Diggers, Levellers, and Agrarian Capitalism: Radical Political Thought in 17th Century England 0739123742, 9780739123744

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Diggers, Levellers and Agrarian Capitalism Radical Political Thought in 17th Century English Geoff Kennedy

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For Angela Joya

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Contents Acknowledgements

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1 Radical Political Thought in Early Modern England

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Whiggism and the creation of the canon Marxism and the bourgeois revolution paradigm Revisionism, republicanism and traditional society 2 Historical Materialism and Early Modern Radicalism Rethinking the bourgeois revolution Political Marxism The Social History of Political Thought

2 8 13 29 29 35 41

3 Agrarian Capitalism and Class Formation

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From Feudalism to Agrarian Capitalism Commons and Enclosures Market dependence and uneven development Coercion, class and state power

60 69 81 86

4 The Political Economy of Improvement

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The moral economy and peasant resistance Tudor reformer and the foundations of political economy Moral reformers and ‘Baconian’ improvers Levellers and the ‘middling sort of men’ Digger radicalism and agrarian capitalism

98 107 112 122 124

5 From the State as Property to Property against the State

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State formation in early modern England The Crown vs. Parliament The Levellers and the Putney Debates The Engagement and the English Commonwealth 6 Unearthing the Kingly Power

141 147 153 164 183

The Diggers, popular sovereignty and the English Revolution The Law of Freedom in a Platform

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183 193

7 Between Monarchy and Multitude Thomas Hobbes and the ‘masterless multitude’ Hobbes’ Absolutism John Locke and Leveller radicalism Property and consent Locke and the bourgeois paradigm Bibliography Index About the Author

202 203 208 214 222 234 243 261 265

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Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would to thank the members of my supervisory committee for their comments, their encouragement and their constructive criticisms: George Comninel for his unsurpassed enthusiasm and knowledge regarding the issues discussed in this book; David McNally for his characteristic generosity and his insight; and Nicholas Rogers for his insistence on historical detail. I would also like to thank Ross Rudolph for helping me maintain my interest in the history of political thought. Dennis Pilon helped me keep on track with my dissertation writing by preventing me from getting distracted by the numerous diversions that exist in a large graduate program like York. I spent countless hours with Samuel Knafo, Thierry Lapointe, Etienne Cantin, Leandro VegaraCamus, Travis Fast and Martijn Konings discussing the finer points of the specificity of capitalist development from which I learned a great deal. Marcus Green and I spent much of our time discussing the various approaches to the history of political thought as well as the differing interpretations of the canon. Hannes Lacher suggested that I add a chapter on Hobbes and Locke which proved to not only be a good idea, but also proved to further my education in the history of political thought and open up new avenues of historical interest. I must also thank Marlene Quesenberry for her absolutely crucial support regarding all things related to the graduate program. Lastly, I would like to acknowledge the unconditional moral and intellectual support of my wife Angela Joya, without whom I would not have had the energy to see this book through to the finish.

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Radical Political Thought in Early Modern England

Over the past few decades, it has become increasingly fashionable to criticize and reject the Whig interpretation of history and the interpretations of political thought that are embedded within it.1 This Whig interpretation is often said to be expressed in most of the predominant interpretations of the English Civil War and Revolution of the 1640s as well as the interpretations of the history of political thought of the Stuart era. Consequently, the canon of political thought is often said to be embedded within this Whiggish understanding of history and is therefore believed to share its biases and its problems. 2 However, the Whig interpretation of English history is really two histories that lead in two different – yet not necessarily mutually exclusive – directions. One emerged in the immediate aftermath of the revolution itself, emphasizing the justice – or lack thereof – of the parliamentary cause, evolves throughout the eighteenth century, roughly in accordance with the political division between Whigs and Tories, and finds its classic expression in the work of Lord Macaulay in the aftermath of the 1832 Reform Bill. The other begins with Harrington, goes up through Hume, Ferguson and Smith, up through Guizot and Marx and finds its contemporary formulations in the Marxist and sociological formulations of the bourgeois revolution paradigm.3 Whereas the former narrative is interested more in the ideals of freedom and liberty that the revolution is purported to represent, the latter narrative is characterized by attempts at explaining the events of the seventeenth century in terms of long-term processes of socio-economic development. While practitioners of liberal, Marxist and sociological history insist on the fundamental differences between these approaches, in the eyes of its revisionist critics, all of these approaches merely represent different variations of the same underlying Whig interpretation of history. Initially referring to the anachronistic practice that sees history as a vehicle through which to further contemporary political struggles, the criticism of the Whig interpretation lay in the fact that the partisan value judgments of the historian often clouded an “objective” interpretation of history as it actually happened. Since Herbert Butterfield’s classic critique of the Whig interpretation of history, however, it has come to mean more than that.4 It has since come to encompass any approach to history 1

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that seeks to explain events in relationship to long-term, socio-economic developments. In other words, the Whig interpretation has now come to include that classically non-Whig approach to history: Marxism. For revisionists, the Whig conception of history has become more than a particular interpretation of English history employed in the service of the Whig cause. Revisionists, as we will later see, have broadened its definition to include certain methodological principles that lead to its inherent shortcomings. By focusing on methodological problems of teleology and anachronism, revisionists conflate two similar, yet different approaches to historical development and reject them both under the auspices of the “Whiggism.” This process of historical revisionism has significant implications on conventional understandings of the development and character of radical political thought in early modern England, as revisionist history has come to inform much of the recent scholarship in the history of political theory. Any study of radical political thought in 17th century England, therefore, must look at the historical development of the Whig interpretation, its relationship to the traditional canon of political thought, and the subsequent revisionist challenge.

Whiggism and the Creation of a Liberal Canon Initially, the Whig conception of history meant something very specific. From the Whig perspective, the history of England represented the historical development of liberty and freedom over the feudal forces of tyranny and absolutism. The Civil War and Glorious Revolution were viewed as crucial historical episodes in this struggle, in which Parliament represented the progressive forces of individual liberty and parliamentary sovereignty in a battle with the reactionary forces of an increasingly tyrannical Crown that was embarking on a project of absolutist state formation. While some argue that the Whig conception of history can be said to have had its antecedents in the historical commentaries that date back to the constitutional struggles of the English Revolution itself,5 it was not until the 19th century that it emerged as a dominant and coherent account of English historical development. Throughout the 18th century, histories of England were largely divided along Tory/Whig party lines, in which history was enlisted to serve the cause of contemporary political struggles. 6 David Hume was perhaps the first writer to attempt to transcend this division and present an interpretation of the events of the 17th century from a skeptical and objective standpoint.7 Hume was not a Tory historian in the usual sense. His Toryism, in some sense, emerged out of a rejection of contemporary Whig interpretations of the Civil War. Interestingly enough, Hume’s intention in writing his History was not to supply ammunition to the Tory cause, but rather to downplay the differences between Whigs and Tories. In his History, Tory elements coexisted with Whig, and Hume himself identified with neither political camp. Hume made the point – against the prevailing Whig wisdom – that there was no clearly defined concep-

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tion of the ancient constitution in the 17th century. According to Hume, it was the ambiguities surrounding the issue of royal prerogative and privilege – not the issue of its “justness” – that resulted in civil war. Given this ambiguity, the Civil War was in a sense inevitable, as opposed to being the outcome of the maliciousness of men. But this does not mean that Hume fell in line with the Whigs. In fact, he condemned the Whigs for their distorted view of the past, despite the fact that their policies had not been without advantage to the state. Against Whig doctrine, Hume espoused the doctrine of passive obedience over resistance, and the classic Tory emphasis on deference to established authority. Hume’s sympathies, therefore, were not unequivocal or unambiguous, and this ambiguity perhaps speaks to the relative similarity he perceived between Whigs and Tories in terms of their class identification. This similarity represented a characteristically English phenomenon that distinguished English class formation from the divisions that persisted between the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie common in continental Europe. However, despite being taken up as a Tory historian by contemporary critics, certain elements within his work would later be identified as comprising the Whig conception of history – namely, the inevitability of the conflict – and as such, he would be cast in the same vein as his Whig successors. The problem with this characterization, however, is that in the 18th century, what were seen as “Whig” histories, were characterized by something more than merely a sense of inevitability of the conflict itself; Whiggism was in fact more typically associated with particular partisan attitudes towards political events. Where Hume attributed an inevitability to the Civil War resulting from the ambiguity of the English Constitution, Whig historians were trumpeting the cause of parliamentary sovereignty. The Civil War was perhaps less an inevitability – because, according to Whigs, it was caused by the wickedness of Royalists – than it was a valiant cause in the pursuit of liberty. Hume, of course, was much more skeptical in his assessment of the validity of the parliamentary cause. Whig historiography, therefore, was less teleological than it was explicitly partisan, laced with value judgments that revealed political biases. By the 1820s, the Whig conception of history was becoming allied to the cause of political reform in England, notably the reforms of 1832. Between 1824-8, William Godwin published his History of the Commonwealth of England, which detailed the republican experiment in English politics. The basis of Godwin’s work was that the Parliamentary opponents of Charles I were the unconditional opponents of tyranny and defenders of liberty. In 1828, J.T. Rutt, a radical Unitarian, a friend of Joseph Priestley, and a member of both the Society of Constitutional Information and the Society of the Friends of the People, published a diary of Gibbon Wakefield, a member of the Long Parliament, in order to emphasize the political significance of the Commonwealth period of 1649-50. But it was not until the publication of Lord Macaulay’s work that the dominance of Hume was finally superseded.8 In the work of Macaulay, the Whig cause was explicitly trumpeted, and history was consciously – and unabashedly – interpreted through the lens of contemporary political struggle:

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Chapter 1 “Macaulay’s firm beliefs in the idea of progress, in parliamentary government, civil liberty, and toleration, directly conditioned his whole attitude to the past and the way in which he wrote about it. Although his work cannot be dismissed as an uncritical hymn to Victorianism, none the less Macaulay, supremely complacent and confident, contemplated the seventeenth-century past from the elevated standpoint of his own age.”9

By the latter half of the 19th century, English historical writing was adopting more professional and academic forms in order to attempt a more objective analysis of history. Attempting to move away from the unashamedly presentcentered history of Macaulay, due to his belief that writing history with an eye to the present was unhistorical, S.R. Gardiner attempted to write an analysis of 17th century English history from a more “scientific” point of view.10 The selfconsciously anachronistic style of Macaulay, in Gardiner’s view, undermined true historical knowledge. According to Gardiner, neither side in the struggles of the Civil War could be analogous to the contemporary political struggles between Whigs and Tories. Rather, the events of the 17 th century were characterized by their Puritan character, making the period of the 1640s a “Puritan” revolution that was specific to that particular era. Yet despite his “scientific” and academic detachment, and despite his attempt to transcend the biases of the Tory/Whig divide, Gardiner’s historical account retains traces of the Whig interpretation of history. As his critics point out, the English “nation,” for Gardiner, is seen as the repository of liberty, analogous to the Parliamentary or Commons’ side of the English Civil War, and hence, his history remains fundamentally that of a Whig. Despite his Whiggish tendencies, or perhaps because of the allegedly scientific nature of his Whiggish tendencies, Gardiner cast a long shadow on historical writing that extended into the twentieth century. Colin Firth and Godfrey Davies were the prominent disciples of Gardiner’s academic history.11 While Firth largely confirmed the Puritan character of the Revolution, Davies preferred to return to its original classification as the Great Rebellion: “In some ways the “Great Rebellion” is a better label than “Puritan Revolution” for the movement that led to the execution of Charles I and the establishment of the protectorate. It is true that most puritans sided against the king, that the parliamentary commissions ran in the name of the king and parliament and thus afforded their holders a somewhat transparent screen against being called rebels, and that a war concerned mainly at the start with political sovereignty rather changed its character and became a crusade for religious freedom. Nevertheless the struggle, though at no time a class war, was to a large extent a revolution by the middle classes against personal government. They had been growing steadily in power under the Tudors when they had been allowed to participate in government at the will

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of the sovereign. Now they were no longer content merely to register approval of royal edicts.”12

Despite these differences, the authors shared an underlying Whiggishness; whether it was a revolution or a rebellion, both historians agreed that the events of the 1640s represented a repudiation by an essentially liberal middle-class of the tyrannical tendencies – either in the form of religious intolerance or personal and arbitrary government – of the Crown, and an attempt to regain the natural freedoms of the English nation. With the work of G.M Trevelyan, the Whig interpretation of history – as it had attained its classic form under Macaulay – would be rescued from the clutches of this alleged “scientific” history. Interestingly enough, Trevelyan was the great nephew of Macaulay, and saw himself explicitly working within the Macaulay tradition as a “traditional” historian, as opposed to the orthodox “scientific” historian common in his own day. His purpose was to once again breathe life into history by writing with passion and displaying sympathy with historical actors. Knowing that this would incite the wrath of his scientifically minded colleagues, Trevelyan perhaps did the most of all twentieth century historians to revitalize and associate himself with the Whig interpretation of history.13 For Trevelyan, therefore, the English Revolution was a clash of ideals and principles regarding modern day notions of liberty versus outdated notions of authority and absolutism: “The English Civil War was not the collapse of an out-worn society in a chaos of class hatred and greed, but a contest for political and religious ideals that divided every rank in a land socially sound and economically prosperous. The causes of the war were not economic and were only indirectly social. Nevertheless the old aristocratic connection was apt to favour the King while the world that had arisen since the Reformation was apt to favour Parliament.”14

In Trevelyan, then, the twentieth century would find its most avid proponent of the Whiggism. Despite its rich history and its many variations, the Whig interpretation of the English Civil War focused on the defense of English liberties against the encroachments of an authoritarian Crown by a rising middle class. As a result of this focus, it is perhaps not at all surprising that it had a formative impact on the development of the history of political thought as a subject of study in its own right. One of the first “histories” of political theory was Robert Blakey’s The History of Political Literature from the Earliest Times, written in 1855. Blakey was an English Radical associated with the Chartist movement whose politics characterized the radical-liberalism of 19th century Whiggism. His narrative of the history of political thought traces its conceptual development in relation to the allegedly timeless conflict between liberty and tyranny. Thus, Blakely focus-

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es on the late medieval struggles between church and state, the liberation of commerce from the conservative grip of agrarianism, and finally, the struggles between constitutionalism and absolutism that defined the conflict between liberty and tyranny in early modern Europe.15 Similar to the Whig interpretation of history, mainstream studies in the history of political thought underwent a “scientific” revolution. Just as Gardiner had sought to present an objective analysis of English history that nonetheless remained embedded in the Whig interpretation of history, so too did studies in the history of political thought, most significantly in the work George Sabine. 16 Closer to Gardiner than Macaulay, Sabine’s work was torn between a belief in allegedly objective economic explanations that focused on causation as opposed to the more normative investigations that either condemned or condoned the phenomena being examined on the one hand, and a firm commitment to liberal democracy on the other.17 Sabine argued that adherence to a conception of “historical necessity”, either in the form of Natural Law, or in Hegelian doctrines of “rational self-evidence” was unverifiable. Political analysis should not be based upon normative values, but rather on the “calculation of probabilities,” which should incorporate the notion of economic causation. At the same time, however, Sabine, writing in the context of the looming conflict between capitalism and communism, felt it necessary to affirm his belief that liberalism offered the “most hopeful prospect for social and political improvement by peaceful means.”18 As John Gunnell has pointed out: “Although Sabine did not stress any holistic intrinsic meaning or import for the present, he did believe that there was a principle of the survival of the fittest at work in politics and the history of political thought and that the theory and practice of liberal democracy represented the highest stage of human development – and one that was logically and epistemologically grounded.”19

By the end of the 1930s, Sabine’s approach seemed to represent the dominant approach to the study of the history of political thought in the U.S. – empirical positivism coupled with a belief in historical progress and a commitment to liberal democracy. Thus, Sabine’s understanding of the development of political ideas seemed to conform – albeit in a seemingly “scientific” way – to a Whig conception of history. Prior to World War II, the predominance of the Whig conception of history in the studies of the history of political theory corresponded to the lack of separation between history and the study of politics and political theory. 20 The study of the history of political thought, like that of social theory, was very much allied to a greater understanding of contemporary developments and embedded within prevailing interpretations of contemporary political phenomena, particularly the development of liberal democracies. As the latter half of the 19th century was characterized by a European wide process of “modern” state for-

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mation, often revolving around political struggles that culminated in the development of representative governments and attempts to reform the ancien regimes of feudal absolutism, the development of the historical study of political ideas understandingly related to this process. Thus, the historical study of political thought was not yet an “autonomous” aspect of “political science,” which perhaps accounts for its Whiggish tendencies. After the institutionalization of political theory in the post-war period, political theory became much more specialized and, as a result of contingent developments, abstracted from history. Thus, the lens through which the mainstream scholars interpreted the development of the history of political thought was similar to that of the Whig interpretation of history: a battle between tyranny and liberty, with political thinkers and philosophers contributing to either side of this perennial struggle. In this sense, many political thinkers were said to contribute to the creation of doctrines and theories that were conducive to the attainment of either goal. Thus, sixteenth and seventeenth century political thought became the turning point in development of European political theory in general. Just as the political struggles of the Civil War and Glorious Revolution were believed to be between the forces of tyranny and the forces of liberty, so the development of English political thought was believed to follow this same pattern of development. For Perez Zagorin, the revolutionary decades of 1640-1660, “are of the highest significance in the history of both English and European philosophy,”21 for it represents the point in which the modern world supersedes the old feudal world. The systematic political theories as well as the more partisan incursions into political thought – in the form of pamphleteering – represented the most advanced political ideas in Europe at that time. But the ideas of the revolutionary period would transcend their own context by establishing a legacy that would last at least a century and a half after the Restoration: the ideological developments of the revolutionary period thus paved the way for future developments in Western political thought, most importantly being the Enlightenment. In Zagorin’s own words, “most of the leading principles which inspired the eighteenth-century revolutions in Europe and America received their first commanding expression during the years when the Long Parliament defeated the king and Cromwell set up his power.”22 As a result, the canon of political thought became defined in terms of those who contributed to either side of this conflict between tyranny and liberty – as it was defined by Whigs. Those who contributed to this debate were accorded canonical status and often interpreted in relation to the outcome of this conflict. Thus, Locke became “our philosopher” because he describes the liberal politics that eventually came to dominate “our” society,23 or because he “formulated a democracy in which government by the consent and the goodwill of the governed is the ideal.”24 On the opposite side we find Hobbes, who becomes the most significant exponent of royal absolutism – despite the lack of significance his ideas enjoyed in his own time. Radical political thought, at least in the early 19th century, became an adjunct to the development of the British Radical movement that supported the enfranchisement of the middle class during the

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1830s and the propagation of utilitarian political philosophy. As a result of this, those who did not contribute to this timeless debate between absolutism and Whig liberty became excluded from the canon, and were often marginalized in the footnotes of larger historical surveys – if they appeared at all. The eventual emergence of a Marxist approach to history and the history of political thought would go some way toward offsetting these discrepancies, as we will now see, but with a limited degree of success.25

Marxism and the Bourgeois Revolution Paradigm In the aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution, Marxist social theory began to make inroads into historical studies of the early modern period.26 Using Marxian concepts of class struggle, and building on work done in the fields of social and economic history, as well as historical sociology, a variety of “social interpretations” of the revolution emerged which sought to embed the political conflict of the Civil War in the social transition from feudalism to capitalism. In this sense, these social interpretations were meant to provide a more rigorous explanation of the course of historical events than the 19 th century political historiography that preceded it. Thus, the second narrative of the English Civil War – the “structural” or “materialist” interpretation put forward by James Harrington – serves as the point of entry for the modern social interpretation that flourished in the immediate post-war period.27 The most notable articulations of the traditional social interpretation were put forward by R.H. Tawney, Christopher Hill and Lawrence Stone.28 Christopher Hill’s Marxist interpretation of the English Revolution was designed to provide an alternative to the “bourgeois” history that characterized the revolution as the progressive victory of a liberty seeking middle class over the tyrannical aims of a feudal Crown on the one side, and a Tory history that romanticized the stability and moral character of the ancient regime on the other. Not being content with merely narrating the course of events, Hill sought to explain why those events occurred in the first place. Hill’s initial interpretation of the Civil War, therefore characterized it as a class war on par with the great French Revolution of 1789: “To summarize it briefly, this interpretation is that the English Revolution of 1640 was a great social movement like the French Revolution of 1789. An old order that was essentially feudal was destroyed by violence, a new and capitalist social order created in its place. The Civil War was a class war, in which the despotism of Charles I was defended by the reactionary forces of the established Church and feudal landlords. Parliament beat the King because it could appeal to the enthusiastic support of the trading and industrial classes in town and countryside, to the yeomen and progressive gentry, and to wider masses of the population whenever they were able by free discussion to understand what the struggle was really about.”29

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Firmly ensconced in the traditional Marxist framework of the “bourgeois revolution,” that viewed the great European revolutions as epochal conflicts between feudal aristocracies and nascent bourgeoisies, Hill argued that, unlike the French case, the English Revolution was led by the progressive sections of the gentry – who represented a “rural” bourgeoisie – in alliance with the urban bourgeoisie, intent on sweeping away the old feudal order.30 The feudal English state was organized around the pursuit and maintenance of the material interests of the feudal, parasitic classes – the feudal aristocracy, Crown, merchant oligarchy and clergy – and needed to be “smashed” if the progressive classes were to realize there own interests. Not willing to romanticize the medieval world that the revolution had shattered, Hill sounded conspicuously Whiggish in his prognosis that “in attacking the feudal order and the oligarchy of big merchants in alliance with the Court who were trying to monopolize business profits, the struggle of the bourgeoisie was progressive, representing the interests of the country as a whole.”31 For Tawney, the outbreak of the revolution needed to be explained in relationship to what he referred to as the “rise of the gentry.”32 The century prior to the revolution, according to Tawney, was a period of decline for the old, conservative landed aristocracy. In its place emerged a revolutionary, capitalist gentry who sought to supplant the old feudal nobility by radically transforming the state. While not subscribing to the tenets of Marxism, Tawney’s explanation of the long-term structural causes of the revolution as being rooted in changes in the class structure of England parallels that of Hill’s in many significant ways. In general then, the Marxist version of the social interpretation viewed the civil war as the result of a rising bourgeois class – either the gentry, or the progressive gentry in alliance with the bourgeoisie – overthrowing a feudal nobility, who, in the midst of a transition to capitalism, responded through fettering the development of the productive forces of capitalist production through the maintenance of monopolies in trade and industry and the passage of unparliamentary taxation on industry.33 Thus, it was in the material interest of this rural bourgeoisie to rise up and overthrow the feudal nobility. The English Revolution was, according to this interpretation, the first of the great bourgeois revolutions that would eventually transform the European political landscape.34 Lawrence Stone, in his 1948 article entitled, “The Anatomy of the Elizabethan Aristocracy,” sought to support Tawney’s thesis of the rise of the gentry by providing statistical evidence of the decline of the aristocracy due to overexpenditure and conspicuous consumption. 35 Stone argued that the old, titled aristocracy had been experiencing a crisis of feudal revenues throughout the 16 th century and were gradually being supplanted by a more dynamic and prosperous gentry. Like Tawney, Stone was not a Marxist, yet the point of commonality between Hill’s, Tawney’s and Stone’s interpretation of the Civil War was the rise of a “middling” rural class of capitalist or commercial landlords supplanting the traditional powers and privileges of the old, essentially feudal, aristocracy. However, Stone’s contribution received stinging criticism at the hands of H.R. Trevor-Roper, forcing him to modify his thesis. 36 The debate that ensued hinged

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on the contention of the alleged “rise” of the gentry. In opposition to this “rise of the gentry” thesis, H.R. Trevor-Roper argued that the cause of the English revolution was not a rising gentry opposing a declining aristocracy, but rather, it was the result of the decline of the “mere gentry” – the middle sort of men whose main source of wealth stemmed mainly from land. In the face of declining agricultural revenues due to inflationary prices, members of the “mere gentry” who relied largely on agricultural incomes were declining. This “mere gentry” formed the social basis of support for the country “party” who sought to decentralize the English state by deposing the established court party of aristocrats who had managed to maintain a monopoly over court-based incomes. The rising class in this period was not the gentry but rather, the yeomanry. Despite there differences, the class lines of political conflict were clearly drawn in the work of Hill, Tawney and Stone. At the core of the traditional social interpretation lay the notion that revolutionary political change was related to revolutionary social transitions. In this sense, there existed a social basis to politics and political conflict in which the latter could only be understood in relationship to the former. Revolutionary politics were seen as a political manifestation or a political response to social developments that were geared toward fostering their further progress. By the 1950s and 1960s, Marxists, as well as the proponents of the social interpretation, were having a difficult time maintaining the empirical validity of their interpretation. Most significantly, they were not having much luck identifying the class antagonisms that constituted the bourgeois revolution paradigm: the rising bourgeoisie and the declining feudal aristocracy. The writings of Christopher Hill are indicative of this predicament. By this time, Hill had come to accept Perez Zagorin’s conclusion that the outbreak of civil war was caused by a split within the landed class. But for Hill, and other Marxists, this split was not arbitrary or purely factional; it involved fundamentally different material interests and therefore exposed deeper class divisions that existed at the social level. Despite this, however, Hill began to move away from his initial orthodox interpretation of the revolution in order to focus on the intellectual aspects of the revolution – both in terms of its origins and consequences, as well as marginal and radical intellectual traditions. 37 Cause and effect was now reversed to some degree: capitalism did not cause the revolution, rather, the revolution resulted in capitalism – or, perhaps more accurately, the revolution issued in a new “bourgeois” society. In this sense, “the bourgeoisie did not make the revolution but the revolution made the bourgeoisie.”38 As we will see shortly, Hill’s re-assessment of the bourgeois revolution paradigm would largely result in a redefinition of this concept within the framework of his shift in focus from the causes to the consequences of the revolution. Perhaps the most telling indication of the crisis of the traditional Marxist social interpretation of the revolution can be seen in the fact that, by the mid-eighties, in the midst of Thatcherism, Hill was literally writing about The Experience of Defeat.39

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In conjunction with the debates surrounding the causes of the civil war emerged scholarship debating the character of the political ideas of the era itself. Revolutionary contexts breed revolutionary ideas, and such progressive political thought was found in the works of the Levellers, Agitators and Diggers on the left of the spectrum, and, to a lesser extent, in the works of some of the more moderate figures associated with the parliamentary cause. For many left-wing historians, the Levellers were said to be the political representatives of the petitbourgeois class of artisans, yeoman and unincorporated merchants who, despite their petit-bourgeois position, pursued many progressive reforms, such as full manhood suffrage – a remarkably radical proposal for the time, which was eventually defeated by the more conservative elements of the revolution – that placed them well on the left-wing of the revolutionary movement.40 On top of the progressive aspects of their political reforms, the fact that they were called the Levellers – which implied a commitment to the levelling of social distinctions of class and status – was seized on by many Marxist historians as evidence of their left-wing tendencies (often despite the fact that the majority of Levellers consistently reaffirmed their allegiance to private property in response to their critics). The general consensus on the left – for at least some time – was that the Levellers represented a break from a mainstream politics that relied upon conservative arguments of tradition and historical continuity as opposed to abstract principles of right and justice. Eventually becoming allies with the Levellers, the New Model Army was said to be significant for the development of radical politics due to the democratic form of organization that spontaneously emerged within the army alongside the official hierarchical chain of command. Electing Agitators – which meant Agent, or Adjutator – the rank-and-file, with the significant help of a radical core of junior officers, sought to establish an alternative democratic structure within its ranks in order to pursue its goal of democratizing the English state. Thus, the New Model Army Agitators shared with the Levellers a concern for basing the English constitution upon “principles of justice and common right.” 41 Further to the left we find the Diggers who represented, for Marxist historians, the first communist movement that espoused a proletarian ideology. 42 Advocating an anti-capitalist ideology and a communal form of organization, the Diggers were committed to a radical project of social and economic reform that would see the earth restored to its original condition as a “common treasury” of communal property, albeit in a progressive and non-traditional way.43 The Digger movement was seen as either part of a larger progressive movement towards Reformation, such as that which occurred on the Continent in the previous century, or as a part of a tradition of indigenous lower-class radicalism that spanned all the way back to the Lollards.44 For other scholars – Marxist and progressive alike – it was either Gerrard Winstanley’s movement from an unconventional Christian agitator to a rationalist and secular communist that became the significant aspect of Digger radicalism, or his eventual adherence to a kind of utopian socialism.45

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The most influential Marxian interpretation of the political thought of the period, however, is undoubtedly found in the work of C.B. Macpherson. Macpherson’s thesis of possessive individualism sees a bourgeois ontology in most of the major political thought of the 17 th century, which is said to form the “root” of liberal-democratic theory. These roots are ontological – they lay in the formulation and postulation of a series of “rights” that are invested within the individual in the form of “self-propriety.” The central difficulty of liberaldemocratic thought, according to Macpherson, can be found in the possessive quality of 17th century English individualism in which the individual was defined around a conception of self-propriety characterized by an absence of moral obligation to the society within which that individual lived. As a result of this, Macpherson argues, “Society becomes a lot of free equal individuals related to each other as proprietors of their own capacities and of what they have acquired by their exercise. Society consists of relations of exchange between proprietors. Political society becomes a calculated device for the protection of this property and for the maintenance of an orderly relation of exchange.”46

Thus, the Levellers’ belief in “self-propriety” reflected their petit-bourgeois class position and represented a form of possessive individualism that put them in a similar position to Locke, Hobbes and Harrington.47 This effectively took the radicalism out of the political thought of the Leveller movement for some time to come, by casting them as proponents of what is merely another variant of an essentially liberal political philosophy that was predicated upon an acceptance of the existence of a “market society.” The conclusion reached by Macpherson is that English political thought, from the seventeenth-century onward, has been burdened by the same ontological problem. Thus, Macpherson draws a lineage of “bourgeois” political thought from the proto-liberal work of Hobbes to the bourgeois utilitarianism of Bentham: Hobbesian absolutism and materialism; Harringtonian republicanism; Leveller radicalism; Lockean liberalism and natural law; right up to Benthamite utilitarianism: all of these different forms of political thought are essentially different variations of an underlying political theory of possessive individualism. In contrast to Macpherson, Perry Anderson argued that England was not bourgeois enough.48 Given the incomplete nature of the English bourgeois revolution, the superstructural remnants of feudalism were never adequately purged from English society. The Restoration reconsolidated the aristocratic ethos of the “natural ruling class” that served to prevent England from developing a purely bourgeois intellectual Enlightenment characterized by rationalism over empiricism. Thus, the bourgeoisie, especially prior to the Reform Act of 1832, was unable to pose a significant intellectual challenge (let alone a political one) to the ruling aristocracy. Radical English political thought remained em-

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bedded within the discursive paradigm of “constitutionalism” rather than the allegedly more progressive “counter-hegemonic” ideology of “Paineite” republicanism. Thus, whereas Macpherson characterized English political thought coalescing around a bourgeois consensus of possessive individualism that precludes the development of radical theoretical alternatives, Anderson sees English political thought as being tarnished by the persistence of aristocratic tendencies that prevent the development of a bourgeois ideology that is necessary for the proper development of capitalism, which is itself necessary for the eventual development of truly radical forms of political thought. Anderson’s model of radicalism is, of course, that of France, with its development of republicanism, socialism and rationalism. Against this model, England seems almost quaint in its attachment to archaic forms of empiricism, constitutionalism and individualism. Holding a similar belief in the more advanced nature of the French case, David Petegorsky, in his assessment of the radicalism of Gerrard Winstanley and the Diggers, compares the former to that authentic radical of the archetypal bourgeois revolution, Gracchus Babeuf.49 Not surprisingly, Winstanley comes up short in this comparison of proletarian radicalisms. Thus, the bourgeois revolution – either in its failed form or its archetypal French guise – becomes a kind of measuring stick against which the developments – political, economic, social, cultural and intellectual – of the English experience are measured.

Revisionism, Republicanism and Traditional Society In the early 1970s, emerging trends in historiography were leading to new criticisms of the social interpretation of the Civil War and Revolution that did not merely lead back to revamped expositions of the older Whig interpretations. 50 This new “revisionist” trend rejected both the Whig political interpretations that emphasized the parliamentary cause as well as the Marxist inspired social interpretations of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. While this new historical revisionism has its roots in G.R. Elton’s criticism of the “high road to civil war,” and Herbert Butterfield’s criticism of the Whig interpretation of history, it was Conrad Russell who did the most to initially push forward the debate on the social interpretation.51 His criticism was twofold. First, he rejected what he considered to be the teleology of the social interpretation: that is, that historians sought to explain the causes of the Civil War with the outcome already in mind. As with the Whigs who explained the cause of the civil war in terms of the outcome of parliamentary supremacy, so the proponents of the social interpretation explained the causes in terms of the outcome of the rise of the gentry. In this sense, argued Russell, the Civil War seemed to be inevitable from at least the beginning of the Stuart period. Secondly, Russell criticized what were becoming recognized as the serious empirical shortcomings of the social interpretation. 52 Building on the problems that had been highlighted by earlier critics, Russell pointed out that neither

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the gentry nor the bourgeoisie seemed to be acting as a class; in fact, both the gentry and the merchant community were split down the middle by the events of the Civil War. On top of this, Russell pointed out that it was not clear how the rise of the yeomanry would lead to the splitting of the gentry. In the absence of any significant correlations between class position and political affiliation, class analysis was said to be useless in understanding the Civil War. Russell also pointed to an absence of revolutionary intention: the alleged bourgeois revolutionaries did not seem to intend to create a revolution that would overthrow the feudal relations of English society. Quite the contrary, in fact, Russell would consistently make the case that the intention of political actors was not revolutionary conflict, but rather, consensus and conciliation. Given all of these facts, the social interpretation increasingly appeared to be built on a shaky empirical foundation. Russell was not necessarily opposed to the principles of the social interpretation per se – that is, situating the causes of the conflict within a context of social change – rather, he was opposed to what were at the time the current expositions of the social interpretation. Indeed, he held out the possibility of the creation of a new social interpretation; but a new social interpretation would need to be based upon the political activity of the “industrious sort of people,” the tradesmen, artisans and other entrepreneurial urban groups. These are the men who formed the backbone of the New Model Army and the Levellers, organizations that Russell considers to be more revolutionary than either the gentry or the bourgeoisie. Given the empirical failures of the traditional social interpretation, revisionists began to move away from attempting to explain the Civil War and Revolution in social terms, and sought to explain it in either purely political terms, or sought to abandon explanation altogether and focus instead on providing a descriptive narrative of events. If neither the social conflict between antagonistic classes nor the constitutional conflict between Crown and Parliament could account for the Civil War, then its causes needed to be found elsewhere. Those revisionists who still believed that the examination of causes was a worthy endeavor began to focus their attention on the incompetence of Charles I and the disorder caused by the Scottish and Irish Rebellions. Thus, the dynamic of the revolution was either invested in the actions of individuals, or in the causal effect of exogenous forces such as war. As such, the search for long-term causes of the Civil War and Revolution had been abandoned for shorter term contingent events that led to the outbreak of war. The revisionist interpretation of the English Revolution has had significant implications for the interpretation of radical politics and radical social and political thought of the mid-century. Given the revisionist interpretations of the Civil War, it became necessary to re-evaluate the allegedly radical political and social thought that was produced at the time. The old approaches to radicalism were characterized as “anachronistic” in the sense that they project contemporary meaning onto ideas of the past; and they are guilty of treating ideas as mere reflections of an underlying social reality that is deemed to be more significant

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than the realm of thought. One form of anachronism, according to revisionists, is the insistence on the existence of conflicting political ideologies and oppositional forms of politics. Whereas Whigs and Marxists emphasize the existence of conflicts between either Crown and Parliament, or between the various social classes that existed in early modern England, revisionists make the case that such conflict was the unintentional result of mismanagement and incompetence by political leaders looking for conciliation. Consensus, not conflict, was the nature of early modern English politics and political thought. In this vein, revisionists argue that the period leading up to the civil war was one of ideological and political “consensus” between parliamentarians and royalists.53 Conrad Russell has re-examined the Whig assumption that ideological divisions regarding fundamental constitutional issues existed between a “government” side allied with the Crown and of the “oppositional” politics of parliament from the outset of the 17th century.54 In his critique of the “high road to civil war,” Russell argues that parliament was in fact engaged in a politics of conciliation with the Crown due to the fact that it was not nearly as powerful an institution as previous historians had believed.55 In the absence of any organized opposition in the modern sense of the term, parliament was dependent upon a politics of persuasion as opposed to a politics of coercion. 56 For example, Russell argues that the parliament of 1621 was characterized by a desire to restore good relations with the king and an attack on corrupt royal servants and monopolists – not the Crown as an institution. 57 Similarly, in 1626, the failure of the King to obtain tonnage and poundage lay not with resistance by parliament but by the actions of corrupt privy councilors. In support of this consensus-based approach to politics, Mark Kishlansky has sought to down-play the significance of radical politics during the early years of the civil war.58 Revolutionary ideologies and adversarial politics are relegated to ad hoc rationalizations of personal grievances amongst Parliamentarians – both radical and moderate. English politics prior to 1646, argues Kishlansky, was based upon consensus, not conflict. The consensus politics that defined parliament broke down with the exile of the King; parliamentary government witnessed the transformation of individual grievances into adversarial politics which were represented by the formation of political parties. The existence of adversarial politics provoked the military intervention that transformed the civil war into a revolution. The whole series of events that culminated in a revolution is characterized as a series of breakdowns amidst the normal functioning of English politics, not the result of the principled actions of ideologically motivated political opponents. In a similar vein, John Morrill has argued that the area of contention amongst parliamentarians did not concern constitutional issues, but rather, issues of religion.59 In terms of legal-constitutionalism, Morrill argues that there was, in 1640, no desire to alter, but rather to conserve the ancient constitution. In Morrill’s words, there was “no will to new model the constitution, to reform it root and branch, let alone to create parliamentary sovereignty.”60 What drove the legal-constitutionalist critique of royal government was therefore not the ideal of

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parliamentary sovereignty, but the dislike of royal mismanagement by what critics considered to be the ineptitude of Charles I.61 Reform of the Church proved to be the policy area that upset the consensual nature of parliamentary government and drove a wedge between members of parliament who were united in their desire to conserve the ancient constitution of King, Lords and Commons.62 Parliamentary politics, in this period, was therefore characterized by consensus, not conflict. Political conflict eventually did erupt, not due to a clash of constitutional ideologies, and most certainly not due to a clash of socioeconomic interests, but rather, due either to religious difference, individual grievance or royal mismanagement. If the dynamic of the political conflict can be found in parliament at all, it therefore lies in the conflict arising from religious differences, or from competing individuals eager to reap the rewards of patronage. However, parliamentary politics is not the only area that has undergone a revision. Extra-parliamentary politics have also been re-interpreted in ways that downplay the significance of what used to be considered the radical nature of the politics of particular extra-parliamentary groups such as the Levellers, New Model Army Agitators and the Diggers. Against the conventional view that Leveller ideas penetrated the New Model Army and fostered its political radicalization, Kishlansky has sought to drive a wedge between the New Model Army and the Levellers, arguing that although the two organizations met at Putney, they traveled there on two separate “paths.” Instead, Kishlansky emphasizes the material grievances of the Army. Thus, it was not so much political principle that was the driving force behind the radicalism of the Army (if we can even say the army was radical), but rather, a narrow self-interest concerning the payment of arrears. John Morrill also downplays the radicalism of the New Model Army by calling into question its relationship with the Levellers and its commitment to Leveller ideas.63 Citing the material divisions between the Army’s interest in securing its own bread-and-butter issues of arrears and indemnity and the Levellers desire for a decentralized democratic state (or, lack of state, as Morrill claims), Morrill argues that the Army’s commitment to Leveller principles of popular sovereignty were merely “ideological jam” for its more basic bread-andbutter interests. Once Parliament began to address the Army’s concerns, Morrill argues, the rank and file fell in line with their leadership. The Putney debates, therefore, represent the ideas of a clique of officers who were fundamentally out of touch with the army rank-and-file, whose real interests were represented in the Humble Representation to parliament on 8 December 1647. The rise of revisionism had a significant impact on the history of early modern English political thought as well. The “new historicist” approach to political theory, best represented by Quentin Skinner, John Pocock and John Dunn, has sought to move beyond the entrenched anachronisms of Whiggism and Marxism in the history of political thought. Skinner’s 1969 essay entitled “Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas,” represented perhaps the most significant foray into the problems of historical approaches to political

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theory.64 Collectively, the new historicists – who would later be referred to, with some qualifications, as the “Cambridge School” – sought to move beyond the textualist approaches of the Straussians on the one hand and the contextualist approaches of both Marxist and Whig historians of political thought. While the former tended to treat political thought as philosophical contributions to a timeless dialogue on the perennial problems of political life, the latter treated political theory as either reflections of an underlying social reality or the theoretical rationalizations of political interests. According to Skinner, the problem with these contextualist approaches is that they were both marred by the existence of anachronistic readings of political thought that saw conceptual developments of the seventeenth century as mere “anticipations” or “pre-cursors” of the modern era. Whig historians of political thought focused on the idea as its unit of analysis, thereby granting it a kind of agency that was denied to political thinkers. Marxist historians of political thought, on the other hand, placed primary emphasis on the economic context in ways that similarly denied agency to political theorists, thereby being found guilty of economic, class or sociological reductionism to the extent that it treats political ideas merely as reflections of some underlying social reality. It is in this regard that John Dunn argues that Marxists are concerned more with what political theory tells us about the society within which it was written than they are with political theory; that while “the object of their [Marxists’] study is plainly the history of political theory, its products are scarcely in themselves contributions to understanding that history.”65 Similarly, it is in this regard that Quentin Skinner argues that Marxists have insisted that the “principles professed in political life are commonly the merest rationalizations of quite different motives and impulses”, and that “it follows from this that such principles have no causal role in political life, and scarcely even need to figure in consequence in explanations of political behaviour.”66 In a similar vein, Conal Condren’s work is opposed to the cultural materialism of a Marxism which presupposes “a prior ideology and set of power relations which are taken to be reflected in language, mystified and masked by it.”67 Lastly, Terence Ball accuses Marxist scholarship of adhering to a notion that ideas are “epiphenomenal, mere flotsam floating on an eternal sea of self- or class” interest;68 and Pocock claims that if the historian of political thought is a Marxist, “he declared that “ideas” were a mere reflection of social reality.”69 By employing the latest developments in linguistic philosophy and revisionist intellectual history, the new historians sought to analyze political theory within its proper linguistic context – constituted by either language paradigms, bodies of discourse, or linguistic conventions against which the intention or the meaning of the author could be understood. In this way, the Cambridge School sought to historicize political thought while maintaining its autonomous character by stressing the linguistic context over the social context favored by Marxists. The point was, in the words of John Pocock, to develop an “autonomous” method of analysis which would treat political thought as a historical phenomenon in its own right, rather than treating political theory as a series of analytical constructs or subordinating political theory to an anachronistic and

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teleological conception of historical development. 70 Prior to these developments, it was argued, the history of political thought was characterized by scholarship that suffered from a number of what Skinner called “mythologies,” due to the ahistoricism of existing methodologies (of which Whiggism was only one of many), which resulted in interpretations of political thinkers that were plagued by “historical nonsense.”71 This approach has led to some significant re-interpretations of political theorists and historical periods. Skinner’s two-volume masterpiece, titled The Foundations of Modern Political Thought sought to trace the development of the concept of the modern state back to its historical origin in the Renaissance period.72 What stands out in Skinner’s work is his scrupulous reconstruction of the various intellectual contexts within which theories of the modern state were situated, as well as his break from the conventions of Marxist, Whig and Straussian approaches to the history of political thought. This was, in the words of one commentator, a truly objective and impartial history of how ideas developed within their historical context; a history free of value judgments and biases. 73 At the same time that Skinner was revising Renaissance and early modern European political theory, J.G.A. Pocock was pursuing an equally ambitious revision of Renaissance and early modern political thought from Italy to England to the United States. In his Machiavellian Moment, Pocock situates English political thought within the ideological context of a dominant Republican paradigm of political language, emanating from Florence, which was largely concerned with maintaining its own moral and political stability in a time of instability and turmoil.74 The civic humanism of this paradigm was thus concerned with freeing an active conception of citizenship from the constraints of medieval tradition and universal order. The lasting significance of Pocock’s Machiavellian Moment, however, is that it represented a revisionist assault on the “progressivist” conception of English historical development that saw the midseventeenth-century as the turning point towards liberalism, possessive individualism and the beginnings of the development of bourgeois or “commercial” society. By encompassing the English Revolution within his centuries long “Machiavellian Moment,” Pocock was not so much precluding the possibility of radical political activity, nor the development of a liberal paradigm of possessive individualism altogether, but rather, postponing these developments to a later age and challenging the view that liberalism and possessive individualism maintained their hegemony over alternative conceptions of politics up to the 19 th century.75 Significant developments in English political thought were said to occur not so much during the Civil War years and Interregnum, but rather, in the Augustan age between Locke and Hume, and by a number of heretofore “minor” thinkers like Defoe. The cumulative result of the revisionism of the Cambridge School was a wholesale re-interpretation of 17th century English political thought: the paradigmatic moments of the English Revolutionary era were not the Putney Debates, but rather the Engagement Controversy; the purpose of the political theory of the Revolutionary years was not revolution, or even libera-

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tion, but rather, the quest for settlement, the prescription of balance and stability in the perfect constitutional mix. The development of bourgeois ideology was impeded by the existence and persistence of a Republican paradigm that opposed the development of the new commercial society as an element of corruption that virtú was to oppose.76 More controversially, Pocock suggested that it was members of the traditional ruling class – the aristocracy, the clergy, and royalists in general – who played a greater role in the development of an ideology of possessive individualism. In this sense, Pocock remarked, “it is the Marxists who are the Whigs, their critics who command a dialectic,”77 and possessive individualism was purged not only from seventeenth-century England, but from eighteenth-century America as well. Conventional histories of English political thought were thus turned on their heads. It is within this revisionist trend that many recent works on early modern England have been conducted. Using a similar approach to the historical specificity of language, Conal Condren has begun to re-assess the nature of political discourse in 17th century England and the validity of our own political vocabulary in understanding this history. 78 Pointing out that our contemporary political vocabulary – a vocabulary that orders our political concepts – stems from the conceptual developments of the French Revolution, Condren argues that we need to work towards developing a new language of 17 th century English politics. Most historical studies of English political thought, he argues, are embedded in this contemporary discourse, and as a result, anachronisms ensue. Condren suggests that early modern England is characterized by an unstable political domain which means that politics is not yet an autonomous form of activity; it is still embedded within a larger legal and ecclesiastical domain. 79 As such, a discourse of politics is also not well defined; thus the discourse of politics is prone to “metaphorical incursion” from the spheres of law and religion. This fundamentally changes the way we understand political concepts in 17 th century England. Condren’s contribution to the period is to move beyond the simple dichotomies that defined Whiggish histories of political thought – subject versus citizen; radical versus conservative; liberty versus subjection, etc. 80 Given the instability of the political domain in early modern England, Condren contends that these clear linguistic and conceptual demarcations are much too simplistic, and, given greater scrutiny, never in fact existed. The “proto-socialist” and “proto-bourgeois” interpretations of the Marxist inspired history of political thought were therefore rejected along with the social interpretation of the Revolution. In its place stood republicanism, Renaissance humanism and millenarianism. Harrington went from being a possessive individualist to a humanist admirer of ancient virtue who was more concerned with the establishment of a virtuous republic than he was with the rule of property.81 Harrington’s republicanism was characterized not by an anticipation of modern political thought, but rather, by its evocation of classical republicanism of the Machiavellian kind. The significance of his political thought, therefore, lay not in his anticipation of a possessive and individualistic bourgeois future; rather, it lay in his analysis of the English Civil War that characterized it

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as a revolution stemming from the “erosion of one political structure and the substitution of another through processes of long-term historical change.”82 Similarly, Hobbes is no longer seen as a political theorist contributing to the timeless political problem of political obligation in the abstract; nor is he the protobourgeois exponent of a sovereignty that is responding to the anomie of an emerging bourgeois society. Rather, Hobbes’ work was situated within the highly specific context of the Engagement Controversy in which the particular problem motivating his work was the issue of allegiance to the Cromwellian Commonwealth.83 Locke was no longer an apologist for a rising bourgeoisie; rather, he was a radical political activist who sought political and electoral reform – if not rebellion – and presented a radical critique of the landed classes that placed him in the same radical camp as the Levellers and the Diggers.84 Similarly, the radicals of the period have undergone a revision. Given the allegedly inherent anachronism of the term “radical,” Condren argues that it makes little sense to label the work of particular thinkers radical – or conservative, for that matter. Radicalism, argues Condren, has become a reified concept that is read into the political ideas of the past and imbued with its own progressive agency; and attempts to translate what was initially believed to be radical into our own terms merely assumes that the “later configuration of abstract nouns, itself part of an extensive reformulation of the political domain, does simply clarify less adequate or formalised locutions, rather than enable us to impose our world on the half-silences of the past.”85 For J.C. Davis, radical political thought is determined by the programmatic nature of its discourse. 86 Given the ambiguous relationship between political discourse and social reality, radical political discourse should be treated as a closed system evaluated solely on the terms of its own inner logic, with perhaps some relationship to other potentially radical discourse. What Davis proposes is that in order to be considered radical, the work of a political thinker must de-legitimize the existing order, legitimize a new order that will supersede the old, and provide a “transfer” mechanism by which this new and legitimate social order can be established. Radicalism, therefore, is not a matter of social commentary or the articulation of “realistic” alternatives to the existing social order; rather, it is a process of constructing a set of objective, textual criteria by which we may measure the degree of radicalism attained by a particular thinker. In more specific terms, radicalism is a process of de-legitimization, legitimization and transfer. In evaluating the potential radicalism of a thinker’s work, “we should begin by looking at them as radicals in performance of the necessary and minimal functions of radicalism, rather than at their success as social commentators or as paradigmatic thinkers.”87 For other revisionists, political discourse is not only solely understood in relation to discursive structures, political discourse is determined by these very structures.88 Existing concepts determine the way in which we understand our experiences. As such, it is impossible for historical actors to escape from the concepts that give meaning to their own society. In other words, political thinkers are “caged” by their own context.89 At the base of these conceptual structures

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are a series of common beliefs or “shared assumptions” within which agents construct their discourses. The conclusion that is reached – somewhat anticlimactically – is that criticism of existing structures occurs within those very conceptual structures, rather than outside of them. 90 Radicalism is therefore determined by the ability to decisively and absolutely break from the shared assumptions that form the base of the conceptual structures that in turn provide us with meaning in our own societies. Radicalism therefore becomes a virtual improbability – if not an impossibility. The result of this revisionist approach to early modern English political thought is – as with the revisionist re-evaluation of the Civil War and Revolution – to reject social interpretations of political thought. As a result, movements and ideas that were once thought radical are either deemed to be not as radical as once thought, or, due to specific aspects of their oppositional nature, are now deemed to be reactionary. For Davis, what is significant about the work of Gerrard Winstanley and the Diggers, for example, is not their radical social activism and social thought, as put forward by Marxist scholars, nor their development of a rationalist critique of English society, but rather, Winstanley’s arrival at a kind of totalitarian utopianism.91 For Mulligan and Richards, it is the existence of a specific set of shared assumptions that undermine Winstanley’s alleged radicalism. Although they recognize that Winstanley sought to undermine most of the existing social and political institutions that buttressed the dominance of the landed classes over the poor – private property, the common law, monarchy, the clergy and the Church – Winstanley maintained support for the patriarchal family. This is enough to undercut any radical potential due to the belief that women would be worse off in Winstanley’s utopia than they would be in the status quo of early modern England.92 Similarly, a scholar of the Levellers makes the argument that because the Levellers did not reject the Common Law in itself, they merely rejected the current administration of the law as opposed to the continuity of English politics from the time prior to the Norman Conquest. 93 From this basis, the Levellers could be said to have adhered to an argument of historical continuity – that the Norman Conquest did not represent a break in the English legal tradition. This would put them in a much more conservative camp, politically and theoretically, than was previously believed. And so the landscape of early modern England has gone from representing the origins of liberalism and bourgeois society to being presented as something much more complex, ambiguous and significantly less radical. The postponement of the historical emergence of bourgeois society and its corresponding political and ideological forms thus represents a significant challenge to any Whig or Marxist interpretation of the period. As such, any attempt to renew the social interpretation of the early modern period – in terms of its socioeconomic, political and intellectual development – needs to move beyond the empirical shortcomings of tradition interpretations and assess the validity of the responses by Marxist and Whig scholars.

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Notes 1. For a discussion on historical revisionism and its opposition to Whig history, see Glenn Burgess, “On Revisionism: An Analysis of Early Stuart Historiography in the 1970s and 1980s,” The Historical Journal 33 no. 3(1990): 609-27. For the classic critique of what can be considered “Whig” interpretations of the history of political theory – both in its textual and contextual variants – see Quentin Skinner, “Meaning and Understanding in History of Ideas.” History and Theory 8 no. 1 (1969): 3-53. Also found in Tully, James, Meaning and Context: Quentin Skinner and his Critics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988). An abbreviated version of this essay is also found in Quentin Skinner, Visions of Politics: On Method (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). 2. For an account of the 18th century struggles between Whig and Tory conceptions of English history, complete with ideological twists and turns, see R.C. Richardson, “The eighteenth century: the political uses of history,” in The debate on the English Revolution, ed. R.C. Richardson (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1977). See also Isaac Kramnick, “Augustan Politics and English Historiography – Debate on the English Past, 1730-35.” History and Theory 6 no. 1(1967): 33-56. Isaac Kramnick, Bolingbroke and his Circle: the Politics of Nostalgia in the Age of Walpole (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968). Kramnick shows how adherence, along party lines, to competing Whig and Tory versions of English history often broke down to the extent that Whigs adopted Tory arguments and Tories advocate Whiggish histories. These reversals occurred, he argues, due to contemporary political events. 3. Alastair Maclachlan, The Rise and Fall of Revolutionary England (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996). 4. Herbert Butterfield, The Whig Interpretation of History (London: G. Bell & Sons, 1931). 5. Quentin Skinner, “History and Ideology in the English Revolution,” Historical Journal 8 no. 2 (1965): 151-78. On the transmission of the Whig conception into the eighteenth century, see Herbert Butterfield, The Englishman and his History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1944). 6. While this is largely true, there were occasions where Whigs would adopt Tory arguments regarding the nature of English liberties and Tories would propose Whiggish arguments on the same subject. Specific political events often led to ambiguities in the usage of history for political ends. See Kramnick “Augustan Politics.” 7. David Hume, History of Great Britain (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970). 8. Thomas Babington Macaulay, The history of England (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1979). 9. R.C. Richardson, The English Revolution, 60. 10. Samuel Rawson Gardiner, History of the great Civil War, 1642-1649 (New York: AMS Press, 1965). 11. Colin Firth, Oliver Cromwell and the Rule of the Puritans in England (London: Oxford University Press, 1953). Godfrey Davies, The Early Stuarts, 1603-1660 (London: Oxford University Press, 1937). 12. Davies, Early Stuarts, xxii.

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13. In fact, many people believe that Herbert Butterfield’s 1931 polemic against the Whig interpretation of history, aptly titled The Whig Interpretation of History, is a thinly veiled attack on Trevelyan himself. 14. G.M. Trevelyan, England under the Stuarts (London: Methuen, 1904); G.M. Trevelyan, History of England (London: Longmans, 1926); G.M. Trevelyan, English Social History (London, Longmans, 1944). 15. Siep Stuurman, “The Canon of the History of Political Thought: Its Critique and a Proposed Alternative,” History and Theory 39 no. 2 (2000): 147-66, 150. 16. George Sabine, A History of Political Theory (London: G.G. Harrap, 1937). 17. Sabine’s adherence to economic explanations of political phenomena is part of a wider acceptance of economic understandings of politics in American political science, to which the rise of progressivist interpretations of the American Constitution and Revolution testify. 18. Sabine, History, ix-xxi. 19. John Gunnell, The Descent of Political Theory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 129. 20. For an insightful history of the development of political theory – including the history of political theory – as a subdiscipline in the field of political science, see Gunnell, Descent, and Terence Ball, “American Histories of Political Thought,” in History of Political Thought in National Context, ed. Iain Hampsher-Monk and Dario Castiglione (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). 21. Perez Zagorin, A History of Political Thought in the English Revolution (New York: Routledge, 1954). 22. Zagorin, History, 2. 23. David Wootton, ed., Political Writings of John Locke (Mentor, 1993). 24. William S. Carpenter, ed., Locke: Of Civil Government (Everyman Press, 1924), vii. 25. As Stuurman points out in his survey of the criticisms of the mainstream “Whig” canon, socialists have, since the beginning, shown more sympathy towards, and paid more attention to, plebeians and working class interventions into the history of ideas. See Stuurman, “The Canon.” 26. For insightful histories on the evolution of Marxist history in the British context, see Harvey J. Kaye, The British Marxist Historians (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1984); Raphael Samuel, “British Marxist Historians, 1880-1980 (Part I).” New Left Review 120 (1980): 21-96. 27. Edgell Rickword, “Contemporary Materialist Interpretations of Society in the English Revolution,” in The English Revolution, 1640: Three essays, ed. Christopher Hill, Margaret James and Edgell Rickword (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1949). 28. R.H. Tawney, “The Rise of the Gentry: 1558-1640.” Economic History Review 11 (1941): 1-38; Christopher Hill, The English revolution, 1640: an essay (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1959); Christopher Hill, “A Bourgeois Revolution?” in Three British Revolutions: 1641, 1688, 1776, ed. J.G.A. Pocock and Ian Folger (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980); Lawrence Stone, The Crisis of the Aristocracy, 1558-1641 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965); Lawrence Stone, Social Change and Revolution in England, 1540-1640 (London: Longmans, 1965); Lawrence Stone, The causes of the English Revolution, 1529-1642 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972).

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29. Christopher Hill, Margaret James and Edgell Rickword, The English Revolution, 1640: three essays (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1949), 9. 30. It needs to be pointed out that Hill’s characterization of the Civil War and Revolution has changed somewhat over time. In the 60s, Hill modified his earlier bourgeois revolution paradigm to address the court and country interpretation put forward by Perez Zagorin. By the 1980s, however, Hill had reworked the bourgeois revolution paradigm in order to emphasize the significance of the unintended bourgeois consequences of the Revolution. In light of the empirical problems that the traditional social interpretation was faced with – and which will be discussed below – Hill argued that a revolution could still be bourgeois even if it was not lead by the bourgeoisie. The unintended consequences of the English Revolution, he argued, laid the groundwork for the further development of capitalism in England. For this revamped statement of the bourgeois revolution, see Hill, “A Bourgeois Revolution?” For brief overviews of Hill various positions on the Civil War and Revolution, see R.C. Richardson, The debate on the English Revolution, 2nd ed. (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998), and Norah Carlin, The causes of the English Civil War (Malden: Blackwell Publishers, 1999). For an insightful, yet critical, look at the whole corpus of Christopher Hill’s work, see Maclachlan, Rise and Fall. 31. Hill, James and Rickword, Revolution, 36. 32. Tawney, “Gentry,” 6. 33. This is not to say, of course, that Tawney was a Marxist. It is well known that he wasn’t. Indeed, when asked whether or not the English Revolution was a bourgeois revolution, Tawney responded in the affirmative, but then qualified his answer by stating that the bourgeoisie was on both sides. This is a significant insight, but insofar as Tawney replaces the bourgeoisie with a rural bourgeoisie that confronts, as a class, a feudal nobility, his interpretation can still be said to adhere to the problems of the bourgeois revolution paradigm. This point is made by Richardson, The English Revolution: 2nd ed., 124. 34. The legacy of the bourgeois revolution loomed large in England. It was Perry Anderson who would later seek to explain the general economic and political decline of the Pax Britannica to the “precocious” and “incomplete” nature of its bourgeois revolution. See Perry Anderson, “Origins of the Present Crisis,” in English Questions, ed. Perry Anderson (London: Verso, 1992). For a rebuttal to his explanation, from a Marxist perspective, see E.P. Thompson, “The Peculiarities of the English,” Socialist Register (1965). For a critical discussion on the Marxist conception of the bourgeois revolution, see George C. Comninel, Rethinking the French Revolution: Marxism and the revisionist challenge (London: Verso, 1987). See also Robert Brenner, “The English Revolution and Transition to Capitalism,” in The First Modern Society, ed. A.L. Beier, David Cannadine and James M. Rosenheim (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989). 35. Lawrence Stone, “The Anatomy of the Elizabethan Aristocracy,” Economic History Review 1st series no. 18 (1948): 1-53. 36. Stone, Causes, 27. H.R. Trevor-Roper, “The Elizabethan Aristocracy: An Anatomy Anatomized,” Economic History Review New Series 3 no. 3(1941): 279-98. 37. Christopher Hill, Intellectual origins of the English revolution (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965); Christopher Hill, The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972); Christopher Hill, Some intellectual consequences of the English Revolution (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1980).

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38. Maclachlan, Rise and Fall, 131. 39. Christopher Hill, The experience of defeat: Milton and some contemporaries (London: Faber and Faber, 1984). 40. G.E. Aylmer, ed., The Levellers in the English Revolution (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1975); A.L. Morton, The world of the Ranters: religious radicalism in the English Revolution (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1970). 41. “The immediate needs of the soldiers (arrears and indemnity) are still emphasized, but the minds of the Agitators run on to the settlement of the kingdom upon principles of justice and common right.” A.S.P. Woodhouse, ed., Puritanism and Liberty (London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1974), 22. 42. David Petegorsky, Left-Wing Democracy in the English Civil War (London: New Left Books, 1940). 43. Hill, World. 44. For the Diggers in the context of European Reformation, see Lewis Henry Berens and Tim Buck, The Digger movement in the days of the Commonwealth: as revealed in the writings of Gerrard Winstanley, the Digger; mystic, and rationalist, communist and social reformer (London: Simpkin Marshall Hamilton Kent, 1906). For the Diggers within an indigenous context of lower-class radicalism, see Christopher Hill, “From Lollards to Levellers,” in Rebels and their causes: essays in honour of A.L. Morton, ed. M.C. Cornforth (New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1979). 45. George Juretic, “Digger no Millenarian: The Revolutionizing of Gerrard Winstanley,” Journal of the History of Ideas 36 no. 2 (1975): 263-80. For the Diggers as utopian socialists, see Sabine, History. 46. C.B. Macpherson, The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism (Oxford: Clarendon, 1962), 3. 47. Macpherson, Possessive Individualism. For a critical response to Macpherson, which takes him to task for failure to consider alternative conceptions of propriety, see Iain Hampsher-monk, “Political Theory of the Levellers – Putney, Property and Professor-Macpherson,” Political Studies 24 no 4(1976): 397-422. See also, J.C. Davis, “Levellers and Democracy,” Past & Present 40(1968): 174-80. Christopher Hill eventually accepted Macpherson’s interpretation of the Levellers – at least in terms of their position on the franchise – while Davis would later become enamored with the revisionist history of the 70s and move away from relating political thought to its specific social context. 48. Anderson, “Origins.” 49. Petegorsky, Left-Wing Democracy. 50. Perez Zagorin argued that the English Revolution did not result in any significant social transformation of England. The class structure remained intact and the economic development of the dominant class was not accelerated by the revolution. The significance of the revolution, for Zagorin, lay in its development of a liberal political order – complete with the development of parliamentary sovereignty. Zagorin portrays the revolution as the culmination of a process of parliamentary empowerment that had been going on for decades – back to the reign of Henry VIII. On the one side we have the court faction, which forms the executive of the English state – the king and his privy councilors. On the other side we have the country faction that controls parliament (specifically the House of Commons, but also to a lesser extent the House of Lords) and local government (justices of the peace, county commissions, etc.). The country faction’s control over parliament became crucial in its battle against the Court. Soon after the outbreak of Civil

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war, the groupings of court and country fell apart and were replaced by the political divisions of Royalist and Parliamentarian. Perez Zagorin, “The Social Interpretation of the English Revolution,” Journal of Economic History 19 no. 3 (1959): 376-401. 51. G.R. Elton, “A High Road to Civil War?” in From the Renaissance to the CounterReformation: Essays in Honour of Garret Mattingley, ed. Charles H. Carter (New York: Random House, 1966); Butterfield, Whig Interpretation; Conrad Russell, The Origins of the English Civil War (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1973. 52. The content of this paragraph informed by Russell, “Origins.” 53. Revisionists either downplay or reject the divisions of royalist and parliamentarian up until after the outbreak of war. For more on this, see Carlin, Causes, 74. 54. Conrad Russell, “Parliamentary History in Perspective, 1604-1629,” in The English Civil War, ed. Richard Cust and Ann Hughes (London: Arnold Publishers, 1997). 55. Russell argues that parliament’s control over the legislative process was the result, not of parliamentary strength, but rather, the lack of political will or desire on behalf of the Crown, to legislate. As evidence of this, he points to the lack of substantive legislation passed by parliament in the early Stuart period. One significant legislative success by parliament, however, was the blocking of James’s attempt to unite the parliaments of England and Scotland. Russell, however, downplays the constitutional significance of this event, claiming that in the aftermath of this defeat, James showed “little desire to legislate.” Conrad Russell, Parliaments and English politics, 1621-1629 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), 46. Hirst, however, interprets this event differently. For his interpretation, see Derek Hirst, “The Place of Principle,” Past & Present 92 (1981): 79-99, 86. 56. Russell, “Parliamentary History,” 48. 57. Russell, Parliaments. 58. Mark Kishlansky, “The Emergence of Adversary Politics in the Long Parliament,” Journal of Modern History 49 no. 4 (1977): 617-40. 59. John Morrill, “The Religious Context of the English Civil War,” in The English Civil War, ed. Richard Cust and Ann Hughes (London: Arnold Publishers, 1997). 60. Morrill, “Religious context,” 164. 61. Morrill, “Religious context.” 62. Morrill, “Religious context.” 63. John Morrill, “The Army Revolt of 1647,” in The Nature of the English Civil War, ed. John Morrill (London: Longman, 1993). 64. Quentin Skinner, “Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas,” in Meaning and Context: Quentin Skinner and His Critics, ed. James Tully (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988); John Dunn, “Identify of the History of Ideas,” 1968; J.G.A. Pocock, “Languages and their Implications: The Transformation of the Study of Political Thought,” in Politics, Language and Time, ed. J.G.A. Pocock (New York: Atheneum, 1971). 65. John Dunn, The History of Political Theory and Other Essays (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 24. 66. James Tully, Meaning and context: Quentin Skinner and his critics, (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1988); Quentin Skinner, “Analysis of Political Thought and Action,” in Meaning and Context, ed. James Tully (Princeton: Princeton University, 1988), 109.

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67. Conal Condren, The language of politics in seventeenth-century England (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994, 8. See also Conal Condren, The status and appraisal of classic texts: an essay on political theory, its inheritance, and the history of ideas (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985). 68. Terence Ball, Reappraising political theory: revisionist studies in the history of political thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 27. 69. Pocock, “Languages,” 10. 70. Pocock, “Languages,” 11. 71. Among Skinner’s mythologies are the mythology of doctrines and the mythology of coherence. Ahistorical approaches to the history of political thought lead scholars to treat the “idea” as a quasi-independent unit of analysis consisting of its own agency (as opposed to the agency of the thinker). This often results in scholars constructing “doctrines” out of conceptual fragments found in the text. The value of these doctrines is then measured against the ideal-type of that doctrine. Political theorists are then either praised for their “anticipation” of particular doctrines not yet fully conceptualized, or they are chastised for failing to elaborate a doctrine that they may never have intended to propound. Secondly, scholars also attempt to find coherence in the work of political thinkers, even where none exists, under the assumption that a political thinker has intended to provide a systematic account of his or her beliefs. 72. Quentin Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978). 73. In her review of Skinner’s work, Judith Shklar makes an obvious reference to the problems of Whig, Marxist and Straussian scholarship: “This is no tedious game of “find the bourgeoisie”, nor does it solve a preset cross-word puzzle made up of noble, ancient philosophers and base, modern liberals.” “We have had enough schemes of good guys and bad guys. For liberals the children of light were for freedom and progress, while the children of darkness were for authority and reaction. More tiresome even than these was the absurdity of using the general identity of whole eras, huge periods in the vast flow of history, to explain the actions of individuals. Feudal, bourgeois, and whatever become the intentions, purpose, and design, usually half-conspiratorial, of theoretical works.” Judith Shklar, “The Foundations of Modern Political Thought: book review,” Political Theory 7 no. 4 (1979): 549-52, 549-50. 74. J.G.A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975). 75. J.G.A. Pocock, “Authority and Property: The Question of Liberal Origins,” in Virtue, Commerce and History, ed. J.G.A. Pocock (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985). 76. For a critique of both Macpherson’s possessive individualism and Pocock’s Machiavellian moment, see Steve Pincus, “Neither Machiavellian moment nor possessive individualism: commercial society and the defenders of the English Commonwealth,” The American Historical Review 103 no. 3 (1998): 705-36. 77. Pocock, “Authority and Property,” 71. 78. Condren, Language. 79. Condren, Language. 80. “There can be no question of diminishing the radical libertarianism of the period when one points out the significance of the conservative impulse; the two were inherent in one another.” Pocock, “Authority and Property,” 56. See also J.C. Davis, “Religion

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and the Struggle for Freedom in the English-Revolution,” Historical Journal 35 no. 3 (1992): 507-30. 81. For the view of Harrington as a possessive individualist, see Macpherson, Possessive Individualism. For Harrington as a humanist republican, see Pocock, Machiavellian Moment; J.G.A. Pocock, “Introduction,” in The Commonwealth of Oceana, ed. Pocock (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). 82. Pocock, “Introduction,” xix. 83. Quentin Skinner, “Conquest and Consent: Thomas Hobbes and the Engagement Controversy,” in The Interregnum, ed. G. E. Aylmer (London: Macmillan Press, 1972). 84. James Tully, A discourse on property: John Locke and his adversaries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), Richard Ashcraft, Revolutionary Politics & Locke’s “Two treatises of Government” (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), James Tully, An approach to political philosophy: Locke in contexts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). See also the exchange between Richard Ashcraft and Ellen Meiksins Wood in the pages of History of Political Thought. Ellen Meiksins Wood, “Locke Against Democracy: Consent, Representation and Suffrage in the Two Treatises,” History of Political Thought 13 no. 4 (1992): 657-89; Ellen Meiksins Wood, “Radicalism, Capitalism and Historical Contexts: Not Only a Reply to Richard Ashcraft on John Locke,” History of Political Thought 15 no. 3 (1994): 323-72. Richard Ashcraft, “The Radical Dimensions of Locke’s Political Thought: A Dialogic Essay on Some Problems of Interpretation,” History of Political Thought 13 no. 4 (1992): 703-72. It is Ashcraft’s contention that Locke’s political and social thought is an extension of the Levellers. He even goes as far as arguing that Locke was not as far from the Diggers as has conventionally been thought. For a critique of this position, one that convincingly draws out that contrasts and incompatibilities between Locke and the Levellers – let alone the Diggers – see David McNally, “Locke, Levellers and Liberty: Property and Democracy in the Thought of the First Whigs,” History of Political Thought 10 no. 1 (1989): 17-40. 85. Condren, Language, 155. 86. J.C. Davis, “Radicalism in a Traditional Society: The Evaluation of Radical Thought in the English Commonwealth 1649-1660,” History of Political Thought 3 no. 2 (1982): 193-213. 87. Davis, “Radicalism,” 213. 88. Lotte Mulligan and Judith Richards, “A “Radical” Problem: The Poor and the English Reformers in the Mid-Seventeenth Century,” Journal of British Studies 29 (1990): 118-46. 89. Janet Coleman rejects this historicist notion of “caging” a political thinker within his or context to the extent that “they perish with the leaving behind of the historical time in which they came to light.” Janet Coleman, “The Voice of the Greeks in the Conversation with Mankind,” in The History of Political Thought in National Context, ed. Dario Castiglione and Iain Hampsher-Monk (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2001). 90. This in itself is not as controversial as it is purported to be: radical thinkers do not critique their own social mores from some Archimedean point external to their society. Rather, they engage in critique from within, and with concepts specific to, that society. 91. J.C. Davis, Utopia and the Ideal Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1981). 92. Mulligan and Richards, “Poverty.”

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93. R.B. Seaberg, “The Norman Conquest and the Common-Law – the Levellers and the Argument from Continuity,” Historical Journal 24 no. 4(1981): 791-806.

