WEBVTT NOTE Perspectives on the English Levellers 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:30.000 Good evening to everybody, so perspectives on the English Levellers, well there is a famous book by Jérôme Tussil and the book is titled It Usually Begins with Ayn Rand, instead now I ask myself and of course I ask you did it, did it everything, did everything begin with Ayn Rand 2 00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:35.000 with the English Levellers, Murray Rothbard seems to think so. 3 00:00:38.920 --> 00:00:43.460 This paper is based on a research I am doing, 4 00:00:43.460 --> 00:00:47.880 an investigation of the English libertarian heritage, 5 00:00:48.760 --> 00:00:52.880 an investigation of the roots of the libertarian tradition. 6 00:00:54.820 --> 00:00:57.540 The turmoil of the English Civil War 7 00:00:57.540 --> 00:01:01.020 during the first half of the 17th century 8 00:01:01.020 --> 00:01:05.220 and the fight between King Charles I and the Parliament 9 00:01:05.220 --> 00:01:08.460 generated a very intense political debate 10 00:01:08.460 --> 00:01:11.940 on individual liberty, limited government, 11 00:01:11.940 --> 00:01:14.740 individual rights and the rule of law. 12 00:01:15.800 --> 00:01:19.340 The Leveller movement emerged from the breakdown 13 00:01:19.340 --> 00:01:20.980 of the Civil War. 14 00:01:20.980 --> 00:01:25.180 The religious background of the movement was essential. 15 00:01:27.540 --> 00:01:31.340 and the religious covenant of the dissenters 16 00:01:31.340 --> 00:01:34.460 became the paradigm of the political contract, 17 00:01:34.460 --> 00:01:39.060 the political contract creating the political society 18 00:01:39.060 --> 00:01:43.740 or the civil society, as Locke calls it. 19 00:01:43.740 --> 00:01:46.860 But at the same time, the Levellers 20 00:01:46.860 --> 00:01:50.900 went beyond their religious context 21 00:01:50.900 --> 00:01:55.500 and placed their arguments in a more political context. 22 00:01:55.500 --> 00:02:09.500 Particularly, John Lilburn, William Wolwyn and Richard Averton elaborated those principles that constitute the core doctrine of libertarian political philosophy. 23 00:02:09.500 --> 00:02:21.500 That is to say, the right of self-ownership, private property, religious tolerance, that the basis of all government is the consent of the governed 24 00:02:21.500 --> 00:02:35.500 and that all men possess certain natural rights that all governments are obliged to respect by virtue of the contract from which their political authority originally derives. 25 00:02:35.500 --> 00:02:40.500 All principles later elaborated by John Locke. 26 00:02:40.500 --> 00:02:49.500 But the major literature on the topic is marked by a very different interpretation. 27 00:02:49.500 --> 00:02:56.500 Noël Brailsford defines the Levellers as egalitarian democrats. 28 00:02:57.100 --> 00:03:04.100 In Andrew Sharpe's view, they were liberal democrats. Christopher Hill, on his side, concentrates 29 00:03:05.740 --> 00:03:12.740 on those Levellers who were defined the true Levellers, the millennial communist sects 30 00:03:12.740 --> 00:03:17.140 and communist sects such as the diggers, the renters, 31 00:03:17.140 --> 00:03:19.540 the fifth monarchists. 32 00:03:19.540 --> 00:03:23.660 According to Hill, levelers such as Lilburn, 33 00:03:23.660 --> 00:03:28.100 Walwyn and Overton were simply moderate 34 00:03:28.100 --> 00:03:30.520 and constitutionalists. 