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Winstanley 'The Law of Freedom' and other Writings
Leader of the Diggers, or True Levellers, whose colony was forced to disband in 1650, Gerrard Winstanley stands out from a century remarkable for its development in political thought as one of the most fecund and original of political writers. An acute and penetrating social critic with a passionate sense of justice, he worked out a collectivist theory which strikingly anticipates nineteenth- and twentieth-century socialism. He was the first modern European thinker to write in the vernacular advocating a communist society, and to call upon ordinary people to realize it. Winstanley published a number of pamphlets on the colony's behalf, among them a summary of his ideas, published in 1652 as The Law of Freedom in a Platform and dedicated to Oliver Cromwell. Christopher Hill's selection from Winstanley's many published pamphlets demonstrates the coherence and social relevance of Winstanley's philosophy, while it reveals his mastery of colloquial prose and his superb use of imagery.
395 pages, Hardcover
First published May 26, 1983
About the author
Christopher Hill
173 books95 followersJohn Edward Christopher Hill was the pre-eminent historian of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English history, and one of the most distinguished historians of recent times. Fellow historian E.P. Thompson once referred to him as the dean and paragon of English historians.
He was educated at Balliol College, Oxford. During World War II, he served in the Russian department of the British Foreign Office, returning to teach at Oxford after the war.
From 1958-1965 he was University Lecturer in 16th- and 17th-century history, and from 1965-1978 he was Master of Balliol College. He was a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and of the British Academy. He received numerous honorary degrees over the course of his career, including the Hon. Dr. Sorbonne Nouvelle in 1979.
Hill was an active Marxist and a member of the Communist Party from approximately 1934-1957, falling out with the Party after the Soviet suppression of the Hungarian uprisings of 1956.
In their obituary, The Guardian wrote of Hill:
"Christopher Hill…was the commanding interpreter of 17th-century England, and of much else besides.…it was as the defining Marxist historian of the century of revolution, the title of one of the most widely studied of his many books, that he became known to generations of students around the world. For all these, too, he will always be the master." [http://www.theguardian.com/news/2003/...]
He was educated at Balliol College, Oxford. During World War II, he served in the Russian department of the British Foreign Office, returning to teach at Oxford after the war.
From 1958-1965 he was University Lecturer in 16th- and 17th-century history, and from 1965-1978 he was Master of Balliol College. He was a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and of the British Academy. He received numerous honorary degrees over the course of his career, including the Hon. Dr. Sorbonne Nouvelle in 1979.
Hill was an active Marxist and a member of the Communist Party from approximately 1934-1957, falling out with the Party after the Soviet suppression of the Hungarian uprisings of 1956.
In their obituary, The Guardian wrote of Hill:
"Christopher Hill…was the commanding interpreter of 17th-century England, and of much else besides.…it was as the defining Marxist historian of the century of revolution, the title of one of the most widely studied of his many books, that he became known to generations of students around the world. For all these, too, he will always be the master." [http://www.theguardian.com/news/2003/...]
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
December 24, 2014
Any political history is incomplete without a mention of the Levellers and the Diggers of the English Civil War in the 17th century. Winstanley emerges as a character steeped in hypocrisy, the collaborative nature of the pamphlets surely lending its short, powerful demands an added emphasis. Arguing against private property more generally, these Englishmen were the first to observe the emergence of capitalism as a political issue, not merely economic discrepancy. Other than the titular pamphlet, must-reads are "True Levellers Standard Advanced" and "Declaration from the Poor Oppressed People of England".
November 7, 2023
Winstanley's core idea is "freedom in the land". He didn't think it was possible for people to be truly free until they had the right to work the land without paying rent and to reap the fruits of the land without buying (these two things go together as a responsibility is paired with a right). It's such a simple idea, and it's so obviously true. Man is made of matter and relies on matter for survival. If someone else controls your access to the means of survival, you are not free.
1. Everyone is obligated to work if reasonably able (you can't sit there and collect rent)
2. All commodities produced go to storehouses where they can be picked up for free by anyone who needs them
3. Buying and selling is banned altogether.
Winstanley will say both that this is the morally right way to run a society and that it would function better than his current society.
