SIM: The Leveller Manifesto

A little bit of background for later books

The Leveller Manifesto

Historian’s Note

The Leveller Manifesto was first delivered as a speech, by ‘Common Man,’ at the First Leveller Conference, held at Heart’s Eye shortly after the Zangarian Civil War.  It was transcribed by ‘Working Girl,’ then printed, bound and distributed right across the Allied Lands.  It was, naturally, immediately banned by every kingdom and the majority of free cities, despite which copies can be found almost everywhere.  Precisely who hides behind the nom de plume of ‘Common Man’ is a mystery, with speculation ranging from Lady Emily herself (despite the claims in the speech) to a wealthy merchant or magician from Cockatrice.  We simply don’t know.

The Speech

Who decreed the order of society?

We are told that the kings and princes were placed above us by the gods, that their power was granted by divine fiat, that they have a divine right to rule.  This is, dare I say, awfully convenient for them.  We are not permitted to question their right to rule. 

But question it we must.  Who decreed that they are set above us?

Some kings and princes tell us they rule by divine right.  Some tell us they rule because their ancestors preserved something of civilisation in the wake of the empire’s fall and therefore they have an inherent right to rule.  Yet this cannot possibly be true.  An inherent right would be unchallengeable, yet history records no shortage of usurpers who have successfully taken thrones and then had themselves retroactively decreed the rightful rulers all along.  We are expected to believe they were the rightful kings and thus they won?  Or is it more reasonable to suggest they won because they had superior force?

Their rule rests on force.  It rests on the ability to deploy superior military force against enemies both inside and outside the kingdom.  When that force is unable to cope with challenges, the kings – despite their claim of divine right – are weakened or overthrown by their enemies.  And it is achingly clear that those who assert the loudest claims to divine right are the least convinced by it.  The aristocracies are forever wearing away at their king’s power. 

They are, at best, parasites.  They take from those they consider to be chattel and give nothing in return.  Not even protection.  Where is the law, when a powerful man’s interests are threatened?  It simply does not exist.  They tell us, those glorious kings, that they are the fathers of their people.  They want us to believe that they are in ignorance of the terrible crimes perpetrated by their nobility, that – if we should bring those crimes to their attention – they will deal with them immediately.  But this is a lie.  They will do nothing for those they claim to rule.

This might be bearable, perhaps, if they were better people, if they were good at ruling.  But they are not.  Those who inherit their power from their fathers are often challenged or overthrown, if only because they don’t understand the limits of power.  Even when they are not, are they good at ruling?  They are not.  They pick fights with other kingdoms, treating war as a game even as the poor folk suffer and die at the hands of opposing armies.  They eat their seed corn and ask themselves, in honest bemusement, why their kingdoms are getting poorer?

And, when someone like me dares to tell them why, they lash out.  They are strangling the lifeblood of their kingdoms and yet refuse to take their hands off their own neck!

Why should we honour them?  Why should we respect them?  Why should we let them lead us?  Who set them above us?

Ah, you say, but what about the magicians? 

They have power.  A magician can kill a man, enslave a woman, blind a child … all with a wave of his hand.  Yes, they have power.  They claim they have a fragment of the divine spark within them.  And yet, are they better people?  They have the same failings as the kings and princes, only worse because they have access to perversions that the mundanes cannot even imagine!  They bathe in the blood of peasants to keep themselves young; they fight endless duels for petty little scraps of power, never heeding the commoners trampled underfoot.  They may have power, but there is nothing divine about them.  They are not gods.

The order of society is not decreed by divine right.  It is decreed by naked force.

Those who rule us are not smarter than us.  They are not more capable than us.  They are born with power, aristocratic or magical, but that does not make them better than us.  They are so decayed that they are unable even to look after their own interests, which makes them dumber than the average parasite.  They build an edifice of lies, resting on priests and bards and soldiers to maintain it.  And yet, for all their fancy words, their arguments boil down to ‘might makes right.’ 

And they’re killing us!  They’re killing themselves!

There is a better way.  I was born in Cockatrice.  I am old enough to remember the Old Baron, the one whose name is now forbidden, and how he ground us into the dirt.  I am young enough to remember Baroness Emily taking the land for herself and how she turned the barony into the richest barony in the kingdom.  She was no parasite.  She only ever took a tiny fraction of what we made for herself.  The rest, we got to keep.  And it made us all the more determined to make more and more and more!  Craftsmen who never bothered to innovate, when the wretched parasites would steal all they made and leave only scraps, became masters of industry, turning their vague ideas into money!  It worked for everyone, even Baroness Emily herself.  She took a tiny piece of the pie, but it was a very large pie indeed. 

We had our freedoms.  We had our rights.  And those who worked hard earned much for themselves. 

We demand the levelling of society.  We demand an end to hereditary privilege, excessive taxes, to monopolies and the never-ending exhortation that kills innovation and wealth.  We demand the rights of man.  And we demand these rights apply to everyone; male or female, magician or mundane, human or demihuman.  For if one person is denied the rights, and it is allowed to stand, the rights of all are lost.

To everyone, the rights of man!  To everyone, the fruits of his labours!

And to those who stand in our way, give us our rights or give us death!