35 00:03:30.520 --> 00:03:33.940 So one gets the impression of the levelers 36 00:03:33.940 --> 00:03:37.100 as a marginal moderate group, 37 00:03:37.100 --> 00:03:41.100 or tends to confound all the different groups 38 00:03:41.100 --> 00:03:46.820 as if they were all in favor of common property of land. 39 00:03:46.820 --> 00:03:49.180 Even the notable Italian historian 40 00:03:49.180 --> 00:03:51.740 of political thought, Gaetano Mosca, 41 00:03:51.740 --> 00:03:55.700 wrote that the Levellers, referring to the Bible, 42 00:03:55.700 --> 00:04:00.820 wanted to establish an absolute equality, not only political, 43 00:04:00.820 --> 00:04:04.300 but even of property. 44 00:04:04.300 --> 00:04:08.380 My hypothesis is that the Leveller, at least some 45 00:04:08.380 --> 00:04:13.700 of them can be ascribed to the libertarian tradition. 46 00:04:13.700 --> 00:04:18.340 According to Murray Rothbard, the Levellers, quote, 47 00:04:18.340 --> 00:04:22.780 were the world's first self-consciously libertarian mass 48 00:04:22.780 --> 00:04:24.180 movement. 49 00:04:24.180 --> 00:04:27.980 John Lilburn, Richard Averton, and William Wolwyn 50 00:04:27.980 --> 00:04:32.740 worked out a remarkably consistent libertarian doctrine 51 00:04:32.740 --> 00:04:35.660 upholding the rights of self-ownership, 52 00:04:35.660 --> 00:04:39.540 Private Property, Religious Freedom for the Individual 53 00:04:39.540 --> 00:04:43.980 and Minimal Government Interference in Society. 54 00:04:43.980 --> 00:04:47.460 One of the most important of the Leveller's contribution 55 00:04:47.460 --> 00:04:51.300 to the theoretical foundation of the libertarian doctrine 56 00:04:51.300 --> 00:04:54.820 was, according to Rothbard, that they transformed 57 00:04:54.820 --> 00:04:58.820 the rather vague and holistic notions of natural law 58 00:04:58.820 --> 00:05:02.780 into the clear-cut, firmly individualistic concepts 59 00:05:02.780 --> 00:05:08.100 of the Natural Rights of Every Individual Human Beings. 60 00:05:08.100 --> 00:05:13.860 Also, Ralph Rago writes that the political history 61 00:05:13.860 --> 00:05:17.700 of classical liberalism begins with John Lilburn 62 00:05:17.700 --> 00:05:19.580 and the Levellers. 63 00:05:19.580 --> 00:05:24.540 Again, Alain Rahn, in his Histoire de l'Individualisme, 64 00:05:24.540 --> 00:05:28.560 writes that the Levellers were the first movement 65 00:05:28.560 --> 00:05:32.100 to profess the individualistic ideology. 66 00:05:32.100 --> 00:05:35.700 we owe to them the first historical statement 67 00:05:35.700 --> 00:05:38.300 of a natural right to self-ownership 68 00:05:38.300 --> 00:05:41.260 of the individual. 69 00:05:41.260 --> 00:05:44.780 They were at the origin of the individualistic revolution, 70 00:05:44.780 --> 00:05:49.460 at odds with a holistic and communitarian view. 71 00:05:49.460 --> 00:05:53.900 Hayek, on his side, recognizes the great importance 72 00:05:53.900 --> 00:05:56.620 of the English levelers. 73 00:05:56.620 --> 00:06:01.100 According to Hayek, the levelers developed for the first time 74 00:06:01.100 --> 00:06:06.460 in the English History, The Theory of a Written Constitution 75 00:06:06.460 --> 00:06:10.180 and the Separation of Powers. 76 00:06:10.180 --> 00:06:12.540 Hayek placed the English Levellers 77 00:06:12.540 --> 00:06:15.060 within the classical liberal tradition 78 00:06:15.060 --> 00:06:18.620 and within the history of the rule of law. 79 00:06:18.620 --> 00:06:21.980 John Lilburn, for the first time, according to Hayek, 80 00:06:21.980 --> 00:06:28.780 advocated the independence of the constituency power. 