Levellers

This article is about an historic English party. The British rock band "The Levellers" can be found under The Levellers .

The members of an early democratic political movement in England , which exerted its strongest influence during the Civil War (1642–1649) and found strong support from the common soldiers of the New Model Army , were called Levellers . They are to be distinguished from the splinter group of the True Levellers or Diggers .

overview

The Levellers worked for a democratic and free society, for complete freedom of religion, as well as for the abolition of the classes and for equality before the law. Because of the latter point, they were ridiculed by their upper-class political opponents as Levellers , which means something like “leveler” or “equalizer”. Since the movement became known mainly as Levellers among the population , it finally adopted this name itself. The most famous leader was John Lilburne , also known as Freeborn John . But William Walwyn , Thomas Prince and Richard Overton were also important spokesmen for this party. John Lilburne regarded the term Levellers as derogatory and called his followers in public Levellers so-called ("so-called Levellers"), but preferred the term Agitators .

Political positions

The Levellers, the sea green ribbons wore as a badge, sat down for annual, universal and equal parliamentary elections by all free men (p. U.) And wanted to censorship, the monarchy, the House of Lords abolished ( "House of Lords") and all the privileges of the nobility . Your program that you u. a. propagated in the magazine The Moderate , included not only the abolition of the tax privileges of the nobility, but also ideas for a socially acceptable tax. Accordingly, people who earned less than £ 30 a year should no longer be taxed. Another important point was the separation between the state and religious communities, as well as full equality of rights for all religions (freedom of religious belief). The political standpoints of the Levellers at that time were considered extremist, anarchist and scandalous, so they encountered bitter resistance even in the English lower house . A radical faction that emerged from the Levellers were the Diggers . There was also some personal overlap with later Quakers .

The Levellers emphasized that every man is born equal in dignity and freedom and that the government has to regard all (male) citizens as legally equal. Freedom is understood here first as the property of oneself and one's own abilities, i.e. H. in one's own labor , which is therefore entirely alienable: as a commodity. Freedom is seen as a function of personal ownership. According to this definition, the Levellers did not advocate universal male suffrage, as is often falsely asserted, but for a universal right to vote for all free men “who had not lost their birthright”, the recipients of alms as well as servants - including wage laborers - and Criminals (as well as delinquents: followers of the king during the civil war) excluded. According to the understanding of the Levellers, servants had given up their innate right, since they renounced the disposal and determination of their abilities or their labor by entering into a service contract, at least for a time. Accordingly, they were included in their masters as to their eligibility for one vote . With this position they seemed relatively close to the position advocated by Ireton and Cromwell (during the Putney debate in 1647) that the right to vote should only be granted to a person with a minimum wage of 40 shillings - the only difference was in quantity, since the Levellers used the criterion as the presuppose mere possession of one's own labor. Cromwell's and, above all, Ireton's position, however, related to the possession of local property (i.e. landowners and members of the guilds), as one that constitutes a lasting interest in political stability. Macpherson therefore suggests that the Levellers should not be seen as radical democrats , but rather as radical liberals , who in their positions came very close to those of John Locke, but who refused his idea of ​​the unlimited right to accumulation. As far as the idea of ​​community is concerned, this did take an important position in their positions, but the primacy always had the property in oneself constituting the freedom of everyone : "Everyone has a property in himself as he is, otherwise he could not be himself. What makes a person human is his freedom towards other people. The essence of freedom means being the owner of one's own person and abilities ”. It should be noted, however, that prior to the Putney debate there was "little evidence of the extent of the right to vote". Because "from the beginning of the Leveller movement until well into the year 1647" had other problems (including the "fight against the arbitrary negotiations of parliament and its committees, [...]; the fight for religious tolerance [..] .]; the demand that parliament should be held accountable to the people [...]; the denunciation of the right of veto of the king and the lords; the denunciation of the constant burden of tithe, monopolies, unequal taxation, culpable liability, excessive court fees and procrastination “) Priority. And most of these issues "remained significant after the franchise issue was raised".

history

After the initial successes of the royalists in the English civil war, the parliament fighting against the king pushed through a radical reform of its armies. This is how the “ New Model Army ” , which was organized in a very modern way for the time, was born . In the New Model Army, power of command was assigned regardless of social ranking. In doing so, she broke with the tradition of all other armies in existence at the time, according to which only nobles could hold high positions. These innovations led to an unprecedented pluralism within the poor, which indirectly favored the emergence of the Levellers. The exemplary religious tolerance and the break with the class traditions gave rise to a new political movement that demanded further advancement of these progressive reforms inside and outside the army.

In July 1645, John Lilburne was incarcerated for criticizing the snobbery of parliamentarians, who lived in comfort in the midst of the English Civil War while soldiers fought for the parliamentary cause and died. In particular, "Freeborn John" accused the Speaker of Parliament, William Lenthall, of barely distinguishing himself from the royalists. John was only released after a large-scale petition from his supporters, but the next year he was abducted to the Tower of London and imprisoned there because he accused his former military superior of being a sympathizer of the royalists. The movement that campaigned for his liberation eventually formed into an independent political group from which the Levellers emerged. Subsequently, they tried to increase their influence on the New Model Army and chose so-called agitators for the respective regiments.

Agreement of the People

Debates that went down in history as the Putney Debates were resolved between the agitators and the long-established officers (the so-called " grandees ") . They were held at St Mary's Church in Putney, Surrey, between October 28th and November 11th, 1647. The agitators were represented by civilian levelers, the grandees by senior officers and also by Oliver Cromwell. Each party wrote a pamphlet to show its position. The Levellers pamphlet was named Agreement of the People . The pamphlet of the opponents of the Levellers was called The Heads of the Proposals . In the phases that followed, the strong differences between these two manifestos were hotly debated. Due to the huge differences of opinion, however, no results were found. Oliver Cromwell then wanted to finally seize power in the army and forcibly introduced the pamphlet of his followers instead of that of the Levellers. Anyone who refused to accept the Cromwell pamphlet was arrested. One of the objectors, Richard Arnold, was even murdered. The Levellers then launched their largest petition, To The Right Honovrable The Commons Of England . This was presented to Parliament on September 11, 1648, but blocked by Cromwell. On October 30, 1648 Thomas Rainsborough was murdered. He was a key spokesman for the Levellers and had been an active participant in the Putney Debates. There were mass demonstrations at his funeral. The conflict escalated into several mutinies. Finally, in 1649, the Levellers were defeated by Oliver Cromwell at the Battle of Burford, Oxfordshire . Numerous leaders were executed, imprisoned or had to go into exile. Towards the end of the first half of the 17th century the movement within the army was effectively crushed.

The political legacy

Although it was still a long way from the Levellers of that time to modern liberalism (which not least also includes the demand for women's suffrage ) and the Levellers can only be regarded as a forerunner of this, many are already clearly liberal ideas and approaches that the Levellers have already taken up and represented almost 400 years ago, very remarkable. Equality before the law, the republic as a form of government and freedom of religion to the extent that the Levellers propagated it did not prevail in Europe until the 20th century.

It is possible that many later movements, for example the Chartists, also active in Great Britain almost two centuries later, were inspired by the Levellers. An important principle of the Levellers, namely equality before the law, has meanwhile at least theoretically established itself in most countries of the world.

literature

• Crawford B. Macpherson : The Political Theory of Possession Individualism. From Hobbes to Locke (= Suhrkamp-Taschenbuch Wissenschaft. 41). 2nd Edition. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1980, ISBN 3-518-07641-8 .
• Andrew Sharp (Ed.): The English Levellers. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge et al. 1998, ISBN 0-521-62402-9 .
• Jürgen Diethe: Levellers. Political theory and practice in the English Revolution (= series of publications on political theory. Vol. 6). Kovač, Hamburg 2006, ISBN 3-8300-2408-8 (also: Halle, University, dissertation, 2006).
• Marie Gimelfarb-Brack: Liberté, égalité, fraternité, justice! - La vie et l'oeuvre de Richard Overton, levelur. Dissertation University of Lausanne, Peter Lang, Bern 1979. Later new editions: ISBN 978-3-261-04675-8

Web links

Commons : Levellers  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Levellers. In: Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon. Volume 12: L to Lyra. 6th, completely revised and enlarged edition New impression. Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig et al. 1908, p. 486.
2. ↑ CB Macpherson: The Political Theory of Possession Individualism. 1980, pp. 126-181, p. 150.
3. ↑ ^{a b} C. B. Macpherson: The political theory of property individualism. 1980, p. 166.
4. ↑ CB Macpherson: The Political Theory of Possession Individualism. 1980, p. 180.
5. ↑ CB Macpherson: The Political Theory of Possession Individualism. 1980, p. 176 f.
6. ↑ CB