The moral argument is, again, simple and obviously true. He makes an argument from the nature of primitive accumulation. There is no reason why one man should be more entitled to the land and its fruits than another. If it appears that way now, it's because at some point in the past, someone cheated someone else out of their share.
There are several arguments for the economic effectiveness of Winstanley's plan. First and foremost, the rentier class would become part of the labor force and lands lying fallow would get put into production. There would be less crime as people have access to means of subsistence. Also, there would be no trade secrets, and people would feel more free to innovate when their livelihoods were not at risk. One might reasonably expect Winstanley's society to surpass others technologically.
I've made it clear how much I appreciate Winstanley's 17th-century ability to speak plain truths about communism. Case in point:
In some ways, we haven't improved on Winstanley. Here are some other things I liked.
* Much like he always refers to "land and liberty" in the same breath, he always refers to domination as "kingly power". He wants to make it clear that there's this bad kind of government called monarchy, and it's when one person gets to rule over other people, but there's actually nothing special about it being one person. Nobody should get to rule over anyone else as a king rules over their subjects. This has a modern analogue in the phrase "workplace democracy" (cf. Elizabeth Anderson's Private Governments).
* Similarly, he consistently says "peace and freedom" in the same breath, connecting buying and selling with strife.
* He wants to de-professionalize the clergy. Part of his anticlericalism is rooted in a pragmatic stance towards theism that I really like. Everything you can know about God is in this world.
* Winstanley himself is kind of a pantheist. He thinks that to learn science is to know God.
* Winstanley also believes in de-professionalization of law and governance. He believed that ordinary citizens were fit to govern, so long as they had loyalty to the people and not to kingly power.
* He consistently emphasizes the importance of action over words.
He values doing in education, lest we create a class of idle scholars.
* He wasn't an absolutist.
I could keep going. I think there's a lot of value in going back to a thinker like Winstanley who wasn't burdened by centuries of arguments against communism. This is what makes him so calming to read- everything he says is so sensible, thought out, consistent, and clear.
True freedom lies where a man receives his nourishment and preservation, and that is in the use of the earth. For as man is compounded of the four materials of the creation, fire, water, earth and air; so is he preserved by the compounded bodies of these four, which are the fruits of the earth; and he cannot live without them.In order to make the common man free, Winstanley will argue for a society where
1. Everyone is obligated to work if reasonably able (you can't sit there and collect rent)
2. All commodities produced go to storehouses where they can be picked up for free by anyone who needs them
3. Buying and selling is banned altogether.
Winstanley will say both that this is the morally right way to run a society and that it would function better than his current society.
The moral argument is, again, simple and obviously true. He makes an argument from the nature of primitive accumulation. There is no reason why one man should be more entitled to the land and its fruits than another. If it appears that way now, it's because at some point in the past, someone cheated someone else out of their share.
There are several arguments for the economic effectiveness of Winstanley's plan. First and foremost, the rentier class would become part of the labor force and lands lying fallow would get put into production. There would be less crime as people have access to means of subsistence. Also, there would be no trade secrets, and people would feel more free to innovate when their livelihoods were not at risk. One might reasonably expect Winstanley's society to surpass others technologically.
I've made it clear how much I appreciate Winstanley's 17th-century ability to speak plain truths about communism. Case in point:
'But shall not one man be richer than another?'
There is no need of that.
Though there be land enough in England to maintain ten times as many people as are in it, yet some must beg of their brethren.
If a man have no help from his neighbour, he shall never gather an estate of hundreds and thousands a year. If other men help him to work, then are those riches his neighbours.
In some ways, we haven't improved on Winstanley. Here are some other things I liked.
* Much like he always refers to "land and liberty" in the same breath, he always refers to domination as "kingly power". He wants to make it clear that there's this bad kind of government called monarchy, and it's when one person gets to rule over other people, but there's actually nothing special about it being one person. Nobody should get to rule over anyone else as a king rules over their subjects. This has a modern analogue in the phrase "workplace democracy" (cf. Elizabeth Anderson's Private Governments).
* Similarly, he consistently says "peace and freedom" in the same breath, connecting buying and selling with strife.
if the land belong to three persons, and two of them buy and sell the earth and the third give no consent, his right is taken from him, and his posterity is engaged in a war.