81 00:06:28.780 --> 00:06:32.820 always according to Hayek, the Leveller's ideas influenced 82 00:06:32.820 --> 00:06:36.680 John Locke's second treaty on civil government. 83 00:06:38.300 --> 00:06:43.300 Richard Averton in 1646 elaborated a sophisticated 84 00:06:44.340 --> 00:06:48.780 definition of the individual rights of self-ownership 85 00:06:48.780 --> 00:06:53.740 as the right fixing the borders between self-sovereignty 86 00:06:53.740 --> 00:06:55.700 and the power of the state. 87 00:06:55.700 --> 00:07:04.460 Now I'm going to reading you a quotation from An Arrow Against Old Tyrants by Richard Overton 88 00:07:04.460 --> 00:07:11.380 and I put it on PowerPoint because of course it's the English of the first half of the 17th century 89 00:07:11.380 --> 00:07:15.620 so maybe it's easier to follow. 90 00:07:15.620 --> 00:07:26.860 Overton wrote, to every individual in nature is given an individual property by nature 91 00:07:26.860 --> 00:07:31.100 not to be invaded or usurped by any. 92 00:07:31.100 --> 00:07:39.900 For everyone as he is himself so he has a self-property, else could he not be himself. 93 00:07:39.900 --> 00:07:44.060 Mine and time cannot be except this be. 94 00:07:44.060 --> 00:07:51.220 No man has power over my rights and liberties, and I over no man's. 95 00:07:51.220 --> 00:07:56.660 I may be but an individual, enjoy myself and my self-property. 96 00:07:56.660 --> 00:08:02.540 I may write myself no more than myself or presume any further. 97 00:08:02.540 --> 00:08:09.700 If I do so, I am an encroacher and an invader upon another man's right, to which I have 98 00:08:09.700 --> 00:08:11.580 no right. 99 00:08:11.580 --> 00:08:19.580 For by natural birth all men are equally and alike born to like property, liberty and freedom. 100 00:08:19.580 --> 00:08:25.680 And so we are delivered of God by the hand of nature into this world, everyone with a 101 00:08:25.680 --> 00:08:29.160 natural innate freedom and property. 102 00:08:29.160 --> 00:08:37.280 Even so are we to live, everyone equally and alike to enjoy his birthright and privilege. 103 00:08:37.280 --> 00:08:40.920 I think this is a truly pre-Lockean statement. 104 00:08:40.920 --> 00:08:46.000 And I think this is a very important statement of the right 105 00:08:46.000 --> 00:08:47.280 to self-ownership. 106 00:08:47.280 --> 00:08:50.480 And we know that the right to self-ownership 107 00:08:50.480 --> 00:08:54.320 is the cornerstone of the libertarian doctrine, 108 00:08:54.320 --> 00:09:00.240 for instance, is the cornerstone of Rothbard libertarianism. 109 00:09:00.240 --> 00:09:05.200 But beside this, Overton quotes the Magna Carta and Sir 110 00:09:05.200 --> 00:09:10.360 Edward Koch, both being the core of the tradition of the rule of law. 111 00:09:10.360 --> 00:09:15.320 Edward Koch is the creator of the myth of Magna Carta. 112 00:09:15.320 --> 00:09:20.000 The English levelers have been defined as egalitarians, 113 00:09:20.000 --> 00:09:25.560 as Democrats, as pre-Marxist and radicals. 114 00:09:25.560 --> 00:09:28.560 They were egalitarian in the sense 115 00:09:28.560 --> 00:09:31.400 that they defended fundamental rights, 116 00:09:31.400 --> 00:09:35.040 Fundamental Natural Rights for Every Human Being. 117 00:09:36.040 --> 00:09:38.520 They were Democrats, but they linked 118 00:09:38.520 --> 00:09:42.120 the right of citizenship to ownership. 119 00:09:42.120 --> 00:09:45.120 In an agreement of the Free People of England, 120 00:09:45.120 --> 00:09:49.480 one of the most important levelers manifestos 121 00:09:49.480 --> 00:09:53.360 is a proposal for a written constitution. 