that the Whigs were exploiting their position.