Men being put into the straits of poverty are moved to fight for liberty, and to take one another's estates from them, and to obtain mastery.Primitive accumulation is our original sin.
Therefore his first device was to put the people to buy and sell the earth... [then] he tells the people that are wronged, 'Well, I'll ease you, and I'll set things to rights'... and so wars began in the earth... And now man is fallen from his innocence.
* He wants to de-professionalize the clergy. Part of his anticlericalism is rooted in a pragmatic stance towards theism that I really like. Everything you can know about God is in this world.
To reach God beyond the creation, or to know what he will be to a man after the man is dead... is a knowledge beyond the line or capacity of man to attain to while he lives in his compounded body.
What other knowledge have you of God but what you have within the circle of the creation?So, clergy collecting tithes by threatening people with hell after death is just psychic torture.
This divining doctrine, which you call 'spiritual and heavenly things' torments people always when they are weak, sickly and under any distemper; therefore it cannot be the doctrine of Christ the saviour.No God worth believing in would threaten people this way. And in fact, the real hell is on Earth, as this next quote argues (he will argue heaven can be on earth too).
But if they would not acknowledge him to be their lord, king and ruler, nor submit to his government, then they should be cast into hell; that is, into the sorrows of prisons, poverty, whips and death: and their houses and riches should be taken from them, etc.Similarly, no God worth believing in would uphold the economic regime of buying and selling that Winstanley takes aim at.
'I cannot believe', saith the younger brother, 'that our righteous creator should be so partial in his dispensations of the earth, seeing our bodies cannot live upon earth without the use of the earth.Winstanley urges people
to believe nothing but what they see reason for.
* Winstanley himself is kind of a pantheist. He thinks that to learn science is to know God.
To know the secrets of nature is to know the works of God; and to know the works of God within the creation is to know God himself, for God dwells in every visible work or body.He argues for bipartite theodicy whereby you can listen to God's natural law or behave irrationally and covetously.
And this law of nature moves twofold, viz. unrationally or rationally.
For indeed the monarchical spirit is the power of darkness, for it is the great thick cloud that hath hid the light of the sun of righteousness.
* Winstanley also believes in de-professionalization of law and governance. He believed that ordinary citizens were fit to govern, so long as they had loyalty to the people and not to kingly power.
* He consistently emphasizes the importance of action over words.
The work of a Parliament, thirdly, Is to see all those burdens removed actually, which have hindered or do hinder the oppressed people from the enjoyment of their birthrights.
This divinity [the clergy] is always speaking words to deceive the simple, that he may make them work for him and maintain him, but he never comes to action himself to do as he would be done by; for he is a monster who is all tongue and no hand.
God is an active power, not an imaginary fancy.
He values doing in education, lest we create a class of idle scholars.
* He wasn't an absolutist.
But if the minds of the people, through covetousness and proud ignorance, will have the earth governed by buying and selling still, this same platform, with a few things subtracted, declares an easy way of government of the earth for the quiet of people's minds and preserving of peace in the land.
I could keep going. I think there's a lot of value in going back to a thinker like Winstanley who wasn't burdened by centuries of arguments against communism. This is what makes him so calming to read- everything he says is so sensible, thought out, consistent, and clear.
October 15, 2024
The diggers were a small group of impoverished peasants who began digging up the common land. They were promptly beaten into submission and never heard from again. This incredibly marginal phenomenon nevertheless earned a place in all standard textbooks of the time period in the latter half of the twentieth century, presumably due to the fact that in the shadow of the Revolution, someone took a look at the writings of the prominent digger, Gerard Winstanley, and decided it sounds kinda Communist.
Well I was always kinda interested in kinda Communist thought, so since first hearing about the diggers in high school history I always wanted to see what they had to say. Finally having gotten around to it, it seems that most of it is schizoid rambling. Aside from the titular Law of Freedom, every text in this collection are just ramblings about Esau oppressing his younger brother, and how Parliament should allow them to occupy the commons because of this. After plodding through these I came away with the impression that the diggers were a typical religious commune, and trying to read any sort of proto-socialist message from them is a stretch.