2

Historical Materialism and Early Modern Radicalism

Rethinking the Bourgeois Revolution The revisionist challenge to the traditional social interpretation of early modern England has compelled Marxist historians to re-assess their own particular contribution to the period: the bourgeois revolution paradigm. Any re-evaluation of the character of the social, economic and political developments of the 17 th century have significant implications on subsequent re-assessments of the political and social thought of the period. This chapter seeks to survey the various Marxist responses to the revisionist challenge and outline a “Political Marxist” approach to the study of the history of political thought. Perry Anderson’s account of the English Revolution in some ways sought to address the discrepancies within the traditional Marxist interpretation that were emphasized by Whig and revisionist critiques.1 While Anderson sought to deal with the seemingly exceptional nature of the English case, his interpretation was still embedded within the bourgeois revolution paradigm. However, rather than merely re-assert the bourgeois nature of the revolution, Anderson recognized the “peculiarities” of the English case and argued that the English Revolution was an “impure,” “mediated” and precocious bourgeois revolution. In this sense, it was a bourgeois revolution that deviated from what a bourgeois revolution was supposed to be: a totalizing break from the feudal past. For Anderson, the English Revolution was characterized by a discrepancy between changes in the “base” of English society and the lack of changes in the “superstructure” of the English state: at the economic level, England was undergoing a transition to capitalism, but the English state – as well as the ideological spheres of the superstructure – remained mired in the feudal remnants of England’s pre-capitalist past. In light of this precocious bourgeois revolution, the specificities of English social, political and intellectual development can be understood: the absence of a well defined radical (read: Marxist and Republican) tradition and the persistence of constitutionalism as an aspect of proletarian politics in the 19th century are the direct result of England’s precocious and impure bourgeois development. Since the revolution left the aristocratic elements of the 29

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superstructure intact, the absence of a truly bourgeois ideology prevented the English capitalist class from acting like mature capitalists, thereby stunting the development of a truly radical proletarian political culture. The radical constitutionalism of the Levellers, Tom Paine and the Chartists was a testament to precocious English development. But the closer Anderson looked at all of the alleged “bourgeois revolutions” the more it seemed that each case deviated from the ideal revolution. As a result of the “peculiarities” of the English Revolution, and the specificities of the other cases, Anderson then sought to clarify the concept of “bourgeois revolution”.2 Rather than trying to hold up real history to an ideal type of what a bourgeois revolution is supposed to be, Anderson suggests that it would be more fruitful to attempt to establish the “structures and limits” of a possible bourgeois revolution and then proceed to an historical analysis of a specific event. By doing this, Anderson sought to account for the numerous differences found within each so-called “bourgeois” revolution (including the fact that most of them were not lead by a bourgeoisie). In doing so, Anderson identifies four structures of “overdetermination” that condition the nature of bourgeois revolutions: “The porous pattern of feudalism above, the unpredictable presence of exploited classes below, the mixed disposition of the bourgeoisie within, the competitive pressure of rival states without, were bound to defeat this expectation. In that sense, one could say that it was in the nature of “bourgeois revolutions” to be denatured: these transformations could never have been the linear project of a single class project. Here the exception was the rule – every one was a bastard birth.”3

These structures of overdetermination were the reason why each Revolution deviated from the kind of bourgeois revolution that Second International Marxists talked about: the structures of overdetermination “overdeteremined” the nature of each bourgeois revolution. Anderson had therefore squared his own circle: the peculiarities of the English were still peculiarities, but they were the result of a precocious and premature bourgeois revolution that itself was a result of a number of historically specific “structural over-determinations” of the revolutionary process. Rather than jettison the bourgeois revolution altogether in light of a host of problematic “peculiarities,” Anderson, through theoretical elaboration, assimilated those peculiarities to a revolutionary process that, somewhere underneath all the structural over-determinations, was bourgeois in its essence. In a somewhat different vein, Christopher Hill responded to the revisionist challenge by redefining the notion of bourgeois revolution in order to focus on the unintended consequences of the revolutionary process. 4 The significance of this redefinition is that Hill emphasized that a revolution does not have to have been led by a class-conscious bourgeoisie for it to be characterized as “bourgeois.” What is significant are the unintended consequences that facilitate

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the development of bourgeois society stemming from the revolution. In the case of England, argues Hill, the revolution was caused, not by the conscious actions of the bourgeoisie, but by the breakdown of the old society. 5 However, Hill argues that the outcome of the revolution was the establishment of conditions conducive to the development of capitalism: the feudal remnants that hindered the further accumulation of capital – Star Chamber, Court of Wards, High Commission and feudal tenures – were all eliminated through the course of the revolution. Capitalist social relations are said to have already been ascendant prior to the revolution, and the bourgeois revolution, as a response to the breakdown of the old society in the wake of emerging social relations of capitalism, is merely the final act of a larger social transformation. Revolutionary intention, therefore, becomes subordinated to the structural determinations of the “structures, fractures, and pressures” of an emerging capitalist society; and the consequences, not the causes, of the revolution determine its bourgeois character. Not all Marxists, however, have responded to the revisionist challenge by re-conceptualizing the concept of the bourgeois revolution. Brian Manning is careful not to employ to term “bourgeois” in his interpretation of the revolution, preferring instead the category of the “middling sort of people.”6 For Manning, the English Revolution was not so much a bourgeois revolution in the traditional sense of one that is spearheaded by a capitalist commercial class as it was a revolution pushed forward by the “middling sort of people.”7 This middling sort was not a class; rather, it was a loosely knit status group (defined by their lack of status) that included bourgeois, yeomen and plebeian elements and coalesced into a sort of class alliance. The dynamic of the revolution is to be found in the tenuous relationship between a “popular” party and this middling sort of people centered in London, for as Manning argues, the former sought to encourage the latter all the while attempting to control it and keep it under its thumb. 8 As the revolution progressed, the “middle sort of people” grew to include the Levellers, the radical soldiers of the New Model Army and the London sectaries as well as the London radicals.9 The significance of capitalism in understanding the revolution, argues Manning, lies not in the way that it carried the gentry to power, but rather, in the way in which the breakdown of feudalism resulted in the transformation of the middle sort of people by freeing them from the old social relations of paternalism and hierarchy on the one hand, and polarizing them along class lines on the other. Within this context, petty commodity producers were increasingly free to pursue their own class interests. The competitive pressures of capitalism served to divide the middling sort as those privileged enough to be in the upper ranks of this strata were transformed into a bourgeois class, while those at the bottom formed the ranks of the proletariat. Thus, the polarization that was part of the process of class formation within a context of emerging capitalism served to divide the middle sort of people by creating different class interests amongst its members. In the midst of this division, the natural ruling class of the aristocracy and the clergy reconsolidated their political power – while at the same time transforming themselves into agrarian capitalists – just prior to the Restoration

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of 1660. Without an understanding of the polarizing social effects of capitalism, we cannot understand the politics of the Revolution, for beneath this revolutionary turmoil lay the agency of the middling sort of people.10 The important aspect of Manning’s interpretation is that it locates the English Revolution at the beginning of capitalist development in England.11 Manning locates the dynamic of the revolution in the same place that he locates the dynamic capitalist development: within the liberation of the urban and rural petty commodity producers that comprise the “middling sort” of people. It is this group of small, protocapitalist producers, as opposed to the landed gentry and/or the mercantile bourgeoisie, that push forward the bourgeois revolution. Other Marxists have responded to the revisionist challenge by linking the bourgeois revolution paradigm to a defense of the traditional conceptual framework of orthodox Marxism. The most orthodox defense of the bourgeois revolution paradigm has come from Alex Callinicos and Neil Davidson. 12 For Davidson and Callinicos, the critiques of the bourgeois revolution (and even some Marxist employments of it – notably the early work by Christopher Hill on the English revolution) are based on a fundamental misinterpretation of the history of the concept itself, as well as a problematic interpretation of the transition from feudalism to capitalism, specifically the interpretation put forward by “political” Marxists.13 Callinicos and Davidson both argue that conventional understandings of the bourgeois revolution as an event orchestrated by a bourgeois class attempting to seize political power from a reactionary feudal aristocracy with the intent of overthrowing the feudal mode of production are misplaced and oversimplified. They follow this line of argument by further arguing that Marx’s conception of bourgeois revolution and historical materialism – defined in terms of the development of contradictions between the forces and relations of production that result in epoch or “event” centered historical change from one mode of production to another – were fully developed in the German Ideology and The Poverty of Philosophy and linked to the work of the more “mature” Marx of the Grundrisse and Capital period by way of the Preface to the Critique of Political Economy. More specifically, Davidson argues that the presentation of the bourgeois revolution paradigm in The Communist Manifesto does not correspond to the schema identified by the (Marxist) critics of the bourgeois paradigm: rather than present a schema in which a rising bourgeoisie seizes power and tears asunder the fetters on the forces of production, Marx and Engels present a bourgeois revolution based on a class alliance of bourgeois, plebeian and “protoproletarian” class elements. “The hymns of praise to the bourgeoisie with which the Manifesto itself opens refer”, argues Davidson, “to its economic and social achievements, not to its political capacity for seizing power.”14 Davidson maintains that in the context of Germany, Engels even went so far as to discuss a “revolution from above” in which the aristocracy would implement capitalist reforms in place of the bourgeoisie. As a result of this, Davidson contends that the notion of bourgeois revolution is much more pluralistic than many critics believe, and despite the fact that the class composition of each bourgeois revolu-

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tion may be socially specific, the relationship between each revolution and the development of the capitalist mode of production is uniform enough to warrant the maintenance of the bourgeois revolution paradigm as a valuable concept that can explain the transitions to capitalism across Europe – and possibly beyond. At this point, however, it remains to be seen how the bourgeois revolutions relate to the development of capitalism. In his work on the development of capitalism in Scotland, Davidson seeks both to rehabilitate the bourgeois revolution as an “event” (as opposed to a “process”) that removes the obstacles to the further development of capitalism and to put forward a defense of orthodox characterizations of the transition debate that are rooted in the contradictions that emerge between the development of the productive forces and the social relations of production. In the context of a decline of feudalism – a decline caused by the structural limits of the feudal mode of production – protocapitalist artisans and tenant farmers seek new ways of making profit through developing their productive forces. An impulse to develop the productive forces in ways that reduce the level of toil that direct producers experience at the point of production is cited as evidence of a structural contradiction between forces and relations of production that form the context for a revolutionary transition from one mode of production to another. 15 Not only is this structural contradiction between the forces and relations of production crucial to explaining the emergence of a revolutionary context, it is the key concept of historical materialism in explaining social transformation at a larger historical level: “Historical materialism explains social transformations as the outcome of two mechanisms: first, the structural contradictions that arise between the development of the productive forces and the prevailing production relations; and secondly, and only in the context of the socio-economic crises generated by these contradictions, the class struggle.”16

According to Davidson, the existence of feudal relations of production, supported overwhelmingly by a feudal aristocracy and the Crown, served to frustrate the attempts by these bourgeois class actors to pursue their capitalist interests in a context of emerging commodity markets resulting from the increased demand for armaments on the part of warring absolutist states on the European continent. This structural contradiction resulted in the increasing radicalization of the emerging bourgeoisie who, depending upon the specific conditions of each national context formed a revolutionary alliance with other social classes whose interests in combating feudalism coincided during a specific historical period. Callinicos’ and Davidson’s attempt to retain the bourgeois revolutionary paradigm, however, fails to break any new ground. What it really amounts to is a re-packaging of the “consequentialist” revision of the concept of bourgeois revolution married to an orthodox interpretation of historical materialism that views the motor of historical development stemming from a structural contradiction between the forces and relations of production, where the development of

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the productive forces attains determinative primacy. However, identifying a “weak impulse” to increase the productivity of labor as a means of reducing the toil of direct producers is a far cry from establishing a revolution-inducing contradiction between the forces and relations of production. We still have a long way to go to link this systemic structural contradiction to the empirical-historical political developments of the revolutions themselves. What we can see is that the bourgeois revolution is less about initiating capitalist development through a seizure of political power than it is about defending pre-existing gains in the development of the productive forces and the emergence of capitalist social relations from the forces of reaction. Davidson concludes by arguing that, “The theory of bourgeois revolution is not about the origins and development of capitalism as a socio-economic system, but the removal of backward-looking threats to its continued existence and the overthrow of restrictions to its further expansion. The source of these threats and restrictions has, historically, been the precapitalist state, whether estates-monarchy, absolutist or tributary in nature.”17 In the case of the English revolution however, this emphasis on the consequences of the revolution does nothing other than confirm a prevailing consensus.18 This conclusion does less to resolve the initial empirical problems of the bourgeois revolution paradigm – and its specific application to the English case – than do the initial attempts by the likes of Hill, Anderson and Manning. Indeed, if bourgeois revolution is a concept that refers to the attempt by any social class – or class alliance – to defend the further development of capitalist social relations from the forces of reaction, from either above or below, one can begin to question its explanatory power. A theory that attempts to explain a variety of different historical developments in light of its consequences by leveling the very aspects that make them socially specific ultimately lacks sufficient explanatory power. The adherence to this orthodox articulation of the bourgeois revolution paradigm can perhaps be explained – in some instances – by its ideological appeal to some of the Marxists who defend it. This reduction of history to ideological expediency is given away by Davidson at the outset of his argument: “Socialists have found this model of bourgeois revolution ideologically useful in two ways. On the one hand, the examples of decisive historical change associated with it allow us to argue that, having happened before, revolutions can happen again, albeit on a different class basis. (This aspect is particularly important in countries like Britain and, to a still greater extent, the USA, where the dominant national myths have been constructed to exclude or minimise the impact of class struggle on national history.) On the other hand, it allows us expose the hypocrisy of a bourgeoisie which itself came to power by revolutionary means, but which now seeks to deny the same means to the working class.”19

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Defense of the bourgeois revolution paradigm thus has less to do with its relationship to the complex historical specificities of the European transitions to capitalism than it does with the hope that this event-centered model holds out for the possibilities of socialist revolution in the future.

Political Marxism Other Marxists have decided to jettison the concept of bourgeois revolution altogether, on the authority of the “later” Marx himself. Returning to Marx’s treatment of the transition to capitalism these “Political” Marxists have found two distinct and mutually exclusive conceptions of historical development that have given them reason to reject the notion of bourgeois revolution outright.20 They have also discovered that the whole notion of bourgeois revolution owes more to the liberal French historians than they do to the conceptual innovations of Marx.21 Both of these insights are significant for an understanding of the revolution because, as we have seen, the social interpretation of the revolution is predicated upon a particular understanding of the nature of the transition from feudalism to capitalism. It also helps us understand why many revisionists have characterized Marxist and Whig historiography as essentially two sides of the same coin. The rejection of the bourgeois paradigm, then, becomes the basis for a new social interpretation of the English Revolution as well as the basis for a new social interpretation of the political thought of the revolutionary and postrevolutionary period. Political Marxists argue that the notion of the bourgeois revolution, as it is found in Marx’s early work – notably the German Ideology and The Communist Manifesto – is embedded within a techno-functionalist conception of historical progress that locates the dynamic of socio-economic evolution within the development of the social division of labor. Developments within this selfpropelling division of labor bring the forces of production into contradiction with the established relations of production in feudal society, thereby causing a social and political conflict between a capitalist bourgeoisie and a feudal aristocracy, culminating in the outbreak of a bourgeois revolution. 22 This “classic” formulation of this bourgeois revolution paradigm is found in the Communist Manifesto. This teleological account of the transition from feudalism to capitalism resulted from Marx’s uncritical acceptance of bourgeois political economy’s conception of the social division of labor as well as his reliance on the work of French liberal historians who synthesized a Smithian conception of socioeconomic development – through Smith’s good friend Hume – with their own bourgeois understanding of progressive historical agency. French Restoration liberal historians such as Guizot, Mignet and Thierry, writing in the aftermath of the French Revolution, emphasize the role that bourgeois leadership in the class struggle against the feudal aristocracy plays in the socio-economic development of society. Thierry, for example, argued that English history had been character-

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ized by an historical struggle between a conquering nobility and the expropriated native Anglo-Saxons, which culminated in the bourgeois revolution of 164249.23 Thierry even went as far as to claim that the English bourgeoisie, after the Norman Conquest of 1066, managed, despite its weak condition, to compel the king to accept their council in political affairs. By the opening of the 17 th century, the lower ranks of this foreign conqueror class (presumably the gentry), joined with the bourgeoisie to form the Parliamentary opposition to the king and peers. In so doing, however, Thierry was, as Comninel points out, reading Hume through the prism of the French Revolution. 24 Thus, it is within this Smithian conception of the transition from feudalism to capitalism that the bourgeois revolution paradigm of the traditional social interpretation of the Revolution is embedded. The problem here, however, is more than just a matter of the tainted liberal origins of the bourgeois revolution paradigm. More significantly, there are a number of ways in which the bourgeois paradigm can neither empirically account for the transition from feudalism to capitalism nor the bourgeois nature of the revolution. First, proponents of the bourgeois revolution cannot locate the relevant antagonistic classes because they cannot explain how a rural bourgeoisie would emerge out of the English feudal countryside. The simple divisions of town and countryside in the form of a reactionary feudal landed class locked in a struggle with a progressive bourgeois merchant class over the nature of the mode of production, do not correspond to the reality of early modern English society. 25 Secondly, the traditional bourgeois revolution interpretation was unable to show that English agrarian society was reproducing both a capitalist landed class as well as a feudal landed class. Thirdly, it was also unable to show that these two classes took opposing sides in the Civil War and other political conflicts of the period. Lastly, the notion that capitalism emerges out of developments in the feudal division of labor, which in turn leads to an automatic transformation of social-property relations, seems to preclude the need for a bourgeois revolution to initiate a transition to capitalism. As Robert Brenner has pointed out: “This failure was manifested in the incapacity of the proponents of the “rise of the gentry/crisis of the aristocracy” thesis systematically to distinguish within the population of English landowners two different classes, reproducing themselves in two systematically different ways, let alone two different classes which, respectively, profited by and suffered from the economic changes, and particularly the agrarian progress, of the Tudor-Stuart period. It is reasonably clear today that, while many of socio-economic phenomena observed by the proponents of the bourgeois revolution idea were very real, these cannot be systematically associated with separate classes, let alone classes which opposed one another politically.”26

The problem with the traditional social interpretation of the Revolution therefore, is due to its reliance on an empirically suspect bourgeois paradigm of so-

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cio-economic development that can be traced back to Adam Smith by way of Marx’s earlier writings. There is no reason, insists Brenner, why the bourgeoisie – given its social role in the feudal economy – should assume a revolutionary role as the initiator of social transformation. 27 As we will see in the next chapter, Brenner locates the “prime mover” of capitalist development within the context of aristocratic landed property, not in a capitalist bourgeoisie and not in the entrepreneurialism of the landed gentry as a class in itself. The significance of Brenner’s contribution, therefore, rests in his particular conceptualization of agrarian capitalism and the way this conception of agrarian capitalism breaks down the old dichotomies of town versus countryside, thereby dissolving the alleged antagonisms between “agrarianism” and “commercial society”; a dichotomy adhered to even by revisionist historians in their rejection of Whig history. As we will also see, this rejection of the bourgeois paradigm has a significant impact on attempts to reformulate a social interpretation of the Revolution. The transition to agrarian capitalism thus resulted in a different configuration of social relationships that formed the base of the English state and distinguished it from the feudal states of Continental Europe. The significance of this is twofold. First, the rise of agrarian capitalism resulted in the market dependence of the landed classes. Rather than relying on extra-economic powers of surplus extraction characteristic of feudalism and other pre-capitalist societies, the landed classes of England relied on economic powers of exploitation through their recourse to elements of the common law that pertained to private property.28 This transformation subsequently altered the dynamic of power and the nature of the relationship between the landed classes and the English state. Relying solely on economic powers of surplus extraction meant that a significant majority of the landed classes did not rely on the state as a means of appropriating the surplus product of the English peasantry. As a result, the English Crown – as the state – enjoyed a high level of centralization in the form of a monopoly of Royal jurisdiction through the common law. English lords viewed the state not as a competitor to their ability to extract a surplus from the peasantry (as in France), but rather as a guarantor of exclusive rights of freehold property over custom by way of the common law. 29 Thus, the relationship between the English state and “civil society” was fundamentally different from that which existed in Continental Europe: insofar as the monarchy attempted to cling to its increasingly outmoded forms of patrimonial rule or aspired to establish a form of Continental absolutism, the landed classes rallied to protect their existing capitalist social property relations from a king that was increasingly acting in an arbitrary manner, one that jeopardized the property interests of the landed classes.30 As Robert Brenner has argued: “The transition from feudalism to capitalism had a formative impact not only on the nature of the aristocracy, but also on the evolution of the state during the Tudor-Stuart period. But whereas capitalism and landlordism developed more or less symbiotically, capitalist development helped precipitate the emergence of a new form of state, to

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It is within this context of emergent agrarian capitalism that the rise of a new, revolutionary bourgeoisie occurs to challenge the established power of the royal state. But far from representing an attack on a reactionary feudal aristocracy, the English revolution represents a joint effort between capitalist “improving” landlords and this newly emerging capitalist class of merchant “interlopers” in which the new forms of commercial activity are dependent upon the productive activities characteristic of improved forms of agriculture: “If a “new merchant” class played a prominent role, or even existed, it was because agrarian capitalism had opened the way not just for a quantitative increase in trade but for a qualitatively new kind of commerce. This was in turn sustained by an alliance with agrarian capitalism, an alliance between classes united in their economic and political interests against absolutism and in favour of economic expansionism…It was, if anything, the old merchant class that represented the ancient regime, not least in its role as pillar of the royalist alliance; while the landed interest impelled commerce toward capitalism.”32

Insofar as the established characterizations of the bourgeois revolution either cannot explain the case of the English revolution, or can explain it only at the expense of its theoretical coherence by conflating the differences between England and other alleged bourgeois revolutions to some “consequentialist” revisionism that disregards the actors spearheading the revolution, their intentions, their position within society and the time differential between the conclusion of the revolution and the implementation of their goals and aims, one begins to question the usefulness of the concept itself. The Political Marxist approach therefore attempts to address and account for the specificities of the English Revolution by abandoning the conceptual baggage of orthodox Marxism. The so-called “peculiarities” of the English case require a rethinking of some of the core concepts of orthodoxy. Two elements of the orthodox canon need to be abandoned: the narrow conception of the economy as being comprised by the forces and relations of production, and historical change being derived from the contradictions between them; and the base/superstructure model of economic determination. As to the first point, Political Marxists substitute an emphasis on the contradictions between the forces and relations of production which posits the rise of new capitalist productive relations that outstrip the fetters of the old feudal social relations, with an emphasis on the development of capitalist social property relations. Social property relations emphasize the specific rules of social reproduction that become predominant in society as a result of the relationship between the direct producers

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and the appropriators as well as the relationship amongst the direct producers and the appropriators of the surplus. 33 This emphasis on social property relations differs from orthodox Marxism in the sense that it does not analytically differentiate the social relations of production from the forces of production and posit a fundamental contradiction between the two; a contradiction that results in an epochal crisis of production requiring social transformation. Nor does it derive the relations of production as a function of the productive forces – as Davidson does – thereby conceiving the relations of production in strictly economic and productivist terms related to the particular form of technique or organization within the unit of production. Forces and relations of production exist within a larger context of social property relations and are constituted by the rules of reproduction defined by those social property relations. From this perspective, there is no reason why the forces of production will outstrip or come into contradiction with the relations of production; technology and forms of labor organization are determined by social property relations, not vice versa. This will be of crucial importance for our understanding of the transition to capitalism. This characterization of social property relations as a substitute for the orthodox conception of the forces and relations of production subsequently results in a rejection of the base/superstructure metaphor as a model of causation that seeks to reduce non-economic phenomenon to “movements” of the economic base, thereby establishing a simple correspondence between economic and non-economic phenomenon that privileges the former.34 Social property relations – as relations of production, appropriation and reproduction – necessarily comprise economic relations conventionally defined, as well as non-economic relations that have been hitherto relegated by orthodox Marxists to the superstructural sphere. In the context of pre-capitalist social formations where relations of surplus extraction are fused to overt relations of political domination, this is even more so the case. The assumption of some transhistorical separation between an economic base and a political and ideological superstructure is woefully inadequate to understanding the nature of the specific forms of precapitalist societies. The corollary of this is that any notion of historical change from pre-capitalism to capitalism that seeks to characterize the transition as simply stemming from a transformation within the economic base – resulting from the orthodox notion of an epochal contradiction between the forces and relations of production – and resulting in a subsequent and corresponding change in the political and ideological “superstructure,” will be inadequate. As Ellen Wood argues: “some so-called “superstructure” belongs to the productive “base” and is the form in which production relations themselves are organized, lived and contested. In this formulation the specificity, integrity and determinative force of production relations are preserved; and, in a sense, the requisite distance which makes causality possible, between the sphere of production and other social “levels”, is established, while at the same time the principle of connection and conti-

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This last point is of crucial importance. Within the context of the transition to capitalism (as well as its subsequent consolidation and its continued reproduction) the English common law, as an element of the so-called “superstructure,” was crucial in establishing capitalist social property relations; that is, the law was crucial in constituting the capitalist “economy.” In the case of early modern England, therefore, any mechanical differentiation between the economic base and the political superstructure obscures the ways in which the political – particularly in the form of law – facilitates the constitution of the economic. But the English case also demonstrates the limits of a base/superstructure model that expects to find an automatic correspondence between the political and the economic that privileges the latter as a simple causal determinant. Once these orthodox concepts are abandoned, we begin to experience more freedom in our ability to account for the empirical developments of the revolutionary period as well as the transition from feudalism to capitalism; or more accurately, we don not have to account for why certain developments did not occur the way previous Marxists believed they either did or should have occurred – e.g., Anderson’s discrepancies between economic and “superstructural” development in early modern England, the absence of a contradiction between the forces and relations of production, etc. We begin to see that there is no reason why the development of capitalist social property relations necessarily dislodges the landed aristocracy as the ruling class. There is no reason why the development of a bourgeois revolution comprised of a class alliance of “progressive” landed gentry and urban merchants has to emerge in order for capitalism to be introduced. And, significantly for the study of the history of political thought, we see no reason why capitalist social property relations will bring in new forms of “bourgeois ideology” that are antagonistic to aristocratic conceptions of agrarian capitalist society and the state. Political Marxism therefore provides a theoretical framework within which to develop an alternative Marxist social history of political thought.

The Social History of Political Thought This discussion of the bourgeois paradigm and the innovations of Political Marxism are therefore significant for developing a Marxist approach to the history of political thought. There is little doubt that conventional Marxist approaches to the history of political thought have often been marred by insensitivity to the complexities of history and human agency, as revisionist historians of political thought have claimed.36 In so far as Marxists have been pre-occupied with the issue of causality in the history of political thought, they have remained trapped within the confines of the troublesome “base/superstructure” metaphor

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of historical interpretation. The emphasis on the causality of political thought – i.e., why certain concepts or ideologies emerged when they did – has often been taken to be an adequate explanation of the meaning of political thought. The rise of “bourgeois” society is said to give rise to “bourgeois” political thought; the meaning of bourgeois political thought is therefore presupposed by the bourgeois nature of the new society. Thus, no real examination of the way in which new forms of political thought emerged in this changing context (or whether they were bourgeois at all) need be undertaken. As a result, the agency of political thinkers is often dismissed as a necessary element of understanding the meaning of political thought, or the agency of a political thinker is explained in “structural-functionalist” terms. In many cases, however, the problem with Marxist interpretations of the history of political thought is not so much their denial of human agency as critics suggest; nor is it their neglect of the significance of the role of ideas in history. Rather, it concerns an inability to appreciate the historical specificity of the meaning of political ideas in relation to historically specific social contexts. This often comes less from too much theory, than it does from too little history; or at least a reliance on an overly simplified understanding of the historical context. Marxist interpretations of the history of political thought are often embedded within the bourgeois paradigm of historical development that equates the rise of commercial, bourgeois society with capitalism and charts its emergence throughout the early modern period, beginning in the Renaissance and culminating in the bourgeois revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries. The decline of feudalism and the commercialization of society, together with the increasing significance of contract theories as a means of conceptualizing society, are taken to be constitutive of the rise of capitalist society. As a consequence, traditional Marxist approaches to the history of political thought have often presumed a particularly simple and unilinear process of historical development, one that corresponds to a simplistic bourgeois paradigm of historical evolution that casts “commercial” or “bourgeois” society as being universally capitalist in nature and pan-European in its extent. Once again, “bourgeois” is equated with “capitalist.” The universality of capitalist social relations – and their uniformity from one context to the next – means that Marxists are often relating different political ideas to the same point of reference – an abstract and unhistorical understanding of capitalism or bourgeois society. Interpreting the meaning of political thought in relation to what is essentially an ideal type of social context results in a variety of problematic interpretations of political theory. In their work of the social and political thought of Kant, for example, both Lucien Goldmann and Herbert Marcuse interpret Kant’s work in relationship to a bourgeois society that is considered to be fundamentally capitalist in nature (regardless, it must be said, of the absence of a bourgeois revolution in Germany at that time). 37 For Goldmann, Kant’s social and political thought contains the seeds of a radical critique of capitalism that will be taken up later by Marx.38 On the other hand, Marcuse argues that the limits of Kant’s social and political thought – in particular, the coexistence of formal freedom

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and social inequality – is determined by Kant’s embrace of a bourgeois society that is, once again, fundamentally capitalist in nature. Similarly, in his study of Hegel’s theory of the state, Shlomo Avineri interprets the meaning of Hegel’s political thought in relation to the capitalism of 19th century Germany.39 As a result, he finds a number of problems in Hegel’s conception of the state; in particular, its inability to address the problems caused by the capitalist division of labor in society. The logical coherence of Hegel’s theory of the state hinges on the way in which it corresponds to the reality of an allegedly capitalist society. Likewise, in his study of Marx’s theory of alienation, Istvan Mezsaros interprets Rousseau’s conception of alienation in relation to the existence of capitalism in 18th century France and finds it to be underdeveloped and problematic in the sense that it merely focuses on the symptoms of capitalist alienation as opposed to its roots.40 Rousseau is thus characterized as a primitive precursor to Marx whose conception of alienation provides a poorer understanding of the social relations of capitalism. The problem here is not that Marxists are assessing the meaning of political thought in relationship to some “underlying” social reality, or that it is a “reflection” of the social order (although the latter does pose a problem); it is not the automatic consequence of engaging in a process of social contextualization. Rather, the problem is that they are assuming the very thing that they are relating political theory to – the nature of the particular society within which these political theories were written. Goldmann, Marcuse, Avineri and Mezsaros all assume the existence of a capitalist society and assess the development of political thought in relation to the allegedly capitalist nature of that reality. Thus, Avineri assumes the capitalist nature of Prussian society, an assumption that creates the very problems that he claims to find in Hegel. Avineri’s assumption that Hegel’s discussion of civil society and the system of needs merely reflects the social reality of a capitalist Prussian society leads him to find contradictions in Hegel’s theory of the state that otherwise would not exist in the same way if he understood that Hegel’s usage of “civil society” is a British import imposed on a fundamentally Prussian conception of pre-capitalist society.41 Similarly, Mezsaros assumes the existence of capitalist development and “alienation” in 18th century France, and finds Rousseau unable to attain an adequate understanding of the root of its forms of social alienation, a conclusion that faults Rousseau for failing to understand something that was not the object of his inquiry. 42 The limits of Rousseau’s critique of capitalist alienation, according to Meszaros, rests in the fact that he “fails” to move beyond a critique of money and wealth – the subjective aspects of a more fundamental and objective condition of social alienation. As such, Rousseau opposes the effects of alienation (disparities of wealth and social inequalities) while maintaining support for the causes of that alienation (the existence of private property).43 The result of these limitations is that Rousseau’s critique “must become” sentimental, rhetorical and moralizing.44 As a result, Meszaros characterizes Rousseau’s moral radicalism as nothing less than a series of necessary “moralizing illusions” that are “rooted in the

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idealization of a way of life allegedly appropriate to the “middle condition” in opposition to the actuality of dynamically advancing and universally alienating large-scale capitalistic production.”45 Capitalism is thus considered to be a panWestern European phenomenon, largely urban in its origin, and occurring by means of the bourgeois revolution in France at the close of the 18th century. “Bourgeois” political thought, with its emphasis on rationalist argumentation, individual rights and the contractual nature of social relations, are therefore taken to be representative of the political theory of a society that is capitalist in nature, rather than a conceptual compensation for a concrete absence of actual capitalist social relations. There is indeed an irony here. As pointed out in the previous chapter, Marxist scholars are often accused of “reading off” the history of ideas from the development of the economic base of European society. Bourgeois ideology, according to orthodox Marxists, develops as a reflection of the development of bourgeois society, thereby attaining the status of ideology. But the problem with much of the scholarship cited here is in fact something altogether different. While putting forward the notion that bourgeois social and political thought is a reflection of the development of bourgeois society, what Marxist theorists often unintentionally do is take the existence of what are considered to be aspects of bourgeois theory (e.g., contract and self-propriety), as indicative of the existence of capitalism itself. What is often the case, however, is that the prevalence of bourgeois political thought can be the response to the concrete absence of capitalism within a particular society. In other words, Marxists scholars often “read off” the economic “base” from the intellectual “superstructure”. One of the most prominent Marxist interpretations in the history of political thought is, of course, C. B. McPherson’s analysis of 17th century English political thought.46 McPherson’s approach to historical context seeks to relate political thought to the tacit assumptions of the author, assumptions that were shared with the intended audience. In order to uncover the real meaning of a text, therefore, an historical analysis of the relationship between prevailing ideological assumptions and the social relations of that society is necessary. The problem with McPherson’s work however, does not inherently stem from his attempt to relate the development of 17th century political theory to its social context, but rather, from his presumption of the nature of the social context and his neglect of the importance of inherited discourses and the complexity of the intellectual context. This misunderstanding of the complexity of both the intellectual context and the social context of early modern England compromises some of the conclusions he reaches. First, McPherson’s problematic understanding of the development of capitalism is fundamentally ahistorical in the sense that it stems from an abstract model of what he calls “possessive market society” as opposed to the actual historical development of capitalism as it emerged in early modern England.47 This process of evaluating English political theory through an abstract framework of “bourgeois” ideology leads him to oversimplify the nature of emerging capitalist social relations of private property, resulting in the conflation of competing forms of property and conceptions of self-

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propriety.48 For Macpherson, self-propriety becomes an ontological expression of a bourgeois conception of the self. The corollary of this is that Macpherson often reduces various political ideologies to a common denominator of “possessive individualism” when in fact their actual historical meanings and political implications are quite distinctive. Secondly, Macpherson goes too far in subsuming the sphere of virtue and morality to the dominance “self-interest” that is the unique feature of market society. Possessive individualism leads to the creation of a “thin” bourgeois subject that is motivated by nothing other than narrow selfinterest, and doctrines of morality and virtue become meaningless. In the end, the truth content of the various political thinkers studied is evaluated in terms of their “theoretical grasp” of the nature of this possessive market society. These conclusions, however, stem more from McPherson’s anachronistic imposition of a 19th century model of a bourgeois “possessive market” society onto the 17th century, than it does from a substantive historical engagement with the complexities of the nature of agrarian capitalism. 49 Thus, the common problem of some of the major Marxist interventions into the history of political thought stems from an uncritical embrace of the bourgeois paradigm: bourgeois society is capitalist society; capitalist society is bourgeois in the sense that it is predominantly urban and “middle class”; and bourgeois ideology contains doctrines of contract and conceptions of selfpropriety – in accordance with the new social standpoint or position of the middle class – that form the basis of a particular bourgeois ontology and the rightsbearing individual of the modern period. The conflation of “bourgeois” with “capitalist,” however, is highly problematic – as will be seen in the next chapter – as is the equation of bourgeois political ideology with forms of thought that are correlated to the development of capitalism, and needs to be abandoned in favor of a more rigorous social history of political thought that takes seriously both the significance of social property relations and inherited political discourses in the development of political thought. Before an alternative social history of political thought is outlined, however, the virtues and limits of the historicist approach put forward by the Cambridge School need to be assessed, for the recognition of the limits of traditional Marxist approaches to the study of the history of political thought, and the anachronistic consequences that result from the adherence to the bourgeois paradigm of historical development, does not mean that the alternative approach to contextualization put forward by the Cambridge School represents an adequate corrective to the deficiencies of Marxism. There are two primary reasons why the kind of historicist revisionism of the Cambridge School is unable to attain the level of historical specificity to which it aims. The first pertains to the adherence of revisionists to the bourgeois paradigm of socio-economic development; and the second pertains to the neglect of any significant process of social contextualization that helps us understand the specificity of the social and political problems that frame the intellectual context of political thought.

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First, despite the Cambridge School’s claim to move beyond the anachronisms and teleologies of Whig and Marxist interpretations of political thought, the claims of the Cambridge School historians – and those influenced by them – assume the same bourgeois paradigm of socio-historical development. In his rejection of McPherson’s claim that English political thought represented a form of possessive individualism that was conducive to the creation of a commercial society, Pocock merely substitutes it with a classical republicanism that espouses the virtues of an agrarian society which, he assumes, exists in antagonism with the “commercialization” of English society. Pocock argues that, “We have found that a “bourgeois ideology,” a paradigm for capitalist man as zoon politikon, was immensely hampered in its development by the omnipresence of Aristotelian and civic humanist values which virtually defined rentier and entrepreneur as corrupt, and that if indeed capitalist thought ended by privatizing the individual, this may have been because it was unable to find an appropriate way of presenting him as citizen. “Bourgeois ideology,” which old-fashioned Marxism depicted as appearing with historic inevitability, had, it seems, to wage a struggle for existence and may never have fully won it.”50

In this sense, Pocock is closer to the Marxism of Perry Anderson in his assertions that in England, a bourgeois ideology had “to wage a struggle for existence and may never have fully won it.” At the core of this argument is a belief that “commercial society” is equivalent to capitalism, and that its emergence necessitates the dominance of a bourgeois ideology. Opposed to this commercial society is a traditional and stagnant agrarian society dominated by an aristocratic political culture that is conducive to the civic humanism of classical republicanism: a form of ideology that is fundamentally antagonistic to capitalism. Thus, rather than reject the bourgeois paradigm that forms the basis of McPherson’s argument, Pocock merely provides us with the opposite side of the same coin: an agrarianism that is inherently at odds with a bourgeois society that is essentially defined in terms of the “commercialization” of social relations persists well into the 18th century, thereby prolonging the traditionalism characteristic of a precapitalist society. This paradigm of civic humanism and classical republicanism formed the basis of discursive opposition to the development of a national bank and the acceptance of a national debt; crucial evidence for the persistence of precapitalist modes of thought and discourse. Thus, where Macpherson sees in the seventeenth century the rise of the bourgeois subject, Pocock sees the persistence of the virtuous republican of the pre-capitalist era. This acceptance of the bourgeois paradigm is also evident in the work of those who both support and critique Petcock’s characterization of the political thought of the period. J.C. Davis, relying on the revisionist history of J.C.D. Clarke, characterizes early modern England as a “traditional” society due to its agrarian base, as does Conal Condren.51 Stephen Pincus – a critic of Petcock’s revisionism as well as McPherson’s thesis – argues for a middle ground between

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these two positions while still accepting the antithesis between agrarianism and commercialization.52 The conflation of commercial activity with capitalism and agrarianism with feudalism, however, poses problems for our interpretation of the political thought of the period, for it leads to a mere inversion of the modern and the pre-modern without calling into question what we take to be modern in the first place. Revisionism, therefore, has not moved beyond the traditional Marxist fixation with the base and the superstructure, it has merely inverted the relation of determination, subordinating socio-economic development to the determinant power of ideology. Secondly, while the historicists of the Cambridge School have brought some much needed attention to the existence of intellectual contexts, and while it needs to be recognized that the criticisms and the methodological insights of the Cambridge School are significant interventions into debates regarding the way in which meaning in the history of political thought is to be understood, greater attention needs to be accorded to the complexities and the specificities of the intellectual contexts and their relationship to the social context. The emphasis on the significance of the intellectual context has come at the expense of the material and social realm of politics. Whereas orthodox Marxists privileged a narrowly defined economic base in its attempts to explain historical development and change, revisionists tend to divorce political theory and discourse from any grounding the realm of the “social.” As a means of overcoming the reductionist tendencies of orthodox Marxism, historicists such as Pocock and Skinner have a tendency to treat politics as a series of autonomous “language games,” or characterize political action in terms of “speech acts.” The emphasis on discourse, on the fact that politics contains a linguistic character, has overshadowed the non-verbal and non-linguistic – yet still social – aspects of political activity such as ritual, customary regulation, exploitation and resistance to exploitation. As a result, the linguistic is privileged over the non-linguistic, and intellectual contexts take precedence – or are given exclusive priority over – the significance of the social context within which political thought exists. As a result of this, historical development is characterized in terms of the evolution of discourses and linguistic paradigms that are largely represented as scholarly controversies. The relevant context for Cambridge School historicists and other revisionists, therefore, is the intellectual context that emerges in conjunction with specific historically contingent events. History is essentially “episodic” in the sense that it is characterized as a series of particular events and particular intellectual contexts, as opposed to a process of development in which contingent events are related to previous historical developments. Yet, at the same time, the intellectual context is granted a transcendental quality that allows it to be the privileged context of study.53 As a result of this episodic conception of history the “process” by which the theory itself was created stands in no relation to any actual, essential historical process.”54 If Marxism stands accused of economic reductionism, the approach of the Cambridge School contains a significant element of intellectual voluntarism in which theoretical developments attain a so-

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cial meaning unrelated – or only tangentially related – to the existence of a social context that allows those ideas to have a lasting significance.55 In Skinner’s history of the development of modern conceptions of the state, for example, the actual development of the modern state – complete with its socially specific variations – is conspicuously absent as a conditioning factor of the specificity of political thought in the early modern period.56 As a result, Skinner identifies an ideal type of “theory” of the modern state at precisely the time in history – the crisis of feudalism – when actual European states are undergoing a process of social and institutional divergence resulting in the development of a number of different kinds of states.57 Italy and the Netherlands develop into commercial republican city-states, Spain and France develop into absolutist monarchies, and England becomes an agrarian capitalist state. Identifying a body of thought that deals with the “modern” state at such a high level of abstraction as Skinner defines it, tells us little about the specificities that characterize different theories of the state in each of these different contexts.58 Thus, while Skinner has taken others to task for being insensitive to the historically specific nature of political theory, he himself neglects to take into account the socially specific nature of the “modern” state.59 The Cambridge school’s emphasis on the complexity and significance of existing intellectual contexts needs to be reconciled with Marxists’ traditional emphasis on the significance of the specificity of the social context within which those intellectual contexts are embedded. In effect, we can invert Dunn’s characterization of the way a Marxist approach to the history of political thought addresses the relationship between text and context: rather than attempting to reveal what a text can tell us about the historical setting of a particular society, a Marxist approach can reveal the ways in which the specific social context relates to the meaning of the text.60 Neal Wood puts forward a number of methodological precepts that need to be incorporated into an historical materialist approach to the history of ideas: the salience of the “economic,” history as process, class conflict and the state.61 Working within the Political Marxist tradition, Wood distances himself from conceptions of economic reductionism attributed to orthodox Marxists by rejecting the claim that the economic is the “sole causal factor in social life” in accordance with the base/superstructure metaphor, or that the economic refers merely to the existence of forces and relations of production. For Wood, the economic signifies the social organization of productive labor and the social relationships that develop in tandem with humans’ attempts to procure their subsistence needs. As human societies evolve so too do their modes of social labor and their modes of consciousness, their forms of language and their conceptions of nature and the social world. But this is not a case of simple determination of ideas by narrow economic forces. Rather, it is a process of fundamental interaction between thought and action – theory and practice – that can only be understood historically. The social context of political theory, therefore, “consists of action inspired and informed by thought, and thought reacting to and being recreated by action, all within the framework of constantly altering conditions.”62

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Here again, we are presented with a conception of the economic that is fundamentally social, and one that is not mechanistically prior to and independent of, the realm of thought and consciousness: “The economic for Marx then has to do with the network of social relationships, the organization of productive labouring tasks between the sexes, between youths and elders within the sexes, between family units, between and within kinship groups, and eventually between social classes. These structures of social cooperation in the allocation of productive labour and conscious human practical activity are the crux of the economic from which arise the myths and ideologies created to support, authorize, and even to change theme. This is the essence of the Marxist distinction between economic base and ideological superstructure, each interacting with and affecting the other in a continuous developmental process.”63

Rather than concede to discursive definitions of politics put forward by scholars such as Pocock and Skinner, Wood seeks to re-introduce historians of political thought to the significance of class struggle and the state in framing the context of intellectual production. This emphasis on class and state formation, however, does not signify a return to class reductionist orthodoxy, nor is it a plea to relate political thought to an autonomous state as the privileged site of the political. Rather, the point is to locate the development of political thought – the problematics that define political theory – in relation to the specific forms of social struggles that comprise the dynamic of politics within each social context. Based on the prevalence of economistic conceptions of class mentioned above, Marxist scholars have too often posed class as a conceptual category intrinsically opposed to relations of status and rank.64 The reality, however, is often much more complicated, with relations of class – particularly in pre-capitalist societies – being intrinsically bound up with extra-economic relations of surplus extraction that are overtly political in form.65 The struggles that ensue between the direct producers and the appropriators in pre-capitalist societies and societies undergoing a transition to capitalism are most often bound up with these extra-economic aspects of class exploitation and assume socially specific forms throughout European history. If the history of political thought is concerned with addressing the question of who rules, how they should rule, and who is ruled, then the specificity of these forms of social conflict are crucial to any approach to contextualization. Class formation is therefore fundamentally a process of state formation. Wood’s methodological prescriptions, however, fail to effectively capture the richness of method. As such, it is much more instructive to look at the tangible results of his method as it has informed Ellen Wood’s comparative assessment of English and French political thought within the context of agrarian capitalism and feudal Absolutism. In her discussion of the specificities of English and French notions of sovereignty, Ellen Wood distinguishes herself from traditional Marxist scholar-

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ship by refusing to reduce English discourse to an epiphenomenon of a “possessive market society,” while at the same time moving beyond Skinner and Pocock by attempting to explain the meaning of the specificities of English discourse in relation to the emergence of English agrarian capitalism. In general, the differences between English and French political thought can be related to the different “problematics” of English and French social and political life; problematics that are derived – in a general sense – from the qualitative differences between each society. In the case of English political thought, “the struggle is to rescue from the public sphere that which is rightfully private” – that is, private property. In the French case, the struggle is to “render truly public that which has been wrongfully treated as private” – that is, the state.66 In contrast to Macpherson, Wood argues that the notion of absolute sovereignty has its origins in a “response not to early capitalist property relations but to the feudal fragmentation of the absolutist state.”67 The tradition of absolutism within which Hobbes is writing, therefore, is already established on the continent in response to the parcellisation of sovereignty characteristic of the emerging absolutist French state, well before Hobbes wrote Leviathan. Wood argues, however, that although theories of absolute sovereignty enjoy a long tradition, the particular aspects of Hobbes” notion of sovereignty can only be understood in relation to the specificities of England’s development out of feudalism: “Macpherson suggests that Hobbes’s concept of absolute and indivisible sovereignty belongs to the early history of capitalism, and to England as an incipient “market society”; but in fact, the idea has its origins in a response not to early capitalist property relations but to the feudal fragmentation of the absolutist state, especially in France. Although Hobbes adapted the concept to suit English conditions, he remained exceptional in England, where the prevailing social relations seemed to make such a concept less, rather then more, necessary. It is possible that Hobbes’s interest in the concept owed less to some kind of clear-sighted vision into England’s capitalist future than, on the contrary, to a rather backward-looking image of society, owing as much to French absolutism as to English capitalism.”68

Thus, while not being deduced from the existence of “possessive market” relations, Hobbes’s political theory is related to the development of agrarian capitalism. While sovereignty itself may be necessary for a capitalist society (or any functioning society for that matter), there is no intrinsic relationship between absolute forms of sovereignty and capitalist, or possessive market relations. The relationship is more contingently dependent on the specific nature of the social struggles and conflicts that ensue from the development of capitalist social relations than they are from the mere existence, or logic, of those relations themselves.69 The specificities of English social development, namely the individuation of the social subject under the auspices of the common law and the deterioration of “bastard feudal” relations in English social life as a result of the process of the development of a unitary state within the context of capitalist de-

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velopment have a role to play in changing the way one understands what it means to be a member of the English commonwealth, as opposed to the French. These social developments play a significant role, therefore, in changing the meaning that is attributed to pre-existing notions of sovereignty. Thus, the specificities of English social development allow us to understand not the emergence of absolutist theories of sovereignty, but rather the historical and socially specific meaning that is attributed to pre-existing notions of absolute sovereignty within an English social context. Indeed, the development of French and English political theory – in particular, the discourse on sovereignty and the relationship between the public and private spheres – is conditioned by qualitatively different “problematics” that can only be understood in relationship to the socially specific struggles between peasants, nobles, the urban “bourgeoisie” and the monarch.70 This social, economic and political divergence between France and England is crucial in understanding the development of early modern political thought and frustrates any attempt to talk in pan-European terms without losing the specificity of meaning contained in the discourse. For example, when we situate the allegedly pan-Western European phenomenon of the Enlightenment within the specific contexts of divergent processes of modern state formation, we begin to get a better understanding of significant differences between the discourses of rationality of the French and English Enlightenments. 71 In France, the discourse of rationality is constructed in a way that rationality comes to mean something opposed to superstition, ignorance and inequality – characteristics of a predominantly feudal society dominated by the Church and the Absolutist state. In contrast to this, rationality in the English context becomes increasingly equated with improvement, efficiency and profitability as opposed to waste: components of a capitalist “culture.” Thus, we have two distinctly different conceptions of rationality: the French Enlightenment was the creature of a bourgeois culture that was inextricably related to the Absolutist state and the quasi-feudal society of France, whereas the English “enlightenment” was actively supported by a capitalist aristocracy that acted independently of the English state. Characteristic of the French Enlightenment was the existence of a class of professional intellectuals who were dependent upon the Absolutist state for their position within society. The French Academy was the creature of the Absolutist state through which it would commission research projects designed to further the causes of everything from navigation, military technology, right down to the development of hydraulic technology for the building of public fountains. The Academy was, as Voltaire had pointed out, much more organized than its English counterpart – the Royal Society. The latter lacked a structure of payment by which its members could live and become professionalized. Rather, the members of the Royal Society, rather than receive pay as part of their membership, adopted a format in which members paid as a condition of their membership. In other words, they adopted a dues paying structure. Members were therefore autonomous from the English state and were either members of a capitalist gentry or were reliant on

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the patronage of capitalist landlords for their livelihood. As a result of this, the goals of the Royal Society were embedded within notions of capitalist forms of rationality, which ultimately meant productivity and efficiency in the interest of profit-making as opposed to waste, idleness and indulgence. Thus, the goals of the French Academy and the English Royal Society diverged in accordance to their relationship to fundamentally different contexts of state formation: an Absolutist state emerging out of feudalism in France, and a small, unitary state emerging in capitalist England. This process of conceptual divergence between English and French political thought extended to other parts of the continent as the differences between these social contexts became more pronounced and visible. The concept of “civil society,” while currently used to demarcate a sphere of freedom as opposed to the sphere of coercion represented by the state, initially “tended to blur the distinction between state and civil society.”72 In the hands of Hegel, however, the concept of civil society attained its clearest differentiation from the institution of the state. Where English theorists displayed a tendency to conflate civil society with political society by subordinating the latter to the former in a way that deduces the public good from the free pursuit of private interests, Hegel presents civil society – complete with its corporations and police – as a mediator between individual interests and the state itself. Thus, civil society is given new meaning in terms of its “location” within a larger political constitution: whereas in England, the conflation of political society and civil society “represented the subordination of the state to the community of private-property holders”,73 Hegel’s conceptualization represented something specific to the ways in which social and political power were constituted in absolutist Prussia. In other words, in order to understand why the concept of civil society takes on different meanings in different societies, we must understand these terms in a larger social context, for the ways in which meaning are defined and redefined occur in relation to specific social – as opposed to strictly intellectual – developments. It is not being argued that social contextualization needs to be understood in opposition to the kind of intellectual contextualization that Skinner and Pocock are advocating. What is being argued is that such an intellectual contextualization is incomplete unless it is subsumed within a larger process of social contextualization that takes into account the tenuous relationship between the transcendental nature of political discourse and the specific nature of the social property relationships within that social context. The development of political theory in early modern Europe is therefore characterized by a social context of plurality, divergence and variation in which intellectual paradigms interact and become integrated into social contexts that are comprised of specific social property relations and political institutions. Whereas traditional Marxists tend to interpret the development of early modern political theory within a panEuropean transition to bourgeois society, historicists and revisionists tend to either invert this bourgeois paradigm, or free political theory from its social moorings, thereby treating discourse and conceptual development in similarly pan-European terms. In his discussion of the relationship between historical so-

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ciology and the linguistic turn in the social and human sciences, Peter Wagner argues – in relation to the Cambridge School approach – that, “the basic problem of an intellectual history, broadly understood, that takes language seriously has hitherto been the unwillingness of its promoters to relate it back to a comprehensive study of society transformations. Intellectual history has effectively challenged a languageunconscious historical sociology, but it has not yet demonstrated what a language-conscious historical sociology could or should look like. Such demonstration cannot be substituted for by mere insistence on taking linguistic change into account...Rather, it is likely to entail a recasting of historical sociology’s basic problematiques.”74

Wagner follows this up with another question: “what will a historical sociology of capitalism and democracy look like if it takes language seriously?”75 For our purposes, we can begin by standing this question on its head: what would a history of political discourse look like if it took capitalism and democracy seriously? Once we situate English political theory in the context of agrarian capitalism – as opposed to the bourgeois paradigm – we are better equipped to meet the challenges posed by the revisionism of the Cambridge School historians.76 The parameters of the debate no longer become “bourgeois” versus “feudal”; nor “agrarian” versus “commercial.” Rather, political theory must now be situated within a context of agrarian capitalism in which the social basis of political power has been altered by the social transition from feudalism to agrarian capitalism. The significant antagonisms that define English politics are no longer feudal nobles versus bourgeois merchants, nor agrarian republicans versus commercially oriented “liberal” royalists but rather capitalism versus precapitalism. Since agrarian capitalism emerges within pre-existing classes in order to transform them in relation to one another (as well as lead to the emergence of a new class – the rural wage-laborer) we cannot deduce the character of political theory by its affiliation with either side of these conventional dichotomies. Rather, the nature of the social relations being articulated and defended within political texts becomes the criteria by which we need to interpret political thought. As Ellen Wood puts it: “If we must conceive of the passage from ancien regime to “modern society” in dichotomous terms, a different set of polarities could be proposed: rentier mentality vs. productivism, politically constituted property vs. “economic” modes of surplus extraction, the state as a form of property vs. the “separation of state and civil society”, production and property relations circumscribed by communal regulations and customary rights vs. the laws of competition and market imperatives. Seen from this vantage point, England’s “ancien regime” does, after all, look like a “peculiarly modern society by European standards.”77

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In order to begin re-assessing the social interpretations of English political thought in the 17th century, we need to situate it within this new social context and re-think the way Marxists have traditionally related political thought to social reality. If the significant aspect of the English Revolution was that it occurred within a context of the emergence of agrarian capitalism that emerged within the shell of landed property through the self-transformation of the landed aristocracy, we begin to have a different understanding of the class dynamics of the conflict itself. From this perspective, the notion of “bourgeois” has little – if any – significance. The social context of English political thought, therefore, is not one of bourgeois revolution, but rather, one of agrarian capitalism and capitalist state formation. Once we free ourselves from the confines of the bourgeois paradigm and all of the anachronisms that accompany it, we are better equipped to move beyond some of the sterile dichotomies that have plagued traditional social and Marxist interpretations of the period.

Notes 1. Perry Anderson, “Origins.” 2. Perry Anderson, “The Notion of Bourgeois Revolution,” in English Questions, ed. Perry Anderson (London, Verso, 1992). 3. Anderson, “Bourgeois Revolution,” 112-13. 4. Hill, “Bourgeois Revolution?” 5. This is, of course, a substantively different position than he had assumed forty years earlier in his original interpretation of the revolution. 6. This is precisely the group of people that Russell argued must be incorporated in any renewed attempt at a social interpretation of the Civil War and Revolution. See Russell, Origins. 7. Brian Manning, Aristocrats, Plebeians and the Revolution in England (London: Pluto, 1996). 8. Brian Manning, The English people and the English revolution, 1640-1649 (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1976). 9. Brian Manning, 1649: the crisis of the English revolution (London: Bookmarks, 1992). 10. Manning, “Aristocrats.” 11. Brian Manning, “The English Revolution and the Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism,” International Socialism 63 (1994). Manning’s position to the transition debate will be discussed further in the next chapter. 12. Alex Callinicos, “Bourgeois Revolutions and Historical Materialism, International Socialism 2 no. 43 (1989); Neil Davidson, “The Scottish Path to Capitalist Agriculture 1: From the Crisis of Feudalism to the Origins of Agrarian Transformation (1688-1746),”

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The Journal of Agrarian Change 4 no. 3 (2004): 227-68; Neil Davidson, “The Scottish Path to Capitalist Agriculture 2: the Capitalist Offensive (1747-1815),” The Journal of Agrarian Change 4 no. 4 (2004): 411-60; Neil Davidson, “The Scottish Path to Capitalist Agriculture 3: The Enlightenment as Theory of Improvement (1747-1815), The Journal of Agrarian Change 5 no. 1 (2005): 1-72; Neil Davidson, “How Revolutionary were the Bourgeois Revolutions?” Historical Materialism 13 no. 3 (2005): 3-33; Neil Davidson, “How Revolutionary were the Bourgeois Revolutions, cont’d? Historical Materialism 13 no. 4 (2005): 3-54. 13. To due spatial constraints, I cannot go into great detail regarding the critiques of the account of the transition from feudalism to capitalism prominent amongst “political Marxists.” 14. Davidson, “Bourgeois Revolutions II,” 14. 15. Alex Callinicos, “The Limits of “Political Marxism,”” New Left Review 184 (1990): 110-15, 114-15. Callinicos cites Erik Olin Wright’s argument of “weak primacy” that suggests that direct producers develop an interest in developing the productive forces in order to lighten their toil. At the level of abstract logic, this seems to make sense, but the question is whether or not direct producers were historically capable of developing the productive forces in the ways that Callinicos is suggesting. Why direct producers would not seek other strategies of resisting forms of extra-economic exploitation characteristic of pre-capitalism, such as tax revolts, non-payment of tithes, and the abolition of forms of dependent labor, is not seriously considered by either Callinicos or Davidson. As with much of analytical Marxism, this kind of argument is conducted not at the level of historical analysis, but rather, at the level of analytical philosophy. For a critique of technological determinism as a causal explanation of the transition from feudalism to capitalism, see Rodney Hilton, “Feudalism in Europe: Problems for Historical Materialists,” New Left Review 147 (1984): 84-94. For a convincing criticism of the technological determinism of analytical Marxism in general, see Marcus Roberts, Analytical Marxism: a critique (London: Verso, 1996). 16. This reliance on the primacy of the productive forces and its role in determining the social relations of production bears a striking resemblance to the development of “analytical” Marxism, particularly that of G.A. Cohen. Callinicos himself admits this: “The conflict between the forces and relations of production can only serve as a mechanism of social change if the productive forces tend to develop and thereby become incompatible with existing relations. It is one of the great merits of Cohen’s Karl Marx’s Theory of History to have so forcefully redirected attention to this simple fact.” Callinicos, “Limits,” 114. For a technological determinist defense of historical materialism, see G. A. Cohen, Karl Marx’s Theory of History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981). 17. Davidson, “Bourgeois Revolutions I,” 27. 18. Whether or not this consequentialist revision of the bourgeois revolution paradigm holds for all allegedly “bourgeois revolutions” is, however, another question entirely. 19. Davidson, “Bourgeois Revolutions I,” 4. 20. Brenner, “Bourgeois Revolution”; Comninel, Rethinking; Ellen Meiksins Wood, The Pristine Culture of Capitalism (London: Verso, 1991); Ellen Meiksins Wood, The Origin of Capitalism: a longer view (London: Verso, 2002). The term “political Marxism” developed as an epithet coined by more orthodox, structuralist Marxists like Guy Bois in his rebuttal to the work of Brenner during the first so-called “Brenner debate”. It has since been taken up as a label of self-identification by a number of Marxist scholars inspired by Brenner’s and Wood’s work. For a comprehensive theoretical elaboration of

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the tenets of political Marxism, see Ellen Meiksins Wood, Democracy Against Capitalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). It needs to be stated, however, that not all Political Marxists – or Marxists working under the influence of Brenner’s and Wood’s conceptualization of the transition to capitalism, agree with this abandonment of the concept. For example, Colin Mooers attempts to synthesize the work of Robert Brenner, Brian Manning, and the later Christopher Hill in an attempt to respond to Perry Anderson’s interpretation of the English Revolution. Using Robert Brenner’s account of the transition from feudalism to capitalism and the transformation of the English state from patrimonial monarchy to agrarian capitalist state, as well as Hill’s emphasis on the consequences of the Revolution, Mooers seeks to argue that the English Revolution was indeed a classic bourgeois revolution. While not the result of the conscious intentions of a classconscious bourgeoisie, the English Revolution facilitated the long term accumulation of capital in England. As such, it removed the feudal fetters on bourgeois activity despite the fact that it did not result in an archetypal bourgeois state. Whereas Perry Anderson argues that the English Revolution was an “impure” revolution that resulted in the backward nature of bourgeois English society, Mooers argues the exact opposite: that these allegedly “backward” features are in fact elements of England’s advanced development. The difference between Mooers and Brenner seem to come down to the role of the small producers – the “middling sort” – in the transition to capitalism and the revolutionary events of the 1640s. Colin Mooers, The Making of Bourgeois Europe (London, Verso, 1991). For an eclectic attempt to reconceptualize and salvage the notion of the bourgeois revolution by addressing some of the claims of political Marxism, see Bertell Nygaard, “The Meanings of “Bourgeois Revolution”: Conceptualizing the French Revolution,” Science & Society 71 no. 2 (2007): 146-72. While accepting much of the criticism of the bourgeois revolution paradigm from revisionist and Marxist critics alike, Nygaard salvages the concept at the expense of its employability. It remains to be seen how the concept of the bourgeois revolution can still be useful after all of the concessions and qualifications introduced by Nygaard. 21. In this sense, political Marxists can agree with the revisionists on the conceptual lineage of the bourgeois revolution paradigm. It should be noted, however, that this history of the bourgeois revolution paradigm is significantly different from Anderson’s, whose history begins with Marx and develops up through the Second International. Thus, it was not pre-Marx French liberals who developed the concept of the bourgeois revolution, but rather, post-Marxist Russian socialists. Anderson, “Bourgeois Revolution.” 22. This will be explored in greater detail in the following chapter. 23. For a discussion of Thierry’s work, see Comninel, Rethinking. 24. Comninel, Rethinking. 25. In the previous chapter we saw how Marxists developed a conception of the “rural bourgeoisie” to alleviate this problem. 26. Brenner, “Bourgeois Revolution,” 296-7. 27. This much was recognized by both Dobb and Hill back in the late 1940s. More on this in the next chapter. 28. For an insightful discussion on the specificities of English lordship, the role of the common law and the emergence of agrarian capitalism, see George C. Comninel, “English Feudalism and the Origins of Capitalism,” Journal of Peasant Studies 27 no. 4 (2000): 1-53. The extent to which Brenner suggests that most of the landed aristocracy had underwent a transformation by the outbreak of the Civil War may be overstated in

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quantitative terms, but it does nothing to alter the qualitative aspect of this transformation and its impact of the politics of the period. 29. On the differences between the centralization of the English state and the parcellization of sovereignty in France, see Perry Anderson, Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism (London: Verso, 1974), and Perry Anderson, Lineages of the Absolutist State (London: Verso, 1974). 30. In this sense, Davidson’s characterization of the English state in Brenner’s account of the revolution as “autonomous” is highly misleading. The independent financial basis of the patrimonial state was being eroded, which sparked off the attempts by Charles to consolidate his power at the expense of the landed classes. In response, the landed aristocracy sought to re-establish what they considered to be the “traditional” relationship between the state and the property interests of the landed class: one in which the former served the latter. The point is that the state is the object of class struggle; it is not autonomous from these social developments. 31. Robert Brenner, Merchants and Revolution: Commercial Change and Political Conflict in England, 1550-1653 (London: Verso, 2003), 651. 32. Ellen Meiksins Wood, “Capitalism, Merchants and Bourgeois Revolution: Some Reflections on the Brenner Debate and its Sequel,” International Review of Social History 41 (1996), 220. 33. Robert Brenner, “The Social Origins of Economic Development,” in Analytical Marxism, ed. John Roemer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986). A more detailed discussion of Brenner’s account of the transition from feudalism to capitalism will appear in the next chapter. 34. Wood, Democracy; E.P. Thompson, The Poverty of Theory (London: Merlin Press, 1994). For an alternative discussion regarding the base/superstructure metaphor, from a position sympathetic to political Marxism, see James Holstun, Ehud’s Dagger: Class Struggle in the English Revolution (London: Verso, 2000). 35. Wood, Democracy, 65. 36. See previous chapter. 37. Lucien Goldmann, Immanuel Kant (London: New Left Books, 1971); Herbert Marcuse, Studies in Critical Philosophy (London: New Left Books, 1972). 38. As Williams points out: Marx’s criticism of capitalism “depends much too greatly upon his reception of French materialism for Kant to have sympathized with it…It is remarkable that Goldmann fails to see that if there is an implied criticism of capitalist society to be found in Kant’s work it need not necessarily derive entirely from the same sources and share the same inspiration as Marx’s criticism of capitalism. Marx’s criticism of capitalism looms so large for Goldmann that he fails to see that it can be criticized from other points of view.” Howard Williams, Kant’s Political Philosophy (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1983), 236. 39. Shlomo Avineri, Hegel’s theory of the modern state (London: Cambridge University Press, 1972). 40. Istvan Mezsaros, Marx’s Theory of Alienation (London: Merlin Press, 1970). 41. Geoff Kennedy, “State, Civil Society and Social Context in Hegel’s Philosophy of Right,” Problematique 8 (2002). For an examination of the feudal or pre-capitalist elements of Hegel’s political thought, see Cary J. Nederman, “Sovereignty, War, and the Corporation: Hegel on the Medieval Foundations of the Modern State,” Journal of Politics 49 no. 2 (1987).

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42. For more historically sensitive Marxist interpretations of Rousseau and his social and intellectual context, see Ellen Meiksins Wood, “The State and Popular Sovereignty in French Political Thought: A Genealogy,” in History from Below: Studies in Popular Protest and Popular Ideology in Honour of George Rudé (Montreal: Concordia University Press, 1985. Lucio Colletti, From Rousseau to Lenin: Studies in Ideology and Society (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1972). 43. This assumes that private property is essentially capitalist private property. 44. Meszaros thus neglects entirely the discursive tradition of classical republicanism that frames Rousseau’s critique of “commercial” society, validating claims by nonMarxist critics that Marxists treat ideas as mere epiphenomena of economic developments. 45. Here Meszaros contradicts himself in his characterization of the social context of the mid-18th century. Initially, he characterizes it as a period of transition from feudalism to a capitalism that was far from “reaching the limits of its productive capabilities”. Here, however, he presents us with a context in which capitalism is presumably advancing to a stage of universally alienating large-scale production. 46. Macpherson, Possessive Individualism. 47. McPherson’s various models of market society will be discussed in greater detail in the next chapter. 48. Hampsher-monk, “The Political Theory of the Levellers.” C.B. Macpherson, “Hampsher-Monk’s Levellers.” Political Studies 25 no. 4 (1977): 571-76. More recently, Janet Coleman has traced the notion of self-propriety to pre-modern conceptions of property, thereby challenging McPherson’s equation of property in one-self with the rise of a possessive market society. Janet Coleman, “Pre-modern property and self-ownership before and after Locke: Or, when did common decency become a private rather than a public virtue?” The European Journal of Political Theory 4 no. 2 (2005): 125-45. 49. We will return to this point later in the chapter. The political theory of both Hobbes and Locke will be discussed in chapter 7. 50. Pocock, Machiavellian Moment, 461. 51. Davis, “Radicalism,” Condren, Language. For a critique of Clarke’s historical revisionism of the period, see Wood, Pristine. 52. Pincus demonstrates that – pace Pocock – republicanism became compatible with the advent of commercial society during the revolutionary period, yet he still retains the agrarian/commercial dichotomy. Pincus, “Commercial Society.” 53. Thus, while certain paradigms initially emerge in response to particular political crises, these paradigms themselves become transcendental contexts that determine the interventions of subsequent political thinkers in different times and different places. Thus, for Skinner, the context of Renaissance humanism (initially developed in Italy) becomes more important for understanding the political thought of Thomas More than does the specific social context of 16th century England; a context characterized by dispossession, depopulation and social unrest resulting from the enclosure movement. For an alternative contextualization of More, see Neal Wood, Foundations of Political Economy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994). 54. Cary J. Nederman, “Quentin Skinner’s State: Historical Method and Traditions of Discourse.” Canadian Journal of Political Science 18 no. 2 (1985): 339-52, 345. 55. The charge of voluntarism may be applied to Skinner’s “intentionalist” conception of meaning in political theory. According to Skinner, the meaning of a text is identified with the intentions of the author. This individualist approach to textual meaning neglects

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to take into account the fundamental intersubjective nature of political thought; that is, the social nature of political meaning that limits the ability of individual theorists from saying virtually anything and still be sensible to their immediate audience. 56. Skinner, Foundations. 57. Anderson, Lineages; Wood, Origin. 58. In this sense, Skinner adheres to an ideal type modern state similar to Weber. For him, the modern state is characterized by a separation of the “state” from the person of the sovereign. As such, the state constitutes a monopoly on the legitimate use of force and possesses a monopoly over political authority – meaning no other organizations or associations can command the allegiance of subjects or citizens – within a given territory. This does not, however, provide us with any insights into the different types of “modern” states that emerged out of the crisis of feudalism. Nor does it help us differentiate this form of “modern” state from, say, the republican state of ancient Rome. For a discussion of Cicero’s theory of the state, in which state power is conceived of in abstraction from any particular personal authority, see Neal Wood, Cicero’s Social and Political Thought (Berkeley: University of California, 1988). 59. The corollary of this is that, for Skinner, the development of modern political theory predates the development of modern society. There is a similarity here with the problems of traditional Marxist scholarship: whereas “modern” theories of the state develop as compensation for the absence of a real modern state, so too does bourgeois ideology develop as compensation for the absence of capitalist society. 60. Dunn, History. 61. Neal Wood, Reflections on Political Theory: a voice of reason from the past (New York: Palgrave, 2002). 62. Wood, Reflections, 136. 63. Wood, Reflections, 137. 64. For an example of this presentation of the relationship between class and status in the ancient world, see Geoffrey de. Ste. Croix, Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World (1981). In his critique of Weber, Kieran Allen presents the same dichotomy; see Allen, Kieran Allen, Max Weber: a Critical Introduction (London: Pluto Press, 2003). The result of this is often the translation of forms of status into economic class terms. For example, de Ste. Croix categorizes slaves as a separate class of producers on the basis their extra-economic status as slaves. For an alternative approach to the issue of class and status – with particular significance pertaining to the issue of ancient slavery – see Ellen Meiksins Wood, Peasant-Citizen and Slave (London: Verso, 1988). For the case of ancient Rome, see Wood, Cicero. 65. For more on this, see Wood, Democracy. 66. Wood, “The State and Popular Sovereignty,” 124. 67. Wood, Pristine. As we will see in chapter 7, Macpherson fails to differentiate between sovereignty and absolute sovereignty. Thus, while he attributes to Hobbes the “error” of deducing a self-perpetuating sovereignty from the social relations of possessive market society, he contends that Hobbes’s unlimited form of sovereignty is congruent with the development of capitalism, due to the latter’s fragmentary tendencies. 68. Wood, Pristine, 181, n. 12. 69. Again, a more detailed discussion of this will be reserved for chapter 7. 70. Wood, “The State and Popular Sovereignty.”

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71. Ellen Meiksins Wood, “Capitalism or Enlightenment?” History of Political Thought 21 no. 3 (2000): 405-26. 72. Wood, Democracy, 240. 73. Wood, Democracy. 74. Peter Wagner, “As Intellectual History Meets Historical Sociology: Historical Sociology after the Linguistic Turn,” in Handbook of Historical Sociology, ed. Gerard Delanty and Engin Isin (London: Sage Publications, 2003), 173. 75. Wagner, “Intellectual History,” 176. 76. The beginnings of this re-contextualization have been initiated by Neal and Ellen Meiksins Wood in their introductory text to English political thought and agrarian capitalism. Ellen Meiksins Wood and Neal Wood, A trumpet of sedition: political theory and the rise of capitalism, 1509-1688 (New York: New York University Press, 1997). For a more explicit rejection of situating English political thought within a bourgeois paradigm of historical development, see Wood Pristine. 77. Wood, Pristine, 143.

3

Agrarian Capitalism and Class Formation in Early Modern England

The transition from feudalism to capitalism signified a radical transformation of English society, represented most starkly by the gradual elimination of the peasantry and its eventual replacement by a class of landless wage-laborers.1 The purpose of this chapter is to provide an account of the emergence of agrarian capitalism in early modern England and discuss the ways in which it transformed existing social relations of exploitation and domination. Against the conventional “bourgeois” accounts of the emergence of capitalism, this account will trace the development of agrarian capitalism from the Norman Conquest, the peculiar development of English lordship in the late medieval period, up through the enclosure movements of the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Characterizing the market as a sphere of coercion that subjects market dependent producers to the “imperatives” of competition, increased productivity and cost-cutting measures, it will be argued that agrarian capitalism introduced new forms of social and economic exploitation that changed the nature and significance of class struggle and radical politics. A context of agrarian capitalism therefore becomes social context within which lower class radicalism in early modern England needs to be interpreted.

From Feudalism to Agrarian Capitalism The problems of the traditional social interpretation of the English Revolution and of English political thought stem from the problems of understanding the social transition from feudalism to capitalism. Marxist historians have been burdened by Marx’s ambiguous account of the development of capitalist society. As we have seen, Marx’s earlier work emphasized the revolutionary nature of the bourgeoisie in overthrowing the parasitic feudal nobility and creating a new dynamic bourgeois society out of the ashes of the old. In his later work, however, Marx sought to locate the rise of capitalism in the English countryside through a process of peasant proletarianization. The expropriation of the peasantry at the hands of the bourgeoisie resulted in their transformation into a 60

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class of rural wage-laborers which allowed for the “primitive accumulation” of capital by the rising bourgeoisie. In highlighting this historical process of transition, Marx sought to critique the bourgeois notion of “primitive accumulation” which described capitalism as a natural and gradual process of the progressive development of the division of labor. The bourgeois political economists relied on the voluntarist notion that capitalism – being a reflection of the natural tendencies of man to “truck, barter and trade” – was the result of the frugal and industrious activity of a morally virtuous accumulating class.2 On the one side of English society we have the industrious elite accumulating and investing capital, while on the other, we have the idle and quarrelsome poor living undisciplined lives of sloth and indolence. For Marx, this did more to obscure the coercive origins of capitalism and naturalize the historically specific forms of capitalist social relations and the rationality of capitalist accumulation. In opposition to this bourgeois gradualism, Marx locates the onset of capitalist social relations in the process of the proletarianization of the peasantry. In Capital, Marx notes that the “starting-point of the development that gave rise both to the wage-labourer and to the capitalist was the enslavement of the worker.” Far from representing a gradual and non-coercive process of development, Marx argued that capitalist development “consisted in a change in the form of this servitude, in the transformation of feudal exploitation into capitalist exploitation.” The process occurred when “great masses of men are suddenly and forcibly torn from their means of subsistence, and hurled onto the labour-market as free, unprotected and rightless proletarians.” In other words, the “expropriation of the agricultural producer, of the peasant, from the soil is the basis of the whole process.”3 This process of class formation and the development of agrarian capitalism, assumed its “classic form” only in England. Marx’s narrative of the transition from feudalism to capitalism, with its emphasis on the forcible expropriation of the peasantry and the “bloody” legislation of the dispossessed, is thus far removed from the peaceful and progressive gradualism of bourgeois political economy. In this formulation, Marx has broken with his earlier conception of the relationship between the division of labor and class and property relations, thereby inverting the previous relation of determination; that is, the division of labor does not determine property and class relations, rather, property and class relations determine the division of labor and the development of the productive forces. 4 This process of proletarianization – the separation of the direct producers from the land – is part of a novel form of class formation specific to England in the early modern period – the “trinity formula” of landlord, capitalist tenant farmer and agrarian wage-laborer. The questions that Marx left unresolved, however, was how and why these new class relationships emerged as well as the chronology and the causal sequence of their development. While it was clear to Marx that the key to understanding this process of class formation lay in the separation of the direct producers from their non-market access to the means of their own subsistence,

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the dynamic, or the “prime mover” behind this process of class formation remained elusive.5 The ambiguity of Marx’s different accounts of the rise of capitalism, and the fact that he did not, even in his later work, come to any conclusion about the prime mover behind the transition from feudalism to capitalism, has resulted in a plethora of competing accounts of the transition to capitalism within Marxist literature. Perhaps the most significant contribution to the transition was Maurice Dobb’s contribution in the 1940s.6 Dobb argued against the conventional wisdom of the time – that trade led to the dissolution of feudal society and the subsequent rise of capitalism – and instead, attempted to locate the “prime mover” of the transition within the social relations of feudalism itself.7 The urban mercantile classes, argued Dobb, were not necessarily engaged in capitalist or proto-capitalist activity as was previously believed, and neither were they “revolutionary” in the sense that their activity would lead to the dissolution of feudalism. Merchants were merely involved in the transportation of goods from one market to another and had no significant impact on the production process. Rather, it was the petty commodity producing classes – namely artisans who own their means of subsistence – engaging in protocapitalist forms of activity who were the agents of transition. Given this distinction between merchants and petty commodity producers, Dobb sketched out two paths to what he called industrial capitalism: the first path in which the direct producer accumulates capital for the purpose of engaging in production for exchange, which eventually leads to the subordination of production to the dictates of trade; and the second path which stems from merchant capitalists subjecting petty commodity production to their commercial interests without altering the nature of the production process itself. This latter path has often been seen as the path to capitalism, for it corresponds to the historical “rise” of a bourgeois class of merchants. However, Dobb rejected the revolutionary potential of the merchant class, arguing that there is no empirical reason why the actions of the merchant bourgeoisie should lead to a revolution in the social relations of production. The merchant bourgeoisie, engaged in overseas trade, possesses of itself “no revolutionary significance”. Rather than acting as a revolutionary historical agent of capitalist development, the merchant bourgeoisie is merely an “intermediary between producer and consumer”, whose interests and fortunes are “bound up with the existing mode of production.”8 In this sense, the merchant bourgeoisie assumes a conservative function, seeking to preserve the social relations of the particular mode or production within which they act. In rejecting the revolutionary role of the bourgeoisie in the development of capitalism, Dobb echoes Marx’s own skepticism regarding the revolutionary role of trade found in his later works: “Since merchant’s capital is penned in the sphere of circulation, and since its function consists exclusively of promoting the exchange of

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Chapter 3 commodities, it requires no other conditions for its existence – aside from the undeveloped forms arising from direct barter – outside those necessary for the simple circulation of commodities and money. Or rather, the latter is the condition of its existence. No matter what the basis on which products are produced, which are thrown into circulation as commodities – whether the basis of the primitive community, of slave production, of small peasant and petty bourgeois, or the capitalist basis, the character of products as commodities is not altered, and as commodities they must pass through the process of exchange and its attendant changes of form. The extremes between which merchant’s capital acts as mediator exist for it as given, just as they are given for money and for its movements. The only necessary thing is that these extremes should be on hand as commodities, or whether only the surplus of the independent producers” immediate needs, satisfied by their own production, is thrown on the market. Merchant’s capital promotes only the movements of these extremes, of these commodities, which are preconditions of its own existence.”9

Because the nature of merchant capital is essentially the same in all forms of society, it is therefore incapable of acting as the prime mover of capitalist development. In order to understand the transition from feudalism to capitalism, therefore, Dobb argued that we need to look at the way trade is “filtered” through the particular class relations of feudalism.10 In other words, we need to look at the way trade affects the relationship between merchants and pettycommodity producers within the existing social relations of feudalism in ways that affect the class formation of the latter. In his analysis of England, Dobb shows how the Company Merchants, in order to profitably exploit expanding international markets, sought to restrict the market access of the small producers in order to maintain their own mercantile interests and privileged positions within the merchant community. These restrictive actions in turn prompted risktaking entrepreneurs to challenge the power of the established merchant companies. It was this differentiation within the ranks of the petty commodity producers that led to the rise of a capitalist element; it was through the actions of this latter element that led to a reorganization of the productive process along capitalist lines. It is in the attempts of this latter class to subordinate production to capital – that is, production for exchange – that we find the “crucial watershed between the old mode of production and the new”.11 The orientation of commodity production for exchange by commodity producers themselves results in the appearance of a new social relationship between capitalist and producer within the sphere of production. Thus, the dynamic for the transition was to be looked for not in the relations between merchants and landed aristocrats, but rather between the direct producers and merchants, with the former assuming the revolutionary role.

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Given the conservative nature of mercantile interests and activity, the subordination of domestic handicrafts and petty-bourgeois manufacture to merchant capital (often known as the putting-out system) did nothing to transform the social relations of production and therefore posed no real threat to the feudal mode of production. The “revolutionary” path of capitalist development therefore lay in the transformation of the direct producers into capitalists in their own right; and this would occur in the form of the master craftsman producing for exchange on the market in ways that altered the relationship between master and apprentice. The employment of wage-labor by the master with the intent on producing for exchange would eventually result in the wide-spread rise of the capital-labor relationship. It was the rise of this urban bourgeoisie from the ranks of the direct producers that posed a threat to the maintenance of the feudal mode of production, for their interest in removing the fetters on trade and manufacture that exist to secure the economic power of merchants and their aristocratic allies cannot help but pose a threat to the existing relations of production. For Dobb, class struggle between craftsmen and merchants alters the way in which petty commodity production relates to the market: class struggle modifies the “dependence of the petty mode of production upon feudal overlordship and eventually to shake loose the small producer from the degree to which it secures independence of action, (and social differentiation in turn develops within it) that capitalism is born.”12 The freeing up of petty commodity producers leads to a transitory period of petty commodity production which is characterized by a process of social differentiation amongst petty commodity producers themselves. It is out of this differentiation that capitalism emerges. Rodney Hilton complimented Dobb’s search for an internal feudal dynamic rooted in class struggle by looking at the relationship between peasants – some of whom are also petty commodity producers – and landlords.13 Hilton argues that the prime mover of feudal society is not to be found in the relationship between urban craftsmen and merchants, but rather, in the rent struggles between peasants and their landlords.14 Since the income of the landlord consists of the surplus that is appropriated from the peasantry, the extraction of rent has a determining affect on the reproductive strategies of the peasant. The greater the level of rent, the more surplus is appropriated from the peasant. A lower level of rent results in a greater portion of the surplus remaining in the hands of the peasant for investment in the productive capacity of his holding. It is in the peasant struggles of the 14 th and 15th centuries that Hilton locates the crucial turning point in the history of the “prime mover.” The successful revolts of the latter half of the 14th century – the peasant revolt of 1381 – made it impossible for lords to increase their exploitation of the peasantry by re-enserfment. This class struggle, therefore, was the prime mover of feudal society: lords attempted to increase their portion of the surplus through raising rents and bringing new land into cultivation, and peasants attempted to

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retain their share of the surplus by fixing rents, abolishing arbitrary fines, etc. This all led to an increase in productivity, either in the form of total surplus product (increase in arable land brought under cultivation) or in the form of relative surplus product (increasing productivity). Economic expansion is therefore inseparable from the rent struggle. What is significant about Hilton’s account is that Dobb’s emphasis on the liberation of petty commodity production is now located in the countryside, at the heart of the class struggle between lord and peasant. 15 It is not the artisanturned-merchant who initiates the development of capitalist social relations, but rather, the well-to-do “yeoman” peasant, secure in his tenure and with a sufficient amount of capital to invest in the development of the productive forces of proto-capitalist forms of production. Thus, for Hilton, “this peasant resistance was of crucial importance in the development of the rural communes, the extension of free tenure and status, the freeing of peasant and artisan economies for the development of commodity production, and eventually the emergence of the capitalist entrepreneur.16 This freeing up of peasant petty commodity production, in the context of the growth of markets in the 15 th century resulted in the increased economic differentiation of the peasantry which empowered rich peasants to take advantage of market opportunities through specialization and the employment the labor of the poorer peasantry, thereby laying the foundations for the development of capitalism.17 However, by explaining capitalism as the result of the liberation of rural and urban petty commodity producers throwing off the fetters of feudalism in order to take advantage of emerging market opportunities, an assumption is made that given the choice, petty commodity producers will choose to become dependent upon the market and act in capitalist ways in order to maximize profit. This assumes the existence of capitalist or proto-capitalist forms of rationality and activity. This critique can be verified in the statements made by Hilton’s recent defenders. Terence Byres, in his re-affirmation of Hilton’s account of the transition, argues that the rich peasantry had adequate access to resources (land and capital) that would put them in a position to be able to produce the kinds of surpluses necessary, and take the kinds of economic risks that are required for long-term economic development characteristic of capitalism. As a result of their privileged position within the stratified condition of the peasantry, they “might have been likely to choose very significant market involvement, while retaining both enough resources for subsistence production and the ability to retreat fully into subsistence production if necessary.”18 The problem with this argument, however, is twofold. First, the relationship between a petty commodity producing peasantry enjoying the security of freehold tenure and the development of agrarian capitalism, as we will see below, is not quite so clear. 19 Secondly, it presupposes that specialization and cost-cutting in capitalist ways is rational and feasible economic activity within a pre-capitalist society. In other

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words, it presupposes the very logic of economic rationality that needs to be explained in any account of the transition.20 Robert Brenner has argued that most conventional accounts of the development of “modern” patterns of economic growth and development assume the existence of capitalist property relations. 21 The drive towards increased productivity through product specialization and increases in labor productivity only appear rational in a context that is already characterized by capitalist property relations in which both exploiters and producers are dependent on the market for their own social reproduction. But it is the process by which producers and exploiters become market dependent that needs to be explained in any account of the transition from feudalism to capitalism. In contrast to both Dobb and Hilton, Brenner argues that the transition from precapitalism to capitalism does not and cannot occur as the intended consequence of the actions of individuals or social classes pursuing their self-interest within a social context characterized by pre-capitalist social property relations. The liberation of the petty commodity producer, therefore, is just as likely to reinforce pre-capitalist property relations as it is to lead to the development of capitalism. The emergence of capitalism out of the “rise of the yeoman” necessitates the prior existence of capitalist property relations. In pre-capitalist societies, both direct producers and exploiters enjoy direct non-market access to their means of subsistence. Peasants, for example, may not own their land, but they enjoy possession of it, possession that is not mediated by the market. Because of this non-market access to the means of subsistence, the exploiters of pre-capitalist societies must rely on “extraeconomic” forms of surplus extraction in order to appropriate the surplus of the direct producers. As a result, neither producers nor exploiters need engage in market transactions such as producing for exchange to survive (although production for exchange – often in luxuries – was perfectly compatible with precapitalist society). Without the necessity to produce for exchange, individuals did not need to produce competitively in order to market their produce. Therefore, they did not need to engage in cost-cutting measures to increase productivity. As Brenner argues: “Pre-capitalist property relations, in societies which had achieved settled agriculture, imposed upon the economic actors, producers and exploiters alike, rules of reproduction which were, in the end, antithetical to the requirements for the development of the economy as a whole. Under these relations, both direct producers and exploiters found it rational to adopt patterns of economic action which, in the long run, prevented increases in aggregate per capita output.”22

Pre-capitalist property relations therefore fail to impose on producers and exploiters the imperative to produce competitively which is necessarily for the

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development of long-term economic growth.23 In fact, argues Brenner, precapitalist social property relations make it rational for economic actors to either reduce their dependence on the market or strengthen and expand their extraeconomic forms of surplus extraction. For example, in pre-capitalist societies, food markets were highly volatile given that low levels of agrarian productivity increased the possibility of bad harvest and famines: “Since food constituted so large a part of total consumption, the uncertainty of the food market brought with it highly uncertain markets for other commercial crops. It was therefore sensible for the peasants to avoid dependence upon the market—above all dependence upon purchases of subsistence goods, but also dependence upon sale of commercial crops. To avoid this dependence, the peasants had to diversify, so as to produce directly all they needed. This does not mean that they failed to use the market, but simply that they tended to market only physical surpluses. Indeed, it does not seem unreasonable to assert that, under pre-capitalist conditions, peasants would likely have sought to avoid specialization and dependence on exchange, not only in order to avoid the specific risk of market failure in necessities, but, more generally, in order to avoid becoming entirely subjected, in what they would produce and where they would produce it, to the dictates of the market, and the whole transformation of life that subjection to the market would have entailed. The resulting tendency to production for subsistence naturally constituted a powerful barrier to commercial specialization and ultimately the transformation of production.”24

Thus, it was not in the “rational self-interest” of peasant proprietors to act in ways that would increase their productivity vis-à-vis the market—that is, to increase productivity through specialization. Rather, it was more rational for peasants to diversify their crops in order to meet their subsistence needs and sell only their physical surpluses on the market, given the existence of beneficial market conditions. In other words, it was rational for peasants to minimize rather than maximize their dependence on the market. Constraints were also imposed on the exploiters in pre-capitalist societies. Being independent of the market for their subsistence needs, lords devoted their resources in ways other than improving the productive capacity of their estates. Because peasants had non-market access to their means of subsistence, lords had to rely on extra-economic forms of surplus extraction – often in the form of forced labor services – in order to get them to labor on their demesnes. Since the peasant had no incentive to work diligently it was difficult for lords to get them to utilize more advanced forms of productive technique. As such, it became very costly and very risky to engage in productive investments on the demesne. The more rational course of action for lords was to increase their income through strategies of “redistribution” as opposed to profitable

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“productive” investment in the purely economic sense of increases in labor productivity. They sought therefore, to redistribute wealth from the peasantry to themselves by expanding and intensifying their coercive means of exploitation – i.e. their extra-economic forms of surplus extraction. Political accumulation – i.e. the building up of extra-economic powers through state building, warfare, etc. – rather than capital accumulation became the driving force behind “rational” lordly activity.25 To assume that, in the absence of feudal constraints, yeomen peasants would invest in their productive capacities through specialization and improvement in order to increase their dependency on the market is to beg the question. Similarly, to assume that feudal lords failed to invest and improve their estates assumes that the conditions existed in which this form of activity was either plausible or the most rational strategy to attain an increase in feudal revenues. Rather than conceive of the market as a sphere of opportunity that can be exploited by risk-taking producers whose natural behavior is to maximize their own profit in capitalist ways, we need to conceive of capitalist market relations as a form of coercive imperative rooted in a specific set of socialproperty relations. It is these market imperatives that compel both the direct producers and the appropriators of their surplus product to engage in productive activity that we can call capitalist. Seen in this way, capitalism does not emerge out of the opportunities of liberated petty-commodity producers, but rather, from the imperatives of market dependence and competition. It is this market dependence that becomes the “prime mover” of capitalist development. Rather than emerging out of the liberation of petty commodity producers from the fetters of feudalism, agrarian capitalism emerged out of the self-transformation of the landed aristocracy from a feudal nobility to a class of capitalist landlords.26 The specific nature of English social-property relations forced English landlords to increasingly rely on economic forms of surplus extraction – as opposed to the extra-economic forms of politically constituted property characteristic of pre-capitalist social formations – to offset the crisis of feudalism. It is out of this transition from feudal lordship to capitalist landlordism that we must begin an account of the transition from feudalism to capitalism. As Ellen Wood puts it, “English property relations had what Brenner calls their own distinctive “rules for reproduction”. Both direct producers and landlords came to depend on the market in historically unprecedented ways just to secure the conditions of their own self-reproduction. These rules produced their own distinctive laws of motion. The result was to set in train a new historical dynamic: an unprecedented rupture with old Malthusian cycles, a process of self-sustaining development, new competitive pressures that had their own effects on the need to increase productivity, reconfiguring and further

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Chapter 3 concentrating landholding, and so on. This new dynamic is agrarian capitalism.”27

Capitalism emerged in the English countryside as the unintended result of the strategies undertaken both by peasants and landlords to reproduce themselves as they were, rather than the conscious attempt of proto-capitalist producers to liberate their relations of production from the stagnation of feudalism. 28 But how exactly did this transition occur? If lords and peasants were attempting to reproduce themselves as they were, then what compelled them to engage in forms of capitalist production? In other words, how did English producers become dependent upon a capitalist market? In order to answer these questions, and in order to understand the significance that this transition towards market dependence has for relations of exploitation and domination in early modern England, we need to understand the peculiar characteristics of English feudalism in general, and English lordship in particular, for it is the transcendence of these forms of pre-capitalist social property relations by the social relations of capitalism that holds the key to an understanding of the transition from feudalism to capitalism.

Commons and Enclosures The market dependency that characterized agrarian capitalism emerged out of the specific nature of feudal lordship in England and its subsequent effect on peasant tenures. Thus, it is through the transformation of the feudal aristocracy of England into capitalist landlords, not the liberation of the petty commodity producers from the constraints of the feudal mode of production, and certainly not through the dissolution of feudalism by means of trade, that the dynamic of capitalism is to be understood. The specific nature of English feudalism, characterized by a unique form of feudal lordship, in conjunction with its conflicts with the peasantry, formed the basis of the transition from a feudal agrarian society to an agrarian capitalist society characterized by fundamentally novel social relations of class exploitation in the countryside. While serfdom has often been taken to be definitive of feudalism, it is only one aspect of the feudal organization of society.29 While the peasant holding and the village community are important components of feudalism, they are not the primary determinant of feudalism’s social dynamic; they are not the components that give feudalism its specific character, its cohesion and its unity. Rather, it is the seigneurie, or the manor as it was called in England, that formed the “organising principle of the whole of feudal society,”30 for it was on the manor that the social product of peasant labor was realized – first as income for the landlord, then, through exchange in the market, a source of demand for

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domestic and foreign commodities. 31 Perry Anderson has emphasized the significance of lordship as the constitutive element of feudalism: “Agrarian property was privately controlled by a class of feudal lords, who extracted a surplus from the peasants by politico-legal relations of compulsion. This extra-economic coercion, taking the form of labour services, rents in kind or customary dues owed to the individual lord by the peasant, was exercised both on the manorial demesne attached directly to the person of the lord, and on the strip tenancies or virgates cultivated by the peasants. Its necessary result was a juridical amalgamation of economic exploitation with political authority. The peasant was subject to the jurisdiction of his lord.”32

Lordship therefore, became the basis for the specifically “extra-economic” form of feudal exploitation on the English manor. Feudal lordship is composed of two distinct, yet mutually reinforcing forms of social privilege and power. Proprietary lordship stems from the ownership of land which forms the basis of feudal landlordship. Domestic lordship concerns the control and domination of the persons on the manor of a particular lord, subordinating those persons to the jurisdiction of the lord of that particular manor.33 In most parts of feudal Europe, domestic lordship was a more lucrative source of income than land-lordship. Under the auspices of this domestic lordship, all producers of the manor – free and servile alike – were bound to the lord through forms of obligation which gave the lord extraeconomic forms of control over their labor. Lords, however, did not have dominion over the free peasants who were subject to the jurisdiction of the overlord or king. Their extra-economic powers of lordship were restricted to their respective manors. But with the decay of any form of centralized public power – the Carolingian state, for example – lords increasingly began to appropriate the powers of haute justice, or royal sovereign power, for themselves. Thus, the seigneurial right of justice – the bannum – was increasingly becoming the right of lordship “that would most readily permit lords to relieve workers of the money they had managed to earn.”34 In France, for example, where the land controlled by feudal lords was substantively smaller than that controlled by English lords, and conversely, the amount of land in the possession of the peasantry was relatively greater, feudal lords found it more rational to utilize their powers of “territorial” lordship to “squeeze” the peasantry in times of economic crisis. In the instances where this appropriation did occur, the result was that individual lords became sovereign powers in themselves, and their personal or domestic form of lordship became superseded by a new form of territorial lordship expressed through the seigneurial ban.35 This is what occurred in France around the year 1000 A.D. In the wake of the collapse of the Carolingian state, feudal magnates began to appropriate the powers of the ban for themselves, transforming themselves into territorial lords

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possessed of sovereign powers. As a result, land-lordship ceased to be the most significant characteristic of French feudalism. The downside to this form of lordship was the consequences it had for intra-lordly relations and ruling class self-organization. If each lord possessed sovereign power, then a dynamic of intra-lordly competition created a system of what has been called “parcellized sovereignty.” As Perry Anderson states: “A complete fragmentation of sovereignty was incompatible with the class unity of the nobility itself, for the potential anarchy implied by it was necessarily disruptive of the whole mode of production on which their privileges rested. There was thus an inbuilt contradiction within feudalism, between its own rigorous tendency to a decomposition of sovereignty and the absolute exigencies of a final centre of authority in which a practical recomposition could occur. Feudal monarchy, therefore, was never wholly reducible to a royal suzerainty: it always existed to some extent in an ideological and juridical realm beyond that of those vassal relationships whose summit could otherwise be ducal or comital potentates, and possessed rights to which the latter could not aspire. At the same time, actual royal power always had to be asserted and extended against the spontaneous grain of the feudal polity as a whole, in a constant struggle to establish a “public” authority outside the compact web of private jurisdictions. The feudal mode of production in the West thus originally specified in its very structure a dynamic tension and contradiction within the centrifugal State which it organically produced and reproduced.”36

The dynamic contradiction here is that feudal lords needed to reduce their intralordly rivalry in order to continuously exploit increasingly well organized peasants and develop forms of lordly co-operation to establish forms of reciprocal protection for their property, mostly through the creation of rights and the enforcement of the rule of law. However, the parcellization of sovereignty militated against the easy establishment of these forms of class organization. While French lordship assumed the form of the seigneurial banale, English lordship developed in a substantively different direction. At the same time that French lords were appropriating the powers of the seigneurial banale which resulted in the parcellization of sovereignty characteristic of French feudalism, England was conquered by the Normans as a single territorial unit. Eliminating the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy, expropriating their land and subjecting all peasant producers to their new manors, William the Bastard established a highly centralized form of feudalism that bypassed the parcellization of sovereignty characteristic of French feudalism. As a result, the Norman aristocracy underwent a peculiar process of class formation – one that would distinguish them from their continental counterparts. English lords never managed to complement their undoubted powers as landowners and lords of

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tenants with a corresponding jurisdictional and political power. The Norman and Angevin monarchies divided the peasantry into two groups based upon different tenurial status. The freeholders, who made up approximately one quarter of the peasantry, were given security of tenure, fixed rents and, most importantly, exclusive rights of property over their tenure which would be upheld by the royal courts. Customary peasants, who composed the rest of the peasantry, enjoyed none of these freedoms. Rather, the powers of domestic lordship over them were increased to include lordly control over the transmission of their estates. These peasants had no access to the royal courts, being instead entirely under the jurisdiction of the lord of the manor. Thus, the domestic powers of English lordship were simultaneously augmented in extent, yet limited in scope. As a result, the kind of appropriation of public power that occurred in France during the collapse of the Carolingian Empire did not occur in England. Institutions of public authority survived in England and were transformed and consolidated by the Normans after the Conquest. The Norman invaders excluded individual landlords – the magnates – from developing the kind of extraeconomic powers that French nobles had acquired. Haute Justice was dealt through royal jurisdiction. Thus, Rodney Hilton points out that “instead of this being an appropriation of public power by the private lord, the private lord had been appropriated as an agent by the public power.”37 English lords therefore owed the possessions of their estates to relations of fealty to the king and his descendants, rather than to possession of the seigneurial ban. This peculiarity of English lordship would play a decisive role in the unique process of state formation and social development in England: “At the heart of this divergence was the greater weight of truly manorial relations in the formation of English feudalism, in contrast to the weight of the politico-legal relations of jurisdiction in French feudalism. Because the king maintained full and effective command and jurisdiction over all free men – the issue of “freedom” itself becoming central to the peculiar development of the common law – the English lord of the manor was never truly a sovereign political lord. The English manor never became a seigneurie, but instead combined proprietary lordship (subject to the lord’s obligations to the king) with a domestic lordship much magnified by the Conquest. It is, in fact, only due to the greatly increased power of English domestic lordship that “feudalism” can be said to have existed at all.”38

Thus, English lords had arbitrary power only over their immediate dependants – those peasants holding villein tenure on the manor. Thus, lordship was primarily domestic rather than political. A crucial moment in English feudalism occurred in the mid-twelfth century when freehold peasants became differentiated from unfree villein peasants.39 This distinction was necessary for the maintenance of the royal

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jurisdiction of the crown, for the Crown needed a social basis upon which its jurisdiction could be distinguished from the domestic powers of the lords; but it was also necessary for the intensification of the exploitation of villein peasants on customary tenures by the lord of the manor. As a result of this differentiation, freehold peasants fell under the jurisdiction of the Crown – through the common law – and could have access to the royal courts in order to protect themselves against the arbitrary will of their lords, while villeins were subject solely to the jurisdiction of the manor court. The basis of this distinction was the common law which was developed to provide freehold tenure with the right to exclude others from intervening in the enjoyment of their tenure. The English peasantry, unlike a relatively homogenous class of peasants in some degree of possession of their land, was therefore divided into two distinct groups: freehold peasants who enjoyed the same title to their land as the lords themselves, and customary tenants who enjoyed no secure title to the land. Lacking the kind of security of tenure that was granted to freeholders, customary peasants possessed title to their land either for a number of years, for life, or by inheritance. By the late 15th century, however, as a result of the struggles that culminated in the Great Revolt of 1381 and the emergence of a land to labor ratio that favored the peasants, a portion of the customary peasantry were able to attain a copy of their title from the lord of the manor. The customary peasantry was therefore further differentiated between tenants-at-will, who occupied the land on a yearly basis and unprotected by any formal agreement – literally at the will of the Lord – and copyholders who attained a copy of their title to the land from their lord. While these developments represented victory for at least one segment of the peasantry, and further weakened the extra-economic powers of the lords, the gains were often modest and contradictory. Inheritable copyholds simply meant that upon the death of the tenant, the land would be passed on to the oldest son on the same terms as before – subject to customary “law.” Copyhold for years, life or lives, however, was different. At the end of the allotted time, or, in the case of copyhold for life, on the death of the tenant, the copyhold could revert back to the lord in which case the holding could either be incorporated back into the demesne, converted to leasehold, or, in the instances where rents were not fixed, the value of its rent could be arbitrarily increased (a process known as rack-renting). Even in cases where rents were fixed, however, the lord could compensate by arbitrarily increasing entry fines to the re-grant of the copyhold, which was a power granted to him by virtue of his feudal lordship. This latter option could have the same effect as rack-renting – the eventual eviction of the tenant. In the context of declining feudal revenues and the absence of adequate political and military powers of lordship, the eventual goal for English landlords, therefore, was to convert copyhold to leasehold, which would give them the greatest flexibility in the exploitation of their tenants, because under leasehold rents would be subjected to market competition.40 The only thing that

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was preventing them from achieving this conversion, however, was the existence of manorial custom. In areas where feudal lordship was weak, freehold tenure was predominant and therefore, due to the relative unimportance of customary forms of communal regulation, the collective organization of customary peasants was low. Where feudal lordship was the strongest, we see the opposite: high levels of collective peasant organization and strong enforcement of customary rights through the manorial court.41 So although the village community was ultimately subjected to the power of the lord, villages were essentially small democracies of individual cultivators and proprietors who, despite the power of the lord, had space within which they could control their own means of production through the collective management of land and resources and the determination of the communal regulations – through collective decision making – that would govern the production process. The custom of the manor, therefore, is a series of law, restricted to the jurisdiction of the manor, by which peasants attempt to exert some control over the process of agricultural production and the enjoyment of their holdings. Because it is particular to the manor, there is no one “custom” but as many customary laws as there are manors in the whole of England. As Tawney points out, custom is a “body of rules which regulates the rights and obligations of peasants” in their daily activity. Having the force of law, it is “a kind of freedom” they can exercise; a kind of law to which they can turn to protect themselves against excessive and innovatory forms of lordly exploitation. The peasant notion of “good government” was therefore the “enforcement of an idealised customary.”42 In order to be enforced, custom had to pass a number of criteria: it had to be ancient, existing from “time out of mind”; it needed to be consistent in the sense of not conflicting with competing customary claims and rights; it needed to be continuous in the sense of having never been interrupted; it needed to be peaceable and non-coercive; and lastly, some sort of evidence was required to prove that it existed as custom. 43 Custom, therefore, formed the basis of manorial social relations through which peasants could, depending upon the extent of their self-organization, minimize the extent of exploitation they experienced at the hands of the landlord. Landlords, however, did not merely have to resort to the imposition of arbitrary fines (an exercise of lordly power) in order to override custom and expropriate the peasantry. They could also use the common law as an instrument of expropriation. The common law was based upon the logic of freehold tenure and the form of individual property rights that defined freehold. This allowed lords to appropriate the common law as their own law, given that their own demesnes were held in freehold, and use it to override the customary law of the manor. In this sense, the law itself could be used as a means of expropriating the customary peasantry with the intent of converting copyhold to leasehold. The common law, therefore, existed alongside and in antagonism with customary law, while the customary law was based upon the social relations of lordship and

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villein tenure and concerned itself with land use. Yet, while each system of law was predicated upon the logic of the rights of different forms of tenure, the common law did recognize the manorial jurisdiction of customary tenure – characterizing it as tenure at will – and did not intervene in the relations between lords and customary tenants for centuries. The customary law of the manor was more concerned with pragmatic concerns around land use by members of the community. As such, it was less concerned with abstract issues regarding inheritance as did the common law for freehold tenure. In the context of the crisis of feudal revenues, we are thus faced with a seemingly paradoxical situation. On the one hand, English feudal lords did not have the politico-juridical powers to re-enserf the peasantry as a response to the crisis of feudalism.44 As we have seen, this is due to the specific nature of their lordship – domestic lordship rather than territorial lordship. At the same time, however, the peasantry – due to its differentiation on the basis of wealth and status – was not strong enough, as a class, to achieve for itself full rights of property in land, as the peasantry in France had. In the face of declining incomes, English lords attempted to fall back on their powers of lordship in order to intensify the exploitation of the peasantry – what Brenner refers to as their “decentralized forms of feudal surplus extraction”.45 In the face of increased peasant resistance, particularly in 1381, these decentralized forms of feudal surplus extraction proved insufficient. To compensate for this, some feudal lords may have engaged in warfare overseas, using plunder to fill their coffers. In general, however, the landed classes turned toward the state not as a means of surplus extraction – as the absolutist tax/office state in France – but rather, as a guarantor of their absolute rights in private property over and against the claims of the customary peasantry. In the end, custom was being “swallowed up by the common law” as the common law became a tool used by the landed classes to dispossess customary tenants in the interest of large farmers and improving landlords. By the early 1600s, “property” had been redefined in ways that granted absolute rights of exclusion to the “owners” of land, while those who merely had “possession” were accorded inferior rights – if any. As E.P. Thompson argued in his historical work on the 18th century, the battle to retain customary use-rights to common land as against the encroachment of absolute and exclusive rights in land represented an arena of class conflict. The terrain of enclosure, the application of the common law and the assertion of custom by the peasantry “was a place of unqualified class conflict.” The common law, in the 16th and 17th centuries as well as the 18th, “was employed as an instrument of agrarian capitalism, furthering the “reasons” for improvement.”46 It is in this context of the changing nature of social property relations that the enclosure movement began to transform the nature of the English countryside. The process of enclosure, however, is complex and multifaceted and represented something much more significant than the mere fencing in of

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estates. Beginning in the late fifteenth century, there are examples of tenants consolidating their holdings through the erection of “closes”; that is, the consolidation of estates by hedging and fencing in their holdings and enjoying them in severalty. At this point in time, the consolidation of peasant holdings through enclosure was a qualitatively different phenomenon than the extinction of customary rights through the process of enclosure characteristic of the 16 th century. This initial process of consolidation did little to change the social relations of the manor. In fact, on manors where peasant organization was very strong, these closes were still subjected to communal regulation. The consolidation of holdings, therefore, should more accurately be called “redivision” or “re-allotment” of holdings as opposed to enclosure, for there is a qualitative difference between the enclosures enacted by peasants on the manor with the intent of consolidating their holdings and the enclosure by landlords and large farmers with the intent of converting arable land to pasture. Enclosure by consent amongst the peasantry did not result in depopulation, unemployment, vagabondage and vagrancy: in short, social dislocation. But despite the fact that a distinction needs to be made by these two qualitatively different forms of enclosure, the consolidation of peasant holdings did, argues Tawney, act in a limited way, as a pre-cursor to the development of the large scale commercial farming of the 16th century: “Such piecemeal alterations are a gradual process; they are not regarded unfavourable by the peasantry; and a balance between their tentative individualism and the rule of communal custom is preserved by the action of the manorial court. They are to be carefully distinguished from the sweeping innovations of the sixteenth century, which alone deserve the name of an Agrarian Revolution. But they are closely connected with that revolution. For by making a breach in the walls of custom they bring us to the edge of two great problems, the growth of competitive rents, and the formation of large pasture farms out of the holdings of evicted tenants.”47

On the one hand, therefore, the consolidation of peasant holdings through the creation of “closes” are, in villages characterized by a high degree of collective organization and a strong adherence to custom, subjected to communal regulations. On the other hand, Tawney argues that the consolidation of peasant holdings occurred in areas that are most exposed to trade, and as such, the seeds of capitalism began to emerge in the rise of commercial activity that takes place on these newly consolidated holdings. While enclosure by the peasantry, therefore, does not alter the social landscape of the manorial economy, they do serve as a portent of things to come. Yet it remains questionable to what extent the process of peasant consolidation of holdings provided a model to be emulated by the improving landlords and capitalist tenant farmers of the 16 th century. The significance that

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Tawney grants the consolidation of peasant holdings in the transition from feudalism to capitalism seems to come close to Dobb’s and Hilton’s characterization of the rise of capitalism as a process of liberating the petty commodity producing segments of the peasantry. While Tawney does not go so far as to argue that this group of enclosing peasants formed the basis of some “kulak” class of petty commodity producers that would climb the social ladder in order to become capitalist tenant-farmers, he does say that their petty commodity production represents the first stage in the progressive attack on custom and as such, provides a model for the enclosure movement of the 16 th century. This exploitation of market opportunities by petty commodity producing peasants therefore represents a kind of “proto-capitalist” form of production. Yet Tawney has difficulty in demonstrating how this activity is indeed proto-capitalist. The exploitation of market opportunities is not in itself a form of capitalist activity, neither by middling peasants, nor by landlords rearing sheep for a growing market in linens. Despite Tawney’s ambiguous treatment of the enclosing peasant of the 15th century, he is clear that what is significant about the enclosure movement as a whole is the elimination of the communal and customary forms of regulating agrarian production. It is in this sense that enclosures, as a means of literally enclosing a portion of the demesne by erecting hedges or fences, were less significant for the development of agrarian capitalism than were enclosures as a means of “freeing” the land from the collective decision-making processes and communal regulations of the peasant community. Enclosure, therefore, was less about engrossing disparate plots of land, but rather, dissolving the communal regulations of production on customary tenancies and subjecting agricultural production to market competition between producers holding commercial leases, thereby stimulating a compulsory dynamic of agrarian “improvement.”48 As Comninel points out, the enclosure movement did not have much effect on freehold tenure because where freehold existed there was little basis for communal regulation.49 Custom, and its subsequent erosion at the hands of the landlords by means of the common law, therefore becomes crucial in understanding the enclosure movements of the 16th and 17th centuries. Land hungry lords, facing a crisis of lordly incomes, systematically attempted to remove peasant holdings from the rubric of custom in an attempt to either rackrent, or, in other cases, to incorporate the holding back into the demesne for the purposes of converting it to pasture so that it may be employed to graze sheep for the burgeoning woolen market on the basis of leasehold tenure. If agrarian capitalism necessitated the extinction of communal forms of regulation, and if agrarian capitalism is not characterized by the exploitation of market opportunities either by petty commodity producing peasants, landlords, or large tenant-farmers, how do we begin to identify the process of capitalist transition? As we have seen, for Tawney, the consolidation of peasant holdings in the 15th century marked the beginnings of a “breach in the wall of custom”

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and the emergence of proto-capitalist forms of petty commodity production by the freehold peasantry.50 But this in itself is not enough to initiate the agrarian revolution of the 16th century, for, as we have seen, the consolidation of peasant holdings did not result in the enclosure movement of the 16 th century; it merely presented landlords and the wealthier leasehold farmers with a model to emulate when they sought to convert arable to pasture. Both Tawney and Comninel point out that the small leasehold farmer often lacked the resources to meet the high levels of investment required to convert arable to pasture. 51 But even when demesne land was leased to small customary tenants, the result was continuity with older forms of peasant production, not a movement towards agrarian capitalism. In some cases, small groups of peasants would collectively strike a bargain with the lord in order to prevent its letting out by a wealthy farmer. Under these conditions, the demesne land was therefore leased collectively and farmed collectively, forging continuity with older forms of communal cultivation. In other cases, the demesne was leased to a number of small tenants who would divide up the demesne and till it in severalty on long leases. The initiative, therefore, had to come from the wealthier segment of the peasantry in collaboration with the landlords: “The structure of private property interests based upon freehold tenure gave them [feudal lords] the means to involve the wealthy peasant “yeoman” in a new role, as tenants of freehold leases of large farms (which created freehold interests even for those tenants who held their own land by customary tenure). Together, these landlords and tenants (with the latter providing at least a substantial amount of operating capital) restructured agrarian production for their mutual benefit. Above all this meant, through one or another form of enclosure, either escaping from, or extinguishing, the normative regulation of land use by the customary peasant community.”52

Thus, the introduction of capitalist agriculture comes from the leasehold farmers, or more specifically, the large leasehold farmers. The development of agrarian capitalism, in terms of the rise of a series of social relations characterized by market dependency which compelled direct producers to act in what we now recognize as capitalist ways, must therefore be viewed as an historical process; in this sense, when we speak of the market imperative of the capitalist market, we cannot rely on this imperative itself as the explanatory factor in the transition to capitalism. 53 To do so would be to fall back on a kind of abstraction called the market imperative and imbue that with an agency working behind the backs of the direct producers in English society. Initially, farmers and landlords – as well as merchants attempting to buy their way into the gentry through leasing large tracts of land – were indeed attempting to take advantage of market opportunities made available by the opening up of pre-capitalist markets in woolen. This does not mean, however, that they were

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engaging in capitalist forms of production at this point in time. Nor does it mean that their mere intention of profiting from market opportunities signify that producers are capitalists. In fact, the conversion of arable to pasture for the purpose of creating sheep runs seems to represent merely an attempt to take advantage of high prices for woolen in what was essentially a non-capitalist overseas market. Despite the facilitating effect that the expansion of overseas woolen markets had on raising rents and increasing competition for land, it was the development of capitalist agriculture that marked the truly revolutionary development of this period. The rise in grain prices presented wealthier yeomen with opportunities to increase the profitability of their farms. To do so, however, necessitated the existence of freehold farms on the basis of leasehold; that is, a form of tenure that was not subject to communal forms of regulation while at the same time being subject to competitive rents. 54 Given that English tenant farmers only had access to their holdings through the medium of the commercial lease, they were compelled to treat their holding as a commercial investment as opposed to merely a self-sufficient holding geared towards family subsistence. Whereas subsistence farming tended to pit animal grazing and arable cultivation in competition with each other, the development of capitalist social-property relations facilitated their mutual reinforcement in the sense that “animal production had to increase in relation to arable in order to provide manure and ploughing to counter the tendency to declining fertility of the soil.”55 Arable and animal husbandry became bound in a symbiotic relationship through “up-anddown” farming, in which animals provided manure for cultivation and grain surpluses fed increased stocks of animals. The significant development here is that “yeoman” farmers attaining leasehold gained mastery over the process of production – unfettered by the regulations of custom – all the while being subject to the pressures of competitive rents. By the latter half of the sixteenth century, agricultural production developed in accordance with what Brenner calls “capitalist processes conditioned by the new system of social relations” in which both the direct producers and the organizers of production “no longer possessed their full means of reproduction”. As a result, both were “compelled to produce systematically for the market.” The competition that accrued between tenants – both in terms of land, but also increasingly in terms of the emerging domestic market in agricultural goods – and the competition emerging between landlords for productive and wealth tenants “stimulated cost-cutting, thus specialization and improvement, leading over time to the replacement of small, relatively inefficient peasant tenants by larger capitalist tenants, thus underpinning an agricultural transformation.”56 In sum, the growth of population resulted in an increase in the price of grain, which provided wealthy yeomen farmers with new opportunities to make profits from their holdings. Given that competitive leasehold tenure compelled

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tenant farmers to view their holdings less as self-sufficient units for subsistence production and more as commercial investments, the exploitation of the advantages available by the price revolution of the 16 th century seemed a rational course of action for tenant farmers. It is important to point out, however, that the rise in grain prices alone cannot be said to have accounted for the agrarian revolution of the 16th century. Rather, it was the rise in grain prices in the context of the newly emerging capitalist social-property relations of the leasehold tenure that provided the impetus for “improved” agriculture. As Brenner sums it up: “by the end of the seventeenth century the English evolution towards agrarian capitalism had brought about the end of the age-old “fusion” of the “economic” and the “political”, and the emergence of an institutional separation between state and civil society. With the breakthrough of economic development, manifested above all in the increasing productivity of labour, the achievement of wealth ceased to be essentially the zero-sum game it had been under feudal socialproductive relations. In turn, the amassing and direct application of force in order to redistribute a strictly limited social product ceased to be the sine qua non for the success of the ruling class. English development had distinguished itself from that in most places on the Continent in two critical, interrelated aspects. It was marked by the rise of a capitalist aristocracy which was presiding over an agricultural revolution.”57

The transition from feudalism to capitalism, therefore, as it was played out through the enclosure movement, broadly defined, represented a “wholesale transformation of agrarian practices, in which rights are assigned away from users and in which ancient feudal title is richly compensated in its translation into capitalist property-right.”58 As James Holstun has recently pointed out, the conflict over enclosure can therefore best be regarded as a “struggle between rival models of the human relationship to the land: between a rights-based model that gave the direct producers some measure of immediate access to the agrarian means of production, and a model of absolute property that gave them such access only through the mediation of the capitalist wage form.”59

Market Dependence and Uneven Development Through the long-term process of enclosure, characterized by the extinction of customary forms of communal regulation and the conversion of copyhold to leasehold in order to exploit existing market opportunities either in the form of sheep runs or ley farming, the market underwent a transition. Increasing dependence on the market led both peasant producers and landlords to become

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subjected to new economic imperatives for their social reproduction, resulting in the increased need to compete by “improving” the process of agricultural production. In this sense, we can characterize this form of market dependence as the beginning of the development of agrarian capitalism. 60 While agrarian capitalism in the 17th century did not represent a fully developed capitalist society – that is, an agrarian analogue to industrial capitalism – it did represent significant economic and social changes that would lay the foundation for the development of industrial capitalism in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. However, it is only in hindsight that we can characterize agrarian capitalism as a period of social transition from one mode of social exploitation, feudalism, to another, industrial capitalism.61 Two points need to be made when attempting to characterize English commercial agriculture as “capitalist.” First, it needs to be pointed out that as a phase of social transition, agrarian capitalism is not necessarily characterized by the total commodification of productive inputs, particularly in terms of labor power. This is a crucial and controversial point that deals with the issue of proletarianization and its relationship to market dependence. As such, there is no consensus amongst Marxist interpretations of the period regarding the causal relationship between capitalist development and proletarianization. Secondly, we need to keep in mind the uneven and protracted development of capitalist agriculture. As with any process of social transition, the development of agrarian capitalism emerged in specific geographical locales in the English countryside and spread only over the course of time. The point here, however, is to identify whether or not capitalist social property relations – while in the minority – are nonetheless in ascendancy, extinguishing and dissolving older forms of social relations characteristic of the passing feudal era. The issue of proletarianization can be dealt with first. In his classic study of the 17th century, Macpherson characterized England as a “possessive market society,” 62 distinguishing it – on the basis of a number of significant factors – from what he called a “status” or “customary” society on the one hand, and a “simple market society” on the other hand. A customary society is characterized by a number of factors that make it antithetical to a modern, possessive market society: all producers are tied to the land, labor – and the rewards stemming from labor – is authoritatively allocated on the basis of status, and absolute and unconditional rights to private property are absent from the economy, preventing the development of a market in land. A simple market economy – while possessing some of the necessary conditions for the development of a possessive market economy – is not sufficient for its development and existence; it remains a society dominated by petty commodity producers who remain in possession or ownership of their own means of subsistence despite the fact that their economic activity is oriented towards the market. In other words, while a simple market economy is characterized by a market in goods, it lacks a market in land and labor. In contrast to this, a

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possessive market society is characterized by the full development of markets in land and labor, thereby resulting in the polarization of society along the lines of owners of capital and owners of labor power. Thus, the existence of proletarianization is a key factor in defining the nature of a possessive market society. The problem with Macpherson’s ideal type possessive market society is precisely its idealism: it represents an ideal of 19th century industrial capitalism superimposed on 17th century England. Despite his insistence that the majority of producers in 17th century England were proletarianized wage-laborers, the fact remains that proletarianization remained the exception – not the rule – right up to the close of the century. We will return to this point in a moment. Suffice to say the absence of mass proletarianization – along the lines that Macpherson has characterized it – has posed problems for the applicability of his possessive market model. This absence has been emphasized by critics of the agrarian capitalist thesis who – like Macpherson – insist that proletarianization is the causal factor behind capitalist development. In his critique of the Brenner thesis, Rob Albritton argues that “purely capitalist agriculture” requires, like purely capitalist industry, the formal and real subsumption of labor power under capital. The real subsumption of labor power entails a process of outright proletarianization, as opposed to the semi-proletarianized condition of the poor smallholder, or the cottager working in a domestic “putting out system” in which production is organized “from the outside” by merchants.63 From this perspective, “agrarian capitalism” is not really capitalist at all, for it does not conform to the logic of “pure capitalism.” While it may be a necessary condition for the development of capitalism, it is not a form of capitalism itself. Rather, capitalism, argues Albritton, emerged out of the putting out system in domestic manufacture, a process that entailed the real subsumption of labor to the circuit of merchant capital. The issue here is not whether English agriculture provided the necessary conditions for the development of industrial capitalism, but whether English agriculture was itself a form of capitalist development. In the end, this debate resolves around two different understandings of the “logic” of capital. For Albritton, “Capital’s logic is derived from historically self-abstracting tendencies of capital itself, but the abstract theoretical logic that Marx attempts to express in Capital is never fully present in history.”64 This logic requires the existence of a proletariat wholly subsumed to the dictates of capital. For Zmolek (as for Wood and Brenner), the logic of capital is based on the social relations of market dependent producers and appropriators that results in an imperative drive towards increasing the productive capacity of the labor process through “improvement” in the interest of increasing “surplus value.” This logic is fully present in history; in fact, there is no other way we can understand this logic. Thus, for Albritton, capitalist development is predicated upon commercially oriented agriculture, yet it is to be found in the development of the putting out system in the 18th century. Capitalism is industrial capitalism.

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For Zmolek and Wood, capitalist development is predicated upon the existence of social property relations characterized by the market dependence of both producers and appropriators that results in a competitive dynamic of production and distribution. This condition of market dependence can be traced back to the emergence of commercial leases and the marketization of land beginning in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. However, English agrarian capitalism does not merely represent an agricultural variant of full-blown industrial capitalism, what Albritton calls “purely capitalist agriculture”; yet neither does it conform to Macpherson’s “possessive market economy” characterized by fully developed capital-labor relations. To assess the capitalist nature of English agriculture from the standpoint of “pure capitalism” (i.e., Marx’s theoretical elaboration of industrial capitalism found in Capital) or “possessive individualism” is to work backwards; working from an abstract model of a fully developed capitalist system that can never in fact be historically realized in order to assess the nature of actually existing social relations as they exist in history. Yet this merely substitutes abstract “levels of analysis” theory for historical process and fails to address the issue of the qualitative transformation of the market from that of a “sphere” of opportunity to one of an imperative that is required to explain the development of capitalism in either its agrarian or industrial forms. 65 It therefore needs to be re-emphasized that the development of agrarian capitalism does not result from the proletarianization of the peasantry; rather, the proletarianization of the peasantry is the eventual result of the increased market dependence of agrarian producers.66 In this sense, agrarian capitalism “does not require the commodification of labor-power as its prerequisite, but the latter does require the processes of agrarian capitalism (the creation of a competitive market in land leases, enclosures and the dispossession of the peasantry, improved techniques and productivity in agriculture, population growth and falling prices of necessities), in order to emerge.”67 To claim that capitalism emerges out of the real subsumption of domestic workers in the putting out system by merchant capital begs the question of the market dependence that is so central to the dynamic of capitalist production and development. It is problematic, therefore, to identify the existence of agrarian capitalism primarily on the basis of fully commodified wage labor – that is, the existence of a permanent rural proletariat. Thus, while the number of landless peasants was undoubtedly increasing between the 16th and 17th centuries, the extent of proletarianization was an uneven and protracted process. Yet, the extent of proletarianization was progressing during the 17th century: the number of landless peasants had increased from roughly 11% of the peasant population in the mid-16th century, to approximately 40% by 1640.68 A number of different forms of agricultural labor existed side-by-side in the context of agrarian capitalism: day laborers who were paid for the labor they engaged in over a fixed period of time; servants in husbandry, or young agricultural “apprentices,”

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who entered into a paternalistic relationship with an agricultural “master”; and task workers who were paid for a particular skilled service, such as ditching or hedging. By the late seventeenth century, day laborers seem to have become predominant in the south and east of England, while servants in husbandry were still prevalent in the north and west.69 Secondly, and this relates to the previous issue as well, it is also important to qualify the extent to which agrarian capitalism had spread across the English countryside by the mid-seventeenth century. The “enclosure movement” consisted of various phases of development: first, the enclosure of arable for pasture; and secondly, the conversion of enclosed pasture back to tillage in the form of ley farming. Just as important, however, is the process by which enclosure was conducted. In the Tudor and early Stuart eras, most enclosure occurred outside the auspices of parliamentary sanction, meaning that it was often a de facto process of enclosure resulting in the elimination of customary rights to the commons without recourse to act of Parliament. 70 In some instances – particularly in the 1630s – such enclosures were increasingly prohibited by the Crown. Both James and Charles were known to have opposed the process of enclosure for their own particular interests (usually related to the material interests of the Crown as an institution). The period after the Civil War, Revolution and Restoration witnessed a transition in the means by which land became enclosed. With the removal of feudal tenures having been completed during the interregnum, enclosure could now proceed with the sanction of parliament. As a result, the period of parliamentary enclosure witnessed a rapid expansion of enclosed land and the increased proliferation of the social relations of agrarian capitalism, particularly after the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Even in Locke’s time, capitalist farms were still the exception, not the norm: “Capital farms were becoming increasingly important, but small family farmers, importing grain from other areas and using the customary common pastures, still predominated numerically in the country as a whole, although they were concentrated in the pastoral and forest regions of the north, the moorlands of the southwest, the vales of the West Midlands, and the eastern lowlands. Agrarian capitalism had succeeded in monopolizing the specialized corn growing and the mixed corn and livestock countries: the wolds and downlands, the laoms and brecks of East Anglia, and the vales and lowland plains. In these regions there was a marked concentration of landownership at the expense of small holders, and being a large tenant farmer was often more profitable than remaining landowner.”71

By the mid-seventeenth century, the social relations of agrarian capitalism were limited to the south and southeast of the English countryside, and they often existed alongside traditional “feudal” social relations. However, as enclosure spread, and as the consequent proliferation of proletarianization followed in

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tandem, it is apparent that the social relations of agrarian capitalism were nonetheless in the ascendancy in the 17th century. By 1600, as much as 47% of the English countryside was enclosed, although the majority of arable land was still held in common. While the Parliamentary enclosure of the 18 th century is still significant to the development of agrarian capitalism, it represents a process of consolidation and completion, not one of emergence. Thus, while it is the eighteenth century that is typically considered to be the century of agrarian capitalism, the dynamic of agrarian capitalism – that is, the social relations of market dependence amongst landlords, tenant farmers and their semiproletarianized laborers as opposed to the “real subsumption” of labor in the form of outright proletarianization – can be traced back through the seventeenth century all the way back to at least the early 16th century.72 Ultimately, the proof of the capitalist nature of English agriculture rests in its unique productivity; unprecedented agricultural developments that resulted in divergent paths of economic development between England and the countries of the continent. First off, England became the leading grain and cereal producer with a smaller agricultural workforce employed in its production. Thus, English agriculture was more productive per unit of production than for example, farms in France. Urban population growth – resulting from enclosures and the increased productivity of agriculture – dwarfed that of any other country on the continent in the early modern period. The disproportionate growth of London was not only the result of the effects of the enclosure in the region of its initial emergence (the South and South-East), but also represented the growth of a unified domestic market – with London as its financial hub – characteristic of capitalist development. Indeed the unique development of English agrarian capitalism was recognized by foreign observers – particularly in France – and served as a model of replication throughout the 18 th century, right up to the French revolution. France’s agricultural writers “drew their exemplary models from England”, and the example of unique English agricultural dynamism framed the context of the political economy of the physiocrats.73 Not only physiocrats, but French “commercial republicans” in the revolutionary period identified the agrarian revolution in England as the key to self-sustaining economic growth in their own country. 74

Coercion, Class and State Power The development of agrarian capitalism therefore entails the reconfiguration of class relations in the English countryside. As we have seen, the development of agrarian capitalism gave rise to the differentiation of the peasantry out of which emerged a class of capitalist tenant-farmers and a class of semi-proletarianized cottagers, smallholders and property-less wage-laborer. Atop this class structure sits the “improving” landlord in place of the feudal landlord who based his

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powers of exploitation upon extra-economic forms of surplus extraction. Together, each class constitutes the famous “trinity formula” of landlord, capitalist tenant-farmer and rural wage-laborer upon which Marx placed so much significance for the development of agrarian capitalism. 75 What is significant about this specific form of class structure is the way in which the relationships between each class are reconfigured to express different forms of social power or disempowerment. Under capitalism, the older feudal forms of surplus extraction and appropriation, as well as the social functions of production and distribution are “privatized” in the sense that all of these relations of power lose their formally political character. The moment of political domination becomes detached from the moment of economic appropriation, resulting in the formal separation of the political and the economic “spheres” of social life. In capitalism, as we have seen, the extraeconomic forms of surplus extraction that are bound to politically constituted forms of private property are dissolved and replaced by purely economic forms of surplus extraction. What this means is that the appropriation of surplus labor occurs in the “economic” sphere by purely “economic” means, as opposed to the extra-economic forms of surplus extraction that occur under politically constituted forms of private property characteristic of pre-capitalist societies; the landlord no longer appropriates the surplus produce of the direct producers through the use of his political rights as a lord; for example, in the form of imposition feudal exactions such as entry fines, merchet, forced labor, etc. The capitalist does not appropriate the surplus labor of the worker by virtue his political power, as the feudal lord did by means of his political and juridical rights of lordship, but rather by virtue of the fact that he has purchased the labor power of the worker for a given period of time. This can happen because the direct producer and the appropriator of surplus labor are separated from the nonmarket access to the means of their own subsistence. Appropriation now occurs through the imposition of competitive rents through the form of the commercial lease. The significance of this is that “the social allocation of resources and labor does not, on the whole, take place by means of political direction, communal deliberation, hereditary duty, custom or religious obligation, but rather through the mechanisms of commodity exchange.”76 On the one hand, therefore, the worker is no longer tied to the land, as is the peasantry; and on the other hand, the capitalist possesses no political powers of social exploitation, as did the feudal lord. Exploitation, therefore, does not occur through direct forms of political coercion, but rather, through the compulsive mediations of the market: “The differentiation of the economic sphere in capitalism, then, can be summed up like this: the social functions of production and distribution, surplus extraction and appropriation, and the allocation of social labour are, so to speak, privatized and they are achieved by non-authoritative, non-political means. In other words, the social allocation of resources and labour does not, on the whole, take place

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This separation of political forms of extra-economic surplus extraction from purely economic forms of surplus extraction has a significant impact on the social basis of power of the landed classes (which, as we will see, transforms their relationship to the state) and alters the nature of conflict and struggle between the lords of manors and the direct producers – in this case, small peasants undergoing a process of proletarianization. The social power of the landlord is now predicated upon his ability to compel tenant farmers to compete with one another through the form of competitive rents. Such compulsion, due to the market dependence of tenant-farmers, represents an imperative to increase agricultural productivity. The logic is simple: in a market of competitive leases, tenant farmers are compelled to increase their productivity in order to meet the demands of rent increases or face the prospects of eviction from the leasehold. The corollary of this form of market dependence and productive imperative is that both the tenant-farmer and the landlord develop an interest in the “improvement” (i.e., productive development) of agricultural practices.78 Thus, a new social dynamic of agricultural improvement emerges under the social relations of agrarian capitalism: “This unique system of market dependence entails specific systemic requirements and compulsions shared by no other mode of production: the imperatives of competition, accumulation, and profit maximisation. And these imperatives, in turn, mean that capitalism can and must constantly expand in ways and degrees unlike any other social form. It can and must constantly accumulate, constantly search out new markets, constantly impose its imperatives on new territories and new spheres of life, on all human beings and the natural environment.”79

Thus, capitalist tenant-farmers exist in a relationship of competition with each other over the very inputs that they need to reproduce themselves as individuals and as a class. Given the “free” nature of labor, the only way to appropriate a greater surplus is to intensify labor productivity by increasing control over the labor process and increase the concentration of estates into fewer hands. Agrarian capitalism is therefore characterized by a new constellation of class relations, in which landlords and direct producers are both subjected to the imperatives of the market. This new constellation of class relations brings with it

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new forms of social power and domination, as well as a new social dynamic of improvement and the expansion of capitalist-social property relations: “Agrarian capitalism involved the unique triad of economic agents – landlords, “capitalist” tenant-farmers, and rural wage labourers – familiar to any reader of Adam Smith. These agents operated in relations to one another according to the “rules” of a new economic logic, which, over time, rendered the various agents increasingly dependent upon markets in order to maintain and reproduce their position in the economy. This increasing market-dependence eventually drew the whole of the production process into the circuit of market exchange, thus commodifying all the factors of production. The fact that this triad is only evidenced in England strongly suggests the uniqueness of agrarian capitalism as a social system distinct from pre-capitalist agrarian, or later industrial capitalist, social logics.”80

The imperative to increase agricultural productivity and the increasing proletarianization of the poorer segments of the peasantry provides the capitalist tenant-farmer and the lord of the manor with the opportunity to exploit wagelabor for the purposes of increased productivity. 81 Given the deterioration and elimination of customary regulations on production and the dominance of absolute rights in property through the common law, tenant-farmers and lords of manors enjoy a new form of market power over wage-labor.82 Once dispossessed, the only means of subsistence available to the laborer is his or her capacity to sell her labor power to a buyer. The ability to purchase the labor power of another individual gives the buyer control over how that labor is organized. This assumes the form of the intensity of work, the conditions under which that labor is performed, as well as the power to hire and fire; all actions freed from customary regulation. Thus, the old overt coercions of labor control now begin to assume a different form. Rather than assume a form that is either external to the process of production itself, or that is explicitly political in form, the control of labor now assumes the form of total control, within the process of production itself, over wage-laborers who are compelled, by the fact that they have been separated from their non-market access to the means of their own subsistence, to sell their labor power for a wage. In this way, it can be said that “in no other system has social production answered to immediately and universally to the demands of the exploiter.”83 Far from representing a sphere of opportunity, then, the emergence of the capitalist market represents a new form of coercion; and far from representing a fully capitalist or “possessive” market society, agrarian capitalism merely represents a stage of profound social transformation in the transition from feudalism to capitalism. The separation of the political and the economic under agrarian capitalism also had a significant impact on the relationship between the aristocracy and the Crown. The result of this changing relationship was a transformation of the role of the state. Under capitalism, the political and

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economic “spheres” of social life are differentiated to the extent that class power becomes something distinct – but not separate – from political and state power. In this sense, then, class power of surplus extraction is said to be differentiated from state power in new ways, which makes capitalism qualitatively different from the pre-capitalist societies that preceded it.84 This differentiation between the political and the economic, between class power and state power, does not mean, however, that the state is not necessary for the maintenance of capitalism. Indeed, this formal separation of political power from economic exploitation conceals a real inseparability between politics and economics. Even under capitalism, the state is intimately involved in ensuring the existence of these social forms of power and exploitation – through the law, through property relations, etc. The English state became particularly instrumental in securing the creation of a labor market in the early modern period through the extension of enclosure, the establishment of capital crimes against property in order to prevent laborers from finding non-market alternatives to subsistence, and through the transformation of the Poor Laws in order to instill greater market discipline in the emerging workforce.85 There is, therefore, some relationship between the state and the social dynamic that is created by the antagonistic forms of exploitation that exists between classes even in capitalist society, to the extent that the state may “become directly implicated as the object of struggle between the classes.”86 The significance here is that because the relationship between class power and state power changes under capitalism – through the differentiation of the “economic” and the “political” – the nature of the state, and therefore the conflicts surrounding the state, assume a different form. What is significant about the separation of the political and the economic under capitalism and its impact on the role of the state is that, on the one hand, the political, legal and military powers and privileges that are dissolved by capitalist social-property relations are assumed by an increasingly public state apparatus; on the other hand, the powers of surplus appropriation at the hands of a class of private individuals are strengthened and consolidated at the point of production through the power to intensify the productive capacity of labor. In this sense, “The political sphere in capitalism has a special character because the coercive power supporting capitalist exploitation is not wielded directly by the appropriator and is not based on the producer’s political or juridical subordination to an appropriating master. But a coercive power and a structure of domination remain essential, even if the ostensible freedom and equality of the exchange between capital and labour mean that the “moment” of coercion is separate from the “moment” of appropriation. Absolute private property, the contractual relation that binds producer to appropriator, the process of commodity exchange – all these require the legal forms, the coercive apparatus, the policing functions of the state. Historically, too the

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state has been essential to the process of expropriation that is the basis of capitalism. In all these sense, despite their differentiation, the economic sphere rests firmly on the political.”87

An example of this changing nature of the state, and the particular forms of social and political conflict that emerge as a result, can be seen in early modern England. In England, the emergence of agrarian capitalism fundamentally changed the nature of the landed aristocracy and the way they related, socially and politically, to the English Crown. 88 The new relations of power possessed by lords in the form of absolute property rights and the economic powers of surplus extraction did not assume the form of privileged juridical status or the capacity to utilize armed force as it did under feudalism. Rather, as we have seen above, the ability to appropriate the surplus produce of the laboring classes assumed a purely “economic” form, predicated upon the ability to separate the rural producer from the direct non-market access to his or her means of subsistence by mediating it through the market. Thus, the social basis of the power of the English landed classes – both landlord and tenant farmers – took on a specific form that distinguished it from older feudal forms of social power and fundamentally changed the relationship between the aristocracy and the Crown. In effect, the relationship of feudal dependence between the landed aristocracy and the Crown disintegrated. The English aristocracy ceased to rely for their survival on the exercise of extra-economic forms of surplus extraction, such as the direct use of force over the peasantry (as in France), and ceded these powers to an increasingly unified English state in return for the protection of a system of property relations in which landlords relied upon rents accrued from marketdependent commercial tenants. In effect, the reliance on economic forms of income (competitive rents) severed the dependent relationship between the landed classes and the Crown. No longer did the landed classes need to rely on the distribution of political offices and privileges at the hands of the Crown for their source of income. Thus, the English landed classes did not compete with each other for state offices, seeking a “piece” of the state in terms of politically constituted property. Rather than a state that would give them access to private property, what the landed classes needed was a state that protected existing private property rights, and this precluded the development of a continental form of royal absolutism. In relation to its European counterparts, the English state “represented the most unified and solidified institutional system in Western Europe at this date.”89 The severing of this dependent relationship between the landed classes and the Crown also had a significant impact on the ability of the Crown to reproduce itself in traditional ways, for the basis of its social power rested in the creation of a patrimonial following – that is, a group of nobles and courtiers dependent upon the King for political privileges essential for their survival.90 The movement towards landlord dependence on competitive rents rather than politically constituted property (in the form of the coercive extraction of

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customary and fixed rents among other extra-economic forms of surplus extraction) deprived the Crown of its traditional social basis of political power. The changing nature of the relationship between the aristocracy and the Crown would have its impact on conflicts over the nature of the state itself. Thus, the potential for conflict between the landed classes and the Crown over issues of property increased in the early modern period and assumed the political form of constitutional disputes over prerogative and the nature of the “ancient constitution.” On the one hand, therefore, we have a landed aristocracy that is now dependent upon economically competitive rents for its economic survival as opposed to access to politically constituted forms of private property. On the other hand, we have an English monarchy that is head of an increasingly centralized state, characterized by a universal legal jurisdiction and a monopoly on the legitimate use of force, yet at the same time, is losing its access to independent forms of wealth for its economic survival. What exists, therefore, is a new relationship of interdependence: the landed aristocracy is dependent upon the powers of the Crown to maintain the sanctity of private property from those who would challenge it; and the Crown is dependent upon the landed aristocracy’s consent – through parliament – to forms of taxation that would enable it to survive. Constitutionalism is therefore bound up with the need to institutionalize capitalist social property relations, and the specific “problematic” of English constitutionalist thought pertains to the need to keep the state out of the private sphere of capitalist property relations. The development of capitalist social property relations also transformed the nature of the conflict between the direct producers and the lords of manors. Modes and discourses of resistance underwent a significant transformation from the late medieval period to the early modern period, as peasants and wagelaborers attempted to resist the new forms of exploitation that were emerging in the countryside. In the late medieval period, given the nature of feudal lordship, peasant resistance took the form of either the tax revolt, the rent strike, or, something peculiar to England, the contestation of the nature of peasant status. Notions of “freedom” were derived from these conflicts over the nature of free peasant status. However, as the powers of lordly appropriation became depoliticized, that is, as they began to be shorn of their extra-economic “embellishments,” and assume more economic forms, the nature of peasant struggles and the discourse of resistance by peasants and laborers alike, began to change. From tax revolts and rent strikes we begin to see novel forms of resistance: enclosure riots aimed at reclaiming customary rights and access to the “commons” and, as a semi-proletarianized workforce assumed a more numerous and permanent presence in England, the development of programs – particularly that of the Diggers – to withdraw wage-labor and freely cultivate the wastes and commons. Similarly, the discourse of tyranny are no longer limited to the “political” sphere of arbitrary state and/or lordly power but redefined to

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describe the despotism of the “economic” under agrarian capitalism, and the new forms of control over the labor of the poor. Yet, the separation of the economic from the political and the dissolution of extra-economic forms of surplus extraction based on lordly status also opened up possibilities for democratization. As the state became increasingly differentiated from the private powers of surplus extraction, space opened up in the political sphere for experimentation in practical and discursive forms of democracy. Since differential political status was no longer an important aspect of class exploitation, the traditional forms of status based hierarchy that precluded democratic politics began to weaken. Given that the state was no longer viewed as a form of private property – an institution that was directly implicated in the appropriation of the surplus labor of peasants and laborers – and given that a monopoly over political and legal jurisdiction was no longer required to secure the surplus labor of the laboring classes, the potential emerged for radical movements to democratize political life in England. In it is this context that groups and movements like the Levellers – with their ties to the “middling sort of people” and the “London mob” – emerged to challenge the existing distribution of landed property and political power. The development of agrarian capitalism was therefore a contradictory process that brought with it new forms of social power and exploitation, on the one hand, and opened up new avenues of radical politics on the other. It therefore becomes necessary for us to have an understanding of the nature of agrarian capitalism if we are to have an historical understanding of the different forms of lower class radicalism that emerge in early modern England for it is within this context that radical political thought begins to emerge.

Notes 1. For general overviews of the issues and debates regarding the transition from feudalism to capitalism, see Wood, Origin; Richard Lachmann, “Origins of Capitalism in Western Europe: Economic and Political Aspects,” Annual Review of Sociology 14 (1989): 47-72; Mooers, Bourgeois Europe; Robert Duplessis, Robert, Transitions to Capitalism in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997); R.J. Holton, “Marxist Theories of Social Change and the Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism,” Theory and Society 10 (1981): 833-67; R.J. Holton, The Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1985). For significant individual contributions to the debates, see Rodney Hilton, “Introduction,” In The Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism, ed. Rodney Hilton (London: Verso, 1978); Maurice Dobb, Studies in the Development of Capitalism (New York: International Publishers, 1970); T.H. Aston and C.H.E. Philpin, eds., The Brenner Debate (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987); Richard Lachmann, Capitalists in Spite of Themselves (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000); Comninel, “English Feudalism”; John E. Martin,

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Feudalism to Capitalism: Peasant and Landlord in English Agrarian Development (London: Macmillan Press, 1983). For an interesting account of the rise of agrarian capitalism in Scotland, see Davidson, “The Scottish Path, I & II.” 2. For an interesting discussion of Marx’s treatment of primitive accumulation, see Michael Perelman, The Invention of Capitalism (Duke University Press, 2000). Perelman argues that a tension exists within Marx’s work regarding the way in which he characterizes the development of capitalism. On the one hand, he discusses the role that the violent expropriation of the direct producers through a process of primitive accumulation plays in the initial development of capitalism. Later, however, the market itself takes on a coercive form through the compulsions of competition. Thus, primitive accumulation is displaced as a means for the global spread of capitalism in Marx’s work. Perelman seeks to re-establish the violence of primitive accumulation alongside the coercions of capitalist competition in the contemporary globalization of capitalist social relations. 3. Karl Marx, Capital: volume 1 (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976), 875-6. 4. Brenner, “The Social Basis,” “Bourgeois Revolution.” 5. Marx, Capital I, 878. 6. Dobb, Studies. 7. This is opposed to Sweeny’s insistence that the solvent of feudalism be located “outside” of feudalism in the arena of overseas trade. See Maurice Dobb, “A Reply,” in The Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism, ed. Rodney Hilton (London: Verso, 1978). A more explicit elaboration of this “commercialization model” of economic development, within Marxian literature, is found in Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World System, vols. I-III (New York: Academic Press, 1974). For a discussion of the predominance of the commercialization model in accounts of the emergence of capitalism, see Wood, Origin. 8. Dobb, Studies, 17-18. 9. Karl Marx, Capital: volume III (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1978), 325. 10. In his reply to Sweeny’s critique, Dobb emphasizes that it is not a matter of an internal dynamic or an external one. Rather, both have a role to play in the dissolution of feudalism, but trade has an impact only insofar as it exacerbates the internal class antagonisms of feudalism itself. Dobb, “A Reply,” 60. 11. Dobb, Studies, 143. 12. Dobb, “A Reply,” 59. 13. Rodney Hilton, “A Comment,” in The Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism, ed. R.H. Hilton (London: Verso, 1978). See also, Hilton, “Feudalism in Europe.” 14. Hilton, “Comment.” 15. For a recent discussion of the role of towns in the transition to English capitalism, see Spencer Dimmock, “English Small Towns and the Emergence of Capitalist Relations, 1450-1550,” Urban History 28 no. 1 (2001): 5-24. 16. Hilton, “Introduction,” 27. 17. For a sympathetic synopsis of Hilton’s work on the transition, see Ricardo Duchesne, “Rodney Hilton and the Peasant Road to “Capitalism” in England,” Journal of Peasant Studies 30 no. 2 (2003): 129-45; Terence J. Byres, “Differentiation of the Peasantry under Feudalism and the Transition to Capitalism: In Defence of Rodney Hilton,” Journal of Agrarian Change 6 no. 1 (2006): 17-68. 18. Byres, “Differentiation,” 57-8.

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19. This is evident in Tawney’s work, which will be discussed in depth below. 20. While Robert Brenner leveled this criticism against the likes of Sweezy, Wallerstein and Cohen, Ellen Wood extends it to both Dobb and Hilton. This critique is perhaps validated by comparing it to some non-Marxist work on the role of small peasant cultivators in the rise of capitalism. J.A. Raftis has argued that the fixing of entry fines and rents allowed for a considerable degree of peasant initiative, thereby creating a “framework of controlled expectations” which could allow the small peasant cultivator to introduce “flexibilities” into his “enterprise.” This position seems to be similar to the kind of position assumed by Hilton; i.e., that the peasant struggles of the late medieval period liberated peasant petty-commodity production from the fetters of feudalism by introducing fixed rents and entry fines which allowed peasants to engage in capitalist forms of petty commodity production. Indeed, Raftis argues that it is possible for nonMarxists to agree with scholars like Hilton without accepting his Marxist premises. See J.A. Raftis, Peasant Economic Development within the English Manorial System (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1996). This can be contrasted with Coleman’s contention that “[t]he theoretical constructs of the modern non-Marxist economist, peopled by wholly economic men engaged upon continuously rational processes of free choice and optimization, seem in a different way remote from the realities of Tudor England.” D.C. Coleman, The Economy of England, 1450-1750 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), 4. 21. Robert Brenner, “The Origins of Capitalist Development: A Critique of NeoSmithian Marxism,” New Left Review 104 (1977); Brenner, “The Social Basis.” 22. Brenner, “The Social Basis,” 28. 23. This point has recently been taken up in a debate between Robert Brenner and Ellen Meiksins Wood regarding the nature of the economy of early modern Netherlands. Brenner, in what some have taken to be an abandonment of the approach he has outlined here argues that demographic factors resulted in the market dependence of Dutch producers. In contrast to this, Ellen Wood argues that market dependence, characteristic of a capitalist economy, did not characterize the economy of the Netherlands, and hence, long-term growth was not achieved. Rather, Dutch producers were merely dependent upon an international market in grain and, once this market began to decline, bourgeois investors in Dutch agriculture pulled out and invested their capitalist elsewhere, resulting in the stagnation of economic growth. Robert Brenner, “The Low Countries in the Transition to Capitalism,” Journal of Agrarian Change 1 no. 2 (2001): 169-241; Ellen Meiksins Wood, “A Question of Market Dependence,” Journal of Agrarian Change 2 no. 1 (2002): 50-87. 24. Brenner, “Bourgeois Revolution,” 289. 25. Duchesne argues that Brenner’s conception of political accumulation forces him to rely on Weberian notions of inter-elite exploitation isolated from the “relations of production” in his account of the development of the Absolutist state as the outcome of feudal forms of political accumulation. This, however, is a weak argument that relies on an analytical distinction between purely economic forms of class exploitation between lords and peasants on the one hand, and political forms of status competition between lords on the other. The point of Brenner’s social property relations approach, however, is to conceive of pre-capitalist class relations as simultaneously economic and political – that is, encompassing relations of appropriation that are extra-economic in character and relate to a wider context of exploitation and class relations. That Duchesne does not fully

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understand Brenner’s approach is revealed in his consistent conflation of the “relations of production” with Brenner’s term “social property relations.” Ironically, Duchesne opts for the Wright’s rational choice approach to identifying a transhistorical conception of exploitation – which results from a synthesis of Marx and Weber – as a better alternative to understanding the nature of the absolutist state in Marxist terms. Duchesne, “Peasant Road.” 26. Brenner, “Agrarian Class Structure,” “Agrarian Roots.” 27. Wood, Origin, 53. 28. The insistence on treating the development of capitalist social relations as the unintended outcome of the actions of social agents is taken up in some of the more recent contributions to the transition debate. Richard Lachmann argues that most accounts of the transition fail to taken into account the specificity between and within countries by glossing over the issue of agency and treating the development of capitalism as the result of the removal of impediments to “rational” behavior. Rather, Lachmann takes a view similar to Brenner’s regarding the issue of intention. The difference between Brenner and Lachmann is the latter’s adoption of an “elite conflict theory” in order to explain the transition to capitalism. Arguing that Marxism is incapable of explaining the conflicts within the ruling class, Lachmann presents his elite conflict theory as a more adequate theoretical explanation despite the fact that he acknowledges that elites are similar to the Marxian notion of class fractions. See Lachmann, “Capitalists.” 29. Sweezy criticizes Dobb for conflating feudalism with serfdom. 30. Rodney Hilton, “Feudalism or “feodalité” and “seigneurie” in France and England,” in Class Conflict and the Crisis of Feudalism, ed. Rodney Hilton (London: Verso, 1990), 157. 31. It needs to be emphasized that here, manor or seigneurie refers to a specific form of agricultural production predicated upon specific relations of lordship; as such, it is not merely a factor of a feudal mode of production in the way that the factory is merely a particular form of organizing wage-labor under capitalism. This is significant because it allows us to speak of feudalism even in the absence of the “manor” proper. 32. Anderson, Passages, 147. 33. Comninel, “English Feudalism,” 15-16. 34. Georges Duby, The Early Growth of the European Economy: Warriors and Peasants from the 7th to the 12th Century (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1974), 227-8. 35. It needs to be pointed out that this form of territorial lordship emerged first in France. Eventually, however, the powers of territorial lordship were shifted away from the person and onto tenure. The result of this was that personal liberty could be purchased by formerly unfree peasants – serfs – while maintaining the form of the seigneurial ban. Thus, although serfdom disappeared in the late medieval period, the powers of territorial lordship remained all the way up to the time of the revolution of 1789. The importance here is that serfdom and territorial lordship were not mutually interdependent. One can exist without the other. 36. Anderson, Passages, 152. 37. Hilton, “Feudalism or “feodalité,”” 159. However, as Duby points out, attempts were made by the lords to appropriate the powers of royal jurisdiction in the 12th century. But apart from some remote areas in Wales and Scotland, these attempts failed and by the mid-twelfth century, the king had effectively consolidated the powers of haute justice in

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his own hands. Georges Duby, Rural Economy and Country Life in the Medieval West (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1968), 194-5. 38. Comninel, “English Feudalism,” 23-4. 39. For a more detailed discussion of the characterization of the English peasantry, see Rodney Hilton, The Decline of Serfdom in Medieval Europe (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1969). 40. Another option was to embark on military ventures on the Continent. The spoils of war served as a form of political accumulation in the late feudal period. 41. It is perhaps due to the strength of feudal social relations that resulted in the “fiscal seigneurialism” in the north during the 16th century. See Andrew B. Appleby, “Agrarian Capitalism or Seigneurial Reaction? The Northwest of England, 1500-1700,” The American Historical Review 80 no. 3 (1975) 574-94. 42. Rodney Tawney, The Agrarian Problem in the 16th Century (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), 131. 43. After 1550, copyholders – that is, customary peasants who held a copy of their title – had access to the royal courts to enforce their customary rights; a privilege previously accorded only to freeholders. 44. Lachmann takes exception to Brenner’s characterization of the strength of the English peasantry. Colin Mooers also points out what he claims is Brenner’s paradoxical claim that English lords were strong vis-à-vis the king, yet curiously weak vis-à-vis their own peasantry. But the strength of respective peasantries can only be adequately measured in relationship to the totality of class relations in that particular society – in these cases this would include the nobility and the Crown. Lachmann, Capitalists, Mooers, Bourgeois Europe. 45. Brenner, “Agrarian Roots.” 46. E.P. Thompson, “Custom, Law and Common Right,” in Customs in Common (New York: The New Press, 1993), 175-6. 47. Tawney, Agrarian Problem, 172-3. 48. Comninel cites Kerridge who argues that everyone had security of tenure, and that security of tenure was the prerequisite for the technological innovations that were necessary for the development of capitalist farming. The logic of his argument is that men will not risk all in the face of uncertainty, but given security of tenure, they will be provided with the opportunity to essentially engage in capitalist forms of production. But, as Tawney pointed out in 1912, the development of agrarian capitalism emerged not out of freehold – where tenancies enjoy the most security – but rather, out of leaseholds, particularly short leaseholds. The significance of this is that it demonstrates the capitalist forms of production were the result, not of exploiting market opportunities that became possible with security of tenures, but rather, that it was the result of necessary innovations in the face of the market compulsions being felt by leasehold farmers on short commercial leases. 49. Comninel, “English Feudalism.” In fact, Tawney points out that in some parts of England, freehold lasted right up until the 19th century. 50. A point of dispute, however, is to what extent agrarian capitalism did in fact emerge as a result of the petty commodity production of the larger yeomen farmers – the English “kulaks.” Tawney is somewhat ambiguous about the relationship between the pettycommodity production of the freehold peasant and the emergence of commercial sheepfarming in the 16th century. On the one hand, he recognizes its limits as a stimulus of

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capitalist development, while at the same time arguing that it served as a model by which landlords would emulate in the 16th century. 51. Tawney, Agrarian Problem,” Comninel, “English Feudalism.” 52. Comninel, “English Feudalism,” 46. 53. For this point, and for the brief discussion that follows, I am indebted to George Comninel. 54. Croot and Parker argue that the ability of yeomen farmers to take advantage of rising prices in grain was the result of strong entrepreneurial attitudes towards agriculture. The differentiation of the peasantry in England is merely the result of the commercial success of an ambitious and entrepreneurial yeomanry; a success that amounts to the development of capitalism. The absence of a similar kulak class in France, and the predominance of a rentier mentality of a bourgeoisie determined to buy their way into the nobility, accounts for the absence of capitalism across the channel. In Croot and Parker’s analysis, a study of class attitude is substituted for a study of class relations. Patricia Croot and David Parker, “Agrarian Class Structure and the Development of Capitalism: France and England compared,” in The Brenner Debate, ed. T.H. Aston and C.H.E. Philpin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). 55. Brenner, “Agrarian Roots,” 308. 56. Brenner, “Agrarian Roots,” 297. 57. Brenner, “Agrarian Roots,” 299. 58. Thompson, “Custom,” 137. 59. Holstun, “Ehud’s Dagger,” 378. 60. J.P. Cooper argues that when trying to define capitalism, “agriculture presents acute terminological problems”, because the existence of agricultural capital pre-dated Brenner’s account of the rise of agrarian capitalism. In his critique of Brenner, Cooper downplays the difference in productive capacity between English and French agriculture, focusing instead on the existence in northern France of large tenant farms as evidence refuting the unique economic path taken by England. J.P. Cooper, “In Search of Agrarian Capitalism,” in The Brenner Debate, ed. T.H. Aston and C.H.E. Philpin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). 61. In his reply to Robert Albritton’s criticism of the term agrarian capitalism, Zmolek characterizes agrarian capitalism as a period of social transition. For Albritton, it is misleading to refer to this period as agrarian capitalism because the commodification of labor power – that precondition for capitalism – had not yet reached level that is necessary for the development of capitalism. While I generally agree with Zmolek, for the purposes of understanding the politics of the period, we need to treat agrarian capitalism as a unique social form that only later develops into industrial capitalism. See Michael Zmolek, “The Case for Agrarian Capitalism: a response to Albritton,” Journal of Peasant Studies 27 no. 4 (2000), Michael Zmolek, “Further Thoughts on Agrarian Capitalism: a reply to Albritton,” Journal of Peasant Studies 29 no. 1 (2001): 129-54, Mike Zmolek, “Debating Agrarian Capitalism: a rejoinder to Albritton,” Journal of Peasant Studies 31 no. 2 (2004): 276-305, Robert Albritton, “Did Agrarian Capitalism Exist?” Journal of Peasant Studies 20 no. 3 (1993): 419-441, Robert Albritton, “Theory and History in Thinking the Transition to Capitalism: a reply to Zmolek,” Journal of Peasant Studies 29 no. 2 (2002): 125-34, Robert Albritton, “Clarifying the Root Differences: Considerations on the Debate with Zmolek,” 31 no. 2 (2004): 306-12. 62. Macpherson, Possessive Individualism.

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63. Albritton, “Agrarian Capitalism.” 64. Albritton, “Theory and History,” 128. 65. In his response to Zmolek, Albritton concedes that in his work, he does not “present a theory of the genesis of capitalism”, but rather begins with the putting-out system of manufacturing on the premise that it is in fact capitalism. Thus, even the process of the origins of early industrial capitalist development is neglected, raising questions about the strength of his “levels of analysis” approach that possesses traces of Althusserian Marxism. 66. Terence Byres argues that agrarian capitalism resulted from the voluntary market involvement of rich peasants that resulted in the employment of wage labor. Thus, capitalism emerged out of one strata of the peasantry exploiting another. Yet Byres puts forward a contradictory argument. On the one hand, he argues that at some point this quantitative market involvement as a process of exploiting market opportunities turns into a condition of dependence on a market that is now characterized as a series of imperatives. On the other hand, he asserts the ability of these rich peasants to retreat from market involvement back into a condition of self-sufficient production. This, however, undermines the meaning of market dependence and an understanding of the market as a series of competitive imperatives. Byres, “Differentiation.” 67. Zmolek, “The Case for Agrarian Capitalism,” 142. 68. Richard Lachmann, From Manor to Market: Structural Change in England, 15361640 (University of Wisconsin Press, 1987), 129. This contrasts significantly with Byres (admittedly tentative) assertion that as early as the late 14 th and early 15th centuries, permanent wage-laborers (as opposed to seasonal or semi-proletarianized wage-laborers) were available for exploitation on the plots of the rich peasantry in a manner that was extensive enough to issue in capitalist development by means of voluntary peasant activity in market opportunities. Unfortunately, Byres cannot corroborate this claim with evidence. Byres, “Differentiation.” 69. Neal Wood, John Locke and Agrarian Capitalism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 42. 70. The operative term here is, of course, “most.” The first parliamentary act of enclosure was passed in 1604 and applied to land in Dorset. Most enclosure, however, occurred by “agreement.” The extent to which such agreement was conducted in a free and fair manner, however, is a matter of significant debate. For a discussion of the compulsive nature of enclosure by agreement, see Bill Frazer, “Common Recollections: Resisting Enclosure “by Agreement” in Seventeenth-century England,” International Journal of Historical Archaeology 3 no. 2 (1999): 75-99. 71. Wood, John Locke, 45. 72. J.R. Wordie, “A Chronology of English Enclosure, 1500-1914,” The Economic History Review 36 no. 4 (1983): 483-505. 73. David McNally, Political Economy and the Rise of Capitalism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 92. 74. For an insightful account of the impact of English agriculture on French republicanism in the context of the revolution, see James Livesey, “Agrarian Ideology and Commercial Republicanism in the French Revolution,” Past and Present 157 (1997): 94-121. 75. Marx, Capital III, Wood, Origin, 130. 76. Wood, Democracy, 29.

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77. Wood, Democracy, 29. 78. This specifically English preoccupation with agricultural “improvement” in the 17th century will be discussed in the following chapter. 79. Wood, Origin 1999, 71. 80. Zmolek, “The Case for Agrarian Capitalism,” 140. 81. As mentioned above, this does not necessarily entail complete proletarianization in the form of total dispossession; it can also assume the form of increased dependence on wage labor as a supplement to the deteriorating conditions of subsistence farming that have been affected by the aggrandizement of capitalist farms through engrossment and the progressive elimination of customary rights to the commons. The competitive pressures of agrarian capitalism did not just affect tenants who hired wage laborers, but also owner-operators: those tenant farmers who worked the land themselves. In other words, market dependence affected those who had land as well as those who were dispossessed: “To be market dependent required only the loss of direct non-market access to the means of self-reproduction, and specifically land. Once market imperatives were well established, even outright ownership was no protection against them. Market dependence was a cause, not a result, of mass proletarianisation.” Wood, Origin, 131. 82. Zmolek, “The Case for Agrarian Capitalism,” 150. 83. Wood, Democracy, 29-30. 84. Wood and Comninel both point out the specific ways in which class and state are differentiated in the development of European “modes of production.” What makes Europe different from non-European societies is the way in which appropriation occurs by individual members of property-owning classes as opposed to the kinds of surplusextracting states of the East. The point being made here is that this particular form of differentiation between state power and class exploitation undergoes a qualitative transformation with the development of capitalism. Wood, Democracy, Comninel, Rethinking. 85. The literature on this matter is quite extensive. For some notable examples, see E.P. Thompson, Whigs and Hunters: the origins of the Black Acts (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977); Perelman, Invention; David McNally, Against the Market: Political Economy, Market Socialism and the Marxist Critique (London: Verso, 1994). 86. Comninel, Rethinking, 172. 87. Wood, Democracy, 29-30. 88. Brenner, Merchants. In particular, see the postscript. 89. Anderson, Passages, 160. 90. Brenner, Merchants, 655.

4

The Political Economy of Improvement

The century spanning the outbreak of the Rebellion of 1549, and the revolutionary turning point of 1649, marks a period of significant intellectual development in English social, economic and political thought. While medieval England was no stranger to peasant unrest – to which the Great Revolt of 1381 attests – the emergence of agrarian capitalism in the 16 th century transformed the nature of social and economic conflict. The rent strikes and tax revolts of the 14th and 15th centuries gave way to enclosure riots that increased in numbers, size and intensity throughout the late Tudor and early Stuart eras. Yet, the nature of social conflict was not the only thing that changed. Popular ideology and social commentary also began to change in the early modern period. The popular ideology of the peasantry had ceased to have the same resonance in a context in which the peasantry itself was undergoing a social differentiation: the rise of a wealthy stratum of tenant farmers on the one hand, and the growth of a poorer class of semi-proletarianized peasants on the other, meant that conventional peasant ideologies would undergo a transformation in which tenant-farmers began to embrace an ideology of improvement, while the poorer peasantry sought refuge in the ideology of social levelling. By the time of the revolution, the old forms of social commentary – those that were embedded within a medievalist “moral” critique of the covetous nature of man – had given way to a new form of pro-improvement literature that exalted the productive increases that were accompanying the agrarian revolution of the 17 th century. The pursuit of self-interest in the context of agricultural improvement displaced the moral critiques of individualism and human egoism, and the wealth of the nation became increasingly bound up with the productivity of land. Enclosures became the remedy for depopulation, vagrancy and poverty as opposed to its cause; and “improvement” became the Irish tide that lifted all English boats.

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The Moral Economy and Peasant Resistance The process by which ideology and peasant resistance evolved is best understood in relationship to the qualitative transformation of the market and the impact that the new social relations of agrarian capitalism had on the day-to-day existence of the English peasantry. Over the course of the late medieval and early modern period, we can witness changes in peasant experience as the economy increasingly becomes constituted as a separate sphere of social life, one that becomes increasingly exempt from the effects of traditional social relations. In pre-capitalist societies, the market is said to be “embedded” within a larger framework of social and ethical regulation that forms what E.P. Thompson has referred to as the “moral economy.”1 Medieval England was no exception: its own moral economy was characterized by certain medieval conceptions of community that were “grounded upon a consistent traditional view of social norms and obligations, of the proper economic functions of several parties within the community”.2 At the level of social practice, custom dictated the proper relationships between all members of the community. Thus, the norms held by members of each social class reinforced each other within the totality of the moral economy, often forming a symbiotic relationship between the rich and the poor.3 This interdependence, however, was tenuous, and often in times of social crisis the moral economy, as a series of social relationships, became both an object and a terrain of class struggle. The significance of this moral economy is that it formed the framework within which ethical claims to justice within a changing social order were cast, and within which the calls to action aimed at the rectification of social injustice were made. Despite the variations in custom, certain common experiences of individuals within a particular class formed the context of the different ideologies of medieval society: the popular ideologies of the lower classes as well as the more complex ideologies of the ruling classes. 4 These competing class-based ideologies of the pre-capitalist world often existed in antagonism to one another, even when they shared what is considered to be a “medieval” conception of society because different classes had a different understanding of what characterized a just, medieval social order. In other words, the dominance of organic conceptions of a hierarchical, medieval society did not preclude the existence of conflicts – social or ideological – between the classes. For the most part, a medieval conception of society was characterized as an organic totality in which each social class existed in a symbiotic relationship with the others. 5 For members of the ruling class, this social order was organized around the notion of a natural social hierarchy of lords, clerics and serfs – those who fight, those who pray and those who work6 – in which members from each social class are required to adhere to their own calling if justice is to be maintained.7 From this perspective a natural moral inequality of men lay at the base of this social hierarchy.8 As Hilton points out,

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“The subordination of the lower ranks of society to the higher, the denial of social equality, of natural political rights, the conception of a fixed and unchangeable hierarchy, are all implicit in relations existing between greater and lesser members of the ruling class. It can therefore be imagined how much more strongly these ideas were applied to the relations between the nobility as a whole and the serfs.”9

Thus, social hierarchy, from the perspective of the ruling classes, was not based upon exploitation, but rather upon conceptions of divine justice. In fact, the hierarchical ordering of society was often characterized as an earthly reflection of the hierarchical ordering of Heaven. 10 Medieval justice, therefore, dictated that members of each class received their due. In the context of feudalism, this took the form of social obligations between members of unequal social classes. Lords were to provide protection to serfs in return for rents and labor services; the clergy was to provide spiritual guidance and salvation in return for tithes. In general, the laboring classes were compelled to acquiesce in the midst of their suffering, upon the assurance that life in the hereafter would bring eternal happiness. Yet, in the context of feudalism, the problem of poverty amongst the lower classes represented a significant challenge to the functioning of the social order and the justice that allegedly underpinned it. Distinctions were made between the deserving and the undeserving poor. The former were the objects of charity and alms-giving, and most often composed of the elderly, the infirm, widows and orphans. The latter, on the other hand, was composed of the able-bodied poor, who were increasingly stigmatized – as time went on – for their alleged immorality and idleness.11 As the feudal order began to deteriorate and manorialism began to decay, criticisms of English society began to emerge with greater frequency. 12 William Langland’s fourteenth century poem, The Vision of Piers Plowman, represents a conservative critique of a deteriorating feudal order: he endorses the notion of the just price when dealing with prices and wages, and extols the virtuous toil of the middling peasantry; he scolds the wealthy who take pride in giving alms to the poor because pride is a sin; he rebukes the merchants for exploiting the poor; he criticizes lords, legislators and clerics for their idleness. Yet, Langland was not speaking to the poor, he was speaking to the traditional ruling class, albeit in a very bitter, and critical tone: “William Langland is like the orthodox preachers, not only in the incisiveness and bitterness of his criticism of social vices, but in the essential conservatism of his outlook. Admittedly it was a conservatism of a type which would be regarded as holding little comfort for the ruling class, for it harked back to the ideal of earlier feudal society, which is contrasted with the reality of feudal society in decay. Its conservatism lay in the fact that no change in the class structure of society was envisaged.”13

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In fact, Langland adhered to the conventional distinction between deserving and undeserving poor and spoke of the latter in terms as harsh as those of the Statutes of 1388. As such, his critique accepted the feudal social order and “reinforced the traditional view that the poor laborer is necessary to the harmonious social order and that such a calling is as valuable as any other.”14 His social and political thought is therefore more of a reaction to the kind of problems that were later to spark the Great Revolt of 1381 than it was a form of peasant ideology.15 Despite his movement towards heresy prior to the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, John Wycliffe’s teachings also reinforced the traditional social order.16 While condemning greed, Wycliffe does not condemn poverty, or the feudal social order that breeds poverty; in fact, the thrust of his work represents an attempt to reinforce the feudal social order by compelling the existing social classes to adopt behavior appropriate to their station: priests are to be charitable to the deserving poor; lords are to show mercy and equity; and laborers are to labor with meekness and honesty. Wycliffe was essentially conservative in his social thought; his reformation was not to consist of a reordering of society but rather a “revolution from above.” As one scholar points out “Wyclif’s [sic] reformation then was a scheme for a revolution, but a revolution which was to be imposed from the top downwards. It was to be literally a coup d'état, an act of State, undertaken by the government itself under the guidance of a small elite of right-minded theologians who knew what should be done better than anybody else. The preaching campaigns which Wyclif [sic] insisted upon to support the revolution were designed to do precisely that, to provide popular support, not to make the reformation an act carried out by the people themselves. There is nothing in the instructions which Wyclif [sic] gave his preachers to suggest other than that the preaching to the laity was to be instruction of the most elementary kind. The reformation was to be a revolution by the head itself.”17

Wycliffe did not have a problem with property or wealth, per se; and neither did he have a problem with the existence of a feudal hierarchy. In his tract Of Servants and Lords he does not challenge the existing class structure and its social division of labor amongst lords and dependent peasants. Rather, he objected to the possession of wealth and power by the Clergy, and he criticized what he saw as unjust lordship. In his tract On Civil Lordship, Wycliffe argued that only those endowed with divine grace could exercise lordship. While this may at first seem somewhat radical, he tempers this criticism with the argument that submission to authority – even unjust authority – is necessary in a Christian commonwealth. Because of this, he probably did not have that much influence on the Peasant Revolt of 1381; but his thought was radical enough to alienate him from the ruling class. 18

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John Gower, whose work has been described as the “most unified presentation of English social ideals prior to the Renaissance”, at least amongst the literate classes, condemned members of the ruling class for their unvirtuous behavior.19 Waxing nostalgic for the better days of an idyllic past, Gower criticized the nobility for being too vain and the clergy for being too worldly. Yet, Gower also displayed contempt for the poor and the commons, which was typical of much of the critical social commentary of the late medieval period. Gower argued that the commons was too “restive,” displaying a contempt for their own low social status. He writes, “Born of poor man’s stock and a poor man himself, he demands things for his belly like a lord…This is a race without power of reason, like beasts, for it does not esteem mankind nor does it think God exists.”20 Rodney Hilton makes reference to a number of other seemingly radical commentators on feudal society. Brunton and Bromyard both penned what seemed to be scathing indictments on the existing feudal social order. But Hilton maintains that they were not attacking the feudal order that they benefited from, rather, they were defending a feudal order that was in decline; or, more accurately, they were defending an idealized version of the feudal order that was deteriorating.21 These medieval criticisms of feudal society existed within a social context of increasing tension between landlords and peasants. While these criticisms were ultimately conservative in their critique of feudal society, and while they sought not to transform the class structure of medieval England, but rather reinvigorate them with a Christian virtue that was allegedly characteristic of an idyllic English past, they did often contain within in them kernels of unconventional thought that could be appropriated for more radical causes. Amongst the laboring classes – both, the peasantry, the artificers and the laboring poor – medieval Christianity often became fused with a kind of populism that emerged out of their day to day experiences. So although religious sanction certainly lent such attitudes a cloak of legitimacy, the norms of the moral economy were ultimately rooted in a more organic conception of custom and communal regulation of production and consumption. Agrarian production, for example, was regulated by the customs of a particular locality that placed limits on the techniques used to till the soil and on the organization of husbandry. The sale of agricultural produce was regulated – just as much by custom as by statute – by conceptions of the “just price”; usury and other forms of money lending were often held in contempt. The “derived” ideology of Christianity, therefore, fused with the folk knowledge of communal regulation of production and exchange in order to form popular ideologies that buttressed the moral economy. It is where the derived ideology of reformist Christianity meets with the folk knowledge of communal regulation and production that we will find the more radical challenges to the feudal social order; and while echoes of these radical challenges may be found in the day to day lives of the laboring classes, they most often found their more articulate expression in times when a perceived violation of the moral economy has occurred.

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Given their competing material interests, constant struggles between peasants and lords around the issue of feudal rent – either cash or in kind – and other extra-economic forms of surplus extraction were endemic to feudal society based upon the social relations of serfdom. Given that the level of rent, fines, tallages, labor services, etc., came at the expense of the dependent peasantry, it is only natural that peasants sought to resist arbitrary increases in these forms of feudal exploitation and, in some cases, to seek freedom of status and tenure. Such resistance assumed a number of forms. At the individual level, peasants often sought to assert their “freedom,” given that free status was a determinant in the level of exploitation to which one was subjected. In some cases, entire groups of peasants sought to assert their free status, as did the peasants of Stoughton in Leicestershire in 1279. Every so often, however, peasant resistance would assume a more violent and collective form. Full scale peasant uprisings were relatively rare in England, as compared to other feudal societies, but their significance should not be underestimated. The peasant uprising of 1381 was the most significant event of the late medieval period that for some scholars signifies the beginning of the end of feudal society.22 While the uprising consisted of more than merely peasants – it also contained urban plebeian elements – it had a greater significance for the future development of the peasantry than it did for the urban laboring classes.23 And although the uprising assumed a spontaneous form, it would be erroneous to characterize it as a riot or an isolated event. Rather, it was largely a revolt by the peasantry against the powers and privileges of the feudal ruling class, and therefore, its causes are to be found within English feudal society itself.24 In the context of a labor shortage caused by the Black Death 25 the most rational way for English lords to deal with this crisis was to increase their exactions on surviving peasants, as well as appropriating vacant land and leasing it out – at low rents initially – to wealthier peasants. The increased land to labor ratio as a result of the plague gave the laboring population the opportunity to occupy land and begin providing for their subsistence; hence the labor shortage. As a response to this, Parliament passed the Statute of Labourers which not only fixed the wage rates at which workers could be paid, but also placed restrictions on their freedom of movement. 26 While the Great Revolt of 1381 was sparked by the Poll Tax of 1380, it brought to light the fundamental class tensions of feudal society. The widespread refusal to pay a tax that disproportionately burdened the lower classes quickly began to be organized around the fundamental issues of feudal society. The sense of injustice directed at the Poll tax became linked to a longstanding contempt for the social inequalities that buttressed the feudal order. The most fundamental grievance that motivated peasant involvement in the rebellion was equality of status through the abolition of servile tenures and unfree status. But it was not the only demand. Other demands were also significant: abolition of labor services; the abolition of lordship; the formation of community policing; division and distribution of church properties amongst the

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commons; the insistence on property for subsistence for the clergy; abolition of the church hierarchy; replacement of the existing law; and payment of tithes only to poor priests.27 While some commentators deny the radical nature of the revolt28 – citing the peasants’ acceptance of the king – others argue that the rebellion signified a rejection of the feudal order: “The rebel demands run entirely counter to the prevailing theory of society which pervaded the sermons of the clergy from bishops to parish clergy; which lay behind much of the penitential system of the church; which was expressed by the law nobility in Parliamentary petitions and statutes; and which was found in both courtly poetry and that reaching a wider audience (e.g., William Langland’s Piers Plowman). The essence of contemporary society theory was that the various orders of society, based on the original tripartite division between those who fight (the nobles), those who pray (the clergy) and those who work (the peasants), were of divine origin and not, therefore, to be changed by the actions of men. Every man and woman must remain in his or her own calling and perform the appropriate duties. The theory was ancient and consequently deeply rooted.”29

The nature of the grievances therefore represents an ambiguous rejection of feudal society. While the reforms it sought would clearly strike a blow at the functioning of the social hierarchy, its rebellious nature co-existed with deference to the king and the institution of kingship. Yet this seemingly contradictory nature of the rebellion is best understood in relation to the specific class nature of English feudalism. Keeping in mind the specific nature of the feudal state and lordship in England, we can better understand the nature of the peasantry’s demands. Given that English lords enjoyed feudal powers of lordship as landlords – as opposed to the territorial lordship of their French counterparts in possession of the powers of the ban – and given that the English Crown treated freeholders and lords as legal equals under the auspices of the common law, it is understandable that servile tenants would appeal to the king against the lords in the absence of any alternative organizational means of redress.30 In contrast to this, the French peasantry, being subjected to the powers of a territorial nobility and a surplus-extracting tax/office state, generally sought to resist the Crown.31 The popular ideology of the rebellion can be found in the works of John Ball and Wat Tyler. Hilton argues that John Ball articulated ideas that were common amongst the lower classes in the late 14 th century: the natural equality of men, and the idea that the social oppression of men was a human creation, not an element of God’s will. Hilton argues that “It is obvious that Ball gave full vent to ideas which were so often heard in the fourteenth century, but which he had developed and carried much further than any other man of that time. With his

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Chapter 4 opening sentences he put forward the revolutionary idea of equality, thereby challenging the entire conception of the feudal church and state. Not only did he challenge the prevailing ideology, but he gave his conception of how divisions in society arose – by the action of evil men who robbed, exploited and built up their wealth and power by means of oppression. If God had intended that there should be two classes in society – lord and serf, exploiters and exploited – then these two classes would have existed from the creation of the world. But this was not so, for the Bible said that in the beginning there were only workers. Adam delved and Eve span – both equal before the eyes of God.”32

Although the revolt was unsuccessful in the sense that most of its demands were not met, and that its leadership was executed, it did hasten the demise of servile tenures. With the abolition of servile tenures, and the shortage of labor in the wake of the Black Death, landlords had a more difficult time controlling the mobility of the peasantry. Vacant holdings of manorial estates meant that lords were willing to take on new tenants with little regard to their status. 33 The Statute of Labourers became increasingly unenforceable in the fifteenth century; an Act of Parliament was passed exempting employers of labor from penalties for violating the Statute given the shortage of labor. On the whole, the balance of class power had shifted in favor of the peasantry.34 As one scholar writes: “lords were becoming less able to control the movements of their servile dependents because their manorial officials were becoming increasingly unwilling or unable to enforce the customary restrictions. Estate officials were intimidated by the passive resistance of the tenantry backed up by threats of violence and even occasional physical attacks.”35

The feudal lords, in the face of increased peasant mobility and resistance, were in a difficult position to deal with the crisis of seigneurial incomes. Although the revolt of 1381 hastened the demise of servile tenures, it needs to be said that the results were more complicated than a simple abolition of serfdom and emancipation of the dependent peasantry. While servile tenures were indeed abolished, the persistence of customary tenures meant that in reality, a large section of the peasantry remained unfree – that is, subjected to the power of the lord of the manor.36 Although the lords were unable to re-enserf the customary peasantry they were able to appropriate many peasant holdings that had been left vacant due to the demographic decline of the plague years and incorporate them back to their demesnes as freehold in order to lease them out to tenants on commercial leases. Secondly, they could use their powers of lordship to charge fines at will on customary tenures that were bought, sold, or inherited. By the 16th century, peasant struggles began to assume a new form: that of the enclosure riot. Unlike in France, where the development of a surplusextracting absolutist state became the target of peasant revolt, English peasants

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increasingly began resisting the attempts by landlords to encroach on the commons and to undermine their customary rights through enclosure. 37 By the mid-point of the sixteenth-century, enclosure riots accounted for approximately one third of all breaches of public order that were examined by Star Chamber.38 Prior to the rebellions of 1549, however, enclosure riots were largely reactions to agricultural innovations – and the violation of manorial customs that those innovations presupposed – in particular localities; they rarely spread beyond this limited scope and, with the exception of the Pilgrimage of Grace, they were seldom aimed at the ruling order. Up until 1549, the records of Star Chamber show that enclosure riots were more often than not the result of aristocratic (meaning noble and gentry) manipulation of popular discontent for the purpose of resolving intra-class feuds in their favor: only 12 out of 75 enclosure riots that occurred during the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI can be said to have been initiated and led by either yeoman, husbandmen, laborers or craftsmen.39 This has led some commentators to characterize them as “primitive” or “prepolitical” forms of social protest.40 Regardless of aristocratic influence, enclosure riots represented a significant change in social unrest and discontent; a change that corresponded to the significant social transformations that resulted from the emergence of agrarian capitalism. Whereas the revolts against labor services and servile tenures of the 14th century were characteristic of peasant resistance against feudal forms of lordship, the enclosure riot represented an evolution in forms of class struggle that were characteristic of the changing nature of class exploitation of an emerging agrarian capitalism.41 In areas where agrarian capitalism began to emerge, peasants no longer sought to resist the imposition of feudal forms of forced labor, nor did they need to revolt against servile tenures.42 Having largely cast off feudal services, peasants now often sought to resist the arbitrary imposition of fines and dues, which were often strategies employed by lords engaged in forms of “feudal reaction” or “fiscal seigneurialism”43; more importantly for this study, peasants increasingly sought to maintain their nonmarket access to the means of their subsistence through the throwing open of enclosures and struggling to maintain communal regulation over the process of production and patterns of agricultural labor. The number of enclosure riots increased during the late Elizabethan crisis of 1590, and the succession of the Stuarts to the throne did not give pause to their growing frequency or their increasingly violent nature. One hundred and twenty-five enclosure riots occurred during the reign of James I and Charles I alone.44 It seems that the pattern of social protest was keeping apace with the pattern of social change during the transition towards agrarian capitalism. In fact, enclosure riots under the Stuarts averaged greater in size than their Elizabethan predecessors. At Ladbroke, Warwickshire in 1607, over 400 people were involved in enclosure riots, and, the largest enclosure riot of them all, the Midland Revolt of 1607, consisted of over one thousand participants. 45 There are many significant traits to the enclosure riots of the Stuart era. First, while gentlemen still played a role in manipulating enclosure riots, an

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increasing number of enclosure riots were being instigated and led by smallholders. This suggests that enclosure riots were becoming more rooted in class conflict than had been the case in the past. 46 Secondly, the ritual surrounding enclosure riots became more elaborate and more militarized, with many riots taking the form of marching processions led by captains and lieutenants. This is perhaps the beginning of a long tradition of the militant and disciplined nature of lower class unrest in England. The Luddites were “led” by the fictional General Ludd, while the Swing rioters were led by the equally fictitious Captain Swing. As Manning points out, “Ceremony and dignity were important to Englishmen even when they were tearing up hedges by the roots.”47 Even the discursive targets of “plebeian speech” were beginning to reflect the general class polarization that was occurring in this historical period. As one scholar has pointed out, “the last decades of the sixteenth century saw “the poor” identifying a wider range of opponents as wealthy farmers and merchants were placed alongside the gentry and the nobility into a broadened category of “the rich”.”48 The enclosure movement did not merely result in an increase in rioting and rebellion, it also led to a dramatic increase in vagrancy, unemployment, poverty, begging and crime.49 “Depopulating” enclosures wiped out entire towns and villages, and those dispossessed of their land were compelled to either beg for their sustenance or wander the countryside in search of employment. English towns swelled with pools of the unemployed due to the incapacity of English industry to absorb an increasingly proletarianized “surplus” population. Between 1560 and 1625, the population of London quadrupled in size; yet the number of vagrants increased twelve times in the same period. 50 Within a context of increasingly violent and politicized enclosure riots, vagrancy was perceived by the ruling class as a root cause of sedition. As a result, the Crown attempted to regulate the process of enclosures and control vagrancy and labor mobility through a number of statutes in the late Elizabethan and early Stuart eras. The Privy Council sought to regulate the grain trade to avoid dearth and the Star Chamber was given the mission of prosecuting landlords engaged in “depopulating enclosures.” In response to the problem of masterless men, the Crown enacted, between 1531 and 1597 – a number of “vagrancy” laws: whipping, branding, transportation, hanging, slavery, mutilation (cutting off the ears), and a life in the galleys were the various fates that awaited vagrants who were apprehended by the law. 51 The severity of the punishment varied with the severity of the vagrant. Provost marshals, complete with search warrants, were employed to round up vagrants. The Statute of 1576 distinguished between the deserving poor – consisting of the aged, sick and infirm – who were considered willing but unable to work, and the undeserving poor, those corruptible rogues who were able, but unwilling to work for a living. A vagrant, therefore, was legally defined as one who is able to labor, but possessed neither land nor master. Thus, the difference between an agricultural wage-laborer and a legal vagrant was almost negligible.

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By the early seventeenth century, the increasing number of cottagers and squatters had provoked widespread reactions from the smallholding tenants; the latter increasingly sought to protect their use-rights to the commons against the encroachment of squatters. The process of social differentiation that had been wrought by the rise of agrarian capitalism, along with the increasing struggle of customary tenants to supplement their deteriorating living conditions through the maintenance of their access to the commons brought them into increasing conflict with cottagers and squatters. While at an earlier point in time the interests of the smallholders and those of the cottagers often coincided, they were now competing with each other over scarce resources within a context of enclosure, bad harvests and dearth. It is this century of intensifying enclosure rioting, the rise of vagrancy and brigandage; depopulation and the decay of towns; and rising unemployment and unprecedented labor mobility that sets the social context for the intellectual debates and developments of the late Tudor and early Stuart era.

Tudor Reformers and the Foundations of Political Economy Just as the Tudor period witnessed a new era of social unrest and economic distress, so it also marked an age of significant developments in social and political thought. A new literature of political economy began to emerge – partly inspired by medieval Christianity and partly inspired by the humanism of the Renaissance – that sought to address these new problems. As such, the political thought and social commentary of the Tudor era is characterized by some significant continuities with, and breaks from the discourse of the medieval era the preceded it.52 In recognition of the need for the preservation of the state and the social order, the ideas of these Tudor era reformers “could be distinguished from those of their predecessors and of their Continental contemporaries by the profound insight that the vital questions of state security and social stability were at root economic in nature.”53 Politics, in the eyes of these men, “became fundamentally a question of economics.”54 In general, the writings of this period signify the beginnings of the development of a modern, economic conception of the state as a means for responding to the dislocations created by an increasingly autonomous “economy.” For the most part, however, this conception of the state was still embedded within a medieval conception of society. Tudor discourse, then, would be characterized by an attempt to articulate an economic role for the state in an effort to maintain the traditional hierarchy of English society; and this Tudor discursive paradigm would frame the intellectual context of debate well into the 17th century, when it would eventually come under challenge by a new

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body of economic discourse that was more accepting of the social changes that had been issued in by agrarian capitalism. The social unrest caused by enclosure is vividly captured in Sir Thomas More’s Utopia.55 The first portion of More’s text presents a scathing indictment of the deteriorating social conditions of the English countryside – particular as they relate to the condition of the peasantry. Though the character of Raphael Hythlodeus, More says that sheep have “turned into man-eaters”; “Fields, houses, town, everything goes down their throats.”56 This is because arable land is being enclosed and turned into sheep walks to take advantage of the booming woolen trade. Noblemen, gentlemen, and even abbots are “enclosing all the land they can for pasture, and leaving none for cultivation.” As More points out: “Each individual preys on his native land like a malignant growth, absorbing field after field, and enclosing thousands of acres with a single fence. Result – hundreds of farmers are evicted. They’re either cheated or bullied into giving up their property, or systematically illtreated until they’re finally forced to sell.”57

The results of this process of enclosure are depopulation, increasing unemployment, vagrancy and crime. The dispossessed are either turned into beggars and arrested for vagrancy, or turned into thieves and then executed for stealing. More’s condemnation of the enclosure movement and his subsequent articulation of an ideal communism alternative, however, represent a form of “enlightened” social conservatism that has more in common with the conventions of the medieval moral economy than it does with later radical utopias such as Gerrard Winstanley’s Law of Freedom in a Platform, or William Morris’ News from Nowhere.58 This is not to deny that More was an innovative social and political thinker; indeed, Utopia presents a novel kind of conservatism that stresses economic well-being and social solidarity. What it means, however, is that his ideas are not as radical or progressive as has often been thought.59 While the abolition of private property, and prescriptions of distributive justice based upon arithmetical equality60 clearly represent a radical departure from existing social property relations in 16 th century England, and his severe condemnation of enclosures and the corruption of the nobility distinguishes him from apologists for the English ruling class, 61 More’s rigid ordering of society more closely represents the inegalitarian and hierarchical vision of society common to medieval political thought than the egalitarian communism of later and more radical thinkers. What is interesting about More’s work is that it is here that we begin to catch a glimpse of the emergence of the unique class structure characteristic of agrarian capitalism. More came close to articulating the famous triad of landlord, capitalist tenant-farmer and rural wage-laborer that is constitutive of the emergence of agrarian capitalism. Given this context, More seemed to be condemning the deterioration of the social conditions of the English countryside

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due to the disruptive effects of agrarian capitalism: i.e., depopulation, unemployment, vagrancy and vagabondage. In condemning the acquisitive nature of the emerging capitalist landlords and their capitalist tenant farmers, More seemed to be presenting the first criticism of agrarian capitalism. In this sense, “More’s economic conception of the state was in this way a product of the concrete social and economic changes that were reshaping much of rural England and would continue to do so over the course of the next three centuries.”62 Subsequent Tudor reformers would build upon the economic conception of the state articulated by More. Thomas Starkey, John Ponet and the Commonwealthmen sought to elaborate ways in which the state could be utilized to alleviate the deteriorating conditions of the English countryside. But almost all of them began from a conservative perspective; their intent was not to transform society, but rather, to maintain the social order – order in the sense of peace as well as the ordering of the hierarchy. In this sense, they sought to save English feudalism from its continuing dissolution. The Commonwealthmen 63 fused Lutheranism with medieval Christian thought in order to create an ideology that espoused the moral equality of men, the harmony of human relationships and a criticism of the unbridled pursuit of self-interest. From this, the Commonwealthmen displayed a concern for the plight of the poor in society, particularly as victims of powerful and greedy men, and presented a damning indictment of the social and economic conditions of early modern England. Another aspect of their ideology – probably taken from Luther – was the belief in a certain work ethic: a belief in the moral duty of the individual to adhere to his particular calling and to reject a life of idleness and indolence. Lastly, these men took from Luther a belief in the doctrine of passive obedience – that the individual has a moral obligation to obey all authority and eschew any and all forms of resistance. The only exception to this belief in passive obedience is if one is being compelled to violate God’s laws. From medieval Christianity, the Commonwealthmen took the belief in the goal of establishing a cooperative political order that was static and conserved by its well-ordered nature. This Christian medievalism believed in the moral equality of men, but maintained a social inequality – maintained through hierarchy – between individuals. Each individual in society is to be assigned a social rank and derives his obligations from that rank. The Commonwealthmen identified a number of social practices they believed to be subversive to the social order of England. Vagabondage, unemployment, crime and sedition were threatening the stability of the social order. But the Commonwealthmen did not merely blame the poor for these problems. Rather, they blamed landlords, merchants, middlemen and other “caterpillars” and “cormorants” of the realm for the problems of the poor. Chief amongst these anti-social practices were those that were related to the enclosure movement and the development of agrarian capitalism. Landlords who enclosed their land and transformed it from arable to pasture were seen characterized as “greedy wolves” who oppressed the poor by “devouring” their common pastures

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with their sheep. Rack-renting, in which a landlord hikes up rents upon the expiry of a tenants lease; lease-mongering, in which landlords bought up the leases of tenants in order to sublet them at higher rates; forestalling and regrating, by which men of wealth could purchase commodities – mostly corn – before they were even produced, in order to attain a monopoly and charge higher prices; usury, in which money lenders lived off of the profits of interest made on loans; all of these practices – becoming increasingly common with the rise of a market in leases on land – were roundly condemned by the Commonwealthmen as being injurious to the “common weal” of England. The motivation behind these anti-social practices was the inherent egoism and avarice of man. Covetousness, believed the Commonwealthmen, tarnished the souls of all human beings and was the root cause of rebellions and sedition. However, despite the fact that all humans were inherently tarnished, some were guiltier than others. Men of property, power and money were considered to be guiltier of covetousness and greed than the poor. The “root” of the social maladies of England, in other words, stemmed largely from the covetousness of the upper classes, whom many of the Commonwealthmen – Latimer in particular – condemned in his sermons, which served as challenges for other clerics to do their Christian duty by standing up to, and denouncing oppressing landlords. Lords, gentlemen, members of the clergy, lawyers, physicians, officeholders, even greedy commoners, all found their way into the Condemnations of the Commonwealthmen. Crowley put most of the blame for Ket’s rebellion of 1549 on the landed classes: their rack-renting, enclosing – against the dictates of the Royal Proclamation – and their stripping the poor of their customary rights to the land, meant that they shared the bulk of the responsibility for provoking the uprising. Despite all of these criticisms, the Commonwealthmen remained unquestionably loyal to the English Crown. Thus, their criticisms of English social and economic conditions were not revolutionary, even if they were to some degree radical. Rather than espouse any significantly radical reforms, the Commonwealthmen sought the establishment of a stable and well-ordered Christian polity, well within the conventional wisdom of medieval social and political thought. Under this conception of the medieval Christian polity, the role of the state was to uphold and encourage the worship of God and to endorse human conduct that adheres to his law by maintaining social conditions that are conducive to the following of God’s law. Thus, the state has a positive role in society, rather than merely acting as the temporal punisher of the sinful; it had to remedy social and economic distress in order to promote Godliness. The king stood above the acquisitive avarice of the English upper classes, to the extent that he was often portrayed as an unwitting victim of contemporary developments. They even went so far as to deflect criticism, common at the time, that preaching fomented rebellion. In response, they advocated the doctrine of passive obedience. Using the scriptures, they argued that all power is sanctioned by God; therefore, it is the duty of each subject to obey the laws of

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the ruling class, even if they violate God’s laws.64 In this event, the subjects’ only recourse is to heaven – they must take succor in the knowledge that such tyrants will be punished by God after death. 65 In many ways, the Commonwealthmen were nostalgic for a long lost golden age of English idyll in which all had plenty and no one prospered at the expense of others. The passing of the golden age was the result of an increase in the greed and ambition of men. Those who held their own private interests – profit and status – above the interests of the kingdom as a whole were bringing about the degeneration of the commonwealth. Thus, while their ideas were anti-absolutist and critical of the social consequences stemming from the avaricious nature of men, their political theory and social commentary was designed at “maintaining a justice social order” by “ensuring that the agricultural basis of the nation was not undermined and that the power of the king was expressed through Parliament.”66 In this sense, even critical social commentary could be used as a means to preserve the prevailing social order. One writer who deviated from the conventions of the Tudor reformers was Thomas Smith.67 Writing at the time of Ket’s Rebellion, Smith shows neither sympathy towards the poor, nor contempt for enclosing landlords. Instead of analyzing England’s social and economic ills within the moralistic conventions of his contemporaries, Smith attempted a dispassionate economic analysis that that defined interest and the common good in strictly economic terms. This leads Wood to characterize Smith as an “early prototype of the modern social scientist.”68 Unlike his contemporaries who characterized English society as a hierarchy of ranks, orders and classes, which, if justice is to be maintained, must assume a proper and static ordering, Smith viewed society as merely a “multitude of masterless men.” In this sense, Smith preceded Hobbes in characterizing society as a multitude of competing and atomistic individuals. This is a significant break from the medieval conception of society. While accepting the contemporary belief in the wickedness of unbridled greed and individualism, Smith never went so far as to condemn the individual pursuit of self-interest in itself. Rather, he sought to channel the egoistic drives of men in progressive ways. Thus, for Smith, the problems of English society were less those of the conscious intentions of greedy men, than impersonal social forces acting behind their backs and against their wills. Smith’s break from the conventions of the medieval social, economic and political theorizing of his contemporaries becomes significant because in many ways, his innovations become the precursors of a new type of theorizing that becomes dominant in the seventeenth century. The nostalgia for a past golden age is replaced by an acceptance of individualism, rationalism and economism, leading Smith’s political and economic thought to reflect and embrace the realities of emerging agrarian capitalism. 69 Indeed, the different points of departure – and the different conclusions reached – of Smith and his contemporaries, particularly the Commonwealthmen, frame the debates over enclosure in the middle of the next century between moralistic reformers

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adhering to a more medieval conception of the social order, and the “Baconian”70 improvers who embrace the transformations brought in by agrarian capitalism. The Tudor era, therefore, marks a turning point in the development of social, political and economic thought in England. It represents a period of change and continuity within what had been the conventional medieval framework of English economic, social and political thought. In its attempts to come to terms with the problems created by agrarian capitalism, Tudor-era thinkers began to re-assess the conventional relationship of the state to civil society. While most of them accepted the natural existence of a social hierarchy, they all shared a belief that the state should play some kind of role in alleviating the social and economic distress caused by the rise of capitalism. The most significant writer of this period is Sir Thomas Smith, precisely because he went the furthest in breaking from the medieval conventions of his contemporaries. The differences between Smith’s individualistic conception of society and his artificial harmony of interests, on the one hand, and his contemporaries’ adherence to medieval conceptions of social hierarchy and their condemnation of egoism and greed, on the other, form the ideological battle lines that frame the debates around enclosure, improvement and the poor in the next century.

Moral Reformers and “Baconian” Improvers The archetypal defense of the moral economy was perhaps be found in the writings of John Moore. Concerned with the plight of the poor, Moore wrote a passionate polemic against “make-beggars” and enclosures called, The Crying Sin of England (1653). As was conventional at the time, Moore’s critique was bound up in a particular Christian understanding of man’s relationship to the poor. Not only is caring for the poor God’s work, it was in fact a wrathful sin to not care for the poor. Enclosures, as the primary cause of the worsening condition of the poor, are therefore a sin that will eventually call down the wrath of God upon England.71 Moore’s critique, however, never extends beyond the moral outrage felt by a man of the cloth against the plight of the poor. Of the eight reasons that he presents to his audience as to why the poor should be looked after, none of them deviate from a conventional medieval Christian understanding that the poor should be attended to by those of a higher social standing. Those who do not care for the poor have shunned life and “abideth death”; they lack the spirit of Christ. These “worldly” men are more concerned about their earthly well-being that they have abandoned all faith in Christ: “These Worldlings are unprofitable burdens of the earth, in whom there is no Charity, Liberality, Hospitality, nor humanity; such are greedy gripes, which by their inclosure, would have no poore to live

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with them, nor by them, but delight to converse with Beasts; and to this purpose turn Corne in Grasse, and men into Beasts.”72

As such, the enclosers and make-beggars are not the children of God, but the devil’s children. In A Scripture Word Against Inclosure, a tract published in 1656 in response to A Vindication of Regulate Inclosure, Moore attempts to find scriptural evidence for the sinfulness of England based on the promotion of enclosure by “great” in the inland counties of the country. Moore argues that as a result of the depopulating and decaying effects of enclosures, and the devastating effect enclosure is having on the livelihood of “the meek,” England’s sinfulness is comparable to that of Israel…and that if the act of enclosure is not stopped, the entire country will be punished by God’s wrath. Wealthy enclosers “pant after the dust of the earth” [representing gold and sliver] “on the head of the poore”, whereby they “buy and sell the righteous Poor for silver, that is, for the gain and profit, use them they doe as they use their beasts, keep them or put them off for their advantage.”73 This kind of economic exploitation is accomplished by means of the class power of the landed classes. “By reason of the greatnesse of the estates and power of these men,” says Moore, “they stop the current of justice and equity, whereby these meek ones should be delivered from their oppressours.”74 But what Moore’s critique possesses in moral outrage, it lacks in concrete analysis. Beyond his biblical condemnations of enclosure (“And none of us here can be ignorant how visibly God hath pursued such inclosure with his several judgements having written this very sin in the Judgement”75) the only argument he has is that the main “evill” of the enclosure movement, according to Moore was that it “unpeopled” towns and “uncorned” fields, leaving the poor landless and famished. As we will see in a moment, this critique was easily refuted by the proponents of enclosure. Lastly, Moore provides no remedy to the plight of the poor other than the maintenance of the common field system. Unlike some of his contemporaries, he has no conception of the state by which he can construct a concrete program of economic intervention. He is left stating that it is the “Honour and Duty of those who are in Power to relieve the poor and needy, and to rid them out of the hands of Oppressours”76; in other words, the rich should be punished for harming the poor on the one hand, and encouraged to do “good works” by caring for them on the other. The weakness of Moore’s anti-enclosure tracts leaves him susceptible to refutation by the proponents of enclosure and improvement, to which we will turn in the next section. By the time he wrote A Scripture word Against Inclosure, however, Moore was beginning to make the connections between improvement, enclosure, and the elimination of the customary “rights” governing the poor’s access to the commons. Here Moore argues that the sole reason for enclosure is to increase the profitability of land; “filthy lucre” lies at the root of enclosure. Despite the “prating” of the apologists of enclosure, who relied on a discourse of property rights and improvement, the enclosure of the commons is portrayed as merely an act of self-interest:

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“Doe they not call such Inclosure an Improvement of their lands? We shall gaine by it, we shall treble our rents. Hence those Heathenish speeches of theirs. May I not make the best of mine own? May I not doe what I list with mine own? Who shall hinder us?”77

While the landed classes may have the civil law on their side, they cannot enclose with a clean conscience. For Moore, the rights of property are not sacrosanct; landlords are “stewards” of God’s earth who will eventually be held to account for their deeds. Not all advocates of the poor opposed the process of enclosure. A number of proposals for social and economic reform advocated the enclosure of wastes, fens and forests under the rubric of state-led project of improvement. In A Poore Mans Advocate, Peter Chamberlen proposes to transform the state into a “joynt or publick stock” in order to address the plight of the poor. The state would thus become a kind of public works state in which the public power is used to employ the poor, landless and dispossessed. 78 This “publick purse” would ultimately be accountable to “the people” so that they get a sense of reward from their representatives. In other words, the state is to fulfill a function beyond the mere maintenance of peace and order – it also needs to provide a source of livelihood to the people affected by the agrarian crisis. The first thing that the state must do is to seize the lands of “delinquents”; i.e., those who fought against Parliament during the Civil war. These lands would be distributed to Parliamentary soldiers and the surplus would be placed in the public stock. In addition to this, enclosed commons would be thrown open and returned to the poor. Natural resources would be exploited, colonial endeavors would be expanded, unimproved land would be improved, and the poor would be put to work and turned into “good Commonwealth-men.” Thus, the reform state becomes the locus – as well as the instrument – of Chamberlen’s project for social reform. In this sense, he seems to be directly influenced by the Tudor reformers (as well as by a particular understanding of Roman history). But Chamberlen’s project betrays a problematic conception of the state. While it can probably be argued that Chamberlen conceives of the state in a “modern” way (comprised by an formal separation of the personal power of the ruler and the institutional power of the state possessing a monopoly over the legitimate use of force), his understanding of the state is abstracted from the social relations of early modern England. The state therefore stands over and above the class divisions of England to the extent that it can contain them and ultimately transcend them. This can be seen in the third element of Chamberlen’s work – his critique of individualism. The crux of the social crisis is, for Chamberlen, a problem of the unbridled pursuit of self-interest amongst wealthy Englishmen. The poor are in the situation they are in due to the greed and dishonesty of the rich: “The riches of the rich are oftetimes but Trophies of their dishonestie, of having rob’d the

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poor, or couzen’d the Commonwealth.”79 While the poor may be idle, this is not due to some innate trait (and here Chamberlen avoids the common distinction between the deserving poor and the undeserving poor). Rather, the poor are idle due to the deceitful actions of the rich, whereby, “the poor make them rich, by affording them the sweat of their Browes, at low despicable rates.”80 It is due to Chamberlen’s understanding of the causes of poverty – the greed of the rich – that leads him to attack usury as an “eating creature” which – like a viper – “gnaws out the bowells of one’s mother.”81 But it also leads him to take an ambiguous stance on enclosures because the social relations of England are characterized in a way that obscures the fact that they are fundamentally power relations. Rather, Chamberlen characterizes them as relations of morality that have been corrupted – for some inexplicable reason – by the covetousness of the rich. Thus, improvement and increased employment for the poor are seen by Chamberlen as complementary phenomena. So on the one hand, the commons will be redistributed to the poor (that they may do with them as they wish), and on the other, the state is called upon to enrich the nation, “by improving of Lands that were never improved, by imploying of men that were not onely useless; but a burthen, through idleness, or want of imployment.”82 In the end, Chamberlen is left with advocating enclosure where “enclosures and improvements will abundantly satsifie all parties.” And where they do not, the “old Customes and inconveniences [of the common fields] are to remain.”83 But perhaps the most revealing aspect of Chamberlen’s work is his response to the anticipated objections to his argument. In response to the claim that his reforms will excite the poor and endanger the commonwealth – by allowing the poor to “grow insolent and unruly, and become our masters”84 – Chamberlen argues that his reforms will in fact result in placing the poor under greater “order, instruction and government, then ever they were under.”85 Thus, we are left not with democracy or anarchy, but rather, with a stronger state. There is thus no indication that the poor will gain any power under Chamberlen’s regime; rather, they will be subjected to greater control and discipline. Whether this exists in contradiction with Chamberlen’s assertion that the poor will be free to choose their form of tenure remains to be seen. What is clear is that Chamberlen’s reforms are therefore not aimed at empowering the poor; neither are they aimed at enriching the poor. The surplus from the increased productivity will merely go back into the public stock in order to alleviate the tax levels of the propertied classes. Chamberlen’s reforms are thus aimed at putting the poor to work in order to “take away their unruly insolency” and increasing the wealth of the nation.86 While it can be agreed that Chamberlen “kept alive the Hartlib circle’s view of full employment as a national, public responsibility”, Chamberlen’s own admission that the poor would be subjected to greater state enforced labor discipline, leads us to reject any positive association that he may appear to have with the work of Gerrard Winstanley, for Chamberlen’s insistence of coercive labor for the able-bodied poor can hardly be considered as an employment “opportunity.”87

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Three main themes of Chamberlen’s work adhere to these sixteenthcentury conventions.88 First, Chamberlen appeals to men’s Christian duty to show concern for the plight of the poor: caring for the poor is God’s work. But Chamberlen also points out that social reform is necessary because the “wealth and strength of all Countries are in the poore; for they do all the great and necessary workes, and they make up the main body and strength of Armies.”89 While one could interpret this to reflect an uncharacteristic respect for the poor, it in fact implies a conventional fear of social disorder if the situation of the poor goes unaddressed. Thus, for Chamberlen, Christian charity is coupled with ruling class fear of laboring class unrest. If the new regime does not implement some kind of social reform the possible consequences would be fourfold: necessity will compel the poor to lawlessness and “confusion”; hunger will spark food riots; continued oppression will pit the “wise man” against the oppressors; and laboring class patience will turn to fury. Similarly, the anonymous author of Wast Land’s Improvement also proposes a state-led project of agrarian improvement through the enclosure of the wastes, fens and forests.90 Less ambitious than that proposed by Chamberlen, this project is more explicitly oriented towards the interests of the poor. Under the auspices of the state, enclosure and improvement would result in a number of significant improvements. First, the letting of improved and enclosed land – even at below market values – would increase the productivity of English agriculture and fill the coffers of the public treasury, thereby allowing for the provision of bread-corn for the poor at subsidized rates, and the maintenance of a military and naval force without recourse to excise and assessments. Secondly, it would eliminate the source of vagrancy and brigandage. Waste lands and forest were often a breeding ground for undesirable characters: thieves, squatters, highwaymen, heretics, and other social misfits. Thirdly, enclosure and improvement itself would act like a public works project and absorb the surplus labor that resulted from the expropriation of the small peasantry. However, measures need to be taken to ensure that this process of enclosure does not result in the increased exploitation of the poor. Understanding that enclosure often works in the interest of wealthier farmers and landlords, the author of Wast Land’s Improvement advocates a process of enclosure that grants what he calls “prehemsion” – first opportunity to let by the poor at reduced rates. This privileging of the poor would allegedly prevent enclosure from eliminating the customary “common” rights of the peasantry from being entirely extinguished; rather, they would be preserved in a new form and alleviate the negative impacts that enclosure had imposed on the poor since the sixteenth century. But not all seventeenth century commentators sought the use of the state and the preservation of the common field system as a means of alleviating the plight of the poor. Perhaps some of the most remarkable literature of the time is that which advocates the increased enclosure of the English countryside. A survey of this literature reveals a number of significant themes. First, the

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existence of customary rights to non-market access to the commons is portrayed as a fetter to the further development of agricultural improvement. Secondly, capitalist improvers rarely, if ever, characterized the wage labor relationship as a relation of domination and exploitation. In fact, wage-labor is largely absent from the improvement tracts. The enclosing of land and the improvement of agriculture was mainly seen as a way of making the poor rich, and the rich richer. Thus, enclosure and improvement is seen as not being in the interest of an exploiter, but rather in the interest of all in the commonwealth. It is rarely – if ever – pointed out that when the poor are put to work on enclosed fields in the form of wage laborers, they will necessarily be working for someone else, and that this form of work necessitates the elimination of their pre-existing rights to a non-market access to the means of their own subsistence.91 Lastly, the state receives little attention in the improvement literature. Aside from the fact that many of the tracts were addressed to Cromwell or the other men in power, the state only makes its appearance implicitly, mostly in the form of the law. The state is to provide “encouragement” to the improving landlord, and “compulsion” to the resisting copyholder and cottager. But in the end, the state is rarely discussed apart from the Commonwealth (commonwealth’s treasury, etc.). The state is thus conceived in non-class terms. An anonymously written text called Considerations concerning Common Fields92 assumes the form of a Platonic dialogue in response to the writings of John Moore. The participants – Philopeustus and Parrhesiastes – discuss the critiques of enclosures. Philopeustus represents Glaucon to Parrhesiastes’ Plato. Parrhesiastes – the voice of enclosure and improvement – responds to Philopeustus’ summation of Moore’s moral critique of the enclosure movement. There are a number of counter-arguments presented by Parrhesiastes which represent a subversion of the moral categories of the Stuart reformers. What seem, at first glance, to be simple rejections of the conventional antienclosure literature, however, reveal more sophisticated re-articulations of property and political economy. First, we have a refutation of the sinfulness of enclosures. The original argument by Moore, that neglect of the poor is a wrathful sin, is rejected and subverted by Parrhesiastes by inverting the causal relationship between poverty and sin. Poverty is the result of sinfulness. Thus, the way to end poverty is to end the sinfulness that causes it. But within this subversion of conventional understandings of poverty is a more sophisticated rearticulation of individual interest, land, labor and profitability. The eradication of poverty is accomplished by each individual endeavoring to work towards the common-good, or “publique benefit,” “which is but the summa totalis of all particular Items.”93 In other words, the common good is merely the aggregate of individual interests. But the question remains: how does one work toward the public benefit – the common good? The answer is as significant as it is innovative: “the greatest advantage to the Commonwealth, that can be raised out of land, is then, when it is imployed unto that use especially, for which it is fittest, and in such manner, that the greatest proportion of profit may be raised, with the least expence of charge.”94 Thus, the common good is to be found in the

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profitable use of land, which necessitates a greater output of crop than the “charge” (i.e., labor and other inputs) that is expended in its cultivation. The significance of Parrhesiastes’ argument, however, is to be found in the consequences that this individual pursuit of profitability – in the name of the “common good” – has on existing forms of peasant agriculture and property rights. The importance here is that Parrhesiastes’ remedy to the ills of the commonwealth is directly antagonistic to the existing customary practices of the open field system. In response to Moore’s nostalgia for the order and tranquility of the open fields of England, Parrhesiastes presents us with a “tragedy of the commons” in which the wealthier peasants take advantage of the poorer peasants, thereby maintaining the latter in a perpetual state of poverty. Wealthy peasants, argues Parrhesiastes, exploit the commons, either by over-stocking, over-plowing, or moving the markers of other peasants in order to increase their share. In fact, Parrhesiastes goes so far as to question the intentions and integrity of opponents to enclosure by stating that their desire to abuse the commons is the basis of their antagonism to enclosure: “And I believe it may be observed, that for the most part, the greatest complainers against, and opposers of Inclosure, either in generall or upon equall and indifferent termes, are such as have been accustomed unto, or desire they may have liberty to practice such licentious courses.”95 Thus, we get a sense of anarchy in the open-field systems of England.96 The communal forms of property regulation that existed within the village communities are either absent from the dialogue, or characterized as relations of exploitation – with peasants exploiting peasants – and license. In one part of the dialogue, Philopeustus argues that a poorer tenant who has no stock can “set his Commons” with the stock of other men and thereby retain his customary rights. This is a bit unclear, but it seems to mean that a poor peasant or freeholder can allow wealthier peasants to use their share of the commons in return for something of value – presumably money. In response to this, Parrhesiastes says that this is not a viable option because, the rich tenant, knowing the poverty of the poor peasant, will take advantage of him by taking his commons at an undervalued rate. Thus, the rich will “eat up” the poor man’s Commons. So how would things be different under a system of enclosed tenures? Enclosures would solve the problems of poverty, idleness and vagrancy by granting the tenant the right – in the absence of stock – to engage in other forms of husbandry. In other words, he has the exclusive right to engage in agricultural improvements: “For, in a ground inclosed, that grasse which he hath not cattle of his own to eat, if he cannot, or be not minded to set it to another, he may either mow, if it be fit for hay, or else preserve for his own use against another time, when he can get stock to put upon it, or if he cannot so soon as he would, yet the land at the least would be improved by it against another time; whereas in a Common-field it would bee eaten bare by others, without any recompense to the owner.”97 Enclosures give freeholders and tenants the freedom to organize their husbandry as they see fit in order to engage in

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profitable forms of agriculture. This would do two things. First, it would give them a surplus which could be used to take care of the “deserving poor,” and it would provide employment for the able bodied poor. In the end, Parrhesiastes argues that we should be morally outraged not by enclosures, but by the maintenance of the common fields for its oppression of the poor and the perpetuation of poverty. What is important about Parrhesiastes’ argument for the development of political economy, however, is not so much the tragedy of the commons argument presented here. Neither is it to be found in the notion of productivity and profitability. To be sure, the latter are significant developments. But they are significant only insofar as they are elevated above other concerns. In other words, they are significant only insofar as their pursuit – i.e., the pursuit of profitability and increased productivity – come at the expense of other forms of social organization and regulation. It is here that the improvement literature tells us something about the social struggles around property (and vice versa). The pursuit of profitable agriculture – or improved agriculture, as their proponents called it – was not merely the result of the implementation of superior technology or more “rational” forms of husbandry in itself, for these required a fundamental restructuring of the social relations upon which agriculture was based. For Parrhesiastes, “More Grain may be raised, and with Lesse charge, in grounds inclosed, then in Common Fields,” not simply by the implementation of new technologies, but rather by the “proper ordering” of husbandry, which cannot occur under the common field system because in the latter, “land must be used as hath been accustomed, and cannot be otherwise, without a joynt consent: which commonly is as hard to be obtained, as agreement by Inclosure.”98 The pursuit of improved agriculture, in other words, necessitated the elimination of the social relations upon which the open field system was based. It is here that we see the antagonism between individual and exclusive property rights and the customary use-rights to land subjected to the communal regulation of the village community. The significance of this is that it helps to understand what the enclosure movement was really about and what it meant for the development of political economy. The enclosure movement was not merely about the fencing in of estates or the emergence of new forms of tenure. Rather the significant aspect of the enclosure movement is to be found in the fact that “the normative community regulation of production, and all common rights and obligations, were dissolved even where the customary tenancies remained.”99 The reason why this argument for the elimination of communal property rights is important for the development of pre-classical and classical political economy is that it is the unspoken basis upon which this political economy of improvement rests. This ideological presupposition – the elimination of customary rights – can be found within the bulk of the improvement literature. In The CommonGood, or the Improvement of Commons, Silvanus Taylor, like the anonymous writer of Some Considerations, seeks to refute the arguments raised against enclosure. He argues that enclosures will increase the overall stock of the commonwealth through an increase in productivity. Agriculture would become

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more productive through the improvements that enclosure would allow. For example, convertible husbandry would allow a field to produce a greater yield through the intensifying the crop, which would in turn lessen the amount of labor used.100 The question that remains unasked is: what is it about the common-field system that is preventing this increase in productivity? The answer, by Taylor’s own admission, is the communal regulation of agricultural production in the form of customary rights to the land itself. Enclosure provides the tenant with the right and the ability to reorganize agrarian production as he sees fit. Thus, enclosure presupposes the extinction of these customary forms of regulation. Taylor himself states that enclosure is a “good” which must be imposed upon the many against their will, “for against the wills of many it must be, or else it never will be.”101 Walter Blith lists the existence of common rights as one of the principle fetters on the introduction of agricultural improvements. In England’s Improver Improved, he argues that “where all mens Land lie intermixed in Common Fields or Meddows; The ingenuous are disabled to the Improving theirs, because others will not, neither sometimes can the Improvement be made upon any, unless upon all joyntly, or else upon an unsuppotable [sic] Charges or Burthen.”102 In other words, the communal regulation of the common fields prevent the introduction of improvements because, in many cases, such improvements require the joint consent of the peasantry. Thus, the improvement of agriculture necessitates the elimination of the peasantry’s customary rights to the land and their communal regulation over agricultural production. Once these rights are eliminated through a process of enclosure, entrepreneurial tenants and landlords are free to implement agricultural improvements (mostly in the form of convertible husbandry) which, in turn, lead to greater productivity and greater profitability. Thus, enclosures, it is argued, ultimately lead to the betterment of the common good. In his epistle to the cottager, laborer and meanest commoner, Blith states that he seeks to “Indeavour the advancement of all interests”; in his epistle to the “industrious reader,” he claims to endeavor to “make the poor rich, and the rich richer, and all to live of the labour of their own hands.”103 Whereas the Stuart reformers argued that enclosures were the cause of poverty, dearth and depopulation, the Baconian improvers argue that enclosures are the solution to poverty, dearth and depopulation. We thus have an inversion of the conventions of the old moral political economy. Within the improvement literature there exists a tension that masks a conceptual “sleight of hand.” This tension concerns the relationship between enclosure and the common good. On the one hand, it is argued that enclosure requires the elimination of customary use-rights in common land, and the communal regulation of agrarian production. In this sense, it must be imposed upon the many, against their will. On the other hand, it is argued that the benefits accruing from the increased productivity of improved agriculture will benefit the “common good.” An apparent contradiction therefore exists. How

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can the forceful imposition of a new regime of social property relations against the will of the many benefit the common good? The answer presented by the improvers is that the increase in production resulting from enclosure increases the wealth of the nation. This, however, assumes that everyone benefits equally from agricultural improvements. When we look at the improvement literature, however, we see that this is in fact not the case at all. When we look at the way in which the improvers discuss labor, we can see that many of those affected by the enclosure movement do not become affluent tenant farmers. What we see is the gradual proletarianization of the customary peasantry. Silvanus Taylor, for example, argues that the elimination of the rights of the poor to access to the common fields is in fact a good thing because it compels the poor to engage in wage labor – it subjects the worker to new forms of labor discipline. For Blith, enclosures “will make work for the poor labourer.” By taking away the poor’s non-market access to land, the poor must, out of necessity, engage in wage labor to supplement their income. This, however, is deemed to be a good thing, for it disciplines the lower classes, turning them into proper commonwealth men. Beyond this, however, the improvers do not go, and wage labor disappears from their political economy of the countryside. The absence of a full discussion of wage labor in the improvement literature is significant because it conceptually eliminates an historically specific and coercive social relationship from the early modern English countryside. What we are presented with is a portrait of early modern England in which the soil is tilled – with maximum productivity, and of course, profitability – by individual tenant farmers, freed from the tyranny of the common fields. Recalling Blith's words, the poor will be made rich, and rich made richer, and all will “live of the labour of their own hands.”104 It is the Baconian improvers that lay the intellectual groundwork for the further development of pre-classical political economy.

Levellers and the “Middling Sort of Men” The position of the Levellers regarding the plight of the peasantry and the rural laborers was ambiguous. It appears that the movement – never homogeneous to begin with – was split over what to do regarding the peasantry. One option, pushed, albeit unsuccessfully, by the more radical elements of the movement, was to gain the allegiance of the customary tenantry, cottagers and the landless proletariat by implementing a land reform that would address the agrarian question of the mid-1640s. The other option, pushed by the more conservative elements of the movement, was to ally with the officers. 105 The first position was preferred by the rank-in-file, by leaders such as Walwyn and Overton, and by the Levellers newspaper, The Moderate. It is said that The Moderate supported universal male suffrage and some sort of agrarian reform. In 1647, Overton declared that all “ancient” enclosures should be

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thrown open and the land redistributed to the poor. Walwyn and Overton have thus been said to have been more sensitive to the rural problem of the 1640s. 106 According to H. N. Brailsford, “The Levellers were not drafting a statute; they were framing a popular programme. What Richard Overton and the Agitators proposed was in its audacity and scope the perfect prescription for a social revolution. To undo all enclosures without time limit was to reverse all that the new owning class had achieved since the Wars of the Roses. Property meant to the new squirearchy the power to exploit the land within their own hedges as they thought fit.”107

Yet others point out that the social policy advocated by the Moderate was quite conventional. Its main concern over the plight of the rural poor was out of potentially grave consequences of inaction on this front. As Diethe points out, the “indictment of misery and starvation is forceful and descriptive, but social revolution was not advocated as a solution.”108 Rather, they sought the support of plebeian radicals like themselves. Diethe, however, argues that The Moderate did not represent the propagandistic organ of the Leveller movement and that the Levellers did not have a coherent agrarian program. Regardless of the relationship between the Moderate and the Levellers and the former’s position on various Leveller reforms, what is clear is that in the end the radical Levellers failed to push the movement in the direction of the customary peasantry, thus dashing any hopes of attaining security of tenure and an Agrarian Law for the poorest of the rural classes. As Brailsford points out, the final position that the Levellers took regarding copyhold tenures was a “very moderate compromise.”109 This, according to Manning, signaled the beginning of the end for the Leveller movement, as it precluded the creation of a class alliance between the peasantry and the urban classes which could have pushed the revolution in a more radical direction. 110 While Brailsford argues that the limited reforms that the Levellers did propose would have changed the social relations of England it seems that the reforms did not adequately appeal to the interests of the differentiated peasantry. “The insecurity and the fear of rack-rent and exploitation, which bent him into a posture of cautious servility, would have vanished. The Levellers, in short, would have peopled the English countryside with an enfranchised peasantry, so securely planted on the soil that it would have dared to stand erect. This, needless to say, was not a communistic policy: it was in its inspiration individualistic, though something of the traditional communism of the open fields would have survived through several generations. But it would have broken the power of the great landed families which ruled England through the next two centuries, by adding immeasurably to the capacity of the villages for resistance. It would have made of rural England what rural France became after the Revolution, a land of small peasant

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owners. But to say this is to point out that the Levellers and the troopers of the New Model were naively proposing to reverse history. The Great Rebellion had other ends in view.”111

While the tenant-farmers had no interest in granting security of tenure to the customary peasantry, the customary peasantry remained, in most cases, politically inactive. It is perhaps the Levellers’ movement away from the customary peasantry that provoked, first, the publication of a number of Leveller inspired pamphlets pertaining to the interests of the copyholders, and, second, the emergence of the Diggers. The authors of A Declaration of the Wel-Affected in the County of Buckinghamshire (1649) declare their adherence to “Common Right and Freedom.” We can get a sense of what this means by noting that the authors declare their common cause with Lilburne, Walwyn, Prince, Overton and the rank and file of the army. In essence, these are Leveller sympathizers who seek the elimination of the “great obstructors and hinderers of all our Liberties, Freedoms, and naturall Rights.”112 What are these “great obstructors and hinderers” of freedom, liberty and natural right? We are presented with an extensive list: the “arbitrary nature of Customs, Tolls, Monopolies and the arbitrary powers of the Courts, Lawyers, Lords of Mannors, Monopolists, Incroachers, Inhancers and other interested parties”113; the author condemns the Lords, Gentlemen and “extorting Lords of Mannors, whereby all wicked Customs, as Fines, Hariots, Quit-rents, and Headsilvers, with all slavish and base Tenours, Tyths, Impropriations, and Patents, Prerogative Charters”; all of which “have been the great obstructors and hinderers of all our Liberties, Freedoms, and naturall Rights.”114 The tract is a protest against feudalism and all of its tyrannical baggage – the fines, tithes, monopolies, patents, base tenures (copyhold), kingly prerogative, etc. This in effect does not reproduce much of the medieval conventions of political economy. It is really more a Leveller critique of the “whole Norman power” that subjugates Englishmen to feudal tyranny. The organizing principle upon which the Leveller critiques of political economy are based is a conception of freedom from the arbitrary tyranny of feudal forms of domination and the assertion of the birthright of the freeborn Englishman. No conception of improvement or profitability is to be found in these Leveller pamphlets. Other Leveller pamphlets such as A Light Shining in Buckinghamshire vehemently oppose enclosures, but adopt a similarly conventional position: a moral condemnation of existing power relations in rural England and calls for the tearing down of enclosures and the return of the open field system. In this sense, they seem to represent the perspective of the smaller peasantry as opposed to the emerging rural proletariat.115

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Digger Radicalism and Agrarian Capitalism In contrast to the Leveller position regarding the problems in the English countryside, the Diggers put forth a very different analysis. Three main elements of the Diggers’ pamphlets distinguish them from the moral critiques of the Stuart Reformers, from the pro-improvement tracts of the Baconian and Hartlibian improvers and the polemics of the Leveller radicals. First, the Diggers display a better understanding of the social changes underway in the political economy of the early modern English countryside. From this analysis of agrarian political economy comes a conceptualization of the “common treasury” which rejects the notion of improvement as it is defined at the time. The result of this is the articulation of a program of labor withdrawal that moves beyond simple anti-enclosure riots in order to engage in “true levelling.” In the end, the Diggers were the most unconventional opponents of enclosure. In terms of an analysis of the social property relations of early modern England, the Diggers exhibit a much more sophisticated understanding of the dynamic and coercive class relations that are emerging in the countryside. The Diggers seem to be aware of the triadic structure of agrarian class relations – what Marx called the “trinity formula” – and the specific social dynamic characterized by that class structure. While Winstanley was not the first to articulate this class relationship – it was depicted in the writings of Thomas Smith a century before – it was perhaps the first time that this relationship was depicted from a critical standpoint that emphasized the exploitative nature of the relationship. It is important to restate some of the previous positions regarding the class structure of early modern England. Stuart reformers advocated a kind of paternalism where the laboring poor would be kept in place for their own moral and spiritual well-being. Baconian and Hartlibian improvers, if they even mentioned wage-labor at all, obscured its coercive nature. More commonly, wage labor was neglected in the works of most 17th century commentators, thus implying that agrarian social relations were characterized solely by landlords, independent tenant farmers, and peasants – who would, through enclosure and improvement, move up into the ranks of the yeomanry. Lastly, the pro-Leveller radicals in Buckinghamshire focused most of their ire at the remnants of the coercive feudal relations that still existed in early modern England. Thus, landlords and clergy – along with all of their feudal privileges such as tithes, taxes, fines, levies, etc., were vociferously attacked. In contrast to this, the Diggers present us with a different image of the early modern English countryside. In A New-yeer’s Gift for the Parliament and Army (1650), Winstanley presents the various agrarian classes in English society. At the top of the social hierarchy, of course, sits the king. But below him are the lords of manors, who occupy “the greatest portion of the earth”, and enjoy the privileges of lordship. Below them sit the “inferior officers or soldiers” of the Conquest, the freeholders who “are appointed lesser parcels of the earth”, and pay “no slavish rent or homage to any”; they merely

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acknowledge the sovereignty of the king.116 The freeholders, argues Winstanley, “took the particular enclosures which they found in a land when they conquered it, and had turned out those that had bestowed labor upon it by force of the sword in the field, or else by sequestering afterwards. These several parcels of land are called freehold land because the enjoyers or their ancestors were soldiers and helped the king to conquer; and if any of latter years came to buy these freeholds with money got by trading, it doth not alter the title of the conquest; for evidences are made in the king’s name, to remove the freeholds bought from one man’s hand to another.”117 What becomes apparent in the Digger pamphlets is the symbiotic relationship that exists between landlords and tenant farmers in a context of peasant differentiation and dispossession. Copyhold lands, argues Winstanley “are parcels hedged in an taken out of the common land since the conquest, acknowledging homage, fines and heriots to the lord of that manor or circuit in which that enclosure by his leave is made: this homage still confirms the power of the conquests.”118 The social significance of the emerging social relationships is found in the work of the Digger poet, Robert Coster. The customary peasantry is portrayed here as losing its non-market access to the means of subsistence – the land: “If men would do as aforesaid, rather then go with Cap in hand, and bended knee, to Gentlemen and Farmers, begging and intreating to work with them for 8d. or 10d. a day, which doth give them an occasion to tyrannize over poor people (which are their fellowCreatures) if poor men would not go in such a slavish posture, but do as aforesaid, then rich farmers would be weary of renting so much land of the Lords of Mannors. 2. If the Lords of Mannors…could not let it out by percells, but must be constrained to keep it in their own hands, then would they want those great bags of money (which do maintain pride, idleness, and fullness of bread) which are carried into them by their Tenants, who go in as slavish a posture as may be; namely, with Cap in hand, and bended knee, crouching and creeping from corner to corner, while his Lord (rather Tyrant) walkes up and down the Roome with his proud lookes, and with great swelling words questions him about his holding. 3. If the Lords of Mannors and other Gentlemen, had not those great bagges of money brought into them, then down would fall the Lordliness of their spirits, and then poor men might speak to them; then there might be can acknowledging of one another to be fellow-creatures.”119

There is a two-fold significance to this passage. The first significance is the depiction of the relationship between landlords and tenant farmers. Here, the relationship is presented as one not of class antagonism, but rather, mutual interest and symbiotic dependence, albeit expressing itself in a relation of unequal dependence in favor of the landlord. The necessity for the poor to labor for a wage fuels the renting of land, by farmers, from landlords. Enclosure creates a class of wage-laborers, which in turn fuels the further enclosure and

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engrossment of common land; in other words, fuelling the accumulation of capital in the countryside. The profits from enclosure and improved agriculture result in greater rents for landlords. Thus, capitalist tenant farmers and landlords exist in a mutually beneficial relationship to each other, a relationship that represented the particular class relations of agrarian capitalism in this period. In contrast, the rural proletariat exists in a relationship of class antagonism towards the capitalist tenant farmers as well as the “Lords of Mannors.” At the heart of this antagonism lies the exploitative relationship of wage-labor. Contrary to the proponents of the “freeing” up of rural labor, Winstanley understands that the ability to buy the labor power of another is a form of power in itself. Thus Winstanley conceives of wage labor as a form of bondage: “Yea that kingly power in the laws appointed the conquered poor to work for them that possess the land, for three pence and four pence a day; and if any refused, they were to be imprisoned; and if any walked a-begging and had no dwelling, he was to be whipped; and all was to force the slaves to work for them that had taken their property of their labours from them by the sword, as the laws of England are yet extant. And truly most laws are but to enslave the poor to the rich, and so they uphold the conquest and are laws of the great red dragon.”120

The ability of one social class to compel the other to work for wages therefore “forces one part of the creation, man, to be a slave to another.”121 By doing so, landlords and the men of property are able to lift themselves up to be “rulers and lawmakers over them that lifted them up,”122 effectively becoming the ruling class in society: “And these lords of manors and freeholders, having thus seated themselves in the earth by taking other men’s proper labours from them by the sword, are appointed by the king as watchmen, that if any of the conquered slaves seek to plant the common waste earth without their leave, they may be known and beaten off. So that the god from whom they claim title to the land as proper to them, shutting out others, was covetousness the murderer, the swordly power, that great red dragon who is called the god of the world.”123

None of Winstanley’s contemporaries made these kinds of observations regarding the class relations of early modern English society. But Winstanley goes further in presenting a multifaceted notion of class exploitation. Along with the notion that the institution of wage-labor leads to the lifting up of the tyrants over the poor, we have an understanding of the compulsions of capitalist competition at the level of buying and selling, which Winstanley refers to as a false Christ which is meant to “save the creation.” Due to the elimination of the communal regulation of production, the provision of

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basic needs is now mediated through the market. But this mediation is not equal. Those who have more will now be able to have greater access to goods. Through the inequalities of capitalism, Winstanley notes that the rich have “outreached the plain-hearted in buying and selling,” leading to the further enrichment of the former and the impoverishment of the latter. 124 What is interesting here is that these two notions of oppression have in many cases been neglected by most commentators as being forms of exploitation. Rather, most contemporaries referred to “free” labor and the “freedom” to buy and sell or to dispose of one’s property. However, Winstanley adds a third dimension to this notion of oppression: the abuse of public authority by which public figures use the civil power to pursue their private interests. This latter aspect of Winstanley’s notion of oppression relates to the relationship between public authority and the constitution of private interests in early modern English society; more specifically, the way in which the private ownership of land becomes the basis of public power and conversely, how that same public power is utilized to serve the interests of the landed classes. In order to understand what this entails we need to analyze Winstanley’s contempt for the laws of England. The significance of the enclosure movement is to be found in the systematic elimination of communal regulations of agrarian production. The means by which the landed classes eliminated the customary rights of the peasantry was through the common law. But the common law was also a weapon used by the landed classes to prevent the poor from attempting to regain their non-market access to land and resources. Winstanley’s contempt for these laws is unambiguous even at the worst of times, for it is through these laws that the landed classes govern as if “the earth were made peculiarly for them.”125 Thus, in contrast to reformers such as Chamberlen, who conceived of the state as an autonomous set of institutions that was able to transcend the coercive class relations of England in order to reform it, Winstanley conceives of the state – albeit in a very undeveloped and unsystematic way – as being inextricably linked to the class divisions of society. 126 But the Diggers’ particular understanding of wage-labor is not only significant in relation to its absence in competing discourses on agrarian political economy. It is also the crucial element in the development of Winstanley’s conception of the “common treasury.” If the conception of the “social surplus”127 is predicated upon a conception of improvement that itself is based upon an exploitative relationship between tenant farmers and wagelaborers in the interest of profitability, then a rejection of that exploitative relationship will result in a different conceptualization of the “end point” of agrarian political economy. That is, rather than the development of a political economy whose fundamental concept is the “social surplus,” Winstanley bases his (admittedly undeveloped) political economy upon the concept of the “common treasury.” If the relationship between wage-laborers and small and dependent peasants on the one side, and tenant farmers and large landowners on the other

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side, is characterized by a relationship of exploitation, then, contrary to the exhortations of improvers such as Walter Blith, the process of improvement will not result in the enrichment of all Englishmen. If this is the case, therefore, a conception of agrarian political economy based upon the creation of a “social surplus,” or “surplus value” stemming from improved farming practices will exacerbate the existence of this exploitative relationship. It is thus dangerous to characterize Winstanley as a communist improver, seeking to develop the forces of production. This is a position taken by both Christopher Hill and James Holstun.128 Improvement, as it was employed at the time, implied a particular form of capitalist exploitation that Winstanley was actively resisting. While it is true that Winstanley sought to bring waste lands under cultivation and to use manuring techniques to make them cultivable, this is different than the kinds of improvement that the proponents of enclosure were exalting at this time. Thus, a rethinking of agrarian political economy is necessary. This is the significance of Winstanley’s conception of the “common treasury” – not so much in the sense that it represents a form of communism in the abstract, but rather in the sense that it relates to emerging conceptions of surplus value based upon coercive practices of improvement and enclosure. From this class analysis of rural early modern England, Winstanley devises a program of “true levelling” which hinges not so much on the throwing open of enclosures, but rather on the withdrawal of wage labor. Some commentators, however, have pointed to a seeming contradiction in the Digger project. Davis, for example, argues that Winstanley accepted the “legal validity of enclosures” while at the same time advocating his program of labor withdrawal. This, he argues, is evidence of his “partial communism.” But Davis himself notes that the program of labor withdrawal, while leaving the legality of enclosures intact, fundamentally undermines the concrete basis of their material existence.129 Thus, “partial communism” is not the issue. The issue, for the Diggers, is to find the most viable way to undermine the existing social property relations of England without resorting to violence – which, given the small size and ragged composition of the Digger colonies, would most definitely result in disaster for the Diggers – and without unnecessarily alienating the freeholders. However, more work also needs to be done regarding Winstanley’s defense of customary rights to the common land. What exactly does Winstanley mean when he speaks of freeing up the land? Marxists have often taken his calls to make the earth a common treasury at face value. It means the abolition of private property. But this is too abstract. We need to be more specific in what this entails. Recently, John Gurney has argued that Winstanley’s defense of customary rights to common land extended beyond the rights of the inhabitants of a particular parish. The significance of this is that customary rights to common land were usually restricted to members of a particular locality. However, Winstanley extends these rights to all poor commoners, regardless of their locality. This is possibly due to the increased dispossession of the peasantry and their resulting mobility at the time. Whereas previous customary

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rights were linked to the enjoyment of particular common land, representing the rootedness of the traditional small peasantry, Winstanley’s universalization of these use-rights seems to correspond to the changing social relations of capitalism. However, as Gurney further argues, such an approach served to alienate the local freeholders, because this universalization of customary rights served to place limits on their customary rights. In regards to the material interests of the small freeholders (which would often consist of independent artisans), the Diggers “certainly failed to address the issue of the customary rights of manorial tenants to the commons, and in championing the right of access to commons of all poor people they broke with the tradition that access should be restricted to the tenants or inhabitants of a particular locality.”130 This hostility on the part of freeholders would also seem to explain why Winstanley felt the need to allow the landlords and the “violent bitter people that are freeholders” to enjoy their enclosures in peace. In a context of profound social change – one in which the peasantry was being split into landless laborers on the one side and wealthier freeholders on the other, re-articulating customary rights in this way poses a threat to those freeholders trying to reproduce themselves in an increasingly competitive agrarian market. This appeal to custom becomes radical – as opposed to “backward looking” or “traditional” – once it is understood that the customary use of the land is in fact an obstacle to the further pursuance of the interests of the landed classes, both landlords and freehold tenant farmers. Resistance to enclosure could take on many forms, including destructive or negative forms of resistance: arson, riot, fence breaking, destruction of records, mobbing of surveyors. Other forms of resistance, such as lobbying, petitioning and letter writing, were less destructive and perhaps less effective.131 What sets the Diggers apart from other anti-enclosure movements is the fact that they represented an articulate, positive response to the assault on customary userights to the land; they actively re-asserted what they considered to be their time hallowed birth-right against the interests of “improving” landlords. So although Winstanley’s program is not one of violent expropriation of enclosure estates, but rather a peaceful program of labor withdrawal, a threat is still being posed to the landed classes. As Dow has pointed out, since Winstanley has a proper understanding of the social basis of the political power of the ruling landed classes, he also realizes that a program of collective labor withdrawal would eliminate the social relations of emerging agrarian capitalism – wage labor.132 To argue this is not to read Marxian categories into Winstanley’s thought, nor is it to claim that somehow he is a precocious Marxist. It merely serves to highlight the social and political consequences of Winstanley’s own analysis: that the working poor, by their labors, have “lifted up tyrants and tyranny; and by denying to labour for hire they shall pull them down again.”133 Given the relationship between private property and state power outlined by Winstanley, the withdrawing of labor would have disastrous affects on the ability of the landed classes to maintain their position of political dominance. To claim, therefore, that the Diggers accepted the legal validity of

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existing enclosures solely because they did not lay claim to those that already existed is to engage in a kind semantic reductionism – one that conceives of enclosures as merely a quantitative change in tenure, and one that misunderstands the complexity and class nature of the antagonism between customary use-rights and capitalist forms of private property. In many ways, then, Winstanley’s social and political thought can be seen as a significant intervention into a mid-century debate regarding the meaning of political economy. Contrary to the moral reformers of the interregnum, Winstanley deviates from the accepted conventions of the moral economy by politicizing the relationships between classes, critiques the state on the basis of exploitative social property relations, and advocates the selforganization of the poor. In contrast to the writings of the Baconian and Hartlibian improvers, Winstanley rejects the notion of improvement by highlighting the inherently exploitative relationship between tenant-farmers and wage-laborers. What is more significant is that Winstanley acted as the informal leader of a group of the dispossessed that were organizing along lines that would undermine the very forms of agricultural social relations and practices that were advocated by the improvers, and thus, formed the basis of classical political economy. What we have in the work of Winstanley is the beginning of an understanding of the relationship between state power and private property in an early modern England characterized by the emergence of agrarian capitalism. The acquisition of land is a political act that takes the form of theft, “bloody and subtle thievery”, which allows those who acquire land to become justices, rulers and state governors. But he also presents us with an understanding that wagelabor is a relationship of power and that the market itself is a coercive social relationship, for it compels the poor to compete, without communal regulations, against the wealthy and the powerful, leading to the increasing impoverishment of the former. The alternative to this state of affairs, according to Winstanley, is to make the earth a common treasury for all.134

Conclusion In hindsight, we of course know who the “victors” were of the debates surrounding enclosure and property. If there is one thing that the Restoration of 1660 did not restore, it was the conceptions of society and property that were prevalent during the Tudor era. By 1663, William Petty would pen what many commentators have argued is the first work of political economy. 135 Petty was a close associate of Samuel Hartlib, who, as we have seen, dedicated much of his energy to the publishing of tracts and treatises on agricultural improvement. 136 Petty argued that the wealth of a nation is to be measured not in its territorial extent, but in the number of people engaged in productive activities. Not all employments, argues Petty, are productive. Many mercantile pursuits are unproductive and parasitical: they merely pass goods from one market to

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another; they do not create wealth, they merely buy cheap and sell dear the products that are made through manufacture and industry. Building on the insights of his Baconian predecessors, Petty advanced what resembles a labor theory of rent in which the value of rent is calculated as the level of surplus produced. The question remains then, what the money value of this real rent might be; that is, how much the rent – being the natural surplus of the productive capacity of that particular holding – would be in money terms. This led him to enquire into the value of the surplus that is produced. While certain ambiguities exist in Petty’s work,137 it is clear that his insights represent a triumph of the new social Baconianism that began to emerge during the Civil War and Revolutionary era. A new discourse of political economy had supplanted the older humanist categories of understanding political economy which presupposed the existence of the triadic class structure of agrarian capitalism. 138 Samuel Fortrey, pursuing the line of argument put forth by the Baconian improvers of the previous decade, and anticipating Locke by two decades, would argue that unenclosed land “will not let for above one third part so much as the same land would do inclosed, and always several.”139 Improved land would increase the productivity of corn, thereby allowing producers to produce more corn on less land, and with less labor: “Wherefore then if by inclosure the land it self is raised to a greater value, and a less quantity capable of a greater increase, and if really it causeth no depopulations, but at most a removal of people thence; where without benefit to the publick, or profit to themselves, they labored and toiled, to a more convenient habitation, where they might with less pains greatly advantage both: And if the manufactures and other profitable employments of this nation are increased, by adding thereto such numbers of people, who formerly served onely to waste, not to increase the store of the nation, it cannot be denied, but the encouragement of inclosure, where every mans just right may be preserved, would infinitely conduce to the increase and plenty of this nation, and is a thing very worthy the countenance and care of a Parliament.”140

Decades later, John Locke would perfect this argument in his famous chapter on property in the Two Treatises of Government, presenting what is in effect a capitalist theory of landed property.141 Beginning from a state of nature characterized by the equality of man and the existence of common property granted by God for the fulfillment of man’s needs, Locke proceeds to make the case for private property based upon the appropriating power of individual labor: anything that one mixes his labor with can be legitimately appropriated from the commons. Limitations on this private appropriation, such as sufficiency for the needs of others and the famous “spoilage” clause, which limits appropriation to that which can be appropriated without spoiling, are overcome by the introduction of money and insistence on productivity. For Locke, accumulation and appropriation are not ends in themselves – for this could

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facilitate the growth of an idle aristocracy – rather, the desired end is the increased productivity of agricultural output and an increase in the stock of the nation.142 This capitalist ideology of improvement would ultimately form the intellectual context of the Scottish Enlightenment in the context of Scotland’s own particular transition to agrarian capitalism.143 Locke’s conception of landed property is indebted to the Baconian improvers’ emphasis on agricultural improvement and their concern over increasing the productivity of English agriculture. 144 What is significant about Locke’s theory of property is the fact that he embeds it within a discourse of natural right, thereby overcoming the problems that were brought forth during the Putney Debates of 1647.145 Thus, despite some arguments to the contrary, by the end of the 17th century, the prevailing ideology of the Whig Ascendancy, as it is articulated by Locke, remains quite at odds with the radicalism of the Levellers and the Diggers in days of the Civil War and Revolution. 146

Notes 1. Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation: the political and economic origins of our time (Boston: Beacon Press, 1944); E.P. Thompson, “The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century,” in Customs in Common (New York: The New Press 1993). 2. Thompson, “Moral Economy,” 188. 3. This is not to say that in normal times the rich and the poor lived harmoniously. What it means is that in exchange for displays of deference by the poor, the rich were obligated to reciprocate with displays of paternalism, such as charity. These obligations may not have been consistently met, and they were inextricably bound up with unequal relations of power, but they contrasted with the notions of “interest” that emerged with the dominance of the “cash-nexus” of capitalism. 4. Popular ideology here refers to what George Rudé characterizes as the fusion of the “inherent” beliefs of the folk knowledge of the popular classes and the “derived” knowledge of the more philosophically sophisticated ideologies of the educated and middling classes. George Rudé, Ideology and Popular Protest (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995). For a brief discussion of the underground existence of radical ideas from the late fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries, see Hill, “From Lollards to Levellers.” 5. This is, of course, a simplification. For a more sophisticated and detailed discussion on medieval conceptions of society, see Janet Coleman, A History of Political Thought: From the Middle Ages to the Renaissance (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2000). See also, Brian Nelson, The Making of the Modern State: A Theoretical Evolution (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006). 6. This hierarchy was sometimes viewed as being divided between the noble and the non-noble, but it was perhaps more commonly seen as a hierarchy of warrior nobles, clergy and peasants; that is, those who fight, those who pray and those who work. 7. While this is often considered to be a “medieval” conception of society, it has its roots in the anti-democratic political theory of Plato, Xenophon and Aristotle. See Ellen

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Meiksins Wood and Neal Wood, Class ideology and ancient political theory: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle in social context (Oxford: Blackwell, 1978). 8. In medieval political thought, as in much classical, early modern and even modern political thought, it is most often men who are the subject of political theorizing. It is taken for granted, often without exception, that women have no place in the social order outside of the domestic sphere. 9. R.H. Hilton and Hyman Fagan, The English rising of 1381 (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1950), 61. 10. Medieval theologians had created a heavenly hierarchy of cherubs, angels and archangels under Christ and God. This hierarchical ordering of heaven would not go unchallenged in the medieval world any more than it would in the early modern period. John Ball, the intellectual “leader” of the Great Revolt of 1381 would famously ask: “When Adam delved and Eve span, who then was the gentleman?” 11. For more on medieval conceptions of political economy, see Diana Wood, Medieval Economic Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); Paul A. Fideler, Discussions of Poverty in Sixteenth Century England (Brandeis: Brandeis University, 1971). 12. The fourteenth century is largely considered to mark an era of a “crisis of feudalism” in which seigneurial incomes began to decline. For more on the crisis of feudalism, see Hilton, Decline; Guy Bois, The Crisis of Feudalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984); Brenner, “Agrarian Class Structure,” “Agrarian Roots”; R.H. Hilton, Class conflict and the crisis of feudalism: essays in medieval social history (London: Verso, 1990); R.H. Hilton, “A Crisis of Feudalism,” In The Brenner Debate, ed. T.H. Aston and C.H.E. Philpin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). 13. Hilton and Fagan, English Rising, 80. 14. Fideler, Poverty, 48. 15. Geoffrey Shepherd, “Poverty in Piers Plowman,” in Social Relations and Ideas: essays in honour of R. H. Hilton, ed. T.H. Aston et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). 16. Wycliffe was condemned by the Pope in 1377 due to his thoughts on the position of Church in society. 17. Michael Wilks, “Reformatio Regni: Wyclif and Hus as leaders of religious protest movements,” in Wyclif: Political Ideas and Practice, ed. Anne Hudson (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2000), 78. 18. Wycliffe’s significance, then, in connection with the rising lies not in any direct influence he or his followers had on it. It lies in the fact that he represents an important element in the break-up of medieval society. Without consciously attacking the feudal order – his doctrine of lordship was feudal in inspiration – his undermining of the strongest bulwark of feudalism, the international Church, was of the greatest importance. Hilton and Fagan, English Rising, 74. 19 Fideler, Poverty, 30-1. 20. Gower cited in Fideler, Poverty, 39. 21. Hilton and Fagan, English Rising. 22. Hilton and Fagan, English Rising. For more on Hilton’s account of the decline of feudalism, see Hilton, The Decline of Serfdom. 23. Hilton emphasizes the plebeian nature of the 1381 rising, as opposed to conventional understandings of it as a strictly peasant revolt. The areas most affected by

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the rising were centered in and around London; hence, the social composition of the rebels was much more urbanized and industrialized than in most other parts of the country. That is, while peasants made up the substantial bulk of the rebels, many of them were also engaged in petty commodity forms of industrial production – spinning wool. But there were also textile craftsmen proper. Some townsmen also played a part in the revolt. Hilton also argues that elements of the bourgeoisie temporarily supported the revolt in order to serve their own interests. R.H. Hilton, “Peasant Movements in England before 1381,” in Class Conflict and the Crisis of Feudalism, ed. R.H. Hilton (London: Verso, 1990). 24. Hilton, “Peasant Movements.” 25. Eleven months after the outbreak of the plague, the Ordinance of Labourers was issued. The purpose of the Ordinance was to force workers lacking enough property to occupy them full time to accept any work at wage rates that existed prior to the Black Death. This was meant to keep labor costs down in a period of increasing demand for labor. Refusal to abide by this Ordinance would result in corporal punishment: the stocks. 26. Briggs argues that the Statute was ineffective in keeping the price of labor down. Yet this fails to explain why the abolition of the Statute was a main grievance presented by the rebels in 1381. Asa Briggs, A Social History of England (London: Penguin, 1983). 27. In general, the grievances represent the desire of the customary peasantry to secure for themselves peasant proprietorship, free from the extra-economic exactions of the landed class. 28. Fideler, Poverty. 29. Hilton and Fagan, English Rising, 149. 30. At the same time, this contradictory form of lower class resistance – in which rebellion co-exists with deference – is not uncommon in pre-capitalist societies. Thompson discusses the paradoxical relationship between rebellion and deference in what is essentially a conservative plebeian radicalism that bases its resistance on custom. This is not to say that lower class radicalism in pre-capitalist societies is backward looking; on the contrary, custom was often invoked to champion new rights. Rather, custom often forms the framework of lower class radicalism because it is the terrain of human experience. See E.P Thompson, “Introduction: Custom and Culture,” in Customs in Common (New York: The New Press), 9-10. 31. This is not to claim that French peasants rejected the monarchy as an institution; it merely highlights the particular role that the monarchy assumed in the context of the specific social relations of French feudalism. 32. Hilton and Fagan, English Rising, 112. 33. E.B. Fryde, Peasants and Landlords in Later Medieval England, c. 1380-c. 1525 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996), 117. 34. Fryde, Peasants, 128. 35. Fryde, Peasants, 117. 36. Fryde argues that accounts declaring the end of serfdom often overestimate the speed with which it declined. 37. This significant difference is representative of the different class structures of English and French society. Brenner, “Agrarian Class Structure.” 38. R.B. Manning, Village Revolts: social protest and popular disturbances in England, 1509-1640 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 38. 39. Manning , Village Revolts, 38-9. The rest of these riots were either instigated or led by members of the ruling class – including the clergy.

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40. R.B. Manning, “Violence and Social Conflict in Mid-Tudor Rebellions,” The Journal of British Studies 16 no. 2 (1977): 18-40. 41. Despite Ket’s famous declaration of letting bond men go free, Bindoff points out that villeinage, while still in existence in Norfolk at the time of the rebellion of 1549, was too insignificant to form a real grievance amongst the rural population. Numbering only in the few hundreds, villeinage was far outnumbered by freehold and copyhold. This leads Bindoff to the conclusions that Ket’s declaration was borrowed from the German peasant revolt of 1525, of which the abolition of serfdom played a key role. Stanley Thomas Bindoff, Ket’s Rebellion (London: Historical Association, 1949). 42. There is the odd instance of the persistence of servile tenures in the 16th century. Briggs points to the persistence of villeinage on one Norfolk manor – complete with feudal services – up until 1575. See Briggs, Social History, 125. 43. Fiscal seigneurialism, according to Roger Manning, refers to the attempts of landlords not engaged in agricultural improvement, to secure profits through rack-renting or the raising of entry fines not fixed by custom. Fiscal seigneurialism is characterized as a form of feudal reaction that can also refer to the direct exploitation, by the lords, of the demesne (as opposed to letting to tenants) and the over-stocking of the commons. Either way, these strategies are said to have impeded enclosure and acted as obstacles to agrarian improvement. As pointed out in the previous chapter, however, the identification of agrarian capitalism with technological innovations and feudal reaction with rackrenting obscures the fact that both of the strategies are a response to the imperatives of market dependent producers. In other words, both of them – improvement and competitive rents – are elements of agrarian capitalism. For the argument for “seigneurial reaction” see Appleby, “Agrarian Capitalism or Seigneurial Reaction?” 44. Manning shows the frequency of these enclosure riots. Between 1610 and 1619, for example, 32 enclosure riots that we know of broke out in various parts of England. Manning, Village Revolts, 82. 45. Manning, Village Revolts. 46. This was also a period of increasing conflict within the different ranks of the lower classes themselves. Where pasture was scarce, copyhold tenants attempted to exclude cottagers, wage-laborers and artisans from having access to the commons. Gateward’s case resulted in a clarification of custom: custom became restricted to copyholders and leaseholders, thereby excluding the cottagers, laborers and artisans. As Manning points out: “In effect, the right of common might be claimed only by copyholders or leaseholders. No one could claim right of common who had no estate or interest in his house, but possessed only a mere habitation. The legal consequence was to exclude cottagers because the right of common pasture attached to houses of husbandry and not to persons…Although, in practice, cottagers continued to be afforded use-rights where wastes were abundant, the movement to exclude them was spreading widely in the seventeenth century.” Manning, Village Revolts, 86. 47. Manning, Village Revolts, 83. 48. Andy Wood, “Poore Men Woll Speke One Daye”: Plebeian Languages of Deference and Defiance in England, c. 1520-1640,” in The Politics of the Excluded, c. 1500-1850, ed Tim Harris (New York: Palgrave, 2001), 72-3. 49. Peter Ramsey, Tudor Economic Problems (London: Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1963); A.L. Beier, Masterless Men: The vagrancy problem in England, 1560-1640 (London: Methuen, 1985); Paul Slack, Poverty & Policy in Tudor & Stuart England, (London: Longman, 1988); Paul A. Fideler, , “Poverty, Policy and Providence: the Tudors and the

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Poor,” in Political Thought and the Tudor Commonwealth: Deep Structure, Discourse, and Disguise, ed. Paul A. Fideler and T.F. Mayer (New York: Routledge, 1992). 50. A.L. Beier, “Social Problems in Elizabethan London.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 9 no. 2 (1978): 203-21. 51. Vagrancy and Poor Relief Act of 1572: first offence, imprisonment and, upon conviction, whipping and burning in the ears unless someone accepted the offender into their service; second offence, felony; felons who ran away, execution by hanging. 52. For an overview of the main tenets of medieval “political economy”, see Wood, Medieval Economic Thought. Edwin T. Callahan argues that a natural law argument for private property can be found in the writings of Fortescue. Callahan, Edwin T. Callahan, “Blood, Sweat and Wealth: Fortescue’s Theory of the Origins of Property.” History of Political Thought 17 no. 1 (1996): 21-35. Cary J. Nederman argues that the development of subjective property rights and their relationship to peasants’ rights to rebel against their lords occurred as far back as the 1330s. Cary, J. Nederman, “Property and Protest: Political Theory and Subjective Rights in Fourteenth-Century England,” Review of Politics 58 (1996): 323-344. For a discussion on the works of 16th century Tudor reformers, see Wood, Foundations. 53. Wood, Foundations, 43. 54. Wood, Foundations. 55. Thomas More, Utopia (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1961). 56. More, Utopia, 46. 57. More, Utopia, 47. 58. This is the interpretive conclusion of Wood, Foundations. 59. Karl Kautsky characterized More as a radical democrat due to an uncritical reading of his communism. Karl Kautsky, Thomas More and his Utopia (New York: Russell and Russell, 1959). 60. Arithmetical equality has always existed as the antithesis of proportionate equality. Proportionate equality, defined by Aristotle as treating unequals unequally, formed the basis for antidemocratic notions of justice from Plato onwards. Arithmetical equality, on the other hand, formed the basis of democratic political thought. This being the case, it is perhaps understandable why Kautsky would characterize More as a democrat. 61. Wood, Foundations, 98. 62. Wood, Foundations, 107-8. 63. The Commonwealthmen are commonly thought to have been composed of Hugh Latimer, John Ponet, Henry Brinklow, Robert Crowley and Thomas Becon. 64. Such ideas were of course common at the time. Luther and Calvin provided the most significant examples of this passive obedience doctrine. 65. Ponet, however, was different. He justified a right of resistance to tyranny – even going so far as to sanction tyrannicide in some instances. 66. McNally, Political Economy, 26. 67. Thomas Smith, A Discourse of the Commonweal of This Realm of England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1581); Thomas Smith, De republica Anglorum (1583). 68. Wood, Foundations, 218. 69. Wood, Foundations, 235. 70. The term “Baconian” improver is borrowed from Wood, John Locke.

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71. Henry Halhead also considered enclosures a sin and provided scriptural evidence in support of his position. Henry Halhead, Inclosures thrown open, or, Depopulation depopulated (London: Thomason Tracts, 1650). 72. John Moore, The Crying Sin of England (London: Thomason Tracts, 1653), 19. 73. John Moore, A Scripture Word Against Inclosure (London: Thomason Tracts, 1656), 3. 74. Moore, A Scripture, 4. 75. Moore, Crying Sin, 22. 76. Moore, Crying Sin, 28-9. 77. Moore, A Scripture, 6. 78. According to J.C. Davis most “full employment utopians” had since abandoned any reliance on the state as an agent of social reform. In this sense, Chamberlen was exceptional by this time. Davis, Utopia. 79. Peter Chamberlen, The Poore Mans Advocate (London: Thomason Tracts, 1648), 12. 80. Chamberlen, Advocate, 12. 81. Chamberlen, Advocate, 18. 82. Chamberlen, Advocate, 4. 83. Chamberlen, Advocate, 5-6. 84. Chamberlen, Advocate, 11. 85. Chamberlen, Advocate, 13. 86. Chamberlen, Advocate, 13. 87. Davis, Utopia, 331. 88. Mulligan and Richards have also noted how many of these reformers were adhering to established conventions. Mulligan and Richards, “A “Radical” Problem.” 89. Chamberlen, Advocate, 1. 90. Anonymous, Wast Land’s Improvement, Or certain Proposals Made and tendred to the consideration of the Honourable Committee appointed by Parliament for the advance of Trade (London: Thomason Tracts, 1653). 91. Holstun points out some of the semantic obfuscations of Walter Blith. Holstun, Ehud’s Dagger, 388. However, this kind of capitalist fantasy is not unique to Blith; it is representative of most of the improvement literature of this period and bespeaks of Marx’s comment about the ruling classes seeking to universalize their own particular interests. 92. This text has been attributed to both Silvanus Taylor and Joseph Lee. 93. Silvanus Taylor Considerations Concerning Common Fields (London: Thomason Tracts), 3. 94. Taylor, Consideration, 3. 95. Taylor, Considerations, 4. 96. This is not surprising. English proponents of English forms of tenure in early modern Ireland characterized the absence of primogeniture in Irish property relations as tantamount to anarchy. R.F. Foster, Modern Ireland: 1600-1972 (Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1988), 10. 97. Taylor, Considerations, 5. 98. This of course reveals a tacit admission by the author that the open field system was not merely a system of license or anarchy. It reveals a rationality to which agricultural production was subjected. The problem therefore, is not the absence of rationality within the open field system – as its critics claimed – but rather, the existence of a different form

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of rationality that subordinated the individual interests of profitability to the interests of the community. Taylor, Considerations, 10. It is a point of interest to note that in her discussion of Lee, Thirsk portrays the opponents of enclosure as a “reluctant minority” that hindered the ability of the majority of landowners to enclosure for the purpose of improvement. This is, of course, how proponents of enclosure would like the issue to be perceived – one of economic democracy. However, other improvement tracts seem to indicate that in fact, the obverse was the case, that the majority of peasants opposed the interests of a minority of enclosing landlords and farmers. Overall, Thirsk treats the improvement literature of the period as merely about agricultural technique as opposed to a process of re-organizing the social relations of agricultural production. See Joan Thirsk, “Plough and Pen: Agricultural Writers in the Seventeenth Century,” in Social Relations and Ideas: essays in honour of R. H. Hilton, ed. T.H. Aston, et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). 99. Comninel, “English Feudalism,” 36. 100. “There will be a very great improvement by the inclosing of those Commonfields; for if one Acre bear a double burden, then there is not onley saved the one half of the feed, but also the one half the work, which would be the Husbandman’s great gain; for feed, and work to an Acre of Ground, is more then the Rent of four Acres of such ordinary barren Fieldground (we now speak of) comes to.” Silvanus Taylor, CommonGood, or the Improvement of Commons, Forrests, and Chafes, by Inclosure. Wherein the Advantage of the poor, the common plenty of All, and the increase and preservation of timbers, with other things of common concernment, Are considered (London: Thomason Tracts, 1652). 101. Taylor, Common-Good, 19. 102. Walter Blith, England’s Improver Improved (London: Thomason Tracts, 1653), B2. 103. Blith, England’s Improver, C2-3. 104. Blith, England’s Improver, C2-3. 105. Manning, 1649. 106. Indeed, Amoroso goes so far as to claim that Overton’s intent to throw open ancient enclosures was more radical than Winstanley’s attempt to reclaim the commons. Levellers like Overton and Walwyn, therefore, go some distance in attempting to alleviate the plight of the poor. Kenneth Stephen Amoroso, Gerrard Winstanley: secular Marxist or Religious Mystic? (Toronto: University of Toronto, 1978). 107. Henry Noel Brailsford, The Levellers and the English revolution (London: Cresset Press, 1961), 432. 108. Jurgen Diethe, ““The Moderate”: Politics and Allegiances of a Revolutionary Newspaper,” History of Political Thought 4 no. 2 (1983): 247-79, 275. 109. Brailsford, The Levellers, 441. 110. Manning, 1649. 111. Brailsford, The Levellers, 441-2. 112. Anonymous, A Declaration of the Wel-Affected in the County of Buckinghamshire. Being a Representation of the middle sort of Men (London: Thomason Tracts, 1649), 4. 113. Anonymous, A Declaration, 7. 114. Anonymous, A Declaration, 4. 115. For more on the Leveller position on the “agrarian question” see Brailsford 1961. While these pamphlets are referred to as Leveller pamphlets, it needs to be stated that they did not represent the official political position of the Leveller leadership. Rather,

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they were the polemical expressions of peasants and small farmers who were attracted to the implications of Leveller ideology; namely, an equitable distribution of landed property freed from the entanglements of feudal lords. While most of these groups expressed sympathy for the Diggers’ cause, they do seem to have represented a different social class. Brailsford goes so far as to suggest that the failure of the Levellers stemmed from the neglect of adequately addressing the agrarian question and forming alliances in the countryside with such disaffected groups. 116. Gerrard Winstanley, A New-yeer’s Gift to the Parliament and Army: Shewing, What the Kingly Power Is (1650),” in The Law of Freedom and Other Writings, ed. Christopher Hill (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973), 197. 117. Winstanley, A New-yeer’s Gift, 199-200. 118. Winstanley, A New-yeer’s Gift. 119. Robert Coster, A Mite Cast into the Common Treasury, cited in Davis, Utopia, 187. 120. Winstanley, A New-yeer’s Gift, 201. 121. Gerrard Winstanley, The true levellers standard advanced: or, The state of community opened, and presented to the sons of men (1649), in The law of freedom, and other writings, ed. Christopher Hill (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973), 79. 122. Winstanley, True Levellers, 86. 123. Winstanley, A New-yeer’s Gift, 197-8. 124. Winstanley, True Levellers, 85. 125. Winstanley, True Levellers, 86. 126. Winstanley’s conception of the state will be explored in greater detail in chapter 6. 127. This is a concept utilized by William Petty in his work on political economy. 128. Hill, World; Holstun, Ehud’s Dagger; James Holstun, “Was Marx a 19th Century Winstanleyan?” in Winstanley and the Diggers, 1649-1999, ed. Andrew Bradstock (London: Frank Cass, 2000). 129. Davis, “Radicalism.” 130. John Gurney, “Furious divells?” in Winstanley and the Diggers, 1649-1999, ed. Andrew Bradstock (London: Frank Cass Press, 2000), 74. 131. J.M. Neeson, “The Opponents of Enclosure in Eighteenth Century Northamptonshire,” Past and Present 105 (1984). 132. F.D. Dow, Radicalism in the English Revolution, 1640-1660 (New York: Basil Blackwell, 1985), 77. 133. Winstanley, True Levellers, 90. 134. For an insightful discussion relating Winstanley to traditional paternalist critics of enclosures as well as their improving apologists, see Holstun, Ehud’s Dagger. 135. This interpretation of Petty is taken from McNally, Political Economy. 136. The Oxford Experimental Philosophy Club, started by Hartlib and devoted to Baconian social philosophy, often met at Petty’s home. 137. McNally then goes on to discuss some of Petty’s problems, namely, the fact that he fluctuated between and labor and land theory of value. McNally, Political Economy, 54. 138. McNally, Political Economy, 54-5. 139. Samuel Fortrey, Englands Interest and Improvement: Consisting in the Increase of the Store, and Trade of this Kingdom (1663), in Early English Tracts on Commerce, ed. J.R. McCulloch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1954), 227-8. 140. Fortrey, Englands Interest, 230.

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141. Wood, John Locke. 142. This contradicts Macpherson’s argument that Locke justifies unlimited private accumulation. 143. Neil Davidson suggests that the Scottish Enlightenment – in its contribution to political economy – was influenced by the rapid pace and “top down” process of agrarian capitalist development after the defeat of the Jacobite rebels at Culloden in 1746. Davidson, “The Scottish Path, I.” 144. Neal Wood has established the link between Locke and the agricultural improvers of the Interregnum. See Wood, John Locke, chapters 2 and 3. 145. David McNally, “Locke, Levellers and Liberty: Property and Democracy in the Thought of the First Whigs,” History of Political Thought 10 no. 1 (1989): 17-40. 146 For debates regarding the radical and conservative nature of Locke’s political thought, see Tully, Discourse on Property; Richard Ashcraft and M. M. Goldsmith, “Locke, Revolution Principles, and the Formation of Whig Ideology,” The Historical Journal 26 (1983): 773-800; Wood, John Locke; Ashcraft 1986; Richard Ashcraft, “The Radical Dimensions of Locke’s Political Thought: A Dialogic Essay on Some Problems of Interpretation,” History of Political Thought 13 no. 4 (1992): 703-72; Ellen Meiksins Wood, “Locke Against Democracy: Consent, Representation and Suffrage in the Two Treatises,” History of Political Thought 13 no. 4 (1992): 657-89; Ellen Meiksins Wood, “Radicalism, Capitalism and Historical Contexts: Not Only a Reply to Richard Ashcraft.” History of Political Thought 15 no. 3 (1994): 323-72.

5 From the State as Property to Property against the State

State Formation in Early Modern England Prior to the outbreak of hostilities in the 1640s, English discussions on sovereignty were difficult to find, and those that did exist were equivocal and vague to say the least.1 The mixed constitution of Crown, Lords and Commons proved to be a resilient political arrangement that corresponded to the unique social development of English feudalism. 2 In fact, this “ancient constitution,” as medieval and Renaissance political thinkers referred to it, formed a virtual consensus of constitutional theory up until the revolutionary period of 1648-9.3 Theories of royal absolutism on the one hand, and popular sovereignty on the other, emerged much later in England than they did in neighbouring France. The resilience of the ancient constitution was the result of the specific nature of English feudalism. As we have seen, the Norman Conquest eliminated the existing Anglo-Saxon aristocracy and established a new aristocracy of feudal lords that were denied the juridical and military powers that were characteristic of their European counterparts.4 Lordly jurisdiction was limited to manorial estates while royal jurisdiction extended over the countryside by imposing itself on a pre-existing network of Anglo-Saxon county and shire courts, which were administered by royal representatives who were themselves members of the political nation. These royal courts existed alongside the manor courts, but the jurisdictions of the two were clearly delineated. Thus, the local public courts retained the character of popular courts in which “freeborn” Englishmen could be tried by a jury of their peers.5 The result was the establishment of an unpaid aristocratic self-administration which would eventually evolve into the justices of the peace.6 Due to the fact that English feudal lords remained subject to royal jurisdiction in return for augmented powers of domestic lordship upon their 141

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manors, the English medieval state rested upon collaboration between the feudal aristocracy and the Crown as well as upon the high levels of self-organisation and intra-class collaboration amongst the aristocracy. 7 This specific relationship between the Crown and the feudal aristocracy was institutionalised in the unique institution of the English parliament. What is distinctive about the English Parliament is its unified character and its relationship to the English Crown. First, there was only one territorial parliament – rather than a number of assemblies and parlements dispersed amongst the various provinces, as in France. In France, as Perry Anderson points out, the “consolidation of the Estates-General as a permanent national institution was blocked by the same diversity which had obliged the monarchy to accept wide political devolution even in the hour of its unitary victory.”8 Thus, the existence of political forms of lordship in France hindered the process of state centralization as can be seen in the maintenance of powerful provincial assemblies co-existing with the nationally oriented Estates-General. Secondly, English parliament was a twochamber assembly of Lords and Commons as opposed to the typical three-tiered assemblies on the Continent. While members of English parliament did constitute different ranks of social status, the dynamic of parliamentary organization was not based upon the social differentiation of assembly members to the same extent as the assemblies in France. Rather, the differentiation of rank in English parliament “marked an intra-class distinction within the nobility.”9 Status based differentiation between Lords and Commons obscured the overall class-based uniformity of Parliament. The aristocracy was comprised of peers – dukes, marquises, earls, viscounts and barons – that sat in the House of Lords. The greater gentry – baronets, knights, squires and gentlemen – were non-noble and dominated the House of Commons. The greater gentry, however, were big landowners who, like the peers, lived off of the rents of their landed estates. The social distance between the lesser and the greater gentry was much greater than that which existed between the greater gentry and the peerage. Thus, despite belonging to different status groups, both the greater gentry and the peerage can be considered a distinct class in Marxist terms.10 In contrast, the lesser gentry was often closer to the yeomanry. The distinctive class-based unity of English parliament can be seen in its particular representative principle. Political representation in the English parliament was based on communal or territorial representation in which Members of Parliament acted as representatives of boroughs and shires. 11 Religious figures, for example, sat in Parliament as royal representatives, and the Lords did not represent the nobility as an estate, but rather, sat as the king’s councillors. Thus, in England, a cohesive landed class and a centralised monarchy had established a unified Parliament in which the “Crown in Parliament” represented a fusion of executive and legislative functions where the landed classes had secured for themselves the right, through Parliament, to limit royal legislative power in exchange for the significant executive powers of the monarch. In other words, monarchs had extensive executive powers, but they

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needed the consent of Parliament to enact new legislation, which was different from the legislative autonomy enjoyed by continental monarchs and the role of continental parliaments as institutions of royal fiscal revenue. Contrary to reflecting the weakness of the English aristocracy, these developments occurred due to the increased cohesion of the aristocracy. 12 English state formation conformed closely to – but was never merely a reflection of – the interests of the aristocracy. This was due to the crown’s dependence upon the aristocracy for financial support as well as for state personnel. The aristocracy operated at all levels of English government all the way from the courtly entourage on down to the military, the perambulating courts and the sheriffs. In essence, they guaranteed the financial survival of the English crown: “in England, the more advanced organisation of the ruling class as a whole, the centralisation of the barons around the monarchy, permitted the re-intensification of seigneurial powers and institutional rights over and against the peasantry in the later twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In this way, lordly political cohesion ensured successful decentralised feudal surplus extraction – that is, serfdom. The lords thus secured their property, broadly conceived, in both the short and the long run. As a result, there is no sign in England of the crisis of seigneurial revenues evident in thirteenth-century France and, in turn, there is no tendency to substitute an emergent system of centralised surplus extraction for an eroding decentralised system – no embryonic rise of an absolutist form of rule.”13

Thus, the apparent weakness of individual lordship in England resulted in the greater strength of the English aristocracy as a class, for it allowed for a greater degree of self-organisation and self-centralisation under a unified state. Due to the absence of the form of territorial lordship that existed on the continent, the kinds of parcellized sovereignty that stimulated political accumulation and military competition in France did not exist in England. Similarly, the economic form of lordship amongst English lords resulted in newer, more productive forms of agricultural development, thereby making the English landed class vital for the survival of the fiscally challenged patrimonial monarchy. These “peculiarities of the English,” therefore, were not the result of the “backward” development of English feudalism; that is to say, English state formation and social development was not lagging behind that of France, as has usually been asserted. In fact, these developments can be seen as the product of the specific development of English class relations and state formation. 14 The development of the social relations of agrarian capitalism outlined in chapter three represented a separation of the economic and the political in ways that allowed for the early centralization of the English state. The high degree of intra-lordly organization and the relationship of interdependence between the landed class and the Crown resulted in the development of a medieval state that was uniquely sovereign in its own time. Thus, the absence of a clearly defined concept of sovereignty reflected the existence of de facto state sovereignty in the

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form of the unitary state form of the Crown in Parliament, which “represented the most unified and solidified institutional system in Western Europe at this date.”15 By way of contrast, discussions of sovereignty – both absolutist and popular – emerged in France in the 16th century. Political debates over sovereignty, like their relative absence in England, are related to the particular development of the French state and French feudalism. Unlike England, French feudalism was characterized by the “parcellization of sovereignty” that results from the existence of territorial forms of political lordship. 16 The acquisition, by feudal magnates, of the powers of the seigneurial ban placed the aristocracy in direct competition with the King over political, military and juridical – not to mention, economic – matters. Thus, the emergence of an absolutist state out of the crisis of French feudalism was predicated upon the maintenance of politically constituted forms of private property characteristic of pre-capitalist societies. In this sense, the central French state emerged as a competitor to the French nobility in the process of surplus extraction: whereas French lords would extract rents and “squeeze” other forms of surplus out of the peasantry through their extra-economic powers of surplus extraction, the French Crown would protect peasant tenure against lordly encroachment because the peasantry formed the social basis of royal taxation. 17 As a result of this structural antagonism between feudal lords and the French monarchy, political conflicts assumed the form of struggles over political jurisdiction – that is, whether sovereignty was to be located in the provincial jurisdictions of the feudal lords, or the centralizing jurisdiction of the emerging absolutist state. The case of France serves as an illuminating point of contrast to that of England. France emerged out of the crisis of feudalism with a high degree of social and political fragmentation. In the context of the crisis of feudalism, French peasants had gained considerable rights to the land despite the preservation of seigneurial tenures. The landlords, on the other hand, were facing a severe crisis of seigneurial incomes and sought to resolve this crisis by shoring up their extra-economic powers of surplus extraction.18 A feudal reaction thus resulted in a renewed attack on peasant rights and a re-imposition of rents in kind. At the same time, the peasantry was bearing the burdens of royal taxation by a centralizing royal state. In order to protect its fiscal revenues, the latter had to protect the proprietary rights of the peasantry against incursions by the landed nobility. Thus, royal officials more often than not adjudicated disputes between peasants and lords and found in favour of the former. Thus, the French royal state emerged out of the crisis of feudalism as a competitor to the landed nobility, over the surplus labour of the peasantry. This contradiction between the Crown and the nobility found its political expression in the specific process of French state formation. Despite its centralizing tendencies, the French monarchy was never able to attain the level of juridical and political unification that the English Crown enjoyed in the 16 th century. Unable to impose and tighten its royal authority over the provincial

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nobility, French sovereignty remained divided between a centralizing monarchy and a class of provincial nobles. The latter exercised their powers through local parlements, which were in fact promoted by the Crown. These regional assemblies elected delegates to the nationally oriented Estates-General, which acted as a revenue generator (through the consenting of taxation) for the French Crown but was often prevented from doing so by the regional parlements that elected them; that is, by the strength of regionalized political forces. As such, the institution fell into disuse. The contradiction of the French state in this period thus lay in the tensions between a centralizing monarchy attempting to exert its royal authority over a class of provincial nobles, that latter of which still exerted their own sovereign powers as feudal lords. The Wars of Religion, exposed and reflected this contradiction. Out of this conflict came two competing types of political theory: theories of resistance based on notions of popular sovereignty and royalist theories of kingship predicated upon conceptions of absolute sovereignty. 19 The Monarchomach texts – most famously associated with the Huguenots – emphasized popular sovereignty and the right of resistance to royal power. These texts argued that the power of the king derived – in some form – from “the people.” The Huguenot resistance tracts consisted of two separate – but related – lines of theoretical attack. First, resistance theories often appealed to historical arguments grounded in constitutional politics. Francis Hotman’s Franco-Gallia represents the most sophisticated Huguenot text to base its justification for rebellion on the historical grounds that France had never been an absolute monarchy. The argument was essentially a medievalist attack on what were perceived to be the innovations of absolute monarchy by asserting that mixed constitutionalism was based upon “immemorial practices inherent in the community itself.”20 The second line of argument revolved around appeals to “right.” Absolute monarchy was deemed to be contrary to “the universal rules of right supposed to underlie all government.”21 Vindiciæ Contra Tyrannos mixed legal and scriptural authority to devise an argument based on a dual contract in which the power of the king is delegated first by God, then by the people. The second aspect of this contract – that between king and people – presents a justification of resistance, by the people, to the authority of the king on secular grounds. If the king fails to fulfill the duties of office, the contract between him and the people has been broken: “It follows that the power of the ruler is delegated by the people and continues only with their consent.”22 The right to resist, however, was embedded within a feudal framework of corporate representation rather than individual liberty. The right of resistance was the right not of individual men, but rather of the “natural” leaders of the community: the territorial nobles, provincial magistrates and municipal officials. In this sense, the right of resistance that made up French theories of popular sovereignty did not represent the assertion of democratic rights, but rather, the assertion of aristocratic privilege. As George Sabine has argued:

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Absolutist theories of sovereignty that attempted to legitimize the supreme lawmaking power of the centralizing royal state and de-legitimize the claims made by resistance theorists were the theoretical response from Royalist political thinkers. Jean Bodin remains the most significant proponent of French absolutism. Defining sovereignty as “the absolute and perpetuall power of a commonwealth”, which is “not limited either in power, or in function, or in length of time”, Bodin concludes that “the main point of sovereign majesty and absolute power consists in giving the law to subjects in general without their consent.”24 The purpose of Bodin’s theory of sovereignty was to grant the royal state the power to subordinate the various provincial assemblies and parlements to its central control, thereby uniting France under one jurisdiction of royal power. Political thought in Renaissance France thus reflected the conflicts emerging out of the tensions between a particularistic feudal nobility and a centralizing royal state. French theories of resistance were based in conceptions of popular sovereignty that defined the people in terms of the corporate bodies that acted as their representatives. As such, theories of popular sovereignty, in the French context, were created to shore up the provincial powers and privileges of the provincial nobility vis-à-vis the centralizing royal state. As Ellen Wood points out: “Early European theories of “constitutionalism” and “popular sovereignty” were rooted in medieval doctrines and the feudal parcellisation of the state, enunciating the claims of lordship and corporate privilege against royal intrusion. They represented in essence the assertion of feudal power, privilege and jurisdiction against the claims of monarchy. Huguenot resistance tracts like the Vindiciæ contra Tyrannos, which claimed for the “people” an inalienable right of resistance, invoked the independent powers of magistrates and nobles, maintaining that the king, who in his own person was merely particular and private, derived his majesty and public authority from the “people” as embodied in their officers and councils, “one mind compounded out of many”.”25

As such, conceptions of popular sovereignty in the French context had more to do with the assertion of feudal rights and privileges on the part of the nobility

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than with laying the theoretical groundwork for any form of democratic politics. Within the conditions of French feudalism, therefore, popular sovereignty served mainly to preserve the feudal order and lordly power. It would take qualitatively different social conditions to transform notions of popular sovereignty into anything remotely resembling democracy.

The Crown vs. Parliament Given the absence of similar social and political conflicts between a centralizing monarch and a provincial nobility still in possession of politically constituted forms of private property, it is not surprising that similar theories of absolutism and resistance were absent in England until the outbreak of Civil War in the 1640s. The specific developments in early modern English political theory – namely, the “ambiguity” and even “absence” of theories of popular sovereignty – can therefore be understood in relation to the distinctive social dynamic of political conflict and state formation in the English context. 26 As George Sabine puts it: “In England, because the king’s power was not seriously threatened in the sixteenth century, the theory of royal absolutism, or complete sovereignty vested in the king, did not develop, whereas in France this theory came to prevail by the end of the century. When opposition to royal power did develop in England in the seventeenth century, the issue was between the king and a national parliament, a form it could not possibly take in France. On the other hand, opposition to royal absolutism in France failed largely because it was allied with a medieval particularism that was incompatible with centralized national government.”27

The social basis of feudalism – based upon extra-economic forms of surplus extraction – increasingly did not exist in early modern England, as it did in France. These distinctive social and political conditions had an influence on the specific meaning of English theories regarding sovereignty. Unlike France, English debates over sovereignty did not immediately assume the dichotomy of popular versus absolute sovereignty. 28 In many ways, the term absolute, when referring to issues of sovereignty, merely signified the existence of absolute power constrained to a limited sphere of political jurisdiction. While debate still ensues regarding the “absolutist” nature of Divine Right theory in early Stuart England, it is often recognized that the political significance of the reaction to absolutist theories of sovereignty remained miniscule until the outbreak of the Civil War in the 1640s.29 Rather, the development of popular conceptions of sovereignty emerged only in the context of civil war, after it became apparent that no settlement would be reached with the Royalists.

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When debates around the notion of sovereignty did begin to emerge in England, they assumed a different form than those of 16 th century France due in part to the different social nature of the political conflict: “The battle the English were fighting was different from that of the French. It was not, again, a war of competing jurisdictions and fragmented sovereignties. It was not a matter of particular corporate bodies and privileges defending their autonomy against a monarchical drive to unify the state and replace corporate fragments with one over-arching sovereign power. There already existed a unified sovereign state, which was constituted by king and Parliament together; and Parliament was not asserting its own, “popular” sovereignty against the king’s competing claims to much as accusing him of violating their partnership, of breaching their composite sovereignty.”30

Initially, popular sovereignty, similar to that which was proposed by the French resistance theorists of the previous century, was not to be ascribed to the people as a collection of individuals. Like the French resistance theorists, parliamentarians sought to invest popular sovereignty in the institution of parliament. As such, while the people remained sovereign, their sovereignty, in order to be actualized, needed to be actualized through parliament. Thus, popular sovereignty was really parliamentary sovereignty. Whereas the French resistance theorists had bestowed popular sovereignty in the “people” in so far as they were represented by their natural representatives in the provinces, English parliamentarians bestowed popular sovereignty in the “people” in so far as they were represented through the national institution of parliament. The Petition of Right (1628) represented an assertion of a limited form of parliamentary sovereignty in which the rights and liberties of the subject would be protected from the arbitrary actions of the Crown through parliament. As such, it was parliament that asserted and affirmed the rights and privileges of individuals against a unitary state. An illuminating case regarding the nature of English sovereignty can be found in the proposed amendments to the Petition of Right in parliament in 1628.31 An amendment was proposed that would attach a clause protecting the jurisdiction of the Crown. The amendment was not considered to be incompatible by the original framers of the Petition; in fact, Henry Marten argued against the clause, stating that it would pose the unnecessary question as to what sovereign power is and provoke the vulgar and base men to pose dangerous questions as to the nature and origin of sovereign power. He concluded that “Sovereign power is then best worth when it is held in tacit veneration, not when it is profaned by vulgar hearings or examinations.”32 The clause was subsequently dropped. Yet, the controversy over the Case of Shipmoney raised the issue of the nature of kingly prerogative, which led to a full blown discussion of sovereignty by 1640. The constitutional debates were largely set off by Henry Parker’s

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response to the verdict in Hampden’s Case, the case which decided whether or not the King could use his prerogative to levy a tax – ship-money – without the consent of Parliament.33 Parker questioned the fundamental assumptions upon which the verdict rested: that the king’s interest was equal to the common good, and that his prerogative powers could be used to preserve this common good – salus populi – out of necessity. Whereas Parker’s parliamentary colleagues merely dismissed the grounds upon which the Case of Shipmoney was made, Parker engaged and subverted them. Parker argued that the king would privately gain from shipmoney in ways that the public would not, and he attacked the proposition that Hampden’s case against shipmoney represented the rights of the individual subject, as opposed to the rights of subjects as a collective. Thus, he moved beyond the assumption of the largely passive rights of individual subjects vis-à-vis the king and affixed them to an undefined “people,” thereby paving the way for the argument of the rights of the people through parliament. As Mendle points out, “The “peoples good and profit” crept from passive, individual rights to active, republican power.”34 In the midst of these heightening constitutional tensions, Philip Hunton sought to bridge the gap between Parliamentarians and Royalists by presenting a case for the maintenance of the Ancient Constitution in his 1643 pamphlet, A Treatise of Monarchy.35 In his attempt to reconcile the opposing views of Royalists and Parliamentarians, Hunton distinguished between an abstract need for government that is ordained by God, and specific forms of worldly governments, which exist by human design. There is, therefore, no one form of constitution that has been bestowed upon mankind by God. In making this argument, Hunton was going some way towards reconciling the conflicting notions of sovereignty that were being presented by Royalists and Parliamentarians: a descending form of divinely sanctioned sovereignty versus an ascending form of popular sovereignty originating in the consent of the English people.36 Particular rulers, therefore, “attain this determination of authority to their persons by the tacit and virtual, or else express and formal, consent of that society of men they govern, either in their own persons, or the root of their succession.”37 The basis of specific forms of political authority, therefore, stems from the consent – however undefined – of the people. In his discussion on the English constitution, Hunton characterizes England as a limited and mixed monarchy in which the Conquest of 1066 represented not a break from an Anglo-Saxon past, but rather a continuity with that past in which William asserted his legitimate claim to the throne. The sovereignty of the English king is limited by the existence of the rule of law and the particular role of Parliament within the constitution. 38 For Hunton, resistance to authority is justifiable only if it is exercised against the lesser magistrates and “evil councillors” that have led the king astray. For Hunton, armed resistance is justified if one element of the mixed constitution attempts to violate the rights and privileges of the others; for example, if the Crown, through the exercise of the royal prerogative, attempts to override the historically defined jurisdictions of the Lords and Commons. Men may take up arms

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“in case the fundamental rights of either of the three estates be invaded by one or both the rest, the wronged may lawfully assume force for its own defence; because else it were not free, but dependent on the pleasure of the other. Also the suppression of either of them, or the diminishing of their fundamental rights, carries with it the dissolution of the government: and therefore those grounds, which justify force to preserve its being, allow this case, which is a direct innovation of its being and frame.”39

Hunton is explicit in asserting that this right of resistance is purely defensive in nature. While Hunton’s position represented the moderate middle, his emphasis on defensive resistance would be initially adopted by both Parliamentarians and Royalists – as a means to pursue their own antagonistic agendas – as tensions erupted into armed conflict. But on the whole, aside from his adherence to a moderately popular notion of sovereignty and an equally moderate discussion of armed resistance, there was little to distinguish Hunton’s characterization of monarchy from the Royalists of the day. Even granting this divergence on the notion of resistance, Hunton’s theory, as Allen points out, was “impotent, in that it was of no practical service to either side.”40 The problem was that despite the apparent consensus of the disputants over the form of the mixed constitution, there was no real agreement on the distribution of power between the parts of that constitution. Contrary to the claims of revisionists, there is evidence to suggest that many participants of the debate sought to uphold the rights and privileges of Parliament against those of the Crown, thereby stoking the fires of “adversarial politics” by the Winter of 1642-3. While not going so far as to claim absolute sovereignty to the Houses of Parliament, these authors sought to subordinate the King to Parliament’s power.41 Henry Parker, in his Observations, put forth a conception of popular sovereignty that maintained that once sovereignty was invested in Parliament, political power could never be reclaimed by the “moliminous body” of the people.42 While other parliamentarians dismissed the Royalist argument that prerogative stemmed from the necessity to defend the welfare of the people – the salus populi – Parker brilliantly utilized these very same arguments to subordinate kingly prerogative to the power of Parliament. As one scholar has argued, “Parker used these clichés to make a radical point - that parliament was better able to do the public business than the private interests about the king: but this was to say that policy belonged to the dominium politicum, and, what was more, parliament possessed the power presumed in the arguments from necessity and the general welfare.”43

Samuel Rutherford, a Scottish Presbyterian, built on the arguments put forward by Parker, arguing that the origin of political power resides in the people, which

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gave them the right to resist a wicked Parliament or a tyrannical ruler. 44 Yet Rutherford, like Parker, was not willing to go so far as to concede that the people could therefore reassume the power they had delegated to Parliament. This mix of popular sovereignty and constitutionalism, argues Wootton, represented the “most radical position which could be reconciled with the claim that the people as individuals could not reassume authority.”45 As the conflict between Royalists and Parliamentarians heated up in late 1642 and the early months of 1643, numerous pamphlets were published that asserted the legislative role of parliament and the executive role of the Crown. In his Discourse between a Resolved and Doubtful Englishman (Dec 1642), William Prynne argued that the king could not reject parliamentary legislation because he was merely the highest magistrate of England, whose duty it was to ensure that lesser magistrates fulfill their duties. 46 All magistrates, however, including the king, were ultimately subject to the authority of Parliament. The Privileges of Parliament (February 1643) sought to grant parliament the power to impose legislation on a dissenting king and reduce his role to that of a mere executive. 47 A Sovereign Salve to Cure the Blind also sought to establish the supremacy of parliament over the king. 48 The anonymous author of Touching the Fundamentall Lawes (February 1643) bases the functioning of government – of the English constitution – on abstract notions of equity and reason.49 He argues that the powers of the king are bestowed upon him by the constitution itself and that the body politic is attached to the head of the king by way of the constitution of King, Lords and Commons. If the king should attempt to set up for himself powers that are unconstitutional, then he severs this connection between himself and the body politic and the people are justified in recalling their obligation of obedience. Because the rights and privileges of the king are granted by Parliament, and because Parliament is the salus populi, its power cannot be bound by written laws. This would prevent Parliament from performing its duties in all circumstances. Written laws, in other words, cannot take into account every exigency that can affect the proper functioning of Parliament. Since Parliament is the fundamental Court – the salus populi – it cannot be constrained in its ability to execute its purpose. If Parliament was bound by written laws, the author argues, it “ceaseth to be supreame, and divests itselfe of that inherent and uncircumscribed power which Salus populi comprehends.”50 Parliament, therefore, has the power to pass laws without the royal assent of the Crown. These conceptions of popular sovereignty, however, ultimately sanction the supremacy of Parliament over King and subjects as opposed to the rights of individuals against the power of the state. While the people remain the “originall” of all just authority, their sovereignty exists only in so far as it is expressed through Parliament. The problem for parliamentarians was that, in the absence of any intermediate political bodies between the individual “subject” and the national state, it became difficult to maintain the position that popular sovereignty did not reside in the people; a position that has drastically radical consequences. Yet, there is some reason to believe that more radical positions on

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sovereignty – positions resembling the popular sovereignty of the Levellers in 1646 – can be found in the pamphlet literature of 1642-3.51 The turning point in the debates on sovereignty, argues Wootton, is the publication of a tract called Plaine English.52 As early as 1642, the question was being raised as to how to restrain a sovereign Parliament that had appropriated for itself the powers and wickedness of the king. Burroughs, in The Glorious Name of God, raised the question of how to restrain the powers of a wicked and sovereign Parliament. 53 This development signifies the ideological movement from popular notions of sovereignty exercised through parliament to conceptions of popular sovereignty invested in individuals outside of, and potentially against, parliament. Royalists sought to counter the arguments made by Parliamentarians by rejecting the popular notion of sovereignty upon which their positions were based. Dismissing the distinction that Parliamentarians like Hunton and Parker made between political power in the abstract and specific constitutions, Royalists argued that all political authority descended from the will of God through the figure of the sovereign. Thus, God not only ordained the necessity of government for men, he also determined the specific form of constitution – that of monarchy. Robert Filmer’s The Anarchy of a Limited or Mixed Monarchy was a direct critique and refutation of Hunton’s Treatise of Monarchy, in which the “ascending” theory of political power was rejected and replaced with the affirmation that absolute authority was granted to Adam by God, and, given that kings are the direct descendants of Adam, kings share the same divinely ordained power. The only alternative to this, argued Filmer, was anarchy.54 John Spelman, in his tract, Certain Considerations upon the Duties both of Prince and People, argued that conquest was a more legitimate way to establish political authority than was consent. Thus, not all commonwealths derived their power, as the parliamentarians believed, by the consent of the people.55 Similarly, John Maxwell rejected the ascending theory of power by arguing that the sovereign holds his “freehold” entirely from the will of God.56 In accordance with the laws of nature, then, the sovereign rules in the interest of creation and conservation, which necessitates order; and since God would never have left it to men to create a hierarchical order of rulers and ruled, the hierarchical society must be divinely ordained. Like Filmer, Maxwell argues that God has determined government in general, as well as government in the specific. The exact person who is to exercise sovereign power, is determined, however, by human agency. Consent, for Maxwell, was unacceptable as the basis of sovereign power – a kingdom was composed of rulers and ruled; that the governed multitude should determine who should rule them was a contradiction in terms, and represented “an intolerable equivocation at the very heart of sovereignty.”57 Consent, or the “ascending” theory of political authority, could not adequately establish a theory of political obligation, for obligation must rest upon more than a mere agreement. In the minds of Royalists, obligation needed to be imposed upon people by God.

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As the conflict between Crown and Parliament erupted into Civil War, and as the political tensions spilt over into a contest over the institutions of City government, conceptions of popular sovereignty would become increasingly radical in content. The crucial factor in this process of radicalization was the entrance into revolutionary politics of the London radicals and their support amongst the lower classes of English society.

The Levellers and the Putney Debates As the tensions between Crown and Parliament erupted into civil war, the potential for radical politics increased, and as the potential for radical politics increased, the parameters of political debate began to widen. As new social and political actors began to play a greater role in the political conflicts of the period, the political discourse of the day was bound to change in accordance with the shifts in the balance of power between competing groups. Thus, as the forces of Parliament defeated those groups who maintained their loyalty to the side of the Crown, political debate underwent an increased radicalization. By 1645 the forces of the King had been defeated by Parliament. The subsequent period of 1645 to 1647 was a period that witnessed the increasing fragmentation of the parliamentary coalition. Once military victory over the king was secured, the diverging interests of the parliamentary forces began to undermine its unity. The more conservative forces on the side of Parliament, the Presbyterians, entered into a coalition with the “peace party” and the supporters of a proposed Presbyterian church settlement, all of whom sought a new constitutional settlement with the king. Having gained the upper hand, the Presbyterians began to consolidate their power over the institutions of City government in London, resulting in a virtual monopoly over the Common Council Committees within the City. 58 In this new climate, the political Independents found themselves walking a precarious line between the conservatism of political Presbyterianism and the more revolutionary politics of the London radicals who drew their support from the lower classes of London. While the Independents still hoped for a settlement that would secure parliamentary supremacy over the monarchy, in practice, they had to “resign themselves to the relatively conservative constitutional compromise envisioned by the middle-group or royal independents who held the balance of power within the parliamentary political independent alliance through most of the period.”59 They were willing to live with a Presbyterian church, but only with guarantees of religious toleration. Splits within the broad based alliance of which the political Independents were a part began to appear from this point forward, particularly on the issue of religious toleration.60 On the one hand, there was the more “conservative” faction that was increasingly dependent upon the support of the Parliamentary leadership and less reliant upon the mobilization of the London citizenry. The

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other faction was more radical in the sense that it increasingly relied on the mass support of the London population, and sought alliances with the emerging “Leveller” organization, that was more open to democratic ideas and willing to “push politics in a revolutionary direction.”61 In their attempt to marginalize support for political Presbyterianism and reach a new political settlement in their favor, the Independents therefore lost much of their popular support and the political success of both factions, however, now became dependent upon control of the Army. It is in this political context that an ideological movement towards more radical notions of popular sovereignty – formulated by the Levellers – began to emerge, threatening to push the parliamentary alliance in the direction of democracy.62 Dissatisfied with what they perceived to be both the waffling position of Parliament in its quest for a settlement with the defeated king, and the suppression, by a Presbyterian-dominated Parliament and City government, of its erstwhile allies, many radicals began to push the limits of debate regarding religious toleration and church settlement that would ultimately encompass secular concerns and transform conventional notions of popular sovereignty. Over the course of the next few years, conceptions of popular sovereignty would begin to drive a wedge between parliament and the people. Whereas parliamentarians in the period of 1640 to 1642 bestowed sovereignty upon the “people” only insofar as it was expressed through the institution of parliament, and only insofar as it could not be reclaimed by the people, the new discourse of popular sovereignty gave a new impetus to extra-parliamentary politics by characterising the “people,” as a group of individuals, as the basis of legitimate authority. The Leveller pamphlet England’s Miserie and Remedie (1645) appealed to the people outside Parliament for the release of the imprisoned Leveller leader John Lilburne.63 In the tract, the argument is made that “all lawful empire or sovereign command has its basis or firm foundation in the consent, approbation and good liking of the people.”64 By arguing that sovereign power rests in the people, who in turn lend that sovereign or law making power to parliament, the author of the pamphlet relegates parliament to a position of servitude in relation to the people; just as the ambassador of a prince does not enjoy more authority than the prince, so the representative of the people – the House of Commons – does not enjoy more power than the people themselves. This, of course, is a significant departure from the conventional parliamentary version of popular sovereignty that sought to mediate the political power of the people through the institution of Parliament, even going so far as to deny that the people could recall their sovereign power once they had alienated it to their representatives.65 With this development, the fears of the royalists seemed to come to pass – the moderate form of parliamentary sovereignty gave way to the radical aspirations of the multitude.66 In 1646, Leveller ideas and Leveller politics became increasingly prominent in London as it became apparent that efforts to establish a

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Independent-Presbyterian alliance were proving contradictory. On the one hand, the City leadership of Independents went out of their way to obstruct petitions supporting the jailed Leveller leaders. At the same time, however, the Independents were attempting to cultivate closer relations with the New Model Army in order to take over London and defeat the political Presbyterians. But the Independents failed to provide the necessary leadership to organize people against the increasingly repressive tactics of the Presbyterians. This failure, coupled with the increasing marginalization of Independents in Parliament, allowed the Levellers to step into the breach and push the Independents into the democratic Leveller-Sectarian camp on the basis of a bold campaign of democratic reform that attracted the support of a substantial section of London’s lower classes. In July of that year, another Leveller pamphlet titled A remonstrance of many thousand citizens appeared that appealed to radical concepts of popular parliamentary sovereignty. In this tract, the authors conceive of the relationship between people and parliament as a trust by which the people bestow upon Parliament their sovereign power. Yet, they do not grant Parliament more power than they possess over themselves. If Parliament violates that trust, by abusing its power, the trust may be revoked by the people. “We are your principles, and you our agents”, the authors write, and if the trust between people and parliament is broken as a result of the latter abusing its power, then “that power is no less than usurpation and an oppression from which we expect to be freed”.67 In a move that advocates the abolition of kingship, the author expresses his dislike of Parliament fighting for the peoples’ liberties under the banner of “king and parliament,” “as if it were impossible for any nation to be happy without a king.”68 He urges Parliament to declare Charles an enemy of the people, break off talks with him, and confiscate Crown revenue in order to compensate for the disruptions and “inconveniences” that he has caused. But perhaps most revealing, the author claims that he expected this political betrayal from Parliament from the outset, and that until Leveller reforms are implemented, oppression will not be rooted out, for kings are the “original of all oppressions”.”69 In October 1646 Richard Overton published the remarkable tract, An Arrow against all tyrants and tyranny. In it, he uses natural right arguments and English constitutional history to argue for the supremacy of the Commons over both king and Lords, based on a radical notion of popular sovereignty. Every individual exists in a state of natural equality and freedom in relation to other men. Because men have an equal property in their own liberty (“self-propriety”), no man may deprive another of his proprietary right to his own liberty without violating the principles of nature and equity and justice. These rights are inalienable and inviolable. By nature, every man is a king, a priest and a prophet, and the establishment of authority must be the result of the “deputation, commission and free consent from him whose natural right and freedom it is.”70 This radical notion of popular sovereignty becomes the basis of an argument against the recent “oppressions” and “usurpations” of the lords in Parliament by

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which Overton seeks to subordinate them and king to the legislative supremacy of the House of Commons. Relying on the work of Sir Edward Coke, Overton demonstrates that the legislative power of the kingdom has always resided in the Commons, not the Crown: “Further, the legislative power is not in the king himself but only in the kingdom and body representative, who has power to make or to abrogate laws, statutes, etc. even without the king’s consent. For by the law he has not a negative voice either in making or reversing, but by his own coronation oath he is sworn to “grant, fulfil, and defend all rightful laws, which the commons of the realm shall choose, and to strengthen and maintain them after his power”; by which clause of the oath to choose what laws themselves shall judge meetest, and thereto of necessity the king must assent. And this is evident by most of our former kings and parliaments, and especially by the reigns of the Edwards I to IV, Richard II and the Henrys IV to VI. So that it cannot be denied but that the king is subordinate and inferior to the whole kingdom and body representative. Therefore if the king, much more must the lords veil their bonnets to the Commons and may not be esteemed the Upper House, or supreme court of judicature of the land.”71

Overton even goes so far as to deny the legitimacy of the king’s negative voice in legislation, meaning that he has no right to veto any bill that is passed by the “proper” representatives of the House of Commons. Thus, the Commons needs neither the consent of the king nor the lords in order to make the laws of the land, and the crown is relegated to the role of chief executive. This is a clear argument for the sovereignty of Parliament, but it is much more radical than the kinds of parliamentary sovereignty being presented in 1642-3, for it is framed within a much more radical conception of popular sovereignty. Because natural right bestows upon men an equal property in their own liberty, the people, as a collection of free and equal individuals remain the “original” of all sovereign power. Because only the House of Commons is chosen, through the consent of the people, as the representative of the nation, only it may act as the supreme legislative body of the king. King and Lords must be subordinate to the people represented by the Commons; barring this, all other political arrangements are mere “usurpations” and “oppressions,” and the people are under no obligation to obey such an authority. More significantly, Overton argues that not only is resistance to arbitrary authority legitimate, but armed resistance is just. The Levellers were clearly pushing the envelope of radical politics by moving from passive to active forms of political resistance. In the spring of 1647, Leveller influence penetrated the army, forcing the Independents to forge a more active alliance with the Levellers in their struggle against the Presbyterian faction that dominated Parliament. Brenner points out that it was “only when the ranks of the army began to move decisively against the political Presbyterians that the City’s leading political

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Independents decided to come out openly and definitively in opposition.”72 Thus, a number of prominent Independents joined the mass movement in the hope of taking advantage of the disaffection within the army. Within the army itself, rank and file agitation forced the grandees – most notably Cromwell – to assume the leadership of the army revolt. In July the Army, under Independent and Leveller influence, began to march on London. One of its primary demands was the re-establishment of the old City militia committee, which had now been taken over by the political Presbyterians. After securing the City militia committee, the increasingly politicized army began to establish its own city militia. While the Independents, in alliance with the leadership of the Army, conducted their political struggle against the power of the Presbyterians, they also began to disassociate themselves from the democratic-Leveller forces on its left-wing. The stronger they became vis-à-vis the Presbyterians, the less reliant they were on the Levellers. In doing this, the political Independents began to articulate their own political agenda. The political divisions in the revolutionary coalition came to light during the debates at Putney Church in the autumn of 1647. Representatives of the New Model Army rank and file – Agitators – met with members of the Council of War – the grandees – in order to debate the terms of settlement laid out in the Heads of Proposals, The Case of the Armie Truly Stated, and The Agreement of the People, as well as resolve the problem of arrears and indemnity for the soldiers. The grandees, represented by Cromwell and his sonin-law Henry Ireton, sought to defend the constitutional reforms put forth in the Heads of Proposals. This document, authored by Ireton himself, presented a moderate constitutional settlement that would secure the supremacy of Parliament within the traditional constitution of Crown, Lords and Commons. The Agreement of the People, in line with Leveller conceptions of popular sovereignty, sought to reform the English constitution by basing the rule of Parliament on the consent of the people as a multitude of individuals. While revisionists make much of the claim that the structure of the debate suggests that the intention of the debates was to reach a consensus, within the army, regarding a proper settlement for the kingdom – expressed in The Case of the Army Truly Stated – and while they seek to downplay the influence of Leveller principles on the radicals in the army rank and file, this does not change the fact that a fundamental clash of principles emerged in the course of the debates between the Levellers and the army Grandees. 73 Regardless of whether or not the Levellers and Agitators had come to an arrangement going into the debates or not, the significance of the debates for the history of English political thought is indisputable.74 Indeed, Austin Woolrych, an historian of the Putney debates has recently reaffirmed the significance of the debates for English constitutional history, stating that, “Since the king and the parliament already lay very much at the army’s mercy, the outcome of the contest was of incalculable importance for the whole kingdom.”75 The debate itself quickly focuses on an article in the Agreement that advocates the reform of the electorate. Cromwell, attempting to get clarification

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as to the precise meaning of the statement, asks whether the authors meant that the franchise should be redistributed in order to offset the overrepresentation of “rotten boroughs” or whether the right to vote was to be invested in each individual. The particular clause of the Agreement reads: “That the people of England, being at this day very unequally distributed by counties, cities, and boroughs for the election of their deputies in parliament, ought to be more indifferently proportioned, according to the number of inhabitants.”76 Cromwell says that if by this the Agreement simply means a redistribution of representation as it already exists in the kingdom then he has not problem with the reform. If, however, the article in the Agreement means that “every man that is an inhabitant is to be equally considered, and to have an equal voice in the election of those representers…then I have something to say against it.”77 The distribution of the franchise thus becomes linked to the principles of popular sovereignty; in other words, the right to vote becomes the vehicle through which the people, as a multitude of individuals, express their sovereign powers. The question them becomes, who are the people? If parliamentary sovereignty is insufficient to protect the rights and liberties of Englishmen, then the people must be able to delegate and reassume their sovereign powers. This implies the notion of consent to political authority. The point of contention comes down to what a redistribution of the franchise means politically – does equality of representation merely mean the reform of the voting system in terms of eliminating what later reformers would refer to as “rotten boroughs”? Or does it entail the extension of the right to vote beyond the 40 shilling franchise? Much debate has revolved around the extent of the franchise that the Levellers were proposing. Early historians of the Levellers viewed them as radical democrats, espousing what was essentially a universal adult male franchise, one that would only exclude “delinquents” and “malignants.”78 C.B. Macpherson famously interpreted the Levellers to be exponents of a possessive individualism in which they were nothing more than radical liberals whose conception of self-propriety excluded wage-labourers.79 Yet Macpherson’s interpretation is highly problematic, both in terms of his understanding of property in the mid-seventeenth century, but also in terms of his selective assessment of the historical record.80 As it is clear from this chapter, the Levellers wrote in a context of fierce political struggle that necessitated the forming of tactical alliances and coalitions. There is a sense, however, in which this debate over the extent of the franchise neglects to understand the significance of the Leveller position as it is expressed in the Putney Debates. To be sure, the extent of the franchise is important in the history of democracy, but what is significant in these debates is the linkage between property and sovereignty as it is elucidated by the Levellers. The more radical Levellers like Rainsborough and Sexby articulate a radical form of popular sovereignty in which each (adult male) individual is invested with a right to choose his own representatives. Rainsborough famously remarks that even the “meanest he” has a life to live as the greatest, and that the poor are

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no more obliged to obey a constituted authority to which they have not consented than are the rich: “I think that the poorest he that is in England has a life to live as the greatest he; and therefore truly, sir, I think it’s clear, that every man that is to live under a government ought first by his own consent to put himself under that government; and I do think that the poorest man in England is not at all bound in a strict sense to that government that he has not had a voice to put himself under; and I am confident that, when I have heard the reasons against it, that something will be said to answer those reasons, insomuch that I should doubt whether I was an Englishman or no, that should doubt of these things.”81

This position is backed up by Edward Sexby, John Wildman, and initially, Maximillian Petty. Yet, it stirs up concern amongst the grandees, particularly Ireton, clearly the dominant intellectual amongst the grandees. Ireton, “having an eye” to the protection of private property, argues that Rainsborough and his fellow radicals would have to ground their political position in a natural right. But English rights and liberties, argues Ireton, are the product of history, not the product of some abstract natural right. Property as well as the franchise, are rights that have been determined by history. While the institution of private property may be divinely sanctioned, its particular form and distribution are the product of human convention. This being the case, Ireton argues that basing a political position on natural right threatens the continuity and stability of the ancient constitution and, by extension, the rights upon which they are based.82 More specifically, the Leveller position, according to Ireton, would force them to do away with private property altogether (i.e., “deny all civil right”). If men as men possess certain naturally defined inalienable rights, then what is to stop a man from laying claim to someone else’s goods? Worse yet, what would stop the propertyless from expropriating the landed property of the propertied classes, or doing away with the institution entirely? Ireton continues by saying that only those who have a permanent interest in the kingdom should be required to explicitly consent to political authority: “I think that no person has a right to an interest or share in the disposing of the affairs of the kingdom, and in determining or choosing those that shall determine what laws we shall be ruled by here, no person has a right to this that has not a permanent fixed interest in this kingdom, and those persons together are properly the represented of this kingdom who, taken together, do comprehend whatsoever is of real or permanent interest in the kingdom.”83

All the Leveller talk of birthright is not enough to convince Ireton that being born in England bestows upon and Englishman a right to chose his government. While it grants him certain rights and freedoms – the freedom to live and make

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use of the highways, etc. – it is not enough to bestow upon him a permanent fixed interest in the kingdom itself. Only property can do this: “But I am sure if we look upon that which is the utmost, within man’s view, of what was originally the constitution of this kingdom, upon that which is most radical and fundamental, and which if you take away, there is no man has any land, any goods, you take away any civil interest, and that is this: that those that choose the representers for the making of laws by which this state and kingdom are to be governed are the persons who, taken together, do comprehend the local interest of this kingdom; that is, the persons in whom all land lies, and those in corporations in whom all trading lies. This is the most fundamental constitution of this kingdom, and which if you do not allow, you allow none at all. This constitution has limited and determined it, that only those shall have voices in elections.”84

This objection puts the Levellers on the defensive, for as members of the “middling sort” of small property owners they do not seek to abolish the very basis of their livelihoods – as they consistently claim they do not advocate social levelling. Rainsborough states that he is not against property in itself, but rather how it has come to be that the right to choose the representatives of the land has itself become a property. Surely, it must be through civil law, the law of England, the most tyrannical law that Rainsborough knows of. And if, he says, the Army is agreeing to maintain the status quo then he does not know what they have fought for: “If it be a property, it is a property by a law; neither do I think that there is very little property in this thing by the law of the land, because I think that the law of the land in that thing is the most tyrannical law under heaven, and I would fain know what we have fought for; and this is the old law of England and that which enslaves the people of England, that they should be bound by laws in which they have no voice at all.”85

Many soldiers, he says, are excluded from the franchise as it now stands; and many of those who did qualify for the forty shilling freehold franchise have since lost their estates. The choice, argues Rainsborough, is not between having rulers or no rulers, but rather, between right rulers and wrong rulers. It is not anarchy they seek, but rather, democracy. Petty jumps in by saying that the Agreement cannot be in favour of anarchy and social levelling since the very end of government is the maintenance of property. To this Ireton restates, in as clear a manner as he possibly can, the nature of his objection to the position on the franchise outlined in the Agreement. In so doing, he moves away from more abstract notions of natural right to concrete issues of political power and property. His response is worth quoting at length:

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“The objection does not lie in that, the making of it more equal, but the introducing of men into an equality of interest in this government who have no property in this kingdom, or who have no local permanent interest in it…the objection lies still in this, that I do not mean that I would have it restrained to that proportion, but to restrain it still to men who have a local, a permanent interest in the kingdom, who have such an interest that they may live upon it as free men, and who have such an interest as is fixed upon a place, and is not the same equally everywhere. If a man be an inhabitant upon a rack rent for a year, for two years, or twenty years, you cannot think that man has any fixed permanent interest; that man, if he pay the rent that his land is worth, and he has no advantage but what he has by his land, that man is as good a man, may have as much interest, in another kingdom. But here I do not speak of enlarging this at all, but of keeping this to the most fundamental constitution in this kingdom. That is, that no person that has not a local and permanent interest in the kingdom should have an equal dependence in election; but if you go beyond this law, if you admit any man that has a breath and being, I did show you how this will destroy property. It may come to destroy property thus: you may have a major party, you may have such men chose, or at least the major art of them, why those men may not vote against all property…But here is the rule that you go by: for that by which you infer this to be the right of the people, of every inhabitant, and that because this man has such a right in nature, though it be not of necessity for the preserving of his being; therefore you are to overthrow the most fundamental constitution for this. By the same rule, show me why you will not, by the same right of nature, make use of anything that any man has for the necessary substance of me. Show me what you will stop at, wherein you will fence any man in a property by this rule.”86

A permanent interest therefore refers not merely to the possession of land on a lease, but rather, the ownership of land in freehold tenure. For even a man who is a rent paying tenant on a customary tenure does not have a permanent local interest in the kingdom; he may, argues Ireton, have as much interest in another kingdom as this one. If the right to vote is granted to those who do not own property, there is nothing to stop them from voting against all property; that is, there is nothing to stop “the people” from using democracy to overthrow the existing social order and make all things common. As the debate wages on, both sides entrench themselves in their positions, unwilling to concede much to the other. Indeed, at some points, the debate gets quite heated. Despite Cromwell’s and Ireton’s attempts to tone down the tenor of the debate by stating that positions, not persons, are what are being discussed, the passions aroused by the underlying principles of the debate can barely be contained. This is because the Agitators and Levellers remain unconvinced by the arguments put forth by the grandees. Wildman shows his impatience with the debate by urging the participants to focus on the principles

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of the reforms, rather than the speculated consequences. Seeming frustrated, he sums up Ireton’s position in a very dismissive manner: “I conceive all that has been said against it will be reduced to this, that it is against a fundamental law; and another reason that every person ought to have a permanent interest: because it is not fit that those should choose parliaments that have no lands to be disposed of by parliament.”87

Similarly, Sexby, in a demonstration of what Cromwell would disparagingly call “wilfulness,” states outright that the army has engaged in the present conflict in order to recover their birthrights and privileges as Englishmen, but it turns out that they have none, for the discussion of liberty has shown that, if the grandees have their way, there is not such thing as English liberty. Many of the soldiers, Sexby argues, do not meet the property qualification for the franchise that the grandees are attempting to conserve. This being the case, he asks, what did they fight for? “There are many thousands of us soldiers that have ventured our lives; we have had little property in the kingdom as to our estates, yet we have had a birthright; but it seems now, except a man has a fixed estate in this kingdom, he has no right in this kingdom. I wonder we were so much deceived. If we had not a right to the kingdom, we were mere mercenary soldiers. There are many in my condition, that have as good a condition; it may be little estate they have at present, and yet they have as much a rights as those too who are their lawgivers, as any in this place. I shall tell you in a word my resolution. I am resolved to give my birthright to none, whatsoever may come in the way; and be thought that I will give it to none, if this thing that with so much pressing after…I do think the poor and meaner of this kingdom, I speak as in that relation in which we are, have been the means of the preservation of this kingdom. I say, in their stations, and really I think that to their utmost possibility; and their lives have not been dear for purchasing the good of the kingdom. Those that act to this end are as free from anarchy or confusion as those that oppose it, and they have the law of God and the law of their conscience.”88

The soldiers in the army, claims Sexby, who is speaking as a representative of five regiments, want to recover their lost birthright, not merely to act as mercenary soldiers at the whim of those men of substance who have a fixed interest in the realm. If the latter was the case, asks Sexby, what exactly is it for which the soldiers have staked their lives and estates? In response to this, and a similar question posed later on by Rainsborough, Ireton presents what is essentially the parliamentary cause of 1642-3 in unequivocal terms. Popular sovereignty is meant to be parliamentary

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sovereignty in which the landed classes, through Parliament, enjoy supremacy over the crown: “I tell you what the soldier of the kingdom has fought for. First, the danger that we stood in was that one man’s will must be a law. The people of the kingdom must have this right at least, that they should not [sic] be concluded by the representative of those that had the interest of the kingdom. So men fought in this because they were immediately concerned and engaged in it; other men who had no other interest in the kingdom but this, that they should have the benefit of those laws made by the representative, yet that they should have the benefit of this representative. They thought it was better to be concluded by the common consent of those that were fixed men, and settled men, that had the interest of this kingdom, and from that way I shall know a law and have a certainty. And every man that was born in it, that has a freedom, is a denizen; he was capable of trading to get money, and to get estates by; and therefore this man, I think, had a great deal of reason to build up such a foundation of interest to himself; that is, that the will of one man should not be a law, but that the law of this kingdom should be by a choice of persons to represent, and that choice to be made by the generality of the kingdom. Here was a right that induced men to fight, and those men that had not this interest, and though this be not the utmost interest that other men have, yet they had some interest.”89

Ireton is defending the constitution of Parliament on the one hand against the encroachments of royal prerogative, in which the will of one man becomes law, and, on the other hand, from social levelling, from those who would base political participation on natural right and use that threaten the fundamental laws of the constitution – its basis in property. The Putney Debates, therefore, have significance beyond the immediate importance of the quest for settlement, for they raise crucial questions regarding the nature of property and the state. Ireton and the grandees wish to maintain the status quo as it was established in 1642. A freeholder franchise would limit the right to vote to the propertied classes and members of corporations who have a fixed and permanent interest in the kingdom. In this sense, property, as Ireton states repeatedly, is the foundation of the constitution. The consequence of the Leveller position, argues Ireton, is to bestow upon all men in England a natural right which could be used to undermine the existing property relations of England. An attack on property is clearly an attack on the constitution itself. Popular sovereignty, therefore, is Parliamentary sovereignty, the rule of the landed classes in Parliament. To put it another way, the questions and concerns raised by the Levellers give theories of popular sovereignty a social content. As the spokesmen for the “middling sort of men,”90 the Levellers’ articulation of popular sovereignty would have resulted in a significant level of democratization which could potentially threaten the powers and property rights

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of the ruling classes. It is here that we get a sense of the meaning of the term Leveller.

The Engagement and the English Commonwealth By the end of the summer of 1648, the Independent alliance was beginning to break apart. The middle parliamentary group and the royalists believed that a deal with the king was inevitable. The political Independents, however, in conjunction with the London radicals and the army believed that the King should be held accountable and tried for his crimes. By late August and early September, political Independents, London radicals and radical elements in the Army were preparing to break away from their more moderate allies in Parliament through a revolutionary takeover. Hostilities between Parliament and the army hinged upon the proposed settlement being sought by Parliament and were expressed in the Levellers Humble Petition of 11 September 1648, and Ireton’s Remonstrance of the Army published in the following month. In the previous year, the power of the army was used by Cromwell and Ireton to hold the political Independent alliance together so that the royal independents could seek some kind of settlement with the king. Support for the Heads of Proposals by the army leadership was crucial in forcing the City radicals to go along with seeking a settlement with the king. By the autumn of 1648, however, things had significantly changed. Radical elements within the army – under the leadership of Henry Ireton – chose to abandon any attempts to negotiate with the king along the lines pursued in 1647. Brenner argues that this decision by the army to break from the long-standing political independent alliance in Parliament “provided the indispensable politico-military basis for a parallel and associated break on the part of the City’s political independents, the new merchants prominently among them. For the first time since the summer of 1643, the lessextreme wing of the City radical alliance could reasonably make a fight for a political settlement directly in accord with its own interests and conceptions.”91 The driving force behind the army’s break with its parliamentary allies was the democratic agitation on the part of the army rank and file and London radicals.92 The Levellers put forward their petition on 11 September 1648 demanding the abolition of the King’s and House of Lords’ veto power over the Commons. Mass parliamentary petitions from the counties on 10 October, which called for an end to seeking a personal treaty with the King and petitions sent from regiments in the army in November, added to this democratic upsurge against Parliament.93 Thus, the driving force behind this political rupture was the tension both within and without the army that threatened to escalate into an open revolt against Parliament.94 At this point in time, the influence of the Levellers can be seen in the incorporation of some of the Levellers’ political demands into the Independents’ programme by the radical leadership of the army. Meetings were held between

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the army leadership and the Levellers with the goal of achieving political unity in order to effectively take power. In order to secure the support of the Levellers, the army radicals needed to concede to some of the democratic demands of franchise and parliamentary reform. The Levellers convinced the political independents and the army leadership that acceptance of at least a revised Agreement of the People was necessary before the Army could effectively march on the Parliament. Despite the political unity between the Independents, army and the Levellers at this point in time, each group had a different conception of popular sovereignty that it was pursuing. The agreement struck between these groups was ambiguous enough that sovereignty could be interpreted in a number of different ways. By this time, popular sovereignty was losing its democratic potential, as the political Independent leadership in London as well as the army were pursuing restricted forms of popular government – either oligarchic are elitist republicanism, both of which based parliamentary supremacy on the basis of a restricted franchise. Hugh Peter, for example, explicitly avowed an elitist form of republicanism that would prevent the “giddy multitude” from having any real political power. The crucial aspect of popular sovereignty was that it would be representative, in the sense that it was the people’s representatives who had power, not the people themselves. Peter’s many proposals for parliamentary reform included biennial parliaments, electoral reform (in the sense of redrawing electoral districts to enfranchise some areas while disenfranchising others – notably royalist areas), and the implementation of a written constitution. According to Brenner, “In combination with the somewhat expanded but still rather restricted franchise that was known to be preferred by Ireton and most of the army leadership, these provisions, if implemented, would have made for a radically transformed political order in England, but one in which popular sovereignty would have assumed an effectively oligarchic form.”95 In this sense, the popular sovereignty of the Independents, army leadership, republicans and new merchant leadership resembled the radical forms of parliamentary sovereignty being presented at the end of 1643. These differences regarding the issue of popular sovereignty were the result of an underlying ideological tension between the different factions within the Independent-Leveller alliance. The democratic politics of the Levellers and Leveller inspired officers existed in a tenuous relationship with a puritan inspired politics of the Army and coup leadership. The latter believed in the existence of a “godly minority” or the “rule of the saints” – a kind of predestination which was inherently anti-democratic and would find its expression in the work of John Goodwin. 96 The Levellers, however, did not restrict their conception of “the people” to those who they believed were righteous in the sense of being “godly.” Rather, their conception of “the people” was restricted to those who accepted the Agreement of the People. When the army marched on London in December 1648, it proceeded with a number of significant political reforms that were designed to ensure its political hegemony. The machinery of government in the City was dominated by

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Presbyterians since the counterrevolution of 1645. Knowing that they could not maintain power without dealing with the Presbyterians, the revolutionaries proceeded to disenfranchise the supporters of the king. Thus, a parliamentary ordinance was drafted in December which disenfranchised all “malignants” and “delinquents” and forbid them from holding any office within the Common council. The result of these reforms was a drastic shift in the balance of power in favour of the political independents and their allies in the new merchant community and the army. To get a sense of the size of the shift, no less than two-thirds of those sitting on the common council lost their position as a result of the ordinance.97 Radical members of the Common Council pushed for the execution of justice against the king and the placing of the City militia into the hands of supporters of the new regime. When faced with opposition from conservative forces within the City government, the radicals restructured the institutions of City power. The Common Council was restructured in a way that reduced the power of the Mayor. Traditionally, quorum necessitated attendance of the mayor and a certain number of Aldermen. But when the mayor withdrew in protest from the meeting that put forward the above petition, the councillors merely elected their own chairman and continued to meet. Parliament not only accepted their petition, but sanctioned their institutional innovations. The mayor’s consent was no longer necessary to conduct meetings of the Common Council. Yet, the power that the radicals exercised in the City of London was not analogous to the power they held in the Rump Parliament. In terms of domestic policy and reforms, the victories of the revolutionaries seemed to be limited to what Blair Worden has called victories of “containment,” that is, victories that prevented the adoption of particular policies by their opponents within the House of Commons. In terms of positive domestic reforms, the revolutionaries gained little. The reforms proposed by radical republicans like Henry Marten – abolition of imprisonment for debts, religious toleration for the sectaries, securing a date for the holding of elections, other progressive law reforms – were struck down by the conservative elements of the Rump Parliament. 98 Similarly, the Council of State was dominated by men who did not recognize the regicide of January 1649. As a result, the reform agenda of the revolutionaries was seriously dampened. But why did the revolutionaries, once in power, fail to fully implement a revolutionary programme? Why was even the revised Agreement the Levellers proposed neglected? Underdown seeks to explain the reluctance of the revolutionaries in terms of their adherence to a constitutionalist tradition of politics.99 However, the strength of this constitutional tradition seems questionable when the political independents violated the very notion of constitutional politics in purging Parliament. Worden argues that the need to secure the sovereignty of the new state, both in terms of defending it from its domestic and foreign enemies as well as securing it financially, provided contingent pressures that forced the revolutionaries to moderate their programme. This makes sense, however, only when we take into consideration

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what Robert Brenner calls the disjunction between political and social power of the new regime. The social basis of the new regime was quite narrow: royalists and members of the landed classes – Presbyterians and many members of the gentry – had been alienated from the new regime. The Rump parliamentarians had to choose between bringing the disaffected members of the landed classes back into the political fold by making necessary concessions to their interests, or to push the revolution forward by implementing the reforms of the Levellers. Neglect of the Levellers’ programme would no doubt foster discontent in the army, particularly amongst the rank-and-file where support for Leveller ideas was strongest. At the same time, the implementation of Leveller reforms would no doubt result in the electoral defeat of the new regime, further alienate the landed classes and jeopardize the interests of property in general. Democratization would no doubt have resulted in the defeat of the revolution because outside of London, few areas – particularly in the countryside – had undergone any substantial process of radicalization.100 Given that many of the moderate radicals viewed their alliance with the Levellers as one of convenience that served as a bargaining chip against the king, it is not surprising that the revolutionaries chose to patch up their relations with the Presbyterian gentry. This is evident in the Rump’s response to the Leveller mutiny in May 1649. The initial plan of the Rump was to pass mild reforms that would go some way towards placating the demands of the army rank-and-file, in order to alienate them from the Leveller leadership. Secondly, they proposed severe and punitive sedition laws that could be used to prosecute Leveller leaders. The mutiny of May provided Cromwell and the Independents the opportunity they needed to crush the Levellers, after which the proposed reforms of the Rump were dropped.101 The execution of the king, the abolition of the House of Lords and the declaration of a new Commonwealth further raised the issue of political obligation. The new regime needed to provide a justification for its rule that would “prove” its legitimacy. As early as 4 January 1649, the Rump Parliament declared that the origins of all just authority resided in the people, and that it had engaged with the King in the second civil war out of necessity and in the interests of the sovereign will of the people of England. The initial attempts to legitimize its usurpation of power were therefore couched in the discourse of popular sovereignty. Despite this, many Levellers refused to accept the legitimacy of a government that they believed to be a continuation of the Parliamentary tyranny of the period of 1645-1647. John Lilburne characterized the new regime’s rise to power as merely another series of chains that bound the liberties of the English. Ideally, the Independents, republicans and merchant radicals who assumed state power in winter of 1648-9 sought to legitimize their rule on the basis of popular sovereignty. The official declarations of the regime, in the aftermath of the regicide, attempted to do just that. On the bases of this argument, the new republican regime introduced, in February 1649 after the regicide, the oath or “Engagement” that was to be taken by those elected to the

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first Council of State. The purpose of the Engagement was to secure an oath of allegiance to the new state that would grant it legitimate title to its power. As an expression of the consent of the people, the Engagement would predicate the power of the new government upon grounds of popular sovereignty, thereby turning its power into authority.102 The problem was that, having purged the army of its radical elements, the social forces of the new regime represented a narrow oligarchy based upon the new merchant leadership and Cromwell’s Independents. Thus, any attempt to ground their new regime upon popular support would have ended in defeat. The realities of politics came into conflict with the rhetorical need to justify the new regime on the grounds of popular sovereignty. The purging of the Leveller movement from the army had alienated the left of the revolutionary movement, leading many of them to collude with the Royalists. Given the hostility towards the new regime from both the Levellers on the one side, and the Royalists and Presbyterians on the other, the task of its leaders was difficult, to say the least. But it appears that the main audience of defenders of the Engagement were the Presbyterians and the Loyalists, given the recent military defeat of the Levellers.103 Thus, the Engagement was watered down to omit any explicit approval of the regicide. In the autumn of the same year, the “New Engagement” was introduced – which was a shorter version of the original – in order to distinguish from earlier oaths like the Solemn League and the Covenant. It was to be taken by all present and future members of parliament, officeholders under the commonwealth, university staff, state pensioners, and beneficed ministers. In the winter of 1649-50 the Engagement was extended to include the entire adult male population. The Engagement Controversy therefore sparked a series of pamphlet wars – both defending and attacking the Engagement and the validity of the authority of the new regime – that revolved around the nature of the obligation to obey political authority. Despite the republican nature of the new regime, not all defenders of the Commonwealth can be said to be republican, per se. Thus, a distinction needs to be made between the republican movement and the defenders of the Commonwealth, (since not all republicans would come to defend the new regime either). The main theme of these apologies for the commonwealth was that Pride’s Purge, the regicide and the abolition of the House of Lords arose out of necessity. The corruption of King, Lords and (some of) the Commons forced the army, as the true representative of the sovereign people, to take action. John Goodwin’s Right and Might well met (1649) attempted to reconcile the need of the regime to base its claims to power on popular sovereignty with the realities of its narrow social base. 104 Goodwin was a dedicated Cromwellian who had little difficulty in defending the Commonwealth and the Protectorate that followed. Goodwin’s political thought was characterised by an attempt to reconcile the attainment of political power by force (what critics of the regime called “usurpation”) with the principles of

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popular sovereignty, even though force was used to defeat opponents who were arguably more “popular” than the present government (i.e., the Levellers and, to a lesser extent, the Royalists). For Goodwin, Parliament gained authority to resist the king based upon the will of the people. Its calling was to raise an army in order to protect the kingdom, and the rights and liberties of Englishmen, from the forces of the king. Now, if Parliament failed to act on that commission, its army, which is the means by which such commission is carried out, might justifiably act in place of parliament. Deeming a majority of members in the long parliament to be enemies of the kingdom, the army therefore acted as an instrument of the people’s will, against parliament. Armed resistance in this instance was justifiable: here is a justification for Pride’s Purge based on popular sovereignty. The problem for Goodwin and other Independents was that the argument from popular sovereignty contradicted the narrow social basis of the regime itself. Thus, popular sovereignty co-exists with an argument from necessity, in which the latter eventually overshadows the former as the basis of the legitimacy of the new regime. Goodwin therefore needs to justify the actions of a minority who act in the name of the people, despite the absence of express consent from the latter. “If the people be uncapable in themselves of the things of their peace,” says Goodwin, “it is an act of so much the more goodnesse and mercy in those, who being fully capable of them, will ingage themselves accordingly to make provision for them.”105 Thus, more important than the laws of the land, and more important than the consent of the people, are the laws of nature, necessity and a love of Country and Nation. 106 Thus, necessity and salus populi was resurrected in the employ of the Independent minority and its new merchant allies against both Royalists and Levellers. Popular sovereignty was still important, but, under certain conditions, it was trumped by arguments from necessity and the welfare of the people. Goodwin’s thought is thus characterized by a tension, a contradiction that is the mirror image of that faced by the Cromwellian regime. Popular sovereignty comes into conflict with political necessity, given the narrow basis of power of the new Commonwealth. Necessity therefore trumps the sovereign power of the people in legitimating the authority of the new regime. 107 Thus, Goodwin’s popular sovereignty is ultimately a parliamentary sovereignty that is aristocratic by design. But it is also trumped by salus populi, that is, by the need to preserve the safety of the people in times of crisis. The ultimate judge of when such salus populi can be invoked to override parliament is the Godly minority represented politically by the Independents. The implications of Milton’s and Goodwin’s apologia are nicely summed up by Perez Zagorin: “Whether it was necessity that was invoked, or the people identified, as Milton did, with their virtuous part, however few in number, the consequence was to evade a thorough application of the very principle which Goodwin upheld – that all power must exist by the people’s consent.”108 This “aristocratic” redefinition of popular sovereignty evades a thorough analysis of the nature of popular sovereignty, and indeed, we must agree with Zagorin that

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Goodwin did little to innovate the existing theories of popular sovereignty. Rather, Goodwin’s seemingly paradoxical argument was pure political propaganda in the service a new regime whose principles he fully endorsed. Ironically, his argument seemed more successful in galvanizing opposition to the regime than it was in mustering support. His argument proved dangerous insofar as it tread on the terrain of the self-righteous Godly minority. In John Milton’s A Defense of the People of England, the problem of the new state’s legitimacy did not stem from its unpopular basis of support. 109 In fact, the narrow scope of the new regime was one of its virtues, not one of its problems.110 Milton seems to begin from a premise of radical populism but undermines the democratic and populist potential of his own argument by adhering to a classical republican aristocratic bias that privileges the rationality of the landed elite over the irrationality of the “rabble” and the “multitude” of the common people.111 This latter aspect of his republicanism undermines the inherent egalitarianism that he takes as his starting point. Like many political thinkers in the mid century, Milton argued that all men were created free and equal; all men were born in the image of God. However, the development of society results in a differentiation of men dependent upon their class position: the cities result in corruption whereas virtue resides in the countryside. Thus, the “people” that Milton holds in such high esteem, represent a small elite stratum of society; in fact, the “people” do not represent the “common people” at all, but rather, a virtuous elite.112 For Milton, nobility does not stem from heredity, but rather from virtue. Thus, Milton has in mind a true aristocracy of virtue – in classic Aristotelian fashion – when he speaks of the people. Given the corruptibility and the licentiousness of the “multitude,” a new republic necessarily had to be one that was narrow in scope. What was important for the development of a legitimate state was not the scope of its representation, but rather, the quality of its representation. As such, Milton adhered to a classical republican notion of the rule of a virtuous aristocracy.113 The goal of the revolutionary regime, therefore, increasingly was to base its claim to authority upon arguments that would appeal to the Presbyterians and the moderate royalists. Royalists, however, would not be persuaded by arguments based upon popular sovereignty and consent, and Presbyterians had taken the Solemn League and Covenant back in 1643, which came into conflict with the Engagement to the new republican regime. A number of writers began to emerge that sought to legitimize the authority of the new regime and defend the Engagement. By doing so, they began to articulate new theories of political obligation that rested upon what Quentin Skinner calls a de facto conception of political power.114 Writers like Anthony Ascham, Francis Rous, and Dury, sought to base the obligation of obedience to authority not on the grounds of popular sovereignty, but rather on de facto arguments of the possession of political power.115 The reality of the Norman Conquest was acknowledged by these writers as just that – a conquest. But this did not nullify the ability of a government to govern. Conquest may not bestow legal title on

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the new ruler, but it did grant possession, which, if government did not act tyrannically, obligated obedience on the part of the subject population. This genre of political argument thus sought to argue that it was not unlawful for subjects to obey an unlawful government and laid the groundwork for rationalist conceptions of understandings of sovereignty and political power. 116 Taking his starting point from St. Paul’s injunction to obey political authority, Francis Rous argued, in the 1649 tract The Lawfulness of Obeying the Present Government that Englishmen should obey the present government, regardless of the fact that its rule was not based upon a legitimate title to authority. Rous’ critics – who were legion – argued his interpretation of the Pauline injunctions to obedience was wrong. They pointed out that Paul meant that the subject must obey lawfully constituted authority; he did not mean to deny a resistance to tyranny. There is a distinction, therefore, between the authority of a political office and the power of the individual holding that office. The latter can be resisted, for it is there that tyranny may arise, but lawfully constituted authority must be obeyed. Rous’ critics also argued that by urging obedience to usurpers, he was paving the way for tyranny, not preventing it. This criticism effectively demolished Rous’ argument in favour of the engagement.117 In The Confusions and Revolutions of Government (1649), Anthony Ascham argues that possession is enough to oblige subjects to obey a governing power.118 Basing his argument on the notion that the original state of mankind is an undesirable condition in which all goods are held in common, and natural liberty resulted in brutishness, he argues that civil government emerged as a necessity that people obeyed out of the need for security. Conquest therefore can bring with it a just authority based upon its ability to provide security to its subjects. What is significant, for Ascham, is not the right upon which a government should rule, but rather, the lawfulness of its rule. Thus, the form of government is irrelevant to Ascham – monarchy, aristocracy or democracy. He has no allegiance to either form in principal; rather, he argues that each pure form is flawed in its practicability. Such pessimism anticipates the bleak outlook of Hobbes’ masterpiece, Leviathan, and prompts Zagorin to make the following judgement: “In Ascham’s book we do not encounter the hopeful sentiments of the revolutionary, but the malaise of the sceptic. One has a glimpse of a feeling that was probably fairly widespread after 1649: weariness of civil strife, and a sense of mutability and the world’s woe which led to a tired acquiescence in changes of government as unavoidable. We are struck by the atmosphere of disenchantment, and before Ascham’s pyrrhonistic doubting, we see truth become dim and rights indeterminable. The pre-occupation of the theorist with politics has issued only in an advocacy of indifference to politics, since obedience may be given to any power and justice does not essentially depend on forms of government. Such were the thoughts expressed

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In his 1649 contribution to the Engagement controversy, Dury supported the arguments made by Ascham and Rous that subjects must obey a government that is in possession of political power. But according to Skinner, Dury was a bit “opportunistic” in his exploitation of any argument in favour of the engagement. In fact, he still relied heavily on Calvinism to make his claims. The significance of the de factoist position was that it established new parameters for the debate, as it seemed to adequately evade the issue of popular sovereignty outright. So influential was this de factoist position that it influenced proponents of absolutist sovereignty like Thomas Hobbes on the one hand, and some-time republican “populists” like Marchamont Nedham, on the other.120 While Nedham often flirts with republican oriented notions of popular sovereignty – placing him, according to Worden, close to the Leveller camp 121 – he ultimately provides a justification of the new regime’s authority on grounds similar to those put forward by the de factoists. Despite the allegedly populist elements in Nedham’s work, his text, according to Skinner, begins its discussion of political obligation by claiming that the reason why “there is a necessity of some government at all times” is “for the maintenance of civil conversation and to avoid confusion.”122 Ultimately, these defenders of the Commonwealth do not base their arguments on popular sovereignty, or even parliamentary sovereignty for that matter, but rather, on the possession of power in the interest of establishing order and security. The legitimate basis of political authority, in the context of the regicide and the coup d’état of 1648-9, shifts from that of popular sovereignty in both its moderate parliamentary and radical individualist forms,123 to being based upon the purely rationalist grounds established by the de factoists.124 There seems to be little distinction between them and Hobbes, for their arguments essentially amount to an apology for any existing power – whether it is a conqueror, usurper, or has proper title.125 This intellectual and political context becomes crucial for an understanding of Gerrard Winstanley’s political thought – the subject of the next chapter – for regardless of whether Winstanley was well read in the various literature of this period, his own contribution to a discussion of state power and political authority emerges within this context. In the following chapter, we will see how Winstanley’s work, emerging in a context dominated by de factoist arguments of state power and political obligation, provides a unique contribution to the pressing political issues of his time.

Notes 1. Wood, Pristine.

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2. J.G.A. Pocock, The Ancient Constitution and the Feudal Law: a study of English historical thought in the seventeenth century (Cambridge: University Press, 1957); Glenn Burgess, The Politics of the Ancient Constitution: an introduction to English political thought, 1603-1642 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993). 3. Some republican scholars have sought to identify a significant strain of republican constitutional theory in the Tudor era, but, as Blair Worden points out, this republican “imaginary” is limited to literary experiments of the period, not constitutional political thought per se. Markku Peltonen, Classical humanism and republicanism in English political thought, 1570-1640 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); David Norbrook, Writing and the English Republic: poetry, rhetoric, and politics, 1627-1660 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); Blair Worden, “Republicanism, Regicide and Republics: The English Experience,” in Republicanism: A Shared European Heritage, volume I. ed. Martin van Gelderen and Quentin Skinner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). 4. See Chapter 3. 5. Marc Bloch, Feudal Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961), 431. 6. In Elizabethan times, the significance of the sheriff was to decline; their position was eclipsed by local justices of the peace and the Lords lieutenant. The importance of these developments is that the “disintegrative parcellisation of sovereignty normal to feudalism is checked. The Crown is able to govern in the counties by agents acting for, and removable by, itself – albeit, importantly, agents drawn from the local political nation.” Phillip Corrigan and Derek Sayer, The Great Arch: English State Formation as Cultural Revolution. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985), 20. 7. This is not to deny the existence of any conflict between the Crown and the aristocracy. It is merely to highlight the contrast between the relative stability of feudal England with the “feudal anarchy” that was characteristic of France, and the different nature of conflict between the aristocracy and the Crown in each country. 8. Anderson, Lineages, 89. 9. Anderson, Lineages, 115. 10. For a useful discussion on the relationship between class and status in early modern England, see Manning, Aristocrats. 11. “The communities brought into the organization we have come to know as “the State” were as follows: 1110, the vill; 1166, the shires and hundreds; 1226, cathedral chapters; 1254, diocesan clergy; 1258 barons, and in 1265 boroughs…We should note – and this again is a contrast with most continental assemblies – that from 1294 to 1872 the writs ordering elections specifically denied the possibility of representatives in Parliament being delegates of the communities they “represented.”” Corrigan and Sayer, Great Arch, 28. 12. Initially, however, Corrigan and Sayer argue that under the reign of Edward, Parliament was merely an instrument of royal government. Only by 1340 was Parliament recognized as the only legitimate body to consent to taxation; and ordinances passed in response to pleas could only legitimately stem from Parliament. In the fifteenth century the Commons developed into a political body that assented to legislation. This marked a significant move away from being an assembly that submitted petitions to the King. By the 1450s, a distinction between the upper and lower houses of Parliament was formally recognized – the House of Lords and the House of Commons. Corrigan and Sayer, Great Arch. 13. Brenner, “Agrarian Roots,” 264.

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14. Hilton inverts the comparative relationship between France and England arguing that it was perhaps the latter that was more advanced than the former. Hilton, “Feudalism or “feodalite”” 165. 15. Anderson, Passages, 160. 16. Anderson, Lineages; Passages. 17. With the exception of poll taxes, the English peasantry was exempt from paying royal taxes. 18. Brenner, “Agrarian Roots.” 19. J.W. Allen, English political thought, 1603-1644 (Hamden: Archon Books, 1967); Sabine, History. For more on French resistance theories, see Skinner, Foundations, volume 2. 20. Sabine, History, 376. 21. Sabine, History, 375. 22. Sabine, History, 381. 23. Sabine, History, 383. 24. Jean Bodin, On Sovereignty, ed. Julian Franklin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 1-3, 23. 25. Wood, Pristine, 61. 26. On the “ambiguity” of English discussions of sovereignty, see Joyce Malcolm, “Introduction,” in The Struggle for Sovereignty, ed. Joyce Malcolm (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1999). For the “absence” of theories of sovereignty in relation to France, see Wood, Pristine. 27. Sabine, History, 373. 28. Sommerville argues that English political thought in the early seventeenth century was not distinctively English – that absolutist political theory was identical to the absolutist political thought that existed on the Continent. Sommerville, however, is concerned only with the theory of absolutism, not the practice. If we look beyond the theory to the level of its clarity and the extent of its political support before the outbreak of the Civil War, we see that English theories of royal absolutism were insignificant compared to France. Johann P. Sommerville, “English and European Political Ideas in the Early Seventeenth Century: Revisionism and the Case of Absolutism,” The Journal of British Studies 35 no. 2 (1996): 168-94. 29. James Daly, “The Idea of Absolute Monarchy in Seventeenth Century England,” The Historical Journal 21 no. 2 (1978): 227-50, 229. Daly argues that the evolution of limited and ambiguous notions of “absolute” sovereignty into more ominous forms of absolutism occurred only in the face of impending crisis and civil war. Johann Sommerville, however, contests such a reading of early Stuart conceptions of absolutism. Sommerville argues that English political thought in the early seventeenth century was not distinctively English – that absolutist political theory was identical to the absolutist political thought that existed on the Continent. He argues that continental absolutists also advocated the lawful rule of kings. In this sense, those scholars who have emphasized the absence of absolutism in England have done so by exaggerating the claims of absolutists on the continent. Sommerville contests, however, that he is only concerned with theory, not practice. As such, the existence of a few unambiguous absolutists, by his own admission, does not necessarily imply any political relevance to the existence of early theories of royal absolutism. Sommerville, “Revisionism and the Case of Absolutism,” 190. Glenn Burgess also questions the absolute nature of Divine Right theory. Glenn

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Burgess, “The Divine Right of Kings Reconsidered,” The English Historical Review 107 no. 425 (1992): 837-61. 30. Wood and Wood, Trumpet, 75. 31. For a different interpretation of constitutional politics in the era prior to the outbreak of the civil war, see Russell, Parliaments, and, “Unrevolutionary England.” Russell argues that the existence of a consensus around the ancient constitution, and the accepted role of Parliament as a council as opposed to a legislative body, reveals an absence of constitutional conflict in the early Stuart period. 32. Cited in Wood and Wood, Trumpet, 76. Henry Marten would go on to become the sole republican to sit in the Commons prior to outbreak of the Civil War. Sarah Barber, A revolutionary rogue: Henry Marten and the English republic (Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 2000). 33. Henry Parker, “The Case of Shipmoney,” In The Struggle for Sovereignty, volume I, ed. Joyce Malcolm (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1999). 34. Michael Mendle, “The ship money case, The case of shipmony, and the development of Henry Parker’s parliamentary absolutism,” The Historical Journal 32 (1989): 513-36, 523. 35. Philip Hunton, “A Treatise of Monarchy (1643),” Divine Right and Democracy, ed. David Wootton (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1986). 36. For an insightful study of descending versus ascending theories of sovereignty during the Civil War period, see John Sanderson, “But the people’s creatures”: The philosophical basis of the English Civil War (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1989). 37. Hunton, “Monarchy,” 177. 38. For Hunton, there exists three degrees of absolute sovereignty or “absoluteness”. The first exists when the monarchy is not constrained by the rule of law. Secondly, when the monarch acts in an arbitrary fashion: following a rule or law at one point in time and defying it at another point in time. Thirdly, a monarch is absolute “when he not only sets down an express rule and law to govern by, but also promises and engages himself, in many cases, not to alter that rule…This ruler is not so absolute as the former in the use of his power, for he has put a bond on that, which he cannot break without breach of promise; that is, without sine. But he is as absolute in his power, if he will sinfully put it forth into act. It has not political bounds, for the people still owe him absolute subjection, that not being dissolved or lessened by an act of grace coming afterwards.” This threefold conception of absolute sovereignty is somewhat puzzling. The first two principles are clear: a monarch is absolute when he is not bound by the rule of law and/or when he acts in an arbitrary fashion. But the third aspect is puzzling, for Hunton is saying that a monarch is absolute when he adheres to the rule of law. It seems that he may be saying that he is still absolute in the execution of his power, not in its limitation. Hunton, “Monarchy,” 178-9. 39. Hunton, “Monarchy,” 208-9. 40. Allen, English Political thought, 455. 41. For the revisionist argument of a pre-civil war consensus in parliament, see Kishlansky, “Adversary Politics.” 42. Michael Mendle, Henry Parker and the English civil war: the political thought of the public’s “privado” (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). 43. Mendle, “The Shipmoney case,” 525.

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44. Samuel Rutherford, Lex, Rex (1644), in Puritanism and Liberty, ed. A.S.P. Woodhouse (London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1974). 45. David Wootton, “Introduction,” in Divine Right and Democracy, ed. David Wootton (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1986), 50. 46. William Prynne, Discourse between a Resolved and Doubtful Englishman (London: Thomason Tracts, 1642). 47. Anonymous, The Privileges of Parliament (London: Thomason Tracts, 1643). 48. Anonymous, A Sovereign Salve to Cure the Blind (London: Thomason Tracts, 1643). 49. Anonymous, Touching the Fundamentall Lawes (1643), in The Struggle for Sovereignty, volume I, ed. Joyce Malcolm (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1999). 50. Anonymous, Fundamental Lawes, 269. 51. David Wootton, “From rebellion to revolution: the crisis of the winter of 1642/3 and the origins of Civil War radicalism,” The English Historical Review 105 no. 416 (1990): 654-669. 52. Anonymous, Plaine English (London: Thomason Tracts, 1643). 53. Jeremiah Burroughs, The Glorious Name of God (London: Thomason Tracts, 1642). 54. Robert Filmer, The Anarchy of a Limited or Mixed Monarchy (1648), in Filmer: Patriarcha and Other Writings, ed. Johann P. Sommerville (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). 55. John Spelman, Certain Considerations upon the Duties both of Prince and People (London: Thomason Tracts, 1642). 56. John Maxwell, Sacro-Sanctum Regnum Majestas (London: Thomason Tracts, 1644). 57. Sanderson, Peoples’ Creatures, 50. 58. John R. MacCormack, Revolutionary Politics in the Long Parliament (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973); Keith Lindley, Popular Politics and Religion in Civil War London (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1997). 59. Brenner, Merchants, 497. 60. Lindley, Popular Politics. 61. Lindley, Popular Politics, 356; Brenner, Merchants, 498. 62. Precisely when the “Levellers” emerged as a movement is the subject of considerable debate. The term Leveller itself was not used until 1647. Brailsford, Levellers. 63. Due to the appearance of Latin in this pamphlet, Wootton believes it was authored by Edward Sexby. Samuel Davis Glover believes that Wildman wrote it, because he was a lawyer influenced by republican writings. Samuel Davis Glover, “The Putney Debates: Popular Versus Élitist Republicanism,” Past & Present 164 (1998): 47-80. 64. Anonymous, England’s Miserie and Remedie (1644), in Divine Right and Democracy, ed. David Wootton (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1986), 280. 65. Wootton identifies this pamphlet as the first articulation of a genuinely popular sovereignty in England. 66. Glover, “Putney Debates,” 64. 67. Richard Overton and William Walwyn, A Remonstrance of Many Thousand Citizens (1646), The English Levellers, ed. Andrew Sharp (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 34. 68. Overton and Walwyn, Remonstrance, 36.

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69. Overton and Walwyn, Remonstrance, 37. 70. Richard Overton, An arrow against all tyrants (1646), in The English Levellers, ed. Andrew Sharp (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998) 55. 71. Overton, “Arrow,” 62-3. 72. Brenner, Merchants, 511. 73. Mark Kishlansky, “Army and the Levellers – Roads to Putney,” Historical Journal 22 no. 4 (1979): 795-824; Pocock, “Authority and Property,” Morrill, “The Army Revolt,” J.S. Morrill and Philip Baker, “The Case of the Armie Truly Re-stated,” in The Putney Debates of 1647, ed. Michael Mendle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001) 74. The revisionist case being made by Morrill, Baker and Kishlansky is very specific in that it questions the level of collusion between Leveller and Agitators prior to the debates at Putney. This debate does not concern us here. However, the revisionist case does not explain the use of Leveller language and “doctrines” (if we can call them that) by prominent Agitators like Sexby and Rainsborough, whom revisionists claim had little relation with the civilian Levellers. 75. Austin Woolrych, “The Debates from the Perspective of the Army,” in The Putney Debates of 1647, ed. Michael Mendle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 53. 76. Wood and Wood, Trumpet, 83. 77. “The Putney Debates,” in Divine Right and Democracy, ed. David Wootton (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1986), 285. 78. Joseph Frank, The Levellers: a history of the writings of three seventeenth-century social democrats, John Lilburne, Richard Overton, William Walwyn (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1955); G.E. Aylmer, ed. (1975). The Levellers in the English Revolution (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1975). 79. Macpherson, Possessive Individualism; Hill, World. 80. For example, taking Maximillian Petty as the representative of the final Leveller position on the franchise, and neglecting the wider context of political conflict result in arbitrarily identifying an “official” Leveller position with the position staked out by Petty. For a defence of Macpherson’s position, or at least a criticism of his critics, see Christopher Thompson, “Maximilian Petty and the Putney Debate on the Franchise,” Past & Present 88 (1980): 63-69. For a criticism of Macpherson’s interpretation, see Davis, “Levellers and Democracy,” Keith Thomas, “The Levellers and the Franchise,” in The Interregnum: the Quest for Settlement, 1646-1660, ed. G.E. Aylmer (London: Macmillan Press, 1972); Iain Hampsher-monk, “The Political Theory of the Levellers.” 81. “The Putney Debates,” 286. 82. As the Woods point out, developing a theory of “natural right” may not have been the Levellers’ intention, given their consistent focus on the rights of “Englishmen” (as opposed to men in general) and their alternative account of English history (i.e., the Norman Yoke). Wood and Wood, Trumpet. 83. “The Putney Debates,” 287. 84. “The Putney Debates,” 287-8. 85. “The Putney Debates,” 294. 86. “The Putney Debates,” 295-6. 87. “The Putney Debates,” 298. 88. “The Putney Debates,” 302. 89. “The Putney Debates,” 305.

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90. “Middling sort” refers to artisans, yeomen and unincorporated merchants as distinct from the classical notion of a capitalist bourgeoisie. 91. Brenner, Merchants, 534. 92. Brenner, Merchants, 535; Manning, 1649, 41-3. 93. Brenner, Merchants, 535. 94. Manning, Crisis, 41-3; Brenner, Merchants, 535. 95. Brenner, Merchants, 538. 96. Manning, Crisis, 174-5. 97. Brenner, Merchants, 543. 98. Blair Worden, The Rump Parliament, 1648-1653 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974). See chapter 10 in particular. 99. David Underdown, Pride’s Purge: Politics in the Puritan Revolution (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), 5. 100. Brenner, Merchants, 539. 101. Worden, Rump; Manning, 1649. 102. For a discussion on the significance between conceptions of power and authority in early modern England, see Richard Tuck, “Power and Authority in SeventeenthCentury England,” The Historical Journal 17 no. 1 (1974): 43-61. 103. Quentin Skinner makes the point that the intended audience of the “Engagers” (and by implication, the Engagement itself) was the conservative Presbyterians and the Royalists. See Skinner, “Conquest.” 104. John Goodwin, Might and Right Well Met (1649), in The Struggle for Sovereignty, volume I, ed. Joyce Malcolm (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1999). 105. Goodwin, Might and Right, 325. 106. Goodwin, Might and Right, 326. 107. As Perez Zagorin has pointed out, “Though he wholeheartedly maintained the doctrine of popular sovereignty, he formulated it in a manner compatible with the position of men whose power had been won as much by crushing the Levellers as the Presbyterians and royalists.” Zagorin, History, 81. 108. Zagorin, History, 82. 109. John Milton, A Defense of the People of England (1658) In Milton: Political Writings, ed. Martin Dzelzainis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). 110. Blair Worden argues that in his ardent support for the Rump Parliament, Milton was an exceptional republican, given that most republicans regarded the Rump as a narrow oligarchy of “detested men.” Blair Worden, “Marchamont Nedham and the Origins of English Republicanism,” in Republicanism, Liberty and Commercial Society: 1649-1776, ed. David Wootton (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994). 111. Paul Anthony Rahe, “The Classical Republicanism of John Milton,” History of Political Thought 25 no. 2 (2004): 243-75. 112. This is an important distinction to make: Machiavelli made a distinction between the nobles and the “people,” but Milton seems to be characterizing the “people” as a kind of nobility. 113. Rahe, “Milton.” For more on the aristocratic class bias of classical republicans, see John P. McCormick, “Machiavelli against Republicanism: on the Cambridge School’s “Guicciardinian Moments,”” Political Theory 31 no. 5 (2003): 615-43. 114. Skinner, “Conquest.” 115. For a brief, yet insightful introduction to these thinkers, see Zagorin, History.

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116. Skinner, “History and Ideology.” It is Skinner’s contention that these writers represent the first rationalist conception of sovereignty and political power in English political thought. It is out of this rationalist tradition that Hobbes makes his contribution in Leviathan. Glenn Burgess, however, contests Skinner’s rationalist reading by emphasizing the argument from providence that exists within the work of all of these writers. Glenn Burgess, “Usurpation, Obligation and Obedience in the Thought of the Engagement Controversy,” Historical Journal 29 no. 3 (1986): 515-36. 117. This is the opinion of both Skinner and Burgess. 118. Anthony Ascham, The Confusions and Revolutions of Government, in Divine Right and Democracy, ed. David Wootton (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1986). 119. Zagorin, History, 66-7. 120. The politics of Nedham are difficult discern due to his notorious shifting of allegiances. However, at the time of the revolution, Nedham was writing in defence of the new regime – sometimes on republican grounds. What makes Nedham such an interesting figure is his ability to innovate modes of political thought that he may never have been truly loyal to. As Worden points out, while Nedham was not a democrat in any modern sense of the term, he was not as aristocratically oriented as contemporaries like Milton. For more on Nedham’s republicanism, see Worden, “Nedham.” 121. Worden writes: “Nedham rested his demand for frequent parliaments on the premise that “the original of all just power and government is in the people” and that “all majesty and authority is really and fundamentally in the people, and but ministerially in their representatives or trustees.” His position was that of the Levellers, who had long demanded a “constant succession of parliaments,” and who had long complained of “the many inconveniences apparently arising from the long continuance of the same persons in authority.” They had long insisted that parliaments be subordinate and answerable to their electors, whose native rights they must not violate. Although Nedham protests himself innocent of “levelling” intentions, the terms in which he condemns the “odious signification” of the “common usage” of that label are close to those in which the Levellers themselves repudiated their nickname. It is true that Nedham’s writings, in conformity with the views of his employers, often criticize John Lilburne and his associates. Yet they generally do so in indulgent terms, that contrive to publicize the opinions they ostensibly condemn.” Worden, “Nedham,” 65-66. Nedham’s tract was, however, constructed as a response to Levellers and Presbyterians, a point that seems to contradict Worden’s claims. 122. Skinner, “Conquest,” 91. 123. For a useful discussion of popular sovereignty in the period of the first civil war, see Wootton, “Rebellion to Revolution.” For a discussion of popular sovereignty in a larger historical and comparative perspective, see Wood and Wood, Trumpet. 124. Glenn Burgess argues that many of the writers in the Engagement Controversy base the legitimacy of political power not on the rationalist grounds claimed by Skinner, but rather on providential grounds. See Burgess, “Usurpation.” 125. Some, like du Moulin, do not even want to stress the lawfulness of a possessing power, for that raises too many problems; problems of obligation and obedience. Richard Saunders also argued that the only power that is to be obeyed is the power that possesses the capacity to secure, protect and govern its subjects.

6 Unearthing the Kingly Power

The Diggers, Popular Sovereignty and the English Revolution Placed within the political and intellectual context outlined in the previous chapter, we can see that the political content of Winstanley’s thought, though by no means systematic, is more pronounced than may have once been appreciated. Winstanley’s call for social and economic reform rests upon a series of loose political arguments, consisting of a number of different elements – none of which are fully articulated into a systematic theory of politics. Yet, when placed within the context of the debates around sovereignty and political obligation, we begin to get a better sense of the meaning of Winstanley’s ideas, and we begin to see that he does not merely represent an “economic” extension of the logic of Leveller ideas. Within Winstanley’s work, he provides a number of different justifications for revolutionary reform. The first is, of course, most famously articulated in his conception of the Norman Conquest.1 This theme runs throughout his Digger and post-Digger writings. Another element of his political thought rests upon a kind of contract, through his evocation of the Solemn League and Covenant.2 Finally, in the midst of the Engagement Controversy, there is the argument based on a form of obligation and necessity, but one that differs from the prevailing discourse of the day. Where many political theorists – particularly those of the “de facto” tradition – based the need for subjects to obey political authority based upon necessity, Winstanley advocates allegiance to the Commonwealth regime based on two arguments: one, that support for a republican regime is a necessary condition for the further pursuit of revolutionary goals (given that it represents the first step in breaking the Norman Yoke), and second, that the new regime has an obligation to the people to carry on with the revolution, given that the people have participated in the revolution, 183

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whether through fighting, paying taxes or providing free quarter to the revolutionary army. In this sense, the problem of political obligation does not rest in the need for the people to obey the new authority, but rather, in the need for the new authority to fulfill its obligations to the commons of England by establishing the freedom that had been promised at the outset of the civil wars. Initially, Winstanley bases his argument for revolutionary change upon a delegitimation of the existing social order through his particular interpretation of the Norman Yoke, which argues that the political and economic order is founded upon force and lacks proper title of being a just society. In doing this, Winstanley is making the argument that revolutionary change is necessary if true freedom is to be attained by all Englishmen. The established social order, according to Winstanley, violates God’s will, which is to grant each Englishman a creation-right to the free enjoyment of the earth. The conquest set up an oppressive set of social property relations upon which sits a tyrannical kingly government. This king buttresses his political authority by distributing land to his colonels and soldiers – the landlords and the freeholders. The Church and the law are erected to preach passivity to the poor of England, and to prevent them from having recourse to justice. The landed classes have used a host of vile and sinful means to attain and maintain their social and political power, such as murder, theft, and deceit: “And such as these rise up to be rich in the objects of the earth. Then by their plausible words of flattery to the plain-hearted people whom they deceive, and that lies under confusion and blindness, they are lifted up to be teachers and rules and lawmakers over them that lifted them up; as if the earth were made peculiarly for them, and not for others’ weal…And the last enslaving conquest which the enemy got over Israel was the Norman over England; and from that time kings, lords, judges, justices, bailiffs and the violent bitter people that are freeholders, are and have been successively. The Norman bastard William himself, his colonels, captains, inferior officers and common soldiers, who still are from that time to this day in pursuit of that victory, imprisoning, robbing and killing the poor enslaved English Israelites.”3

In turn, these relations of oppression and exploitation serve to buttress the Norman Yoke. Lords of manors and the freeholders are the “common soldiers” of the conquest who collaborate with one another in order to maintain the Norman power over the oppressed people of England. The bondage that they have imposed upon the common people of England serves as the social basis for their political power, the basis upon which the corrupt and oppressive English state rests: “For when any trustee or state officer is to be chosen the freeholders or landlords must be the choosers, who are the Norman common soldiers, spread abroad in the land. And who must be chosen but

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some very rich man, who is the successor of the Norman colonels or high officers? And to what end have they been thus chosen but to establish that Norman power the more forcibly over the enslaved English, and to beat them down again whenas they gather heart to seek for liberty?”4

As Christopher Hill long ago pointed out, Winstanley presented the most comprehensive and drastic restatement of the social version of the Norman Yoke. Even “the best laws that England hath”, said Winstanley, “are yoaks and manicles, tying one sort of people to be slaves to another.”5 In so doing, Winstanley rearticulated the notion of the Norman Yoke in ways that distinguished him from others making similar arguments. Whereas the Levellers denied the arguments of historical continuity from the royalist camp in order to support their position regarding the supremacy of an accountable Parliament, Winstanley provided a social dimension to the Norman Yoke which he used to make claims toward a fundamental redistribution of land. In this sense, rather than restricting the meaning of the Norman Yoke to limiting the power of the Crown vis-à-vis the rights and privileges of Parliament, or the rights and liberties of individual subjects, Winstanley seeks to show how the power relations that were inherent in the social relations of capitalism (landlord/capitalist tenant-farmer/wage-labourer), and the political arrangement built upon those social relations, are the result of the force of conquest, and hence, have no legitimacy. In doing this, Winstanley introduces the notion of “kingly power” which was not limited to an analysis of monarchy, but rather refers to tyrannical, oppressive and arbitrary power in general. The significance of this is twofold. First, it serves to move beyond the narrowly defined institutional notions of power that were being employed by the Parliamentarians in the latter half of the 1640s. Many parliamentarians restricted their criticisms of kingly government to the person or office of the king; the former blaming “evil councillors” for the corruptions of the Crown, and the latter arguing for the abolition of monarchy in a constitutional sense. Neither of these positions required a reformation of the social relations of oppression and tyranny that were afflicting the poor outside of the realm of formal politics. Secondly, because of this it could equally serve as the basis for criticism of the new regime, since it referred to the social relations of arbitrary political power rather than merely a particular state form or execution of the duties of political office. The rhetoric employed by Winstanley is crucial here: kingly power referring merely to monarchy would be meaningless in a post-regicide context. But also, the invocation of “kingly” power to urge the revolutionary regime forward in its reforms carries a certain moral weight with it: to fail in pursuing the reforms stipulated by Winstanley would rob the new regime of any authority to rule, and it thus would become just another usurper in a long line of tyrants. Winstanley’s interpretation of the Norman Yoke, therefore, provides an argument, from necessity, for the continuance of the revolution and its extension to the social realm of English

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life. True freedom cannot be established until the Norman Yoke – in its entirety – is overthrown. The victory of Parliament and the Army is the first step in the undoing of the Norman Conquest, and as such, represents a necessary condition for the realization of Winstanley’s goals of social reformation. Given that the English state represents the interests of the landed classes – the “Norman common soldiers” – a revolutionary change of regime is needed to dislodge them from their position in the state, which can then begin to overturn the “binding and restraining laws” that have enslaved the poor people of England. In fact, this is the necessary result of executing the king: given that private property in England was held by title of the Crown, the execution of the king must necessarily entail a nullification of existing property relations in England. If one plank in the Norman Yoke is torn down, they all must be torn down. Yet, an argument from necessity is not enough to persuade Parliament and the Army to carry forward with the necessary reforms. The de-legitimatization of the existing social property relations of England in the form of the Norman Yoke needs to be supplemented with an argument that bases the legitimate authority of the new regime on its continuation of the revolution itself. Winstanley attempts to present such an argument by claiming that a trust has been established between Parliament, the Army and the people of England through various oaths, promises and Acts. In A Watchword to the City of London and the Army (August 1649), Winstanley attempts to utilize the Solemn League and Covenant as a form of contract that members of Parliament have made with the people of England to enact a reformation in the interests of true religion, which Winstanley interprets as being in line with his project for substantive reform.6 The Solemn League and Covenant was an agreement made between Parliament and the Scots in the early days of the Civil War in which the latter agreed to provide military aid to Parliament in return for Parliament’s agreement to reform the Church of England along Presbyterian lines. It was therefore an expedient form of inter-elite accommodation that had little or nothing to do with “the people” of England. As such, it seems that Winstanley would take what was essentially a Presbyterian oath and attempt to reinterpret it to pursue radical ends for the lower classes. Indeed, a recent article by Darren Webb expresses puzzlement in regard to Winstanley’s employment of the Covenant because he believes that Winstanley’s intended audience for the Watchword is merely the poor.7 The main problem that Winstanley faces, argues Webb, is how to effectively mobilize the poor in a context in which universal appeals to rights to the land threatened the particular customary rights of peasants to particular commons – despite the fact that these rights were being eroded by the social forces of agrarian capitalism – and the significant risks that peasants would face in joining the Digger colony. Webb argues that Winstanley recognizes the limits of appeals to an eschatological history that bestows the privileges of Christ upon the poor, as well as the limits to raising the class consciousness of the labouring poor.8 Millenarian ideas of Christ returning to restore his kingdom on earth is not enough to maintain the active mobilization of

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the squatters, dispossessed peasants, smallholders and rural wage-labourers that make up the Diggers constituency. What the poor need is a concrete historical referent to provide them with a sense that such a revolutionary programme will succeed, and thus be worth the risk. In his search for a concrete referent, Winstanley settles upon the Solemn League and Covenant, through which members of the Long Parliament made an oath to pursue the true word of Christ. It is the Covenant that is to serve as the assurance for the poor that the revolutionaries are bound by their revolutionary promises. However, Winstanley’s reliance on the Covenant is only peculiar if we assume that this argument is indeed intended solely for the poor. However, A Watch-word is – as the title suggests – directed at the City government of London and the victorious parliamentary army that has now successfully purged Parliament of Royalists and declared England a commonwealth. The motivating force beyond the writing of the article was the case brought against Winstanley and his fellow Diggers, Henry Bickerstaffe and Thomas Starr, by a landlord named Drake and a number of his tenants. Charges of trespassing were brought against the Diggers for their occupation and cultivation of the commons on Drake’s manor. The purpose of writing A Watch-word is to recount what Winstanley believes to be the injustices of the case and relate them to the maintenance of the Norman power that is being upheld through the “prerogative oppression” of the Courts in the interests of Drake’s claim to property rights in the commons. If the revolution had truly removed the Norman Yoke – as Winstanley believes it should have, and as he believes the revolutionaries in London and the Army claim it has – then the employment of the law in such an oppressive fashion and in the interests of the landlords should not be possible. In this tract Winstanley employs a two-pronged rhetorical strategy. The first prong is to demonstrate how the Courts are violating the laws of England as they have been employed in the past. Winstanley points out that, according to English law (36 Ed. 3. 15), “no Processe, Warrant, or Arrest should be served till after the cause was recorded or entred”9 by the court; no cause, however, had been entered. Secondly, by denying the Diggers a copy of the Declaration upon request by the defendants, the court was acting “contrary to equity and reason”10 which are the “foundation” of English law. Thirdly, by denying the defendants the right to plead their own case – as opposed to “paying fee” for an attorney – and proceeding to a judgement and execution of that judgement, the court is, according to Winstanley, in violation of the Magna Charta and upholding “Prerogative oppression, though the Kingly office be taken away”.11 Thus, the second prong of Winstanley’s strategy is to demonstrate how these legal oppressions are – aside from being violations of English law – occurring despite the apparent victory of the revolution that was meant to sweep away the Norman Conquest. In general then, the message is that Lords of Manors, their bailiffs, and the wealthy freeholders – in other words, the economically dominant classes in the countryside – “have beene no friends to that Cause the Parliament declared for”, but rather, are remains of the Norman power. Indeed, unless their power is rectified they may “get the foot fast in the stirrup”, in which case they

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will “lift themselves again into the Norman saddle”. Being “Traytours to freedom”, they will “enslave England more then it was under the Kingly power.”12 The political revolution, in other words, has left untouched the social and economic power of the “conqueror”; and for Winstanley, a commonwealth that is not at the same time a common treasury through the establishment of free land “cannot properly be called a Common-Wealth.”13 From here, Winstanley proceeds to once again justify the Digger colony and its attempts to transform the earth into a common treasury on the grounds that they are pushing forward with the logical consequence of the revolution, or “reformation”: “But since this Kingly Office by the Parliament, is cast out of England, and England by them is declared a free State or Commonwealth, we are in the first place thereby set free from those bonds and ties that the Kings laid upon us: Therefore this Tyranny of one over another, as of Lords of Mannors over the Common people, and for people to be forced to hire Lawyers to plead their causes for them, when they are able to plead themselves, ought to be taken away with the Kingly Office, because they are the strength of the Ancient Prerogative custom.”14

The intended audience of A Watch-word, however, is not the poor, who could potentially be brought on side to the Diggers’ cause, but rather the City government under the control of the radicals and the Army: the main political agents of the revolution. After passionately detailing the litany of abuses the Diggers have suffered at the hands of the Lords of Manors, their bailiffs, the landed Gentlemen, the covetous freeholders and the clergy, Winstanley implores the City and the revolutionary forces to awaken to the resurgence of Norman power in their midst. To these revolutionary forces he asks, “Where are all your Victories over the Cavaliers,” “what freedom then did you give thanks for?” If the landed classes have knowingly maintained their “Norman power” in the countryside by invoking the law of Parliament, then the revolution has yet to succeed in abolishing the Norman Yoke and establishing the true freedom that the Diggers have been striving for. The purpose of the piece is to bring to their attention the incompleteness of the revolution – or “reformation” to be more accurate – that they have claimed to have achieved. This still does not explain, however, Winstanley’s peculiar use of the Solemn League and Covenant as a rhetorical device in the piece. A plausible explanation, however, can be inferred from the contingent political events of this specific time period. As we have seen in the case of the de facto theorists of the Engagement, a substantial effort was made to bring the moderate Presbyterians on the side of the new regime. And as Skinner has pointed out, the de factoists based their theories of obligation on conceptions of power and necessity that eschewed any potentially radical evocation of popular sovereignty in order to appeal to the Presbyterians (and even, perhaps, the Royalists).15 If the outcome

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of political authority – name peace and order – as opposed to the foundation of political authority – namely, the will of “the people” – could become the basis of political obligation, then perhaps the more conservative elements of this revolutionary period could be persuaded to side with a regime that has ultimately rejected the more radical articulations – and the logical socio-political consequences – of popular sovereignty. The title of the piece suggests that at least part of his intended audience was the City of London, meaning the City government, which at the time, was being consolidated by the revolutionaries. Previously, the City government had been controlled by the Presbyterians after they had outmanoeuvred the new merchants in 1645-47. We need to keep in mind that in the summer of 1648, only a year before Winstanley wrote this piece, royalists and Presbyterians had joined together in an attempt to foment a counter-revolution against the Independents and their allies, thereby provoking Pride’s Purge in the winter of that year. At the point of Winstanley’s writing, the new regime enjoyed control over the political machinery of the City government only by virtue of purging those “Malignants” and “Delinquents” deemed to be enemies of the Commonwealth. As a result, the revolutionaries in Parliament had to begin wooing moderate Presbyterians back on side if they were to successfully consolidate their support and pursue their agenda of domestic reforms. In this context, it perhaps plausible that, given Winstanley’s desperate belief that the revolutionary government was the only hope of pushing the revolution forward towards a radical redistribution of land, and given the limited basis of support that it enjoyed, he may have found it prudent to attempt to convince moderate Presbyterians that their oath to uphold the reformation of the Christian religion was in line with the goals and aims that he attributed to the revolutionary government. Winstanley may have believed (perhaps naively) that recourse to the oaths taken by conservative parliamentarians could be annexed to the cause of revolution in a way that would encourage these conservatives to fulfill their promises without Winstanley himself having to abandon the reformative nature of the revolution in his writings. Winstanley’s use of the Covenant in this case is perhaps better understood therefore, as a rhetorical strategy to bring the Presbyterians onside with the new revolutionary regime, rather than a propagandistic instrument to facilitate the popular mobilization of the lower classes. In A New-yeer’s Gift for the Parliament and Army: Shewing, What the Kingly Power is (1 January 1650), Winstanley encourages Parliament and the Army, as well as their allies, to go further in rooting out the kingly power, based on the justification of the Acts of Parliament, the Engagement and the consent of the common people.16 The Acts abolishing Monarchy and Aristocracy are taken by Winstanley to be oaths made to the people promising to root out the kingly power of the Norman Conquest. Charles is the representative of this kingly power, as it has descended down from the Norman Conquest. Lords of manors and all those who enjoy “propriety” in the land, enjoy it due to this kingly power. But Charles, and William the Bastard for that matter, did not have the right to distribute the land, for that is the prerogative of the Creator. Winstanley

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recalls how many of the gentry and the common people complained of the oppressions of kingly government, mainly due to the fact that “their lands, enclosures and copyholds were entangled, and because their trades were destroyed by monopolizing patentees”.17 As a result, the gentry – being an aristocracy without military privileges – called upon the common people to aid them in resisting the arbitrary power of the king. While the gentry have won freedom for themselves, the commons, however, is still oppressed. The “root” of the kingly power is still firmly planted in the land: it resides in the arbitrary power of the Lords of Manors, “holding the free use of the Commons and wasteland from the poor”, the “Tithing Priests” who extract a surplus from “the Tenths of our labours” and the “intolerable oppression either of bad Laws, or of bad Judges corrupting good Laws.”18 Failure to push the revolution forward with intent of liberating the commons of England violates the trust that was formed between Parliament and the people; and in so doing “we shall deny the Parliament of England and their acts, and so prove traitors to the land by denying obedience thereunto.”19 Winstanley thus praises the Acts of the Rump Parliament that abolished monarchy and aristocracy and declared England a free Commonwealth. These acts, along with the trust established between parliament and the commons, forms the basis of a covenant that Winstanley invokes as a means of pushing the envelope of land reform. The concern here is that, as the continued harassment and prosecution of the Diggers demonstrates, the power of the landed classes has not been overturned. On top of this, Winstanley was concerned that the payment of arrears for parliamentary soldiers would come exclusively out of the Crown lands and commons that, in his words, the poor’s “purchased inheritance from under Oppression”.20 This prospect of re-allocating the spoils of war to soldiers in lieu of a more ambitious program of land redistribution amongst the smallholders and the dispossessed peasants was a very plausible reality at the time. In this context, it becomes important for Winstanley to make the links that he does between the abolition of “kingly power” and persistence of landlordism on the one hand, and the expropriation and redistribution of delinquent and common lands and the role of the commons in securing the freedom of the commonwealth and the victory of Parliament. Redistribution of land and the abolition of kingly power is the foundation upon which a just society is to be built, and Winstanley urges Parliament and the Army not to remain mired in the “bog of covetousness” and halt the progress of the revolution. We thus need to take into account, when interpreting Winstanley’s more political works, the intended audience of these particular tracts, for the nature of the argument often varies depending upon those to whom Winstanley is speaking. This is certainly not to say, however, that Winstanley was not concerned with mobilizing the support of the poor around the new Commonwealth government. The Engagement Controversy provided another attempt for Winstanley to marshal support for the revolutionary government, and this time his intended audience seems to be the lower classes of England. In England’s Spirit Unfoulded, or, an Incouragement to take the Engagement

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(1650), Winstanley is concerned with the Engagement Controversy and claims that the majority of the people of England like the Engagement for a number of reasons. First, he says that a republican government “must enjoy successive Parliaments” which means that government will not fall into the hands of one man or a faction of particular men. 21 Secondly, he argues that the English people believe, as he does, that the abolition of monarchy and aristocracy (in the form of the House of Lords) signifies that Parliament and the army have abolished also the Norman Conquest, and that Englishmen have now attained their freedom in the enjoyment of the earth. They are freed from the slavery and bondage of the Norman Yoke. These two acts together free the people from any obligation to obey the king and those who held power by virtue of his power. In general, then, Winstanley’s support for the Engagement – and by virtue of this, his support for the republican regime – is based on a number of political arguments. First, there is the argument that successive republican parliaments are the necessary precondition for the success of the kinds of social and political reform that the Diggers and their allies seek. As if responding to the Leveller concerns about the tyrannical potential of the new regime – that is, that a supreme Parliament purged of the Lords could be just as tyrannical as the King or as the Lords themselves – Winstanley argues that the prevention of tyranny rests upon the institutionalization of successive parliaments. A true Commonwealth, argues Winstanley “implies a Government by our equals, chosen out freely for a time.”22 If one man or a “sort” of men attain too much power in Parliament, then the Commonwealth becomes corrupt, and those men break the Engagement and declare themselves traitors to the republic. Thus, Winstanley seems to interpret the Engagement as representing a contract between government and people; a contract that calls for frequent parliaments. The second element of his pro-Engagement stance is a continuation of his argument regarding the Norman Conquest: that the abolition of monarchy and aristocracy represents the undoing of the Norman Conquest and the forms of oppression – political, economic and social – that the conquest introduced to England. Unlike the arguments of the de facto writers, however, Winstanley does not merely contend that the usurpation of power by the new regime makes it lawful for subjects to obey. Rather, he seeks to make the claim that through the undoing of the Norman Conquest, the new regime has attained title to rule through the reclamation of the Creation Right of all Englishmen; that is, the restoration of the rights and freedoms that Englishmen enjoyed before the Conquest. This creation right is bound up with the distribution of land. The abolition of the Norman Conquest, and the subsequent redistribution of land that it entails, involves a component of substantive democratization for Winstanley, in that it allows the common people to become independent of their Lords of Manors and of the kingly power in order to truly choose their representatives through the attainment of the franchise. This is significant because one of the arguments used to deny the labouring classes the right to vote – even amongst radicals like the Levellers – was that they lacked independence from their masters and thus, their votes will be influenced by forces opposed to the

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Parliamentary cause. Winstanley’s argument, it could be said, proposed a kind of popular sovereignty in the earth; a sovereignty that would act as the material basis for the further development of a popular constitutional sovereignty. The end result of Winstanley’s contribution to the Engagement is an inversion of the standard de factoist argument for obligation to the new regime. Where de factoists argued that consent is not a necessary condition for the obligation of the new regime, Winstanley argues that it is not the people who are obligated to obey the new authority; rather, the obligation is on the new regime to legitimize itself by fulfilling its oaths and promises to the people of England by pursuing its revolutionary reform to the end by uprooting the remnants of kingly power. “Therefore the people may boldly, and lawfully claime their freedom in the possession of the Land; and those that hinder this freedom, do begin to set themselves down in that Kingly and Lordly conquering chaire, out of which they have cast King Charles and House of Lords; And so they prove themselves, tenne times greater hypocrites then Judas, and worse Tyrants then either King or house of Lords. For they ruled by their sword as Conquerors over us, but these that endeavour to Rule, by the same Power as Kings did over us, Rules by treachery and hypocrisie; and therefore they that endeavour to uphold themselves in such a Power, will loose themselves, and be cast out with greater distast, then either King or House of Lords were.”23

The common people should support the Engagement not only because the republican regime is the precondition for further progressive social, economic and political reform, but also because the sacrifices that the common people have made in support of the parliamentary cause grant them a lawful title to their freedom in the land. Thus, the people of England should take the Engagement because the new regime is obligated to them to fulfill the promises of the revolution. Those who oppose the Engagement, on the other hand, are considered traitors; men who seek to restore the kingly power of the Norman Conquest in order to maintain their own positions of power. These are men who seek to have others turned back into bondmen and slaves. But Winstanley argues that those who oppose the Engagement will not lose their birth-right or creation right; they will merely lose the rights and privileges they enjoyed as a consequence of the Conquest. This seems to be a concession to those who oppose the new regime – and they were numerous – in order to persuade them to throw their support behind the commonwealth government and take the Engagement. But it is a concession that seems consistent with Winstanley’s assertion that the landlords and the freeholders can hold on to their enclosures – as long as they work them with their own labor. We can see, therefore, that Winstanley is making a novel contribution to the various defences of the revolutionary commonwealth government. Rather than basing it solely on the de factoist conception of power, Winstanley is

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basing it upon a kind of contract that stems from the obligation of the revolutionaries to fully uproot the Norman Conquest. In so doing, Winstanley places the conditions of political obligation squarely on the shoulders of the revolutionaries: rather than argue that citizens have a duty to obey the new revolutionary regime, he argues that the regime has an obligation to realize the objectives of the revolution in the interest of the common people.

The Law of Freedom in a Platform It is within this context that we can now begin to assess Winstanley’s final, and most systematic work, The Law of Freedom in a Platform (1652). This piece has often been treated as a text that is separate from the rest of Winstanley’s writings. Whether because it follows the collapse of the Digger colony, or because it uniquely assumes the form of a more systematic work of political theory, or because of its utopian form, this last writing of Winstanley’s is often characterized as expressing a qualitative shift in his political thought. It represents a retreat into the ideal realm of utopia; it represents the “experience of defeat”; or it signifies Winstanley’s rejection of anarchy and his embrace of the totalitarian discipline of the state, etc.24 We should not, however, exaggerate the breaks that Winstanley makes with his Digger tracts here (yet neither do we need to impose upon Winstanley a degree of coherence that his ideas otherwise lacked). Indeed, recent work seriously questions the extent to which Winstanley abandoned his Digger positions for some post-Digger politics of totalitarianism or defeat.25 Within the context of the revolution, and within the context of the political arguments for authority and obligation, The Law of Freedom in a Platform contains a number of continuities that Winstanley developed in the 1649-50 period. The text begins with a dedicatory address to Cromwell in which Winstanley reminds him that the revolution – or, in his words, the recovery of land and liberties from the Norman oppressors – has not yet been completed. The power of the Norman Yoke – that is, the social and institutional power of the Norman Conquest, still remains, despite the fact that the King and his supporters in the Church have been defeated. The basic claim is that the revolution is not yet complete because it has failed to fulfill the interests of those who “paid” (in both money and blood) for the success of the wars – namely, the lower classes. Winstanley recognises the role played by the commoners of England in the victory over the royalists; he recognizes the important contribution of those who maintained the Parliamentary armies (both by tilling the land, paying taxes and offering free-quarter). From the very beginning, therefore, the tract establishes a thematic link with many of the Digger tracts of the 1649-50 period. In The Law of Freedom, Winstanley begins by providing an alternative definition of freedom. In the context of the English revolution, a number of

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competing conceptions of freedom were being presented. One is that freedom lies in the freedom of trade; another argues that freedom is the freedom to preach religion; still others argued the freedom lies in landlordism. Winstanley rejects all of these conceptions of freedom: free trade is only freedom under the will of the conqueror; freedom of religion is “unsettled freedom”; and landlordism represents “but a half freedom”, the freedom of the landlord at the expense of the tenant, and such a state “begets murmurings, wars and quarrels.”26 All of these false freedoms lead to a state of bondage. What Winstanley seeks is “foundation-freedom”, that is, the basis upon which other freedoms rest; freedom that brings peace and stability to the commonwealth. Real freedom, for Winstanley, “lies in the free enjoyment of the earth”, because this is what provides the body with nourishment and enables people to pursue other freedoms.27 Thus it needs to be pointed out that free enjoyment of the earth is not the only freedom that Winstanley is concerned about – rather, it is the foundation of other freedoms. It does not follow, therefore, that Winstanley’s conception of freedom is based upon necessity in contrast with individual worth or dignity. In fact, the two seem to be fundamentally interrelated; to be deprived of free access to the earth is to experience oppression, which in itself represents not only a real social relationship of unfreedom, but also a loss of human dignity.28 Thus, to rob a man of his free enjoyment of the earth, through the paying of rent and the hiring of labour, is to rob a man of his fundamental freedom; it makes him dependent for his livelihood on others: “Surely then, oppressing lords of manors, exacting landlords and tithe-takers, may as well say their brethren shall not breathe in the air, nor enjoy warmth in their bodies, nor have the moist waters to fall upon them in showers, unless they will pay them rent for it: as to say their brethren shall not work upon the earth, nor eat the fruits thereof, unless they will hire that liberty of them. For he that takes upon him to restrain his brother from the liberty of the one, may upon the same ground restrain him from the liberty of all four, vis. Fire, water, earth and air.”29

Freedom, or liberty, is not found in the “silence of the laws” as presented by Hobbes, nor is it to be found in the free pursuit of profit and gain; nor is it found in the supremacy of Parliament. 30 It is found in the social relationships between man and man in relation to the means of subsistence. It is in this sense that Winstanley’s conception of freedom is not limited; rather, it is foundational, and the pursuit of this foundation freedom, then, is the end towards which government – true magistracy – is to strive. Having laid out a conceptual basis for the “true” meaning of freedom, Winstanley proceeds to construct a theory of government on this foundation. Government in general, for Winstanley, “is a wise and free ordering of the earth and the manners of mankind by observation of particular laws or rules, so that all the inhabitants may live peaceably in plenty and freedom in the land where they are born in bred.”31 Government, therefore, refers to the proper ordering of

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the earth and the manners of men. All manners of men, argues Winstanley, are subject to governance. Yet, this governance must be in accordance with the rule of law. Those who hold positions of state power, therefore, must not make the law conform to their will, but rather, make their will conform to the law in order to avoid the inconveniences of arbitrary government. In this sense, Winstanley is working within the conventions established by mainstream Parliamentary theorists. As we have seen, Parliamentarians, in their resistance to the king’s prerogative powers, argued that the will of a monarch, in the mixed constitution, must conform to the law. However, Winstanley deviates from the conventional typology of states that had been established by the Ancient Greeks and that had come to form the basis of political theorizing: monarchy, aristocracy and democracy. Rather, Winstanley identifies only two forms of government: “kingly” government and commonwealths. This represents a significant break from the conventions of the period, even with the more radical parliamentary theorists of his time. As we have seen, most commentators, both Royalist and Parliamentarian, adhered to the threefold typology popularized by Plato and Aristotle. Thus, three pure forms of state were juxtaposed to three deviant forms: monarchy, aristocracy and democracy each had corrupt counterparts in tyranny, oligarchy and anarchy. Indeed, most of the participants in this debate, up until the end of the decade, believed that England represented a mixed constitution, composed of some form of mixture of these three pure forms. Much of the debate concerned the proper balance: would the mixed constitution be balanced in favour of the Crown, or of Parliament?32 In contrast to this, Winstanley did not adhere to the convention of the mixed constitution. Kingly government, according to Winstanley, was based upon a corrupt and inequitable social basis of power: it is based upon the “cheating art of buying and selling”, in which the rich are set upon the poor in a state of domestic or civil war. 33 Kingly government is akin to a highwayman that robs the poor through the coercive institution of landlordism: “Indeed this government may well be called the government of highwaymen, who hath stolen the earth from the younger brethren by force, and holds it from them by force. He sheds blood not to free the people from oppression, but that he may be king and ruler over an oppressed people.”34 Winstanley’s departure from the conventions of the mixed constitution is partly due to the fact that for him, the nature of a state is not to be found in its constitutional structure. Rule by man or rule by law can be equally oppressive if the law denies the people their freedom. Rather, for Winstanley, the nature of a state is to be found in the nature of the social relationships that exist within society. This is not to say that institutions do not matter for Winstanley – as both Kenyon and Davis have shown, this is far from the case. 35 Rather, it is to assert that what determines the nature of a state is not so much its institutional configuration as laid out in the classical typographies of regimes, as the nature of the social relations upon which the state rests. From this perspective, only two options are available: a commonwealth government based upon the existence of communal property, or “kingly

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government” based upon private property. By limiting the options of government to two forms, Winstanley is employing a clever rhetorical strategy with respect to the recipient of the tract – Cromwell. Consistent with his earlier use of “kingly power” to criticise the limits of the revolutionary regime, Winstanley’s simple dichotomy of kingly government and commonwealth government exerts a kind of moral pressure (the only pressure that Winstanley possesses) upon those in power. The choices are clear: if you seek to establish a commonwealth government, as the acts of the Rump Parliament declared in 1649, then social reform must be carried out by the regime. Failing this, the new government will merely be another form of that which it opposed in the civil wars – kingly government characterized by a tyrannical rule of laws as opposed to the will of a single man. The difference between Winstanley’s early notion of kingly power and his dichotomy of king and commonwealth government in The Law of Freedom is less a qualitative difference than it is a difference of emphasis: whereas previously he applied it to the contingent events of English politics and history, here he has universalized it as a principle dichotomy of governments in general. By way of contrast, we can relate Winstanley’s dichotomy to that proposed by Milton in the Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (1649). Milton, an ardent defender of the Commonwealth government and an apologist for the regicide, also breaks from convention by presenting only two general forms of state. Yet, unlike Winstanley, his dichotomy is characterized by a choice between king and magistracy. 36 While neither form of government was meant to establish lordship over the people, kingship displayed a tendency to degenerate into tyranny, the former being what existed in England prior to the revolution, whereas magistracy represented the rule of a virtuous senate. So rather than push the revolution further, Milton’s dichotomy proposed not so much a maintenance of the status quo, but (to prevent further democratization) to purge the new regime of its corrupt, self-interested and oligarchic elements and replace it by a virtuous aristocratic state. Kingly government, for Winstanley, is by contrast not distinguished by its institutional form. To that extent it does not correspond with traditional conceptions of monarchy – the rule of one man either by laws (monarchy) or by his arbitrary will (tyranny). Kingly government can also correspond to the rule of an elite, either by laws (aristocracy) or by will (oligarchy). In this sense, the institution and the rule of law do not distinguish the form of government. The rule of law itself can be based in the exploitation of one class by another, so that we must look at what kind of law rules in a particular government. Thus, Winstanley’s conception of England’s government – kingly and monarchical – is a conception defined by virtue of the relationship between the rulers and the ruled, not by the laws and institutions in themselves. There are two ways in which kingly government is established. The first way is through “drawing the people out of common freedom into a way of common bondage.”37 There is an intrinsic relationship between property and the state for Winstanley, albeit a very general one: as long as there exists communal

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ownership in the land, then “kingly covetousness can never reign as king.”38 Thus, the first way in which kingly government emerges is for a king or group of powerful men to divide the land up inequitably between the inhabitants of a particular region. This divides the people, allowing a kingly power to reign over them. Buying and selling thus becomes a way of life for the inhabitants of kingly government, and although “the people had some ease for a time”, they eventually begin to quarrel and fight with one another. Divisions amongst mankind open up opportunities for power seeking individuals to pander to this divided and quarrelsome people: “Thereupon one sort of people followed one head, and another sort of people followed another head, and so wars began in the earth, and mankind fell a-fighting, one part conquering and enslaving another. And now man is fallen from his innocence, and from the glory of the spirit of common freedom, love and peace, into enmity; everyone striving to be king one over another; everyone striving to be a landlord of the earth, and to make his brother his servant to work for him.”39

The division of the land into private property causes divisions between people, who thereafter exist in a state of division – resembling class warfare. This leads to the necessity of submitting to some sovereign power which will create order: “And when the people consented thereunto, they gave away their freedom, and they set up oppression over themselves.”40 In contrast to this kingly form of government, Winstanley presents his other alternative, commonwealth government. “Commonwealth’s government”, says Winstanley, “governs the earth without buying and selling;” it “seeks to restore the lost peace and freedom of the people.” The founder of the commonwealth, argues Winstanley, “makes provision for the oppressed, the weak and the simple, as well as for the rich, the wise and the strong. He beats swords and spears into pruning hooks and ploughs; he makes both elder and younger brother freemen in the earth.”41 The founder of the commonwealth must cast out the oppressions of kings, lords of manors, landlords, clergy and lawyers; and it must root out all customs and laws that prevent people from attaining their rightful free enjoyment of the earth. In so doing, the establishment of a Commonwealth government based not upon the particular interests of a single man or a small group of men is attained. With the establishment of Commonwealth government, Winstanley argues that “There shall be no tyrant king, lords of manors, tithing priests, oppressing lawyers, exacting landlords, nor any such like pricking briar in all this holy mountain of the Lord God our righteousness and peace; for the righteousness law shall be the rule for everyone, and the judge of all man’s actions.”42

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This is because the laws of a true Commonwealth are based not upon the principle of self-preservation (such is the basis of kingly government) but rather upon the principle of common preservation and the rule of law. The necessity of common preservation forms the basis of the laws of the commonwealth as opposed to the particular interests that serve as the basis of kingly government. Nor is the basis of commonwealth government to be found in conventional notions of patriarchy. In what serves as an implicit rejection of the standard royalist argument that royal or kingly power is rooted in the arbitrary will of Adam’s patriarchal authority, Winstanley argues that “The law of necessity, that the earth should be planted for the common preservation and peace of his household, was the righteous rule and law of Adam, and this law was so clearly written in the hearts of his people that they all consented quietly to any counsel he gave them for that end.”43

While there does seem to be a patriarchal aspect to Winstanley’s political thought, in the sense that the patriarchal household does serve as a crucial element of the state, patriarchy does not serve as the basis of patrimonial kingship – as it does in Filmer – and it is not a sufficient basis for the subjection of women. In fact, Winstanley’s “benign” patriarchy seems to co-exist with both democratic political arrangements as well as progressive policies towards women; that latter assuming the form of a recognition of female self-propriety.44 The purpose of true magistracy, therefore, is to maintain the foundation freedom of the commonwealth by upholding the law of common preservation and to root out and eliminate “self-ended principles and interests, which is tyranny and oppression, and which breaks common peace.”45 The institutionalization of true magistracy therefore assumes the form of a primitive democracy: all officers of the commonwealth are to be elected in frequent elections. The extent of Winstanley’s franchise is quite wide, prohibiting malcontents (i.e., “uncivil livers”, “quarrellers”, and “fearful ignorant men”), and supporters of kingly power. 46 This latter category includes those who supported the enemies of Parliament throughout the Civil Wars as well as those who wish to re-establish private property in the land. Those who are fit to be officers of the commonwealth are not restricted to members of any particular social class. Herein lies a particularly radical aspect of Winstanley’s thought: Winstanley advocates the participation of the poor in the governance of the commonwealth by establishing a system of stipends, at least until the social basis of the commonwealth is consolidated: “And if you choose men thus principled, who are poor men, as times go (for the conqueror’s power hath made many a righteous man a poor man); then allow them a yearly maintenance from the common stock, until such time as a commonwealth’s freedom is established, for then there will be no need of such allowances.”47

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While Winstanley’s democratic commonwealth is not without its flaws, we can see that in the context of the revolution, and the crisis of legitimacy of the revolutionary regime, Winstanley’s political thought retains its radical content in spite of the attempts of revisionists to portray him otherwise. Within the context of the debates regarding sovereignty, obligation and property, Winstanley’s writings take on a more political quality than has been previously thought. The political significance of his work is less esoteric than many Winstanley scholars have previously believed: the “occultist” and “vitalist” views attributed to his work are less significant than his contribution to discussions of state power and private property, and ensuing contributions to the political controversies in the revolutionary period.48 Similarly, if we situate him within the context of the revolution, as well as the development of agrarian capitalism, we begin to move away from utopian interpretations that treat Winstanley’s political thought merely at the level of the ahistorical abstractions.

Notes 1. Christopher Hill, Puritanism and Revolution: Studies in Interpretation of the English Revolution of the 17th Century (New York: Schocken Books, 1964). 2. Darren Webb, “Contract, Covenant and Class Consciousness: Gerrard Winstanley and the Broken Promises of the English Revolution,” History of Political Thought 24 no. 4 (2003): 577-598. 3. Winstanley, True Levellers, 86. 4. Winstanley, True Levellers. 5. Hill, Puritanism and Revolution, 89. 6. Gerrard Winstanley, A Watch-Word to the City of London and the Army (1649), in The Law of Freedom and Other Writings, ed. Christopher Hill (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973). 7. Webb, “Contract.” 8. Webb, “Contract.” 9. Winstanley, A Watch-word, 2. 10. Winstanley, A Watch-word, 2. 11. Winstanley, A Watch-word, 3. 12. Winstanley, A Wacth-word, 9-10. 13. Winstanley, A Watch-word, 3. 14. Winstanley, A Watch-word, 5. 15. Skinner, “Conquest.” 16. Gerrard Winstanley, A New-yeer’s Gift to the Parliament and Army: Shewing, What the King Power Is (1650), in The Law of Freedom and Other Writings, ed. Christopher Hill (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973). 17. Winstanley, A New-yeer’s Gift, 165-6. 18. Winstanley, A New-yeer’s Gift, 6. 19. Winstanley, A New-yeer’s Gift, 166.

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20. Winstanley, A New-yeer’s Gift, 13. 21. Gerrard Winstanley, England’s Spirit Unfoulded, or, an Incouragement to take the Engagement (1650), Past and Present 40 (1968), 9. 22. Winstanley, England’s Spirit, 10. 23. Winstanley, England’s Spirit, 11. 24. Davis, Utopia; Timothy Kenyon, Utopian Communism and Political Thought in Early Modern England (London: Pinter Publishers, 1989), Christopher Hill, The Experience of Defeat (London: Faber and Faber, 1984). 25. For an insightful discussion of the debates and controversies over The Law of Freedom, see Darren Webb, “The Bitter Product of Defeat? Reflections on Winstanley’s Law of Freedom,” Political Studies 52 (2004): 199-215. 26. Gerrard Winstanley, The Law of Freedom in a Platform (1652), in Winstanley: The Law of Freedom and Other Writings, ed. Christopher Hill (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973). 27. Winstanley, Law of Freedom, 295. 28. J.C. Davis argues that Winstanley’s conception of freedom is based on necessity as opposed to human dignity and is therefore a limited or restricted form of freedom that is offset by the totalitarian regulation of the Commonwealth. He does not, however, clarify how a freedom from material deprivation can be abstracted from issues of human worth and dignity. Davis, Utopia, 192. 29. Winstanley, Law of Freedom, 295. 30. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973). 31. Winstanley, Law of Freedom, 305. 32. No one, save some of the more radical Levellers, sought to weigh the constitution in favor of the “people”. 33. Winstanley, Law of Freedom, 306. 34. Winstanley, Law of Freedom, 306-7. 35. Davis, Utopia; Kenyon, Utopian Communism. 36. Milton, Tenure of Kings. 37. Winstanley, Law of Freedom, 308. 38. Winstanley, Law of Freedom, 308. 39. Winstanley, Law of Freedom, 309. 40. Winstanley, Law of Freedom, 309. 41. Winstanley, Law of Freedom, 311. 42. Winstanley, Law of Freedom, 313. 43. Winstanley, Law of Freedom, 315. 44. For more on Winstanley’s “benign” patriarchy, see Elaine Hobby, “Winstanley, Women and the Family,” in Winstanley and the Diggers, 1649-1999, ed. Andrew Bradstock (London: Frank Cass, 2000). Hobby’s argument is a much needed corrective to Milligan’s and Richard’s poorly argued patriarchal interpretation of Winstanley. 45. Winstanley, Law of Freedom, 317. 46. This is considered wide in relation to the propertied franchises of the 17th century in which ranged from £40 franchises, to rate-payer franchises and, of course, gendered notions of the franchise. 47. Winstanley, Law of Freedom, 323. 48. For Winstanley as a “vitalist”, see John Rogers, The Matter of Revolution: Science, Poetry and Politics in the Age of Milton (New York: Cornell University Press, 1996). For Winstanley as an occultist, see David W. Mulder, The Alchemy of Revolution: Gerrard

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Winstanley’s Occultism and Seventeenth-Century English Communism (New York: Peter Lang, 1990).

7 Between Multitude and Monarchy

As we saw in the previous chapter, the development of capitalist social property relations and their subsequent impact on class and state formation in England resulted in a specific political dynamic that conditioned Parliamentary politics and political theorizing in general. The absence of a feudal social basis for royal absolutism on the one hand, and the increasingly atomistic nature of a society devoid of “corporate bodies and colleges” that would act as a mediating force between the individual and the state, resulted in the development of a persistent problematic of seventeenth century English political theory, a problematic that was framed within the context of the twin threats of the levelling multitude and absolute monarchy. More specifically, given the gradual deterioration of traditional relationships of authority and power, conventional notions of obligation to political authority proved to be increasingly irrelevant and popular politics became increasingly threatening to the established political and social order of private property and state power. At the same time, the development of capitalist social property relations posed a problem for the constitution of absolute monarchy, as the fiscal independence of the Crown became increasingly limited, thereby provoking more aggressive attempts by the Crown to increase its power and jeopardize the arrangements of the mixed constitution. The nature and limits of private property and state power were therefore articulated within the framework of a patrimonialism that granted absolute power to the state in the interest of preserving the social order, and the levelling threat of the multitude that needed to be mobilized in order to maintain the sanctity of rights to property that they increasingly had no interest in. This problematic framed the context not only of the more marginal figures analyzed in the previous chapter, it also framed the context for the work of more canonical figures such as Thomas Hobbes and John Locke.

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Thomas Hobbes and the “Masterless Multitude” While the main objective of Hobbes’s political thought is to articulate a theory of sovereignty based upon a new conception of political obligation, one that legitimizes authority in ways that would oblige subjects to obey the state on untraditional grounds, Hobbes’s target was the multitude. The “multitude of free men collected together” posed new problems for the establishment of authority, and the proliferation of levelling and sectarian ideas proved to be, in Hobbes’s words, the “Outworks of the Enemy” that impugned the civil power and encouraged men of low degree “to a sawcie behaviour towards their betters.”1 The multitude, however, posed a threat to the established social order only insofar as it became a political force in conjunction with the aspirations of ambitious men of high social rank: the “ambitious man” who turns to the mob and draws men “away from their obedience to the Lawes” in the hopes of increasing his personal power in an aristocratic order characterized by the demilitarization of the nobility.2 Thus, while it is true that the contingent events of the Civil War and Revolution form the immediate context of Hobbes’s political thought, and while it is true that we cannot “read off” Hobbes’s political theory from the logic of the social relations of a bourgeois, capitalist or “possessive market” society, the character of the popular politics that emerged in this context owe their specific development to the changing nature of social property relations, the emergence of “capitalist” social relations and the subsequent decline of traditional relationships of authority and deference. In other words, the politics of the multitude that defined the Civil War period serve as a mediating contingent factor in a longer process of social transformation and change. Thus, the significance of Hobbes’s political theory lies not only in the way in which he constructs a theory of obligation on purely rationalist grounds, 3 or in his development of a “science” of politics, but also in the way in which he harbors the collective power of the multitude in order to neutralize its political power and rejuvenate the aristocratic social order under the auspices of the absolutist state. 4 Building on Sir Thomas Smith’s insight that society is nothing but a “multitude of free men,” Hobbes’s political theory begins from a position of radical individualism and egalitarianism that at first blush seems compatible with popular Leveller ideas. This egalitarianism seems to correspond to a society in which the conventional status distinctions that divide the noble from the nonnoble (particularly, but not exclusively, between the titled nobility and the gentry) are becoming increasingly irrelevant. This is not to say that status is no longer important in early modern English society. In terms of politics, status is still significant for distinguishing between membership in the House of Lords and the House of Commons.5 But in terms of the hierarchical ordering of society, the defining role of status is gradually giving way to the determining influence of social class.6 We have seen in previous chapters that property as opposed to noble title increasingly determined one’s membership in the body politic, with the gentry becoming just as economically important – and powerful

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– as the titled nobility. Hobbes’s recognition of this fact – or, at least, his unwillingness to reject the egalitarian implications of this fact – would seem, at first glance, to suggest that the ontology of his political theory is “bourgeois,” or liberal-democratic.7 Indeed, one of the classic pillars of traditional aristocratic political thought is the recognition of natural hierarchies; or more accurately, the ideological “naturalization” of existing social hierarchies.8 However, to infer from Hobbes’s acceptance of a natural conception of equality amongst men that he is putting forward a “bourgeois” theory of politics, society and morality would be a mistake. Despite his criticism of the aristocracy, Hobbes still adheres to quintessentially aristocratic values and virtues and seeks to reform an increasingly corrupt aristocracy, for he believes that “it was from their numbers that the most public-spirited citizens were likely to be drawn.”9 The cultivation of the “generous natures” required of virtuous men, while not stemming from birth alone, can only be attained by men of leisure and means. Indeed, Hobbes was a member of an exclusive circle of like-minded thinkers who congregated at Lord Falkland’s house at Great Tew, with the intent on formulating a “modified” aristocratic code. As Keith Thomas has shown, “Great Tew represented an effort to eliminate the crudities, barbarisms and warlike associations of upper-class life, while retaining an elevated ideal of honour and personal cultivation.”10 While merit replaced birth as the basis of aristocratic value, this is perhaps not surprising coming from an aristocratic sympathizer of humble origins. Thus, while not conventionally aristocratic, Hobbes’s morality is not an articulation of an emerging bourgeois code of ethics: “Hobbes’s ethical assumptions, therefore, may well prove to be more closely associated with the refined heroic code of Great Tew than with any other identifiable milieu. Hobbes, too, had an ideal of magnanimity and on the whole thought that the well-to-do were more likely to aspire to it. He admired courage when properly employed in the defence of one’s country and he saluted those prepared to sacrifice their lives rather than engage in ignoble shifts. Even at home fear could be an obstruction to the knowledge of the laws of nature, and men were required to obey the laws not out of fear of the punishment, but from an upright conscience and a genuine striving to do what is just. Even ambition, that indispensable attribute of the gentleman, could be tolerated under certain conditions and was to be judged according to the means by which the coveted goal was sought.”11

Thus, Hobbes’s critique of the aristocracy, along with the allegedly bourgeois elements of his thought does not necessarily mean that Hobbes represents a theorist of bourgeois morality, nor a theorist of bourgeois society. Indeed, Hobbes’s concern with aristocratic values like glory, vainglory and honor suggest his morality is more complicated than bourgeois interpreters have presented it. And Hobbes’s own associations, along with his critique of the bourgeois elements of English society found in Behemoth, present a much more complicated picture

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than the one underpinning the bourgeois paradigm of modernizing bourgeoisie and reactionary, feudal aristocracy. Hobbes’s egalitarianism is predicated upon a fundamental asociality that signifies his rejection of the conventional Aristotelian belief that man is a political animal that naturally comes together to form a commonwealth. To the contrary, man, according to Hobbes, is naturally inclined to act in his own particular interest, be it gain, honor or glory. Man’s particular interests are thus not only distinguished from the common good, they are situated in opposition to its maintenance. This insight, however, is significant not so much in what it may say about Hobbes’s insight into a bourgeois ontology of possessive individualism that underpins capitalism as a social form, or a prevailing bourgeois morality. Indeed, there is nothing inherently “bourgeois” about conceiving man as being innately driven by the motivating factors of competition, avarice and pride. Neal Wood has identified a similar conception of man in the work of St. Augustine, thereby characterizing Hobbes’s political thought as a kind of “secularized Augustinianism.” For both Hobbes and Augustine, “the only solution to the mutual self-destruction arising from man’s basic lust for domination and money is the absolute state with the power of the executioner at its disposal, which will impose external peace and order and exact unquestioning obedience from a dutiful citizenry.”12 It is important to note that while Macpherson takes this to be indicative of Hobbes’s bourgeois morality, he neglects to account for the reasons why Locke – that archetypal “bourgeois” theorist – rejects Hobbes’s particular characterization of the motivation of man. It seems rather odd that such an seemingly bourgeois theorist as Locke would reject one of the fundamental components of Hobbes’s allegedly “bourgeois man.” While it may be true that the foundational individualism found in Hobbes’s political theory does owe its existence to the development of capitalist social property relations amongst sections of the aristocracy and the gentry, the asociality of Hobbes’s natural man should not be seen as merely an offshoot of the development of a possessive market society. We cannot ignore the importance of the impact that capitalist social property relations have on the nature of class relations in early modern England, and how those impacts find their way into Hobbes’s political theory; yet, we also cannot merely “read-off” Hobbes’s political theory from the “possessive market society” that has allegedly developed in Hobbes’s own time. While an understanding of the development of capitalist social property relations are important for an understanding of Hobbes’s political theory, we should not interpret his work – as Macpherson does – as an intentional response to the problems of capitalism. Hobbes’s political theory seems more of a response to new problematics that are becoming a feature of English politics as a mediated consequence of capitalist social property relations – in particular, the political problem of the “multitude” in the context of a demilitarized aristocracy – than it is a “theory” of “possessive market society.” Thus, the anti-social nature of Hobbes’s natural man is significant in relation to the political purpose it serves in allowing him to undermine the multitude as a political agent in English politics, for given this asociality, a multitude

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of men – a “multitude of free men collected together” – can never attain the necessary unity to act as a political agent. The laws of nature are contrary to man’s natural tendency to act in accordance with his passions and his self-interest (partiality, pride, revenge, etc.), and in the absence of some kind of overarching power that can “terrorize” men to submit themselves to these laws, they are fundamentally unenforceable. Thus, no matter how great the multitude, they can never act collectively for their own defense, let alone their own governance. In fact, the greater the multitude, the greater the problem of collective action and the greater the need is for the establishment of a unified sovereign power: “And be there never so great a Multitude; yet if their actions be directed according to their particular judgements, and particular appetites, they can expect thereby no defence, nor protection, neither against a Common enemy, nor against the injuries of one another. For being distracted in opinions concerning the best use and application of their strength, they do not help, but hinder one another; and reduce their strength by mutuall opposition to nothing: whereby they are easily, not only subdued by a very few that agree together; but also when there is no common enemy, they make warre upon each other, for their particular interests. For if we could suppose a great Multitude of men to consent in the observation of Justice, and other Lawes of Nature, without a common Power to keep them all in awe; we might as well suppose all Man-kind to do the same and then there neither would be, nor need to be any Civill Government, or Common-wealth at all; because there would be Peace without subjection.”13

Thus, whereas the proponents of parliamentary and popular sovereignty were, to different degrees, invoking the political agency of “the people” of England, Hobbes, while accepting their egalitarian premises, undermines the very agency of the multitude while at the same time incorporating them into the process of authorizing legitimate sovereign authority. The multitude, therefore, must attain unity in order to become a political force. No matter how great the multitude is, they cannot act collectively for their own protection. But for Hobbes, the multitude is inherently defined as an inchoate group of wills that are incapable of becoming unified other than in the person of another. “A Multitude of men,” argues Hobbes, “are made One Person, when they are by one man, or one Person, Represented…For it is the Unity of the Representer, not the Unity of the Represented, that maketh the Person One…And Unity, cannot otherwise be understood in Multitude.”14 Thus the multitude – as “the people” – cannot act collectively as a political agent; rather, the multitude needs to be created into a unified will through a process of authorization and representation in which the multitude is “made One Person”: “And because the Multitude naturally is not One, but Many; they cannot be understood for one; but many Authors, of every thing their Representative saith, or doth in their name; Every man giving their

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common Representer, Authority from himselfe in particular; and owning all the actions the Representer doth, in case they give him Authority without stint: Otherwise, when they limit him in what, and how farre he shall represent them, none of them owneth more, than they gave him commission to Act.”15

The process of bringing unity to the multitude assumes the form of a contract based on the consent of individual men. 16 Each individual agrees to give up his right of self-government to a third party that will become the sovereign and authorizes “all his Actions in like manner”.17 However, because “a crowd cannot make a promise or an agreement, acquire or transfer a right…except separately or as individuals”, this “social contract” is not a process of contracting between the “people” as a collective agent on the one side, and the sovereign as the legitimate authority on the other.18 In other words, not only can a multitude of free men not rule themselves as a collective, they cannot even contract as one corporate body. To characterize the social contract as a contract between “the people” and the sovereign would logically establish a mutual relation of obligation between subjects and sovereign in which the people, as individuals or as a collective, may be accorded some rights that in some way hinders the full power of the sovereign. In Leviathan, the process of contracting not only takes place between and amongst the individual men of the multitude; Hobbes also introduces the concept of “authorization” to characterize the process by which the power of the sovereign becomes legitimate. By authorization, Hobbes means that each member of the multitude acts as the “author” of the actions of the sovereign; the sovereign thus acts under the authority of the multitude. The process of authorization therefore constructs the sovereign as the “representer” of the wills of the multitude in a way that bestows ownership upon the multitude of the actions of the sovereign. As such, the multitude can only act through the actions of the man – or council of men – that is authorized by them to act as their representative. However, far from representing a form of proto-democratic or protoliberal argument, this concept of authorization goes further in precluding the establishment of any mutual obligation between subjects and sovereign. 19 Men mutually decide, amongst themselves, to alienate their natural right to everything and authorize the power of the sovereign – as a third party – to act as that overawing power that can enforce the laws of nature. Characterizing the social contract as a process of authorization therefore inherently precludes the establishment of a “double obligation” between subject and citizen and undermines the ability of the subjects from being able to legitimately withdraw from the contract. Hobbes states this very clearly when he says that: “Because the Right of bearing the Person of them all, is to him they make Soveraigne, by Covenant onely of one to another, and not of him to any of them; there can happen no breach of Covenant on the part of the Soveraigne; and consequently none of his Subjects, by any pretence of forfeiture, can be freed from his Subjection.”20

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It is because of the way Hobbes constructs the contract that rights are given to the sovereign, whereas the subjects are given obligations. While it is true that the sovereign does have an “office” or a “duty” and the subjects have “liberties” (as distinct from rights), these serve merely to buttress the absolute power of the state. Hobbes’s citizens are therefore “subjects” with no effective political rights. This provides no room at all for the subjects to change their form of government. Once they have provided that initial legitimacy, sovereign power remains constant. After all, men want lasting peace and security – not temporary peace and security. Continuous elections that would result in the changing of government could prove unstable and result in a return to the “state of nature.” Thus, subjects have no right to annual elections – a popular demand of the Levellers – and no right to withdraw the legitimacy they gave to the sovereign. They cannot reclaim their powers of governing themselves from the sovereign if they do not like what the sovereign is doing; after all, the multitude of free men are the authors of the actions of the sovereign. Given the increasing radicalization of the doctrines of popular sovereignty that characterized “the people” as a unified collective agent and bestowed upon them the individual right of resistance to authority, as well as a continuing right to consent to political authority, Hobbes’s theoretical maneuvers are extremely important.

Hobbes’s Absolutism For Hobbes, the maintenance of the social order entails the establishment of absolute sovereignty, for given the inherent anti-social nature of man, the dissolution of government and the sovereign power that brings unity to the multitude results in the breakdown of the social order. Part of Hobbes’s strategy is therefore to equate the dissolution of government with the dissolution of society and the property relations that comprise the social order. The political stakes are very high, which explains Hobbes’s intolerance for even the slightest challenge to sovereign power. Yet, this emphasis on the fragmentary nature of the social order – based in the inherently competitive and asocial nature of man – and Hobbes’s prescription of absolute sovereignty does not necessarily signify the “bourgeois” nature of his political theory. In fact, Hobbes’s state, as an absolutist state, necessarily retains certain traits of the old patrimonial state while making “concessions” to certain realities of agrarian capitalist society. Hobbes’s prescription then, for the political problems posed by the multitude in conjunction with the crisis of the aristocracy, is the formulation of an absolutist state that owes its existence less to the social relations of capitalism than it does to the tradition of Renaissance French political thought typified by Jean Bodin. 21 Hobbes’s absolutism, then, is best viewed as an innovative absolutist response to the political ramifications that the transition to capitalism had on the traditional aristocracy and on the breakdown of traditional relations of authority that “freed” up the multitude. What seems quintessentially bourgeois in

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Hobbes’s thought – i.e., his emphasis on the exclusive rights of private property of the subjects vis-à-vis each other – is a reflection of the realities of the propertied nature of the demilitarized aristocracy, not a prescription for a bourgeois society. Beyond these apparent bourgeois aspects of Hobbes’s thought – and we will return to this below – lies a theoretical project that is oriented towards the problems of a degenerating aristocratic order. What differentiates the absolutism of Hobbes and Bodin is the socially specific nature of the process of aristocratic transformation: “Both Bodin and Hobbes were confronted with a similar and critical problem: a landed aristocracy locked in internecine conflict and strife that threatened the complete disruption of civil peace and order…Sovereignty and the early modern absolutist state cannot legitimately be associated with the divisive nature of bourgeois society. They were, instead, a means to counteract the centrifugal forces generated by an aristocratic social formation that had emancipated itself from the feudal past. Yet it should not be forgotten that while the early modern absolutist state and sovereign power responded to and served the needs of the aristocracy, those needs had changed since the Middle Ages because of alterations in the status of property, the weakening of the ties between lord and peasant, the rise of the bourgeoisies, and the growth of commodity production, all of which had something to do with the eventual development of capitalism and bourgeois society.”22

Thus, it is the divergent processes of aristocratic decline – related to the very different paths of socio-economic development that France and England undertake in the aftermath of the crisis of feudalism – that account for the divergent aspects of Hobbes’s and Bodin’s absolutism. Yet this conclusion – that Hobbes’s political thought is fundamentally aristocratic, as opposed to “bourgeois,” in its outlook – still seems to be a minority view. Indeed, many commentators point to the seemingly modern, “protoliberal” or utilitarian aspects of Hobbes’s economic writings as proof of his bourgeois character. Macpherson emphasized Hobbes’s acceptance of the commodification of labor as a foundational aspect of his bourgeois economic or ontological outlook. From this starting point, Hobbes rejects the determination of prices on the basis of customary notions of justice – i.e., the just price – and instead accepts the fact that prices are determined by the market. The cost of a commodity, according to Hobbes, is set by the desires of men who seek to acquire such things that will satisfy their appetites. On top of this, Hobbes exhibits a critical attitude towards the existence of monopolies and “corporations” that seems – at first glance – to put him in the camp of the proponents of the emerging market economy. Commodified labor and market determined prices – as we know – are crucial elements of a liberal, capitalist order. And we also know that the majority of the classical political economists – most notably Adam Smith –

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attacked the existence of monopolies and corporations as subversive to the free play of the “invisible hand” of the marketplace. Upon this foundation it is then often argued that Hobbes’s state was not only the first “modern” theory of the state,23 but that it was also theoretically constructed as a response to the functional requirements of the capitalist economy. According to Macpherson, Hobbes’s absolute sovereignty was a response to the fragmentation inherent in the capitalist market economy. The breakdown of the older, pre-capitalist systems in which the allocation of goods and labor occurred through political or non-economic processes entailed the emergence of a kind of market anarchy. As such, absolutism is a response to the emergence of capitalism. Hobbes’s mistake, according to Macpherson, lies in his inability to see that the new relations of class introduced by capitalism results in new forms of social cohesion: the exploitative relations of capitalism provide new forms of social integration and cohesion that replace the traditional relations of deference characteristic of a pre-market society. Thus, for Macpherson, Hobbes’s absolutism is an erroneous response to what he believes to be the requirements of a possessive market society. This reading of Hobbes’s state only makes sense if we assume that Hobbes was indeed predominantly concerned with establishing a state that would protect the emerging forms of capitalist property. Rather, it is perhaps more accurate to say that Hobbes’s economic views “do not fit into a formal schematic arrangement but were determined exclusively by his political doctrines and by the conceptions of man upon which his political edifice was reared.”24 In other words, although some elements of Hobbes’s economic views seem to contain elements of laissez-faire, overall his economic thought was “politically determined” by his absolutist framework. A close inspection of Hobbes’s views on property – keeping in mind the kinds of social transformation that has been occurring in early modern England – reveals that “Hobbes provided no effective guarantees for private property because he was not primarily concerned to do so.”25 In particular, Hobbes argues that while subjects enjoy absolute rights of private property in relationship to each other, they possess no security of property against the sovereign. According to Hobbes, there is no propriety in the state of nature; there is no such thing as “mine and thine” that precedes its establishment by the civil power because the state of war that is the state of nature, precludes the development of property rights. All private property rights proceed from the arbitrary distribution of the sovereign – be it king or council – and while property owners enjoy absolute rights of property against other subjects, they enjoy no such rights against the sovereign itself.26 In this sense, the existing distribution of landed property is determined by the sovereign and while land is alienable, its confiscation is not secured against the power of the state. However, even the existence of the rights of propriety that subjects enjoy vis-à-vis other subjects are not entirely absolute. While Hobbes does grant subjects the “right to exclude all other subjects from the use of”27 their property, these rights are tempered by his grant of a natural right of subsistence to poor.

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Hobbes’s fifth law of nature – that of mutual accommodation or “Compleasance” – dictates that “every man strive to accommodate himselfe to the rest.”28 This law of nature results in a condemnation of the accumulation of an excess of material goods that undermines the ability of others to maintain their existence. In this sense, Hobbes says that “a man that by asperity of Nature, will strive to retain those things which to himselfe are superfluous, and to others necessary; and for the stubbornness of his Passions, cannot be corrected, is to be left, or cast out of Society, as cumbersome thereunto.”29 Such luxurious living and excessive accumulation violates the natural right that men have “to endeavour all he can, to obtain that which is necessary for his conservation”.30 The man who “shall oppose himselfe against” this natural right of subsistence “for things superfluous, is guilty of the warre that thereupon is to follow.”31 Thus, it is the men who over-accumulate who are in violation of natural law, not the poor who violate the civil laws of private property. As we will soon see, this is a significantly different conception of property than that defended by Locke, for there is in Hobbes no discussion of productive accumulation through the process of improvement, which, according to Locke, creates more for the Commonwealth than it takes from the common stock. Thus, while Hobbes’s position on private property and the natural law of mutual accommodation does not necessarily amount to an attack on capitalist landlords, it certainly does not make the distinction that Locke makes between idle and indolent landlords and those engaged in the improvement of their estates. Hobbes’s acceptance of the rights of private property is also qualified by his position on the commons. Based on his conception of equity and distributive justice, Hobbes insists that “such things as cannot be divided, be enjoyed in Common, if it can be; and if the quantity of the thing permit, without Stint; otherwise Proportionably to the number of them that have Right.”32 It is important to note that this acceptance of the legitimacy of common property occurs in the context of a discussion of landed property, and precedes Hobbes’s discussion of primogeniture. In the context of the progressive enclosure of the commons and the extinguishing of customary rights of access to the commons, this is a significant aspect of Hobbes’s traditional approach to property. On top of this, those things that cannot be divided or enjoyed in common are to be distributed by lot in accordance with the law of equity. While natural lot amounts to the distribution of property on the basis of primogeniture, arbitrary lot amounts to the bestowing of rights of property on the basis of first possession. “And therefore those things which cannot be enjoyed in common, nor divided, ought to be adjudged to the First Possessor; and in some cases to the First-Borne, as acquired by Lot.”33 In the context of landless peasants squatting on the commons and the wastes – that is, assuming first possession – and impoverished artisans and laborers encroaching on common land these qualifications on the absolute nature of private property may serve to empower the rights of peasants, squatters and cottagers to resist their dispossession and alleviate their condition of poverty.34 As Thomas argues,

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Together with the first law of nature that compels every individual to do what is necessary to preserve their security, these laws of nature significantly dampen the rights of property that Hobbes grants to the subject and undermines the absolute nature of capitalist social property relations that are emerging in this historical period. Much has been made of Hobbes’s opposition to commercial monopolies as evidence of his bourgeois approach to trade. Indeed, Hobbes does say of the great merchant companies that “Such Corporations therefore are no other then Monopolies” that “by their sole exportation they set what price they please on the husbandry, and handy-works of the people; and by the sole importation, what price they please on all forraign commodities the people have need of; both which are ill for the people.”36 Hobbes’s observations on the logic of precapitalist forms of trade are quite insightful. In order to “make their gaine the greater”, corporations were needed to ensure that a “double Monopoly” is established that guarantees “sole buying, and sole selling, both at home, and abroad” that would allow merchants to “buy at home at lower, and sell abroad at higher rates.”37 Hobbes’s opposition – or criticism – to the established merchant companies places him in good company with the “bourgeois” elements of the revolution. Indeed, some of the major economic and political reforms proposed by particular revolutionary groups – particularly the “new merchants” – entailed the abolition of the monopolies enjoyed by the company merchants as well as the breaking of their political domination of the institutions of the City government.38 However, Hobbes’s opposition to the monopolistic practices of the merchant oligarchy stems more from traditional criticisms of the corruptive influence and parasitic nature of merchant wealth than it does from a commitment to the principles of capitalist economic activity. Yet, there is also a sense in which Hobbes’s critique of monopolies and corporations (the latter including “immoderate towns”) stems less from a belief that these institutions and practices skew the “natural” working of the market, than from a belief that they pose a threat to the power of the state. Monopolies and corporations may potentially grow into states within a state – “lesser commonwealths in the bowels of a greater”39 – and thereby undermine the unity and power of the sovereign.

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In fact, Hobbes’s approach to trade and commerce is, for lack of a better term, mercantilist, not “bourgeois” – that is, trade and commerce is subordinated to the interests and the control of the absolutist state: “For if it [trade] did belong to private persons to use their own discretion therein, some of them would bee drawn for gaine, both to furnish the enemy with means to hurt the Common-wealth, and hurt it themselves, by importing such things, as pleasing mens appetites, be neverthelesse noxious, or at least unprofitable to them. And therefore it belongeth to the Common-wealth, (that is, to the Soveraign only,) to approve, or disapprove both of the places, and matter of forraign Traffique.”40

Hobbes is therefore not proposing “free trade” in place of the monopolistic trading practices of the merchant oligarchy. He is not a “spokesman for…the revolutionary goals of the commercial Protestants.”41 In fact, free trade, according to Hobbes, would result in the same corruptive influences that monopolistic trade had on the commonwealth: the importation of luxury commodities that are at best, useless to the people, at worst, “noxious” to the Commonwealth as a whole. The abolition of mercantile monopolies is therefore offset by the subordination of commercial activity to the dictates of the sovereign. While this may be incompatible with the conduct of existing forms of pre-capitalist commercial activity characteristic the merchant oligarchy, it certainly conflicts with the commercial interests of the “interloping” merchants that provided support for the Parliamentary classes during the Civil War and Revolution.42 Even Hobbes’s criticism of luxury consumption and ostentatious living are politically determined by his absolutist political framework and are not exclusively aspects of a bourgeois mindset. Indeed, numerous political theorists of different persuasions shared in the criticism of ostentatious and luxurious living, all for different reasons. For “bourgeois” thinkers who supported the development of capitalist social relations, luxurious consumption and ostentatious living was wasteful in the sense of not being productive forms of consumption or economic activity. Luxuries were items imported from abroad that served no purpose in terms of increasing the productive capacity of English industry or commerce. For republicans, luxury and ostentation was ultimately subversive of a virtuous life. Widespread ostentation amongst the aristocracy was therefore a source of personal corruption and the spread of vice; the placing of one’s narrow, short-term interest above the interest of the common good. For Hobbes, however, luxury and ostentation were potentially politically subversive to the stability of the commonwealth and the power of the sovereign. While it may be true that luxury and ostentation were corrupting and wasteful, for Hobbes, they also had two other consequences. First, competition for luxuries amongst the aristocracy was a potential source of faction that could jeopardize the unity and power of the sovereign. Secondly, ostentation – oriented toward providing rewards to the people – could serve as a means of attaining allegiance from the

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“multitude,” thereby increasing the possibility of dissent and sedition in the commonwealth.43 On top of this, Hobbes decries the traditional financial limitations of the sovereign. Traditionally, the Crown relied on the exploitation of public lands for its fiscal health. But Hobbes is against public land not because he is an economic liberal, but rather because it puts undue limits on the wealth of the sovereign. Public land serves as the revenue generator for the sovereign, but public land is never enough to maintain the public power. The needs of the sovereign are not limited by his appetites, but by external accidents beyond his power – such as foreign war. As such, the wealth of the sovereign power should not be limited to reliance on the wealth created from public lands. Having said all of this, however, Hobbes is not merely a “feudal reactionary.” There are elements of his political economy that are reflective of the real changes occurring in England at the time. The most important one is the commodification of labor. With the development of agrarian capitalism, smaller peasants lost their land and entered into a rural labor market, thereby becoming wage laborers compelled to hire out their labor in return for a wage. Thus, labor became a commodity, a fact that Hobbes recognizes. 44 While wage-labor has been around for quite a long time, it was always a marginal form of economic activity. To be a wage laborer was often a transitory economic phase that people went through. In Hobbes’s England, however, wage labor was increasingly becoming an important factor of the agrarian economy, a permanent form of economic activity reflective in the birth of a new class of agrarian wage-laborers. It is significant that Hobbes reconciles himself to this fact. In the medieval economy, strict laws prevented the emergence of a free market in labor: no free exchange of labor and no freedom of mobility for labor. This mix of more traditional views of economic life subordinated to the dictates of politics with an acceptance of certain emerging economic social relations suggests that Hobbes’s political economy represents a transitory moment in the socio-economic development of England. In many ways, Hobbes is loathe to embrace the process of economic liberalization that is being pushed by the parliamentary forces during the Civil War; yet, at the same time, he goes some way towards recognizing some of the recent economic changes that have been occurring throughout the course of the seventeenth century.45

John Locke and Leveller Radicalism Classic studies of Locke portrayed him as a conservative revolutionary who defended the interests of a mercantile and/or manufacturing bourgeoisie that had come into ascendancy with the consolidation of the Glorious Revolution of 1688. For Leo Strauss, Locke was a closet Hobbesian who disguised his radical individualist philosophy in the traditionalist discourse of Natural Law. 46 For Macpherson, Locke was a “possessive individualist” whose theory of property

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justified the unlimited accumulation of capital, resulting in the perpetuation of economic disparities between the propertied and the propertyless, with the latter being excluded from enjoying political rights altogether. 47 For Sheldon Wolin, Locke’s political theory represented the kind of de-politicization of modern political life – and the substitution of political concepts by economic ones – within the context of an emerging commercial society. 48 These classic “bourgeois” interpretations of Locke, however, fail to take into account the allegedly radical nature of Locke’s own political activities during the tumultuous politics of the 1670s and 1680s. As Peter Laslett has shown, Locke’s authorship of the Two Treatises of Government predated the so-called Glorious Revolution by almost a decade, and even upon his death in 1704 Locke refused a claim of authorship. 49 We also now know that Locke was implicated in the Parliamentary resistance to Charles’ and James’ attempts to construct an absolutist state in England. As Richard Ashcraft has demonstrated in his monumental study, Locke was an important figure in the anti-papal and anti-absolutist politics that revolved around the person of Anthony Ashley Cooper, the First Earl of Shaftsbury. 50 Not only did Locke assume a role of intellectual activist through his authorship of the Two Treatises, his radical political associations forced him into self-imposed exile in Holland in the aftermath of the Rye House Plot and the run up to Monmouth’s Rebellion and William III’s invasion of England.51 All of this raises some serious questions regarding the plausibility of the bourgeois interpretation: how can Locke’s defense of a bourgeois socio-economic order be reconciled with his radical political associations of this period? In the aftermath of Ashcraft’s study, a substantial literature has emerged that has further situated Locke on the left-wing of the 17th century political spectrum. No longer an apologist for the propertied classes (be they landed, commercial or manufacturing) Locke is said to have carried on the radical democratic traditions of the Levellers – and, perhaps, even Gerard Winstanley and the Diggers. While Ashcraft’s work remains the most significant – and forceful – rendition of this left-wing interpretation of Locke, the Locke-asLeveller reading has its origins in James Tully’s revision of Locke’s theory of property.52 Yet, the question of property is merely one aspect of the radical revision of Locke: the doctrine of consent is equally significant, as it is alleged to form the basis of a radically democratic politics culminating in right of all individuals to resist illegitimate political authority. 53 Thus, the primary areas of contention regarding the alleged radical nature of Locke’s political thought relates to his theories of property and consent. These two issues are of fundamental importance because the former determines Locke’s position within the contentious class politics of early modern England and the latter determines the extent to which his politics – particularly his alleged “democratic” politics and his right of resistance – are inclusive or fundamentally exclusionary. We will deal first with the issue of property, because the classical interpretations of Locke – particularly that of Macpherson – view this as the determining factor of Locke’s doctrine of consent.

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Locke opens his chapter on property with the claim that “God gave the World to Adam and his Posterity in common”. From this it remains for Locke to show “how Men might come to have a property in several parts of that which God gave to Mankind in common, and that without any express Compact of all the Commoners.”54 From this initial condition of common property, Locke therefore begins to establish the grounds upon which man can attain title to a particular property of that which is held in common. Thus, although God gave the earth to men in common, he has obliged man to put it to productive use because the gifts that nature bestows upon man are nothing without a means of appropriating them. Rights of property are therefore based upon the act of appropriation, and the act of appropriation implies an act of labor. Thus, by employing our own labor in the act of appropriation, we make something rightfully ours; as soon as we pull something out of its natural state through an act of appropriation, it therefore becomes ours, and no one else has a right to it against our own consent: we remove it from the “common state Nature placed it in” through our labor and make it our particular property, thereby excluding “the common right of other Men.”55 This allows for the development of private property out of the general common property of mankind without the express consent of the commoners and represents a refutation of the absolutist claim that a starting point of private property necessarily entails the development of communism.56 Having established a labor theory of property, Locke moves on to demonstrate how the introduction of money – on the basis of individual consent – introduces “inconveniencies” into the state of nature to such an extent that the establishment of government – the sole purpose of which is to protect property – becomes a necessity. Violation of this trust grants “the people” a legitimate right of resistance to authority. C.B. Macpherson famously interpreted this theory of property – and the kind of politics that are deduced from it – as a form of possessive individualism that represented an ideological expression of bourgeois property associated with capitalism.57 Macpherson made much of Locke’s discussion of appropriation in which the initial limitations that natural law placed on one’s ability to appropriate seemed to be transcended through recourse to market activity. While Locke argued that no man may rightfully appropriate more than he can consume without those goods going to waste, the introduction of money alters the nature of the limits of appropriation. If a man sells the surplus that he appropriated, then he effectively avoids the spoilage clause. Money does not spoil, and insofar as a man is willing to sell the surplus that he has accumulated, he is depriving no man of anything. In fact, according to Locke, he is increasing the “common stock” of mankind. The limits on appropriation and accumulation therefore seem to be dependent upon the use to which the property is put. Macpherson interpreted this as the first crucial step in legitimizing an unequal distribution of property not only because it legitimizes the voiding of the spoilage clause, but also because money, according to Locke, is introduced to the state of nature through consent. Locke says:

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“since Gold and Silver…has its value only from the consent of Men, whereof Labour yet makes, in great part, the measure, it is plain, that Men have agreed to disproportionate and unequal Possession of the Earth, they having by a tacit and voluntary consent found out a way, how a man may fairly possess more land than he himself can use the product of, by receiving in exchange for the overplus, Gold and Silver, which may be hoarded up without injury to any one, these metals not spoileing or decaying in the hands of the possessor.”58

The consequence of the ensuing unequal distribution of property is the eventual expropriation of those who cannot accumulate enough to remain competitive in market society. Faced with this condition of propertylessness, the newly emerging proletariat must alienate their labor by means of hiring themselves out for a wage in order to merely survive. By justifying unlimited accumulation, legitimizing property and income differentials and taking for granted the existence of a class of propertyless wage-laborers who are juridically free yet economically dependent upon the propertied Macpherson concluded that Locke served to legitimize the development of capitalism both in economic as well as moral terms. On the basis of these “class differentials” Locke derived a conception of differential rationality from which he concluded that the propertyless were considered by Locke to be “contentious,” “quarrelsome,” and fundamentally irrational. This irrationality effectively disqualified them from full membership in the body politic, as their propertylessness excluded them from possessing full political rights. In doing so, Macpherson argued, he not only justifies a “class differential in rights and in rationality”, he also “provides a positive moral basis for capitalist society.”59 Over the past few decades, this view has come under attack. Increasingly, Locke scholars have begun to uncover radical elements of Locke’s thought that necessitates a reinterpretation of the nature of his political theory. James Tully has sought to recover the original (and radical) meaning of Locke’s theory of property by situating it within a discursive context of Natural Law that sees Locke doing battle not only with “adversaries” like Filmer, but with far removed theorists like Grotius and Pufendorf.60 Beginning from Locke’s broad definition of property that includes “lives, liberties and estates”, Tully argues that Locke’s theory of property is, contra Macpherson, fundamentally inclusive and based on use rights that are sanctioned by Natural Law that obliges men to seek not just their own preservation in the state of nature, but also that of mankind in general. This inclusive conception of property is supplemented by an “exclusive” right of property that places limits on arbitrary political power. In both nature and society, entitlement to possessions is secured through labor and “honest industry” and conditioned by the extent to which they fulfill the dictates of this Natural Law; and with rights to property come positive duties or obligations that assume the form of charity towards those who are unable to work for themselves. In concrete terms, this broad definition of property as the basis of inclusive rights and positive duties has radical potentials in the context of 17th century

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English economic life, according to Tully. As Locke states, because man has a property in his own person, it stands that the “Labour of his Body, and the Work of his Hands, we may say, are properly his.” As such, “no Man but he can have a right to what that is once joyned to, at least where there is enough, and as good left in common for others.”61 Based on this broad notion of property, Locke’s theory of property, according to Tully, reflects a society in which property is based upon a pre-capitalist conception of labor characterized by a unity of conception and execution in which labor is fundamentally inalienable. On the basis of this allegedly inalienable conception of labor, Tully concludes that craftsmanship, not capitalist wage-labor, forms the basis of the master-servant relationship that finds its way into chapter five and the famous “turfs passage.” According to Tully, Locke’s servant – whose labor belongs to his master – is a “freeman who contracts to sell to another a service he undertakes to do, for a wage he is to receive.”62 However, this relationship is strictly voluntary and must be distinguished from the physically coercive nature of both slavery and – rather curiously – wage-labor. The voluntary nature of servitude, coupled with what Tully considers to be Locke’s grant of a “right to subsistence in the surplus goods of another”63 gives the propertyless the choice: if they are unable to work for themselves, they can either enter into voluntary servitude to a master, or they may exert their right of subsistence in order to claim a portion of the surplus of the propertied. In either case, the labor of the freeman is not alienable as Macpherson initially believed. Thus, argues Tully, “it is incorrect and anachronistic to impute the assumption of capitalist wage-labour to Locke”,64 because the “capitalist not only never appears in the Two Treatises; there is no place for him to appear.”65 The conclusion that Tully ultimately draws from his rendering of Locke is not only that Locke’s theory of property is not representative of a form of capitalist property, but that it serves as “an obstacle to capitalism.”66 In the end, not only – as we have seen above – does Locke’s theory of property preclude the existence of the capitalist and the wage-laborer, it also “provides a justification, not of private property, but, rather, of the English Common”, it defends the “rights of commoners against the enclosing landlords” and “justifies” the “properties” of “servants and day-labourers.”67 Building on Tully, Ashcraft situates Locke’s theory of property within the context of the Whig’s attempt to construct an alliance between leading sections of the smaller gentry and members of the “trading part” of the nation: particularly tradesmen, merchants and artisans. Seen in this context, Locke needs to construct a theory of property that will appeal to this radical urban constituency, while weaning the lesser gentry off of its dependence on the landed aristocracy. Locke’s chapter on property, therefore, is intended to “provide a defense of “the industrious” and trading part of the nation”, against the “idle, unproductive, and Court-dominated property owners.”68 The virtue of this interpretation – and one that represents a significant advance on Tully’s Natural Law context – is to see Locke’s theory of property as a form of ideology that is meant to appeal to a pluralistic constituency of material interests. The downside is that, by downplaying the significance of the social context69 – one that is increasingly character-

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ized by the development of capitalist property relations – Ashcraft fundamentally misinterprets Locke’s conception of property as a “radical critique of a wasteful section of the landowning aristocracy” that brings him into the Leveller tradition of social and economic radicalism (including the True Levellers) and invalidates previous claims that characterize it as a justification for capitalism.70 For Ashcraft, Locke’s emphasis on labor as the source of all property is of paramount importance to understanding the radical nature of his conception of property. It is clear that for Locke, first occupancy, heredity or the extent of one’s holdings are not legitimate means of bestowing title to property; nor is it a valid means of maintaining the security of pre-existing property relations. Rather, the right to property stems from the productive use of one’s labor. Similar to Tully, Ashcraft argues that for Locke, “an owner allows someone to use his property only if certain purposes are attached to that usage.”71 Something of value needs to be produced on that property for the title to its use to remain intact. As a result of this, rights of/to the use of property are conditional on the Law of Nature as a manifestation of God’s will; they are not absolute. Thus, “individuals have a right to use property so long as their usage falls within the range of objectives that can be realized through their obedience to natural law.”72 Thus, in the absence of the productive employment of labor, even enclosed land is not secure. Like Tully, Ashcraft considers this emphasis on labor to work in the interest of small property owners/holders over the interests of the (large) landed classes: “by framing his argument in such a way as to knit together “labor,” “cultivated land,” and “the common good,” Locke produced a powerful natural law critique of those individuals in society who neither labored nor contributed to the common good of society. Indeed, Locke’s chapter on property is one of the most radical critiques of the landowning aristocracy produced during the last half of the seventeenth century.”73

According to Ashcraft, the “industrious” part of the nation clearly refers to the small producers – both in the towns and in the countryside – while the “idle” clearly refers to the aristocracy as a class. The emphasis on the productive use of labor as the means of legitimizing property therefore results in the economic empowerment of the “middling sort” against the landed classes: the appeal to productive labor not only defends their rights against any encroachment by the parasitic aristocracy, it also grants the middling sorts (in this case the smallholders) positive title to enclosed lands that are going to waste by remaining uncultivated (in this case, large landed estates). While not advocating the throwing open of existing enclosures of the commons like the Levellers did in the 1640s, Locke’s theory of property with its emphasis on labor is said to amount to the same thing. Thus, while it may be true that many of the radicals did not represent the kind of threat to existing property interests that the Levellers represent-

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ed during the revolution of the mid-century, Locke himself represents the “threat from below.” Having economically empowered the small producer and the laborer, both Ashcraft and Tully see within Locke’s Two Treatises the political empowerment of the lower classes in terms of Locke’s doctrine of consent and its implications either for the franchise, or for a right of resistance. By defining property in the broadest sense possible – i.e., life, liberty and estates – Tully argues that, for Locke, “the natural right or property of exercising one’s consent over any things which are one’s own will necessarily be the one common element in all civil rights.”74 As such, Tully argues that Locke “places the right to resist illegal acts of the Crown in the hands of each citizen.”75 Thus, the Two Treatises is “an unequivocal incitement to revolution”.76 The prospects of Locke’s work being an “attempt to preserve capitalist property against the proletariat”, argues Tully, requires a “historical foreshortening” which does an injustice to Locke’s work.77 Rather than serving as a guarantor of capitalist property against the emerging working classes, Tully considers Locke’s theory of property as a guarantor of all property against the arbitrary encroachments of royal absolutism. From this point of view, the right of resistance is indeed predicated upon the possession of property and consent is intrinsically related to a natural right to property. Property, however, is defined in such a way as to be intrinsically inclusive of the English polity, not exclusive as Macpherson believed it to be. Ashcraft’s attempt to demonstrate the radical nature of Locke’s political thought represents an advance on Tully’s purely textual argument and his disputably broad definition of property. Situating Locke’s discussion of consent within the context of the Putney debates between the army Grandees and the Leveller Agitators, Ashcraft attempts to emphasize the continuity between Lockean and Leveller political arguments. Rejecting Macpherson’s “possessive individualist” reading of the Putney debates which cast the Levellers as defenders of an incipient bourgeois order by characterizing the body politic as a form of community that expressly excludes the propertyless, Ashcraft makes a case for the radicalism of the Leveller position. The inclusive definition of the body politic and the explicit linkage between consent and the franchise demonstrates just how radical the Leveller proposals were in the mid-century. As we saw in chapter five, the Levellers believed that even the “meanest he” had a life to live and should have to right to consent to those who govern over him. Ashcraft accurately, I think, draws a discursive link between Locke and the debates at Putney. In order to attain a better understanding of what Locke means regarding the relationship between property, consent and – ultimately – the right to “resist” it is necessary to relate his work to the parameters of political discourse established during these debates. Although Locke is ambiguous in terms of defining who “the people” really are, Ashcraft argues that this ambiguity was necessary in order to maintain the cohesion of the cross-class alliance that was the Whig movement. This ambiguity, however, is an indication of Locke’s inclusiveness, for other radical Whigs – James Tyrell being one of the more prominent – were more explicit in their exclusion of the propertyless from the body politic. This,

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and the fact that the opponents of the Whigs took this ambiguity to imply a thinly veiled radicalism, leads Ashcraft to conclude that Locke is clearly on the side of the Levellers. In a similar vein, Richards, Mulligan and Graham argue – reaching a similar conclusion to that of Ashcraft – that Locke’s conception of “the people” radically diverges from the more exclusive definitions of his Whig contemporaries to such an extent that it was set aside in favor of more conservative treatises that would result in fewer changes to the “ancient constitution.”78 In contrast to Macpherson and Dunn, there was no consensus pertaining to the exclusion of the lower classes from an active voice in the choosing of their own government. The belief that Locke merely assumed their exclusion because everyone in 17 th century England took their exclusion for granted, must therefore be rejected. In fact, numerous Whig writers – e.g., Tyrell and Sidney – explicitly excluded the lower classes of men from having an active voice in politics. Similarly, in terms of the right of resistance, these same writers were more explicit in denying a legitimate right of resistance to those without property. Locke’s ambiguity on these matters – in comparison to the clarity of his fellow Whigs – is taken as evidence of a more democratic position: that he must have therefore adhered to a more liberal right of resistance to authority and a more democratic definition of the body politic and the active role of the propertyless citizen. For Richards et al., then, it is not so much what Locke says in relation to his doctrine of consent and his right of resistance that suggests a more radically democratic Locke; rather, it is a matter of his “consistency in adhering to the implications of defining property for the protection of which men enter civil society with laws to preserve their lives, liberties, and estates.”79 The authors conclude: “Locke, then, did not turn away from the implications of his fundamental principles in the name of prudence; he began by including all men in political society, the foundation of which had been to protect property in all its forms. His insistence on the consistency of his definition, his repeated inclusion of “every man” and “each individual” in his argument, his failure to pronounce the customary limitations on who, politically speaking, were included among the people, his avoidance of the usual discussions on the franchise, and his acceptance that his theory of political society rested the security of government, finally, on those who were “ignorant and always discontented,” all point to one conclusion. Locke may not have been prepared to go so far as to argue in detail for the inclusion of all people in political society with full political rights, but he did not argue against this position which was the logical outcome of his postulates.”80

In light of all of this, and in particular, the “logical conclusions” of his broad conception of property, “Locke was a radical theorist, driven to his radical stance largely by his commitment to the view that politics was indeed but a branch of moral philosophy”81 whose political theory “is much more clearly

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linked with the political ideas of the Civil War radicals than we have been taught to believe.”82

Property and Consent The result of these interpretations of Locke is to not only distance him from the apologia of capitalism, but to place him in opposition to the development of capitalist social property relations; and it is not only to distance him from a defense of the landed classes against democracy and democratization, but rather to place him in the Leveller camp of “radical” democracy. There are, however, serious problems with the Locke-as-Leveller interpretations that relate both to issues of text and to issues of context. In the first sense, a number of Locke’s writings seem to contradict the allegedly egalitarian principles that are said to permeate the Two Treatises. In the second sense, a number of important issues regarding Locke’s context – that of agrarian capitalism, the nature of commercial expansion and the absolutist threat to the mixed constitution – serve to problematize the claim that Locke’s theory of property represents a radical critique of either capitalism or the landed aristocracy. In terms of Locke’s work, at least two of Locke’s writings – that serve as “book-ends” of his intellectual career – pose a fundamental problem for the Locke-as-Leveller interpretation because they present us with a Locke whose views of the lower classes seem to be fundamentally at odds with what is being presented in the revisionist literature typified by Tully and Ashcraft. The Fundamental Constitutions of the Carolinas (1669) was co-authored by Locke and Shaftesbury when the latter was one of the eight Lords Proprietors of the colonies of the Carolinas. 83 His Draft of a Representation, Containing a Scheme of Methods for the Employment of the Poor, sometimes referred to as the Report to the Board of Trade to the Lords Justice 1697, Respecting Relief and Unemployment of the Poor, was written in 1697 as a proposal towards reforming the provision of poor relief in the context of persistent poverty and unemployment. Both of these important texts shed light on the profoundly inegalitarian nature of Locke’s social, economic and political beliefs. The Fundamental Constitutions of the Carolinas lays out the social, economic and political foundations for a profoundly inegalitarian aristocratic society.84 The colony was to be an agrarian economy aimed “not at the profit of merchants, but the encouragement of landlords.”85 The land would be distributed between the eight Lords Proprietors, an hereditary aristocracy and the “people.” Within this landed society, agricultural labor would be performed by landless laborers, smallholders, and bonded laborers called “leetmen,” whose offspring – by virtue of their unfree birth – would likewise become leetmen. The signories and baronies of the Lords Proprietors and the aristocracy would possess courts to which all were subject without appeal, and slaves would be subjected to the “absolute sovereignty” of their masters. While the constitution itself consisted of

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a “popular element,” political rights of participation were withheld from slaves, servants, bonded leetmen, landless laborers and poor husbandmen with less than 50 acres of land, and political office was restricted to those possessing more than 500 acres of land. Prerogative powers were granted to the Lords Proprietors and the landed aristocracy, further eliminating any democratic tendencies. Politically, therefore, the colonial state would represent the kind of mixed constitution in which the aristocratic element would be “balanced” by the limited “popular” participation of the freeholders. As we already know, however, the mixed constitution – while incorporating a popular element – was in no way “democratic.” Indeed, the lineage of the mixed constitution can be traced back – in a variety of forms – to the aristocratic political theory of Greco-Roman antiquity, particularly in the work of Aristotle, Polybius and Cicero, and “was deeply rooted in the desire of the propertied to preserve their rights and privileges from tyrannical assaults, either in the form of absolute monarchy or democracy.”86 Both Locke and Shaftesbury consistently supported the quest for a settlement that would reinstall the mixed constitution that was believed by many parliamentarians to be the ancient form of English government. Indeed, far from presenting a radical critique of the settlement of 1688, Locke viewed it as a desirable restoration of this ancient, “mixed” form of state.87 Thus, the colony of the Carolinas was to be a commercially oriented landed society in which trade was subordinated to agricultural development and politics was dominated by – but not monopolized by – a hereditary landed aristocracy. Locke’s acceptance of slavery, serfdom and his subordination of small producers to the political dominance of the landed aristocracy not only poses problems for the Locke-as-Leveller interpretation by virtue of their presence alone; these beliefs, and Locke’s role in the slave trade and the development of the colonial plantations may have influenced his conception of property outlined in Chapter 5 of the Second Treatise.88 David Armitage argues that the writing of the famous chapter “On Property” occurred at a time when Locke was revising the Fundamental Constitutions sometime in 1681.89 Similarly, Barbara Arneil argues that Locke’s theory of property is colonial in its essence, being inspired by the questions emerging around England’s expanding colonial empire in North America which Locke, as secretary to the Board of Trade and Plantations, was deeply concerned with.90 Thus, these illiberal elements cannot simply be ignored or written off as anomalous to some overarching radical egalitarianism that is said to be characteristic of Locke’s thought in general, nor can they be dismissed as the illiberal ideas of the “early” Locke of the early 1660s which had eventually given way to the predominance of egalitarianism in the “later” Locke of the 1680s. Locke’s contemptuous attitude to the poor remained consistent throughout his life and reappears in stark form in the Draft of a Representation Containing a Scheme of Methods for the Employment of the Poor, which was published in 1697. The Draft was the outcome of a commission by the King to the Board of Trade to propose some much-needed reforms to deal with the problems of poverty and unemployment. In this text, Locke characterizes unem-

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ployment as merely a problem of individual morality, in which the unemployed suffer as a result of their own moral corruption: “The growth of the poor must therefore have some other cause; and it can be nothing else but the relaxation of discipline, and corruption of manners: virtue and industry being as constant companions on the one side as vice and idleness are on the other.”91 As a result of this belief in the moral causes of unemployment and poverty, Locke takes a punitive approach to reform of poor relief that David Wootton has shown to be exceptional even by 17th century standards.92 Hard labor, “press ganging” on merchant ships, transportation and even the cutting off of the ears (similar to the practice in Elizabethan times) were the list of proposed punishments for able bodied men caught begging; and children whose parents were on poor relief were to be sent to the workhouses. Indeed, the harshness of Locke’s proposals for the reform of poor relief make it difficult to sustain Tully’s previous claim that Locke adheres to a generous conception of charity that undermines the need for wage-labor. Even if charity was proof of egalitarianism – which, of course it is not93 – the fact of the matter is that Locke’s belief in charity ran up against the wall of wage-labor. Tully’s characterization of charity as granting every individual a right of subsistence that can serve as an alternative to working for oneself – a right of subsistence that precludes the development of wage-labor – is undermined by Locke’s insistence that “the true and proper relief of the poor…consists in finding work for them, and taking care they do not live like drones upon the labour of others.”94 This last statement of Locke’s fundamentally contradicts Tully’s characterization of charity and its relationship to wage-labor. Far from advocating charity as a substitute for wage-labor, Locke insists that wage-labor is the best form of charity or relief, because it prevents the emergence of a social relationship that charity implies: that the poor would live idly off the labor of the industrious. None of these inegalitarian beliefs, however, prove to be antithetical or incompatible with the allegedly radical nature of Locke’s Two Treatises of Government. As we will soon see, Locke’s genius resides in his ability to employ radical discourses to defend interests that are not in any sense democratic; or to be more specific, Locke’s brilliance is found in his ability to employ Leveller discourses in ways that maintain rather than overturn the established hierarchies of power and the existing distribution of landed property. We can conclude that, in the absence of an organized leveling threat amongst the lower classes, the primary problem facing the Whigs and their radical allies was that of the possibility of Royal absolutism.95 In this context, the Radical-Whig alliance could be held together through the employment of a radical Natural Law discourse that served to defend the propertied interests of the fraction of the landed aristocracy that was engaged – along with their tenants – in the productive “improvement” of their landed estates and concerned with the protection of their property from the encroachments of a monarchy increasingly displaying tendencies towards absolutism. More on this alliance will be discussed in the next section; for now, we must turn to Locke’s theory of property and his doctrine of consent.

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We return, therefore, to Locke’s chapter on property. While no one disputes the centrality of property in Locke’s Two Treatises, there is little agreement on what Locke means by the term property. While the proponents of the Locke-as-Leveller thesis argue that Locke’s conception of property – in identifying property with people’s lives, liberties and estates – denies the alienability of labor and bolsters the claims and interests of the smallholders and the urban middling sort against the landed aristocracy, there is a convincing argument to be made that Locke’s theory of property in fact defends the interests of a particular fraction of the landed aristocracy against the interests of both the Crown and those contesting the legitimacy of the new forms of social property relations that we have identified with agrarian capitalism. 96 It has been conventionally believed that Locke’s presumption of wagelabor is crucial to the validity of any interpretation that seeks to link his theory of property to the development of capitalism. Here, the much debated “turfs passage” becomes the object of contention. In this passage, Locke – after having insisted that every man has a property in his own labor – attributes the labor of his servant (not to mention his horse) to himself. The “Turfs my Servant has cut” are equivalent to the “Grass my Horse has bit” and the “Ore I have digg’d” as products of my (the master’s) labor. These products “become my Property, without the assignation or consent of any body”, because the “labour that was mine, removing them out of that common state they were in, hath fixed my Property in them.”97 The operative term here is Locke’s usage of servant to denote the form of laborer performing the specified task. If Locke had simply said laborer, there would be little ambiguity, as laborer often referred to agricultural workers. However, the term servant had a much more ambiguous meaning in the 17th century.98 On the one hand, it could be used in a way that referred to what modern readers would consider to be unproductive domestic labor engaged in performing household tasks; on the other hand, it could be used to refer to a worker hiring themselves out for a wage on the basis of a year, a week or even a day. It could also refer to a “servant in husbandry” which was a form of agricultural apprenticeship. To get around this ambiguity, however, we can turn to Locke himself for his own definition of what exactly is a servant. In the Two Treatises Locke defines a servant as “Free-man” who “makes himself a Servant to another, by selling him for a certain time, the Service he undertakes to do, in exchange for the Wages he is to receive: And though this commonly puts him into the Family of his Master, and under the ordinary Discipline thereof; yet it gives the Master but a Temporary Power over him, and no greater, than what is contained in the Contract between ’em.”99

What is important here is that the servant enjoys juridical freedom – his freeman status – even while economically subordinating himself to a master for the contractually allotted time. Outside of this contractual relationship, the master has no power or dominion over the servant. Contrary to Tully’s claims, the ju-

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ridical freedom of the wage-laborer is – as Marx never tired of pointing out – the pre-condition for the capital/wage-labor relationship, not the laborer of a precapitalist society. Tully’s mistake lies in his peculiar equation of wage-labor with a form of physically coercive or dependent labor. Wage-labor may be a form of “wage-slavery” in the sense of representing a form of economic dependency but it is clearly distinguished from dependent forms of labor like slavery and serfdom due to its consensual or contractual nature. Thus, even though men can “sell themselves”, says Locke, “’tis plain, this was only to Drudgery, not to Slavery. For, it is evident, the Person sold was not under an Absolute, Arbitrary, Despotical Power. For the Master could not have power to kill him, at any time, whom, at a certain time, he was obliged to let go free out of his Service: and the Master of such a Servant was so far from having an Arbitrary Power over his Life, that he could not, at pleasure, so much as maim him, but the loss of an Eye, or Tooth, set him free.”100

Indeed, Locke is quite clear on this when he distinguishes this kind of servant from that other kind of servant; the slave who is “subjected to the Absolute Dominion and Arbitrary Power of their Master” and, as a result, “cannot be considered as any part of Civil Society”.101 Thus, the analytical distinction that Tully makes between Locke’s servant as free-man and servant as laborer is characteristic of the juridically free laborer typically found in a capitalist society, not the servant of pre-capitalism. As a free-man, argues Tully, the servant engages in activities that are the result of his own free will, and the labor and its product is his. However, as a servant, “the labour, service and product are the property of the master by convention or contract.”102 In return for this, the wage he is given becomes his “property.” Tully therefore concludes that “Locke is perfectly consistent” in his attribution of the servant’s labor to himself (as master) because “it is an analytical feature of the master and servant relation that the labour or service of the servant is the master’s.”103 What Tully means by this is that it is the contract that attributes the labor of the servant to the master despite the fact that the servant still retains his free will as a free-man. This, however, is precisely what Marxists mean when they talk about the nature of the capital/wage-labor relationship. What Tully has done is deny the existence of this capital/wage-labor relationship in Locke’s chapter on property only to bring it back in under the auspices of some precapitalist relation of master and servant. Similarly, in considering the alienated nature of labor, it makes little or no difference whether or not the labor the servant performs is characterized by a unity of conception and execution. For Tully, Locke’s servant does not alienate his labor; he merely performs a “service” for the master which entitles him to appropriate the final product of labor. This is because Tully believes that capitalist wage-labor is characterized – in essence – by a kind of Taylorist technical division of labor, a form of division of labor internal to the unit of production

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that Marx clearly equates with “mature” as opposed to “early” capitalism.104 The anachronism here is obvious – i.e. identifying capitalism with a 19th and 20th century division of labor – but it also would be a mistake to believe that any labor that is “service” oriented in the sense that the conceptualization of the task and its execution are unified in the act of labor is fundamentally non-capitalist. Indeed, early capitalist factories consisted of numerous craft-workers or craftsmen employed under one roof. Thus, Macpherson may not have been too far off the mark in his claim that the turfs passage not only contradicts Locke’s assertion that each man has a property in their own labor, but that it was also proof that Locke took the existence of wage-labor in England for granted, considering it to be a natural social condition. More important than the specific economic status of the servant – whether he is a wage-laborer, day-laborer, servant-in-husbandry, etc. – is the fact that Locke clearly attributes his labor to that of the “master.” It is the productive use towards which labor is put (be it the labor of the servant or of the horse) by the master that makes the act of labor a form of labor in Locke’s theory of property. It is here that Locke introduces a form of hierarchy of labor: labor that is utilized in a productive manner is clearly a more virtuous form of activity than labor that is not: “As long as labour is expended to “improve” the land and add to the wealth of the community, it matters not whether that labour effectively belongs to the labourer himself or to the master who employs it and puts it to work. In other words, the master’s productive use of property, which entails the appropriation of another’s labour, is treated as equivalent to the servant’s activity of labour itself.”105

Ashcraft is thus right to emphasize this aspect of Locke’s theory of property, and he is perhaps also right in insisting that Locke’s emphasis on the productive use of labor is a critique of the idle sections of the landed aristocracy. But in conflating the productive employment of labor through its alienation with the productive activity of labor itself, Locke is allowing for the improving landlord to be considered just as productive and useful as the tenant-farmer or the industrious artisan. Similarly, the small-holder or the artisan that is not actively improving in the sense of increasing the productive output of his labor, is considered by Locke to be as equally useless and idle as the parasitic courtiers and the indolent aristocracy. Once we recognize the alienability of labor in Locke’s theory of property and shift the emphasis away from the productive use of labor in itself to the productive use of property – which includes the productive use of labor – we can begin to question the belief of both Tully and Ashcraft that Locke’s theory of property not only represents an attack on the landed aristocracy, but empowers smallholders by providing them with a justification for their common rights against the landed aristocracy. Here, Locke’s discussion of improvement and enclosure in the context of the enclosure movement that was discussed in chap-

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ter three helps shed some light on precisely where Locke’s theory of property stands in the larger context of socio-economic conflict. Locke’s pre-occupation with landed property, enclosure and agricultural improvement was been well documented. 106 Locke owned many of the improvement tracts that were published in the late 1640s and early 1650s – a fraction of which were discussed in chapter four. Locke was familiar not only with the techniques of agricultural improvement, but also with the pre-conditions that needed to be attained in order for such improvement to be implemented: namely, the extinction of customary rights to the commons. While it is true that the introduction of money (through tacit agreement no less) fosters the development of a differential increase in the size of estates, thereby resulting in an unequal distribution of property, it is only the advent of improvement that makes this situation acceptable to Locke. While money may provide a stimulus for increased appropriation, it is only through improvement that more land can be brought under cultivation with less labor in ways that prevent the spoilage of the surplus. The improver that appropriates land for cultivation “does not lessen but increase the common stock of mankind” due to the fact that “one acre of inclosed and cultivated land” produces “ten times more, than those, which are yielded by an acre of Land, of an equal richnesse, lyeing wast in common.”107 Indeed, the improvement of the wastes and commons (often conflated by Locke) is of such importance that Locke provides a prescription for productive appropriation even in the case of existing enclosures. Just as the hoarding of goods prior to the development of agriculture, according to Locke, represented not just a violation of the Law of Nature but an invasion of the rights of one’s fellow men due to the abrogation of his right to those things, the same logic applies to the possession of land: “if either the Grass of his Inclosure rotted on the Ground, or the Fruit of his planing perished without gathering, and laying up, this part of the Earth, notwithstanding his Inclosure, was still to be looked on as Waste, and might be the Possession of any other.”108 It is true that this can be seen, in the first instance, as a “radical” attack on the idle aristocracy. Yet, the fact remains, and this will be discussed further, that a significant segment of the landed aristocracy, such as Shaftesbury, were systematically engaged in the kind of agricultural improvement that Locke is prescribing in his chapter on property. A growing number of “gentleman landowners” were becoming versed in the innovations of agricultural improvement through the kind of literature that had been emerging since the 1640s and employed estate stewards to collaborate with their tenant farmers to increase the productivity of their estates. Indeed, the Georgical Committee of the Royal Society received much of its support from these improving landlords interested in new forms of estate management. Thus, as one economic historian has pointed out, “if Whig peers or country gentlemen prospered, it was not because of their Whiggishness but because they found tenants who could make their farmers pay.”109 Similarly, a vast majority of small-holders – who were in the process of declining as a segment of the peasantry – were incapable of raising the necessary capital to engage in these kinds of productive improvements. In particular,

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those with less than 100 acres found the burden particularly difficult. For them, the assertion of use rights to the commons as a means of supplementing their annual yield became a crucial means of survival. As Ellen Wood points out: “There is nothing in the Second Treatise that would tend towards the protection of these customary rights – and a great deal, having to do with the benefits of enclosure and its contribution to the wealth of the community, that would argue in favour of their extinction, in the interests of the commonwealth. In fact, as we have seen, it was precisely the kind of argument from “improvement” employed by Locke that was increasingly being used as a legal challenge to customary rights; and Locke’s theory of property would have made a very serviceable brief for the wave of Parliamentary enclosures that was to be such a notable feature of the eighteenth century.”110

Situated within the context of the socio-economic processes and conflicts related to the enclosure and improvement of the commons, Locke’s seemingly radical defense of the customary rights of small-holders against the idle aristocracy begins to look more like a radical invocation of the rights of “improvement” and productive property against the rights of both the idle aristocracy and the less productive small-holding peasantry. Another crucial element of the Locke-as-Leveller thesis is the relationship that Locke posits between property and consent. For Tully, the selfpropriety that allegedly results from Locke’s broad conception of property forms the basis of a radical democratic form of sovereignty. As such, “the natural right or property of exercising one’s consent over any things which are one’s own will necessarily be the one common element in all civil rights.”111 Property, in the form of lives, liberties and estates, therefore refers to the civil rights of individuals, thereby granting them a “natural right to exercise sovereignty over what is legally one’s own”, including their person.112 As a result of this, Tully argues that Locke “places the right to resist illegal acts of the Crown in the hands of each citizen.”113 Thus, the Two Treatises is “an unequivocal incitement to revolution”.114 All of this leads to the conclusion that Locke’s political theory either allows for, or implies, an exceptionally broad franchise that extends down to the lower classes of society to such an extent that we can consider Locke to be a radical form of democrat. Whether it be based on a broad conception of property that ultimately extends the propertied franchise in the direction of democracy, or on the basis of a taxpayer franchise that seeks to enfranchise hitherto excluded localities, the Locke-as-Leveller thesis establishes a conceptual linkage between the notion of consent and the political rights of citizenship in ways that are more politically inclusive than the “possessive individualist” reading of Macpherson.115 Ashcraft situates Locke’s political theory within the contextual legacy of the Putney debates between the Levellers and Army Grandees, concluding – quite rightly I believe – that the Levellers were more radically democratic than

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Macpherson had initially interpreted them to be. While perhaps excluding receivers of alms as well as servants, Ashcraft argues that “they clearly were not thinking of the thousands of miners, the weavers receiving piece-rate wages, seamen or soldiers, or the forty thousand laborers working in the shipyards”, but rather, seeking to exclude domestic servants that remained dependent on the will of their masters.116 While not explicitly going so far as the Levellers in elaborating his position on the franchise, Ashcraft argues that this debate frames the political and discursive context of the Exclusion Crisis period. As a result, it is Locke’s silence on the extent of the franchise, in light of the more explicitly exclusive formulations of the franchise put forward by political allies like Tyrell and Sidney that leads Ashcraft to situate Locke on the side of the Levellers on this issue of the franchise: “Locke’s argument in the Two Treatises, and the position adopted by most other Whigs, is much more ambiguous in its discussion of “the people” than is Tyrell’s statement. Instead of the latter’s direct and rather conservative response, the Whigs generally formulated a perspective that, while incorporating the emphasis upon property ownership as a rationale for political participation, also left indeterminate the membership status of individuals in the propertyless class. The specification of the nature of the political power in the hands of “the people,” was, as Hickes perceived, a troublesome question for the Whigs. Not surprisingly, they preferred to remain unresponsive to the kinds of specific questions put to them by Hickes and other critics.”117

Thus, Locke’s broad conception of property, coupled with his ambiguous discussion of “the people,” when placed in the context of the Exclusion Crisis and the formulation of more explicitly exclusive discussions of the franchise by radical Whig writers (not to mention Tory allegations of Whig “levelling”) implies that a more radically democratic relationship between property ownership and political participation exists in The Two Treatises than was originally thought. In this sense, “Locke was unobtrusively suggesting that all had a claim to an active political voice.”118 While this is “not so much because of what Locke did say”, it is the result of “his consistency in adhering to the implications of defining property for the protection of which men enter civil society with laws to preserve their lives, liberties and estates.”119 However, those who argue that Locke put forward a wider definition of property and the franchise than that which Macpherson initially claimed are still operating within his contention that consent implies the franchise and that therefore, there exists an intrinsic relationship between the doctrine of consent and an active voice in politics by means of the right to vote for one’s governors, or, in times of crisis, a right of revolution. In other words, they still assume that consent means the franchise. However, a closer reading of Locke’s notion of tacit consent, in conjunction with an awareness of the competing doctrines of consent

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within the context of the Putney debates, as well as the legacy of doctrines of consent within the history of early modern English political thought more generally, compel us to problematize this understanding of the relationship between political rights and consent. As we saw in chapter 5, the Levellers established an explicit relationship between consent and the franchise. The radical nature of this relationship can be seen in the response of the Grandees to Rainsborough’s assertion that the “meanest he” has a life to live just as much as the great men of property, and thereby has a right to consent – through voting – to the government of his day. Ireton insists on a hierarchy of consent that is meant to drive a wedge between consent and the franchise on the basis of property ownership. Express consent is required for those who have a “fixed interest” in the kingdom; namely, the men of landed property who cannot merely leave the country as an expression of their protest against a government without losing their property. For these men, the consent that is required for them to be obliged to obey the authority of the state needs to be expressly stated, notably by means of the franchise. Tacit consent, however, is all that is required for those men who have no fixed interest in the commonwealth. As an example, Ireton refers to the foreign traveler who must obey the laws of the kingdom because the mere fact that he is making use of the highways of the land is enough to register his “tacit” consent to authority. We know that Locke was notoriously ambiguous in defining who “the people” of his popular sovereignty were. Silence on this issue may be less indicative of a tacit acceptance of a broad conception of “the people” that includes the lower classes than it is a conceptual evasion in the interests of ensuring the cohesiveness of the Whig movement. As Ashcraft has ably demonstrated, the Whig opposition represented a broad inter-class alliance that remained tenuous at best, and any explicit definitions of “the people” to include the lower classes may pose a threat to the maintenance of such cohesion. Insofar as this movement defined itself in opposition to royal absolutism, the class differences related to the property of the landed aristocracy and the plebeian element comprising the “industrious sort” could be pushed to the side. As the Putney Debates have demonstrated, precisely who the people were and to what extent their consent was related to an active voice in politics proved to be a highly divisive issue – an issue that highlighted the political differences between the Levellers and the Grandees. Furthermore, Locke’s use of tacit and express consent adds to the difficulty of making sense of the extent he is willing to go to extend the franchise in a radically democratic direction. While Ashcraft is right to situate Locke within the larger context of the Putney debates, it may be misleading to place him on the side of the Levellers as opposed to that of Ireton and the Army Grandees. Indeed, the example that Locke employs as an example of his “tacit consent,” that of the foreigner merely using the highways of the commonwealth, is the same example that Ireton uses against the Levellers to argue against the need to base political obligation on any notion of consent that resulted in the franchise.

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In order to make sense of these complexities and ambiguities, it is worth discussing the ambiguous status of the concept of consent in the history of English political thought. Consent, far from necessarily resulting in democracy countenanced everything from radical Leveller democracy to Royal Absolutism. There is thus no reason why it cannot be compatible with a position somewhere in between these two extremes: something like the parliamentary supremacy of the landed classes in the form of the mixed constitution based on an undemocratic form of representative democracy based on a restricted franchise. In fact, Hooker represents another position in between these two extremes that can be employed for conservative purposes while not necessarily supporting absolutism or tyranny. In the Two Treatises, Locke in fact aligns himself with Hooker and his notion of consent being related to a corpus mysticum.120 Hooker stated that since corporations are immortal, we are bound by the consent granted by our ancestors; that we were present in their actions and are thus bound by the political obligations that they entered into. This is a far cry from Leveller democracy, and breaks the connection that the Levellers had established between consent and the franchise. To make sense of these ambiguities pertaining to Locke’s political theory of consent, a distinction needs to be made between two different acts of consent as they are found in the Two Treatises – namely that which establishes political society, and that which is related to the formation of government. The first act of consent – that which establishes the social order – is designed to preclude the possibility of absolutism as a form of state-society relation. People can only consent to certain conditions; in other words, there are limits, in this first act of consent, to that which people can consent. For example, they cannot alienate their own person to another; or to put it another way, they cannot alienate their natural right of self-preservation in ways that would justify absolutism along Hobbesian lines. This consent is necessarily a form of express consent and applies to everyone who becomes part of civil society, including the lower classes. In terms of the relationship between consent and the formation of government, however, Locke’s invocation of tacit consent as well as Hooker’s notion of corporate consent is significant in qualifying the extent to which “the people,” defined broadly, can have an active force in the formation of their own government. As Ellen Wood has argued: “Locke attacks the right of active individual consent from two directions, by invoking Hooker’s notion of corporate consent and by proposing a theory of individual consent according to which individuals can take upon themselves the obligation to obey merely by giving tacit consent, the kind of consent anyone gives by his mere presence in the commonwealth. This means that the conditions of individual consent could be met by virtual representation. The importance of Locke’s concept of “tacit” consent should not be underestimated. It may never be possible to establish precisely what Locke intended by introducing this ambiguous idea (whether, for example, it was meant to apply specifically to foreigners), but it has one very unambiguous

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consequence: in sharp contrast to radical ideas which associated the obligation to obey with the right to vote, Locke’s theory neatly severs the connection.”121

In other words, there may be no real good reason for us to assume that Locke’s use of consent implies the right to vote at all. There is no real good reason to assume that he took for granted the relationship between consent and the franchise that was established during the debates at Putney Church during the English Civil War. In contrast to Macpherson’s interpretation, Locke’s discussion of tacit and express consent is not so much meant to differentiate between those who have full political rights from those who do not on the basis of property ownership. Rather, it is more of an argument aimed at undermining the patriarchal arguments put forward by the theorists of the absolutism – such as Filmer. It is merely meant to show that men have consented to their obligations and agreements even though they may not know it. In this sense, it makes no difference how broadly Locke may have been willing to define “the people” for their representation in parliament was the kind of “virtual” representation taken for granted by the likes of Sir Thomas Smith before him, and Edmund Burke after him: “Beyond the act of foundation, then, consent is as likely as not to be tacit, even when it is “express”. Men are obliged to adhere to the conditions of the society of which they are members. They become members by “express” consent. They give express consent merely by coming of age. The idea of express consent does not reinstate the connection between obligation and suffrage severed by the notion of tacit consent. Its purpose is, above all, to establish the limits of the original act of consent which rules out royal absolutism, but implies nothing more democratic than that.”122

If this is indeed the case, then the radical interpretation of Locke’s doctrine of consent needs to be taken as Ashcraft argued it should be taken: as an ideological argument designed to hold together a broad based, cross class alliance that pitted the lower classes, the “industrious” parts of the nation, and – that group neglected by Ashcraft’s interpretation – the fraction of improving landlords typified by the Earl of Shaftesbury. In this sense, Locke had to “make the case for a revolution qualitatively different from that aimed at by the Levellers…one that did not entail the threat of the abolition of monarchy and aristocracy, nor of popular suffrage and a democratic republic.”123 If this is the case, then Locke “was never a Leveller, he was never a democrat.” Rather, Locke was a political theorist whose objective was to “replace the absolute arbitrary royal authority with a parliamentarian rule of law, without impairing the legitimacy of the existing social order.”124

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Locke and the Bourgeois Paradigm At the root of the left-wing Locke interpretations is an adherence – albeit in different form – to the bourgeois paradigm that posits an easily identifiable division between the landed aristocracy and the “bourgeois” elements of the City of London. Seen within the context of the radical “Whig” movement of the 1680s, Locke is said to have formed an association with the “industrious” elements of the nation. This, however, is no restatement of Macpherson’s thesis of possessive individualism which viewed Locke as a proponent of unlimited capital accumulation; rather, it presents Locke as the defender of the interests of the small direct producers and tradesmen: the “middling sort of men” the figured so prominently in the London radicalism of the Civil War period. Yet, these interpretations remain mired in the bourgeois paradigm that informed much of the conventional Locke scholarship of the mid-century. While neither Ashcraft nor Tully are characterizing Locke as an apologist for “bourgeois” capitalism, represented by the interests of the manufacturing or commercial bourgeoisie against those of a parasitic and rentier-minded aristocracy, Locke is a proponent of the “middling sort” of industrious men; and their opponent is still a largely feudal aristocracy. In this version of the bourgeois paradigm, however, Locke – still the bourgeois – is an anti-capitalist bourgeois radical whose political theory has no room for either the capitalist or the wagelaborer. We therefore still have a dichotomy that pits the dynamism of urban life against the static nature of agrarian society; we still have a paradigm that opposes an industrious class (albeit in this case not capitalist) against a parasitic and rentier minded feudal aristocracy. As argued in chapter 2, however, this paradigm of socio-economic and political forces does not hold for 17th century England. We can no more speak of a landed aristocracy unified on the basis of feudal privilege and strictly rentier activity than we can an urban merchant class that is engaged in dynamic, industrious and productive sorts of activity. The class composition of early modern England was much more complicated than such a schema suggests. While there certainly were landed aristocrats who were preoccupied by ostentatious living and the unproductive intrigues of courtly life; and no doubt there were “bourgeois” elements amongst the tradesmen, artisans and merchants who were increasing the wealth of the nation through their industriousness, there was also a significant fraction of the aristocracy who were engaged in the productive “improvement” of their landed estates along what we would today call “capitalist” lines; and equally, there were merchant oligarchs whose royal charters, patents and monopolies allowed them to make a lucrative profit off of the import and export of luxury goods. Whereas the traditional bourgeois paradigm was predicated upon an understanding of Locke’s context to be defined by the development of commercial and industrial capitalism that was an essentially urban phenomenon, the radical interpretations of Locke have jettisoned such a context under the charge

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of anachronism. In its place stands mercantilism as an allegedly more historically specific characterization of the historical context. However, to say that Locke urged the landed aristocracy to become more interested in “trade” and that this fact places him on the side of “mercantilism” is misleading to say the least. Critics have already demonstrated the limits of the term mercantilism when applied to 17th century English commercial developments in relationship to the state of commerce and politics on the continent.125 Mercantilism as a commercial practice and an intellectual doctrine was mediated by the predominant forms of social relations that existed in each country. As such, mercantilism in 17 th century France was mediated by the social relations of feudal Absolutism, whereas English mercantilism was conditioned by the social relations of agrarian capitalism.126 But reliance on the term mercantilism to refer to the interests of the “trading part” of the nation serves to conflate what are in fact different forms of commercial activity and their relationship to the politics of the day. 127 To put it another way, this reliance on the notion of mercantilism obscures the qualitative differences between established forms of pre-capitalist mercantile activity and what we can only call emerging forms of “capitalist” trade and the way in which these differences redefine the relationship between commercial activity and politics in the 17th century. In accordance with the preceding discussion of his theory of labor and property, it is perhaps more accurate to consider Locke a theorist (as opposed to a vulgar apologist) of agrarian capitalism. Yet, it remains to relate these complex developments to the various political developments of the late Stuart period in order to assess the allegedly radical nature of Locke’s politics and his political theory. Seen in such a context, we can begin to get a better sense of the compatibility between Locke’s political “radicalism” (and even this remains qualified given the nature of the constitution settlement he preferred) and his desire to preserve the relations of landed property and the new forms of commercial activity that had emerged over the course of the 17 th century. Thus, rather than being characterized by a context of political conflict that can be simply “read off” the class structure comprised of landed aristocrats and an urban bourgeoisie, seventeenth-century England was characterized by a pattern of political conflict that can be best understood in relation to the ways in which capitalist social property relations altered the nature of the economic activity and interests of fractions of both the landed aristocracy and the urban bourgeoisie. Historical materialism, that is, the Marxist approach to socio-historical development and transition, needs to begin taking a closer look at the developments of the late 17th century in a way that moves beyond the bourgeois paradigm of bourgeois versus feudal aristocracy; and more specifically, historical materialism needs to move away from an “event centered” approach to capitalist development that sees it as the result of a single, revolutionary rupture – the revolution of 1649 – and situate it within a larger socio-historical context that treats the development of capitalism more as the complex historical process that it was.

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Notes 1. Hobbes also railed against the barbarous treatment of the socially “inferior” at the hands of those in power. Hobbes, Leviathan, 82. 2. Hobbes, Leviathan, 374. 3. Skinner, “Conquest.” 4. In making this claim, this interpretation rejects the view that Hobbes is a “bourgeois” theorist. For Hobbes as a bourgeois theorist, see Leo Strauss, The Political Philosophy of Hobbes: Its Basis and its Genesis (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936); Macpherson, “Possessive Individualism,” Peter Hayes, “Hobbes’s Bourgeois Moderation.” Polity 31 no. 1 (1998): 53-74. However, this interpretation also rejects the more historicist interpretations that have sought to relate Hobbes’s political theory to the purely contingent events of the English Civil War and Revolution. Although scholars like Ashcraft and Skinner are right to emphasize the formative impact of the Civil War and the Engagement controversy on Hobbes’s intellectual development (and the Exclusion Crisis and London radicalism on that of Locke), they tend to isolate these tumultuous developments from the larger context of social transition that was occurring in 17th century England. Richard Ashcraft, “Ideology and Class in Hobbes’s Political Theory,” Political Theory 6 (1) 1978: 27-62. Quentin Skinner, “The Ideological Context of Hobbes’s Political Theory,” Historical Journal (9) 1966: 286-317; and Skinner, “Conquest and Consent.” The interpretation put forward here generally supports the interpretation of Hobbes put forward by Keith Thomas and Ellen and Neal Wood. See Keith Thomas, “The Social Origins of Hobbes’s Political Theory,” in Hobbes Studies, ed. K.C. Brown (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1965); Neal Wood, “Thomas Hobbes and the Crisis of the English Aristocracy.” History of Political Thought 1 no. 3 (1980); Wood and Wood, Trumpet of Sedition. 5. Indeed, much has been made about the persistence of the feudal remnants in English political culture, in which status distinctions still exist, distinguishing between those of “gentlemanly” status and those of lower birth. It is one of the peculiarities of English socio-historical development, however, that these status distinctions do not correspond to the development of capitalist social property relations. For more on this, see Wood, Pristine. 6. For insightful discussions on the complex relationship between class and status in early modern England, and the increasing importance of class, see Wood and Wood, Trumpet; Manning, Aristocrats. 7. Frank Coleman makes the argument that Hobbes was a liberal-democrat whose philosophical legacy informs the nature of American politics. Frank Coleman, Hobbes and America: Exploring the Constitutional Foundations (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977). Coleman makes the astonishing claim that Hobbes bestows upon his individuals a right of resistance against the sovereign; a claim that cannot stand up to even a cursory reading of the chapter in Leviathan titled “The Rights of the Sovereign.” For a convincing critique of Coleman’s thesis, see Terry Heinrichs, “Hobbes and the Coleman Thesis,” Polity 16 no. 4 (1984): 647-666. 8. For an insightful analysis of the class nature of classical aristocratic political thought,

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see Wood, Ellen Meiksins and Neal Wood, Class Ideology and Ancient Political Theory. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1978). 9. Thomas, “Hobbes’s Political Theory,” 202; Wood, “Thomas Hobbes,” 441. Hobbes’s virtues and his sanctioning of moderation should therefore be interpreted as aspects of his aristocratic political theory, not, as components of a bourgeois morality. Hayes argues that a “prudential” theory of civil moderation as well as the elements of noblesse oblige found in Hobbes’s political thought – particularly his attitudes to charity and his granting of a right of subsistence to the poor – are expressions of “bourgeois moderation” that forms an ethical underpinning of bourgeois society. How moderation is a characteristically bourgeois value is never adequately explained by Hayes. Hayes, “Bourgeois Moderation.” 10. Thomas, “Hobbes’s Political Theory,” 206. 11. Thomas, “Hobbes’s Political Theory,” 207. 12. Wood, “Thomas Hobbes,” 439. 13. Hobbes, Leviathan, 224-5. 14. Hobbes, Leviathan, 220. 15. Hobbes, Leviathan, 220-1. 16. “I Authorize and give up my Right of Governing my selfe, to this Man, or to this Assembly of men, on this condition, that thou give up thy Right to him, and Authorise all his Actions in like manner. This done, the Multitude so united in one Person, is called a COMMON-WEALTH, in latine CIVITAS.” Hobbes, Leviathan, 227. 17. Hobbes, Leviathan, 227. 18. Thomas Hobbes, On the Citizen, ed. Richard Tuck and Michael Silverthorne (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). 19. This concept of authorization represents a modification of Hobbes’s argument presented in De Cive ten years earlier. This point is made by Wood and Wood, Trumpet. 20. Hobbes, Leviathan, 230. 21. See previous chapter. Macpherson shows no awareness of the challenge posed to his interpretation by the general hostility directed at Hobbes’s work in his native England. In contrast, his absolutism was much more enthusiastically received on the continent, particularly in France, where the centrifugal tendencies of parcellized sovereignty – as opposed to incipient capitalism – provoked an outpouring of theoretical absolutism. For more on Hobbes and the differences between the French and English ideological contexts, see Quentin Skinner, “The Ideological Context of Hobbes’s Political Thought,” The Historical Journal 9 no. 3 (1966): 286-317; see also Quentin Skinner, “Thomas Hobbes and his Disciples in France and England,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 8 no. 2 (1966): 153-167. Skinner, however, contends that conventional interpretations of Hobbes overstate his contemporary unpopularity and suggests that the rationalism embedded in his doctrine of political obligation – as opposed to his absolutism or his alleged “possessive individualism” – enjoyed more widespread acceptance than previously believed. 22. Wood, “Thomas Hobbes,” 452. 23. The various arguments related to the modernity of Hobbes’s theory of sovereignty are legion. Indeed, this is the standard interpretation prevalent amongst most surveys of the history of political thought. For a recent presentation of Hobbes’s modern state within

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the context of the history of political thought, see Brian Nelson, The Making of the Modern State: a theoretical evolution (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2006). 24. Aaron Levy, “Economic Views of Thomas Hobbes,” Journal of the History of Ideas 15 no. 4 (1954): 589-95. 25. Thomas, “Hobbes’s Political Theory,” 224-5. 26. Macpherson argues that this denial of absolute property rights of subjects against the sovereign results from Hobbes’s erroneous belief that social cohesion in a possessive market society is impossible without an absolute sovereign. In other words, he fails to understand that a capitalist society introduces its own mechanisms for the attainment of social cohesion. Macpherson, Possessive Individualism. 27. Hobbes, Leviathan, 297. 28. Hobbes, Leviathan, 209. 29. Hobbes, Leviathan, 209. 30. Hobbes, Leviathan, 210. 31. Hobbes, Leviathan, 209-10. 32. Hobbes, Leviathan, 212. 33. Hobbes, Leviathan, 213. 34. Thomas has documented how a member of the Hobbes family petitioned in support of impoverished artisans from Hobbes’s home of Malmesbury who were engaged in the act of pilfering as a means of survival. It is not unreasonable to associate this act with Hobbes’s own right of subsistence and the qualifications he imposes on the sanctity of private property. Thomas, “Hobbes’s Political Theory.” 35. Thomas, “Hobbes’s Political Theory,” 227. 36. Hobbes, Leviathan, 282. 37. Hobbes, Leviathan, 281-2. 38. Brenner, Merchants. 39. Hobbes, cited in Levy, “Economic Views,” 592. 40. Hobbes, Leviathan, 299. 41. Coleman cited in Heinrichs, “Hobbes and the Coleman Thesis,” 651. 42. While the abolition of monopolies would destroy the basis for merchant selfregulation, characteristic of the exclusionary practices of the oligarchic merchant companies, it would merely represent a different configuration of the fusion of political and economic forms of surplus extraction. 43. These two points are made by Levy, “Economic Views”. 44. However, as it was pointed out in chapter three, this process of full proletarianization occurred over the course of many generations. 45. But even here it is important to point out that in De Cive Hobbes dedicates an entire chapter to the relationship between master and slave. It may be significant, however, that this discussion does not appear in Leviathan, rather, Hobbes speaks of the relationship between master and servant, which are distinguished from slaves on the basis of their consenting to their subordination. 46. Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1953). 47. Macpherson, Possessive Individualism. The critiques of Macpherson's interpretation of Locke are legion. For the more insightful critiques, see Alan Ryan, “Locke and the

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Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie,” Political Studies (1965): 219-30. E.J. Hundert, “The Making of Homo Faber: John Locke between Ideology and History,” Journal of the History of Ideas 33 no. 1 (1972): 3-22. Keith Tribe, Land, Labour and Economic Discourse (New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978). For a recent defense of Macpherson’s view on Locke’s disenfranchisement of the propertyless in relation to his doctrine of consent, see Ron Becker, “The Ideological Commitment of Locke: Freemen and Servants in the Two Treatises of Government,” History of Political Thought 13 no. 4 (1992): 631-56. 48. Sheldon Wolin, Politics and Vision (Boston: Little, Brown: 1960). 49. Peter Laslett, “Introduction,” in Two Treatises of Government, ed. Peter Laslett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988). 50. Ashcraft, Revolutionary Politics. 51. For a critique of Ashcraft’s account of Locke’s radical activities – particularly his involvement in the Rye House plot (indeed, the very existence of such a plot) – see Philip Milton, “John Locke and the Rye House Plot,” Historical Journal 43 no. 3 (2000): 64768. Milton contests Ashcraft’s claims that Locke was closely involved in the Rye House Plot. For a skeptical view of the actual existence of the Rye House Plot, see Gordon Schochet, “Radical Politics and Ashcraft’s Treatise on Locke,” Journal of the History of Ideas 50 no. 3 (1989): 491-510. 52. Tully, Discourse; James Tully, An Approach to Political Philosophy: Locke in Context (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). 53. Julian Franklin, John Locke and the Theory of Sovereignty (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978); S.B. Drury, “Locke and Nozick on property,” Political Studies, XXX, no. 1 (1982): 28-41; Judith Richards, Lotte Mulligan and John K. Graham, ““Property” and “People”: Political Usages of Locke and Some Contemporaries,” Journal of the History of Ideas, 42 (1981): 29-51. 54. Locke, Two Treatises, 286. 55. Locke, Two Treatises, 288. 56. Proponents of absolutism had established a conceptual dichotomy regarding the nature of property: property was either part of the patrimony of the monarch by the gift of God, or it was held in common and private property could not be said to exist. This is the line put forward by Filmer, against whom the Two Treatises is aimed. 57. Macpherson, Possessive Individualism. 58. Locke, Two Treatises. 59. Macpherson, Possessive Individualism, 221. 60. I say far removed because while the target of Filmer is obvious, neither Grotius nor Pufendorf figure significantly in the Second Treatise and are nowhere to be found in the chapter on property. In this regard, I share Wood’s reservation about the value of situating Locke within a transhistorical tradition of natural law. How this “portmanteau” category can help us understand the specificity of Locke’s theory of property is seriously open to question. For some insightful criticisms of this aspect of the Cambridge School approach, see Wood, “Radicalism, Capitalism and Historical Contexts.” 61. Locke, Two Treatises, 287-8. 62. Tully, Discourse, 138. 63. Tully, Discourse, 138. 64. Tully, Discourse, 142.

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65. Tully, Discourse, 138. 66. Tully, Discourse, 143. 67. Tully, Discourse, 154. 68. Ashcraft, Revolutionary Politics, 264. 69. Despite Ashcraft’s belief that a proper contextualization of political theory requires situating it within its property socio-economic context, there are significant problems with the way he characterizes this context. At times he presumes the character of this context, and at other times he is inconsistent in his treatment of the aristocracy; and in general, the socio-economic context takes a distant back seat to the intellectual and political context which situates his method closer to the Cambridge School than he at time acknowledges. 70. Ashcraft, Revolutionary Politics, 281. 71. Ashcraft, Two Treatises, 85-6. 72. Ashcraft, Two Treatises, 85-6. 73. Ashcraft, Revolutionary Politics, 272-3. 74. Tully, Discourse, 171. 75. Tully, Discourse, 172. 76. Tully, Discourse, 172. 77. Tully, Discourse, 172. 78. Judith Richards, Lotte Mulligan and John K. Graham, ““Property” and “People”: Political Usages of Locke and Some Contemporaries”, Journal of the History of Ideas, 42 (1981): 29-51 79. Richards, Mulligan and Graham, “Property and People,” 45. 80. Richards, Mulligan and Graham, “Property and People,” 47, 81. Richards, Mulligan and Graham, “Property and People,” 51. 82. Richard Ashcraft, “Revolutionary Politics and Locke’s Two Treatises of Government: Radicalism and Lockean Political Theory,” Political Theory 8 no. 4 (1980): 429486; 431. 83. Locke was later to assume the position of secretary on the short-lived Council of Trade and Plantations. 84. David Wootton argues that the kind of inegalitarian, aristocratic society outlined in the Constitutions is perfectly compatible with the kind of political defense of the rights of a hereditary aristocracy that Shaftesbury outlines in A Letter from a Person of Quality. This is important because Ashcraft puts an egalitarian gloss on this text. David Wootton, “John Locke and Richard Ashcraft’s Revolutionary Politics,” Political Studies 40 (1992): 79-98. 85. McNally, “Locke, Levellers and Liberty,” 22. 86. McNally, “Locke, Levellers and Liberty,” 20. 87. James Farr and Clayton Roberts, “John Locke and the Glorious Revolution: A Rediscovered Document,” The Historical Journal 28 no. 2 (1985): 391-2. 88. Ashcraft at least recognizes the fact that Locke sanctions the selling of slaves as a form of property. Richard Ashcraft, Locke’s Two Treatises of Government (London: Allen & Unwin, 1987). 89. David Armitage, “John Locke, Carolina and the Two Treatises of Government,”

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Political Theory 32 no. 5 (October 2004): 602-27. 90. Barbara Arneil, “John Locke, Natural Law and Colonialism,” History of Political Thought 13 no. 4 (1992): 587-603. 91. John Locke, Draft of a Representation Containing a Scheme of Methods for the Employment of the Poor. Proposed by Mr. Locke, the 26th October 1697, in Locke’s Political Writings, ed. David Wootton (Mentor), 447. 92. Wootton, “John Locke.” 93. Traditional conceptions of charity – and there is no good reason why we should approach Locke’s discussion of charity as being anything other than traditional – are perfectly compatible with a belief in the “natural” (in the moral sense at least) character of the social hierarchy that divides the rich and powerful from the poor and weak. Traditional conservatism had (and still has) no problem in reconciling notions of noblesse oblige with a firm commitment to the maintenance of property differentials and inegalitarian political arrangements. Indeed, as Wood points out, charity is traditionally proportionate to one’s station; and charity in this case may account for little more than the bare necessities of life. Viewed at historically, the claim that the existence of charity precludes the development of wage labor is absurd. Wood, John Locke. 94. Locke cited in Wood, John Locke, 79; emphasis added. 95. In his study on Locke, Ashcraft failed to demonstrate that the radicalism of the radicals with which Locke was allegedly associated with consisted of a leveling threat to property as opposed to merely a challenge to the political monopoly of power enjoyed by the landed aristocracy. In fact, Ashcraft convincingly shows how radicals like Sidney and Tyrell went to great pains to demonstrate their opposition to Leveller ideas pertaining to property and the franchise. 96. As Gordon Schochet has pointed out, Locke’s use of the broad definition of property to refer to lives, liberties and estates reflected conventional usage and is therefore not exceptional – contrary to the emphasis placed upon it by the Locke-as-Leveller thesis. What was unconventional at the time was the linking of property with notions of improvement. Gordon Schochet, “Guards and Fences”: Property and Obligation in Locke’s Political Thought,” History of Political Thought 21(3): 365-389. 97. Locke, Two Treatises, 289. 98. Wood, John Locke. 99. Locke, Two Treatises, 322. 100. Locke, Two Treatises, 285. 101. Locke, Two Treatises, 322-23. 102. Tully, Discourse, 139. 103. Tully, Discourse, 139. 104. Neal Wood has shown how Tully fundamentally misunderstands the distinction between a social division of labor in which different forms of labor are distributed to different sectors of society, and the technical division of labor in which the production of a particular commodity is broken down into its constituent parts. Tully mistakenly attributes the former to pre-capitalist societies only, because he identifies it with labor that is characterized by a unity of conception and execution; and he attributes the latter to capitalism. Wood, John Locke. 105. Wood, “Locke against Democracy,” 679.

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106. Wood, John Locke. 107. Locke, Two Treatises, 294. 108. Locke, Two Treatises, 295. 109. D.C. Coleman, The Economy of England, 1450-1750 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), 130. 110. Wood, “Locke against Democracy,” 682. 111. Tully, A Discourse, 171. 112. Tully, A Discourse, 172. For a radically different interpretation of Locke’s broad definition of property, one that emphasizes the significance of his conflation of lives, liberties and estates in his conception of property as opposed to the Leveller distinction between property as lives and liberties and property as estates – all the while privileging the former – see McNally, “Locke, Levellers and Liberty”. 113. Tully, A Discourse, 172. 114. Tully, A Discourse, 172. 115. For the argument of Locke as a democrat on the basis of his views on taxation and reform, see Martin Hughes, “Locke on Taxation and Suffrage,” History of Political Thought 11 (1990): 423-42; and Martin Hughes, “Locke, Taxation and Reform: A Reply to Wood,” History of Political Thought 13 no. 4 (1992): 691-702. 116. Ashcraft, Revolutionary Politics, 160. 117. Ashcraft, Revolutionary Politics, 237. 118. Richards, Mulligan and Graham, “Property and People,” 39. Emphasis added. 119. Richards, Mulligan and Graham, “Property and People,” 45. 120. This point is made by Ellen Meiksins Wood in Wood, “Locke against Democracy.” 121. Wood, “Locke against Democracy,” 667. 122. Wood, “Locke against Democracy,” 671. 123. McNally, “Locke, Levellers and Liberty,” 26. 124. Becker, “Freemen,” 632. 125. Wood, “Radicalism”; McNally, Political Economy. In fact, Ashcraft himself tacitly admits to the limits of the notion of mercantilism when, in citing the work of a leading scholar in mercantilism to bolster his argument against Wood, he states that mercantilism was determined by the specific social relations that characterized each particular country. As a result, mercantilism was socially specific and differed from country to country. Ashcraft, “Radical Dimensions.” 126 McNally, Political Economy. 127 Brenner discusses this difference at great length in his study on the role of merchants in the English Revolution. Brenner, Merchants and Revolution.

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Woodhouse, A.S.P., ed. Puritanism and Liberty. London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1974. Woolrych, Austin, ‘The Debates from the Perspective of the Army.’ In The Putney Debates of 1647, edited by Michael Mendle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Wootton, David, ed. Political Writings of John Locke. Mentor, 1993. Wootton, David. ‘From rebellion to revolution: the crisis of the winter of 1642/3 and the origins of Civil War radicalism.’ The English Historical Review 105 no. 416 (1990): 654-669. Wootton, David. ‘Introduction.’ In Divine Right and Democracy, edited by David Wootton. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1986. Wootton, David. ‘John Locke and Richard Ashcraft’s Revolutionary Politics.’ Political Studies 40 (1992): 79-98. Worden, Blair. ‘Marchamont Nedham and the Origins of English Republicanism.’ In Republicanism, Liberty and Commercial Society: 1649-1776, edited by David Wootton. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994. Worden, Blair. ‘Republicanism, Regicide and Republics: The English Experience.’ In Republicanism: A Shared European Heritage, volume I. edited Martin van Gelderen and Quentin Skinner. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Worden, Blair. The Rump Parliament, 1648-1653. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974. Wordie, J.R. ‘A Chronology of English Enclosure, 1500-1914.’ The Economic History Review 36 no. 4 (1983): 483-505. Zagorin, Perez. ‘The Social Interpretation of the English Revolution.’ Journal of Economic History 19 no. 3 (1959): 376-401. Zagorin, Perez. A History of Political Thought in the English Revolution. New York: Routledge, 1954. Zmolek, Michael. ‘Debating Agrarian Capitalism: a rejoinder to Albritton.’ Journal of Peasant Studies 31 no. 2 (2004): 276-305. Zmolek, Michael. ‘Further Thoughts on Agrarian Capitalism: a reply to Albritton.’ Journal of Peasant Studies 29 no. 1 (2001): 129-54. Zmolek, Michael. ‘The Case for Agrarian Capitalism: a response to Albritton.’ Journal of Peasant Studies 27 no. 4 (2000).

Index Absolutism (absolutist state), 2, 58, 12, 33, 37-8, 48-51, 56n. Agrarian capitalism, 37-8, 44, 48-9, 52-3, 60-1, 65, 68-9, 75, 77-8, 808, 90, 92, 93n., 96n.-99n., 214, 222, 225, 235 Ancient Constitution, 3, 15-16, 141, 149, 159, 175n. Anderson, Perry, 12-13, 24n.-25n., 29-30, 34, 40, 45, 53n., 55n.-56n., 58n. Aristocracy, 3, 9-10, 12, 19, 23n.,24n. Ascham, Anthony, 170-172, 179n. Ashcraft, Richard, 214, 218-22, 227, 230-1, 233-4, 236n., 239n.242n.

Charles, King, 155 Commercial society, 19, 27n., 37, 45, 57n. Commons (common land), 101, 103, 105, 107, 113-120, 125, 1289, 131, 135n., 137n.-138n. Common Law, 72-75, 77, 88 Commonwealth, 146, 152, 164, 167-9, 172 Commonwealthmen, 109-111 Comninel, George, 36, 54n.-55n., 77-8, 92n., 95n.-7n., 99n. Condren, Conal, 17, 19-20, 27n.28n. Council of State, 166, 168 Cromwell, Oliver, 157-8, 161-2, 164, 167-9 Crowley, Robert, 110, 136n. Custom (customary regulations), 70, 74-7, 79-80, 84, 86-8, 91 Customary tenures, 73, 75, 78

Becon, Thomas, 136n. Blakey, Robert, 5 Blith, Walter, 120-1, 127, 137n.138n. Bourgeoisie, 3, 9-10, 12, 14, 20, 24n., 27n. Bourgeois paradigm, 205, 234-5 Bourgeois Revolution, 1, 8-14; 23n.-24n., 29-35 Brenner, Robert, 36, 37, 54n.-56n., 66-8, 75, 79-80, 82, 92n.-96n. Brinklow, Henry, 136n. Burgess, Glenn, 22n.

Davidson, Neil, 32-34, 39, 53n.54n., 56n. Davis, J.C., 20-1, 25n., 27n., 28n. Diggers, 11, 13, 16, 20-1, 25n, 28n., 123-130 Dobb, Maurice, 62-6, 77, 92n.-95n. Dunn, John, 16-17, 26n. Engagement Controversy, 18, 20, 28n., 164, 168, 170, 172, 178n.179n. Enclosures, 69, 75-78, 80, 83-85, 89, depopulation by, 97, 107-109, 120, 131 Enclosure riots, 105-6, 124, 135n. English Revolution, 1-2, 4-5, 8-15, 18-21, 24n.-25n Estates, 67,-8, 72, 76, 87 Exclusion Crisis, 230, 236

Callinicos, Alex, 32-3, 53n.-54n. Cambridge School, 17-18, 44-47, 49 Capitalism, 8-10, 13, 24n., 28n., 29, 31-6, 39-46, 48, 52 Capitalist social property relations, 37-8, 40, 81, 91 Chamberlen, Peter, 114-116, 127, 137n. 261

Index

Feudalism, 8, 12, 69-72, 77, 92n.97n. Fortrey, Samuel, 131, 139n. Freehold, 65, 72-5, 77-9, 96n. French Revolution, 19 Gardiner, S.R., 4, 6, 22 Glorious Revolution, 2, 7, 214-15 Goodwin, John, 165, 168-70, 178n. Gower, John, 101, 133n. Great Revolt, 97, 100, 102 Harrington, James, 1, 8, 12, 19, 28n. Hartlib, Samuel, 115, 124, 130, 139n. Hill, Christopher, 8-10, 30-2, 34, 53n., 55n., 185 Hilton, R.H., 64-66, 72, 77, 92n.96n. Hobbes, Thomas, 7, 12, 20, 28n., 203-14 Holstun, James, 56n., 80, 97n. Hume, David, 1-3, 18, 22n. Hunton, Philip, 149-50, 152, 175n. Improvement, 112-121, 123-24, 127-8, 130, 132, 135n. Improvers, 112, 117, 120-1, 124, 127, 130-2, 140 Independents, 153-7, 164-9 Ireton, Henry, 157, 159, 160-5 Ket’s Rebellion, 110-11, 135n. Kingly power, 185, 188-92, 196-8 Kishlansky, Mark, 15-16, 26n. Langland, William, 99-100, 103 Latimer, Hugh, 110, 136n. Leasehold tenures, 73-4, 77-80, 87, 96n. Lee, Joseph, 137n.

262 Levellers, 11-12, 14, 16, 20-1, 25n., 28n., 121-3, 132n., 138n.-139n., 152-8, 160-1, 163-9, 208, 215, 219-21, 230-2 Lilburne, John, 123, 154, 167 Locke, John, 7, 12, 18, 20, 23, 28n., 131-2, 214-235 Lordship, 64, 68-75 Macaulay, 1, 3-6, 22n. Macpherson, C.B., 12, 13; 43-45, 81-3, 97n., 205, 209-10, 214-18, 220-1, 227, 230, 233-3, 237n., 238n. Manning, Brian, 31-2, 34, 53n., 55n. Market dependence, 68-9, 80-1, 83, 85, 87, 94n. Marten, Henry, 148, 166 Marx, Karl, 32, 35, 37, 41-2, 48 Marxism, 2, 8-13, 16-17, 29-48, 51, 53 (Political Marxism, 35-40) McNally, David, 139, 242 Mercantilism, 235, 242 Midland Revolt, 105 Milton, John, 169-70, 196 Mixed constitution, 141, 145, 14950 Mode of production, 32-3, 36, 624, 69, 71, 87, 95n. Moral economy, 98, 101, 108, 112, 130 More, Thomas, 108-109 Morrill, John, 15-16, 26n. Mooers, Colin, 55n. Moore, John, 113-14, 117-18 Nedham, Marchamont, 172 New Merchants, 164 New Model Army, 11, 14, 16, 1547, 160, 162, 164-9, 184, 186-91 Norman Conquest, 60, 141, 170 Norman Yoke, 183-8, 191, 193

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Diggers, Levellers and Agrarian Capitalism

Overton, William, 121-3, 138n., 155-6 Parker, Henry, 148-52 Parliament, 142-4, 147-58, 162-67, 169 Parliamentary sovereignty, 148, 154-6, 158, 163, 165, 169, 172 Petition of Right, 148 Petty, Maximilian, 159-60 Petty, William, 130-1, 139n. Pilgrimage of Grace, 105 Pocock, J.G.A., 45-6, 48-9, 51, 57n. Poll Tax, 102 Poor Laws, 89 Popular sovereignty, 141, 145-58, 162-3, 165, 167-70, 176n., 178n.179n. Politically constituted property, 52, 68, 90 Ponet, John, 109, 136n. Possessive Individualism, 12-13, 18-19, 44-5, 83, 205, 216, 234, 237n Possessive market society, 43-4, 49, 81-3, 88 Pre-capitalism (pre-capitalist societies), 37, 39, 42, 45, 48, 56n. Pre-capitalist social property relations, 66-7, 69 Presbyterians, 153, 155-7, 166-8, 170, 178n., 188-9 Pride’s Purge, 168-9 Proletarianization, 60-1, 81-5, 87-8, 99n. Putney Debates, 16, 18, 153, 157-8, 163, 220, 230-1

Radicalism, 11-14, 16, 20-1, 25n. Rainsborough, Colonel, 158-60, 162 Republicanism, 12-3, 19, 165, 170 Restoration, 7, 12 Revisionism, 2, 13-21 Royalists, 3, 15, 19, 147,149-52, 154, 164,167-70 Rump Parliament, 166-7 Russell, Conrad, 13-15, 26n. Sabine, George, 6, 23n. Serfdom: 69, 95n., 96n. Servants, 83-4, 218, 223, 230 Sexby, William, 158-8, 162 Sidney, Algernon, 221, 230, 241 Skinner, Quentin, 16-18, 22n., 26n.-28n. Smith, Thomas: 111-12, 124, 136n. Social property relations, 38-8, 44, 51, 75, 83, 94n.-95n. Solemn League and Covenant, 183, 186-90 Star Chamber, 105-6 Starkey, Thomas, 109 Statue of Labourers, 102, 104 Stone, Lawrence, 8-10; Sweezy, Paul, 94n.-95n. Tawney, R.H., 8-10, 74, 76-8, 94n, 96n., 97n. Taylor, Silvanus, 119-121, 137n.138n. Thomas, Keith, 204, 211, 238n. Thompson, E.P., 80, 75, 96n.-7n., 99n. Trevelyan, G.M., 5, 23n. Tully, James, 215, 217-222, 224, 226-7, 229, 234, 241n. Tyrell, James, 221, 230, 241n.

Index

Villein tenure, 73, 135n. Wage-labor (wage-laborers), 60, 61, 64, 82, 85-6, 88, 91, 95n., 98n., 214, 217-18, 224-7, 234 Walwyn, William, 121-3, 138n. Whiggism, 2-8, 16, 18 Whig interpretation of history, 1, 47, 13 Whigs, 1-4, 7, 13, 15, 19, 22n., 221, 224, 230 Wildman, John, 159, 161 Winstanley, Gerrard, 11, 13,21, 108, 115, 124-130, 183-199 Wood, Ellen Meiksins, 39, 48-9, 52, 54n.-59n., 82-3, 68, 92n.95n., 98n.-99n., 229, 232, 236n.237n., 239n., 242n. Wood, Neal, 47-8, 58n-59n., 98n., 111, 132,136n., 139n.-140n., 205, 236n.-237n., 241n. Wootton, David, 151-2, 224, 240 Wycliffe (Wyclif), 100, 133n. Zagorin, Perez, 7, 10, 23n.-26n.

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About the Author Geoff Kennedy is visiting assistant professor of political science and international relations at the Middle East Technical University in Northern Cyprus. He is the author of articles for the journals Historical Materialism and The European Journal of Political Thought. He is also the author of a chapter on the English Revolution in the recent publication History and Revolution: Refuting Revisionism published by Verso Books. He is currently working on a history of empire and republican political thought.

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