122 00:09:53.360 --> 00:09:57.560 They proclaim universal male suffrage, 123 00:09:57.560 --> 00:10:01.160 but servants and those receiving alms 124 00:10:01.160 --> 00:10:04.480 were excluded from the right to citizenship. 125 00:10:05.540 --> 00:10:07.120 Were they radicals? 126 00:10:07.120 --> 00:10:12.120 Of course they were, but libertarianism is a radical doctrine. 127 00:10:13.580 --> 00:10:17.560 They were against state-granted monopolies. 128 00:10:17.560 --> 00:10:22.220 They realized that controlling production and trade 129 00:10:22.220 --> 00:10:26.740 always meant the creation of privilege by the state. 130 00:10:26.740 --> 00:10:27.840 Yes, I saw it. 131 00:10:27.840 --> 00:10:41.840 Always in an agreement of the free people of England, they proclaimed the abolition of all kinds of privilege. 132 00:10:41.840 --> 00:10:55.840 They wrote that it shall not be in the power of the representative to make any laws to abridge or hinder any person from trading or merchandising. 133 00:10:55.840 --> 00:11:10.400 that it shall not be in their power to continue excess or customs upon any sort of food or any other goods, wares or commodities, being both of them extreme burdensome and oppressive to trade. 134 00:11:10.400 --> 00:11:25.600 And to conclude, they declare in the last article, we therefore agree and declare that it shall not be in the power of any representative to level man's estate, destroy property or make all things common. 135 00:11:25.840 --> 00:11:32.880 I found a lot of libertarian suggestions, of course, reading the level of Fratz. 136 00:11:32.880 --> 00:11:39.040 I found very interesting that Lilburn and Averton figure out the idea of rational, non-customary 137 00:11:39.040 --> 00:11:45.280 individual natural rights as opposed to a holistic conception of natural law. 138 00:11:45.280 --> 00:11:50.480 But at the same time, they refer to tradition, to the ancient constitution of England, to 139 00:11:50.480 --> 00:11:52.520 to Mania Carta and to Edward Koch, 140 00:11:52.520 --> 00:11:54.880 who was a champion of the rule of law. 141 00:11:54.880 --> 00:11:58.240 So we can say that they use both argument, 142 00:11:58.240 --> 00:12:00.960 rationalist and evolutionary. 143 00:12:00.960 --> 00:12:04.280 The second kind of argument can be ascribed 144 00:12:04.280 --> 00:12:08.280 to the tradition of the weak interpretation of history, 145 00:12:08.280 --> 00:12:11.560 a tradition Hayek belongs to. 146 00:12:11.560 --> 00:12:14.920 William Wolwyn on his side was a very sophisticated 147 00:12:14.920 --> 00:12:18.000 intellectual, very close to Montaigne. 148 00:12:18.000 --> 00:12:22.760 he was a skeptic and defended religious freedom 149 00:12:22.760 --> 00:12:26.400 on the basis of fallibilism and relativism. 150 00:12:26.400 --> 00:12:29.880 All these features are peculiar, distinctive 151 00:12:29.880 --> 00:12:32.240 of the classical liberal tradition 152 00:12:32.240 --> 00:12:35.240 and not of leftism, of course. 153 00:12:35.240 --> 00:12:39.320 So there are good reason to consider the English levelers, 154 00:12:39.320 --> 00:12:43.040 anticipators of Locke's arguments, 155 00:12:43.040 --> 00:12:46.560 and there are some good evidence to place them 156 00:12:46.560 --> 00:12:49.360 within the libertarian tradition. 157 00:12:49.360 --> 00:12:53.160 I hope to find more going on with my research, 158 00:12:53.160 --> 00:12:55.480 but I think I will. 159 00:12:55.480 --> 00:12:56.800 Okay, thank you. 160 00:12:56.800 --> 00:12:58.800 Thank you very much.