The Law of Freedom is more interesting in that it does attempt to paint how Winstanley's ideal society is supposed to function, which seems to come down to a gift economy enforced by democratically elected officers. It's worth a read, just avoid everything else he ever wrote.
Well I was always kinda interested in kinda Communist thought, so since first hearing about the diggers in high school history I always wanted to see what they had to say. Finally having gotten around to it, it seems that most of it is schizoid rambling. Aside from the titular Law of Freedom, every text in this collection are just ramblings about Esau oppressing his younger brother, and how Parliament should allow them to occupy the commons because of this. After plodding through these I came away with the impression that the diggers were a typical religious commune, and trying to read any sort of proto-socialist message from them is a stretch.
The Law of Freedom is more interesting in that it does attempt to paint how Winstanley's ideal society is supposed to function, which seems to come down to a gift economy enforced by democratically elected officers. It's worth a read, just avoid everything else he ever wrote.
June 20, 2025
I really enjoyed his polemics against land-ownership. His psychologization of the battle between Christ (unity, love, reason, selflessness) and Antichrist (disunity, war, imagination, covetousness), combined with prophecies of the total defeat of covetousness and a return to Eden, was very interesting, even if the emphasis on total selflessness, likemindedness, & unity was too Protestant for my taste.
Unfortunately, his 1652 “The Law of Freedom as a Platform”, written either before or after he was a Digger, was rather disturbing at points. It has a patriarchal ethos and a rigid system of seven-year apprenticeships where young men are assigned to the household of their master by overseers. While men above the age of 20 are able to vote for these overseers, it's worth noting that overseers are at least 40, the same age at which men are no longer required to work (in either the role of master or apprentice) at the behest of the community. Instead of prisons, crimes are either punished by death or by enslavement to the community consisting of heavy labor, either porting goods or being loaned out to masters who desire extra servants.
Since Winstanley is attempting to eliminate all buying and selling, there are common storehouses which all working men are expected to contribute to, and which anyone can take goods out of. Note, however, that both excessive idleness at work or excessive waste of these common good can be punished by enslavement.
Unfortunately, his 1652 “The Law of Freedom as a Platform”, written either before or after he was a Digger, was rather disturbing at points. It has a patriarchal ethos and a rigid system of seven-year apprenticeships where young men are assigned to the household of their master by overseers. While men above the age of 20 are able to vote for these overseers, it's worth noting that overseers are at least 40, the same age at which men are no longer required to work (in either the role of master or apprentice) at the behest of the community. Instead of prisons, crimes are either punished by death or by enslavement to the community consisting of heavy labor, either porting goods or being loaned out to masters who desire extra servants.
Since Winstanley is attempting to eliminate all buying and selling, there are common storehouses which all working men are expected to contribute to, and which anyone can take goods out of. Note, however, that both excessive idleness at work or excessive waste of these common good can be punished by enslavement.
July 12, 2020
A surprisingly philosophical read! I bought this quite randomly from an online vendor. Not knowing who Winstanley was, I was attracted to the title.
~
The book is basically a collection of essays on collectivism, a thought that predates socialism. The idea? We all should live as a peaceful community, no one exercising power over another. There are also sections detailing the duties of people within a community. Most importantly, it recognised capitalism as a political issue, not merely an economical one.
~
The essays were written as pamphlets during the 17th century. Nonetheless, the book is quite an easy read. I managed to understand most of the ideas presented and did not get really confused. Went to Goodreads and found out that the book has less than five reviews. Noooooo. Why? It is such an important book that should be read by everyone.
~
The book is basically a collection of essays on collectivism, a thought that predates socialism. The idea? We all should live as a peaceful community, no one exercising power over another. There are also sections detailing the duties of people within a community. Most importantly, it recognised capitalism as a political issue, not merely an economical one.
~
The essays were written as pamphlets during the 17th century. Nonetheless, the book is quite an easy read. I managed to understand most of the ideas presented and did not get really confused. Went to Goodreads and found out that the book has less than five reviews. Noooooo. Why? It is such an important book that should be read by everyone.
January 5, 2017
A lovely collection of Winstanley's wonderful writings, with an excellent introduction by Christopher Hill. Full review here: http://resolutereader.blogspot.co.uk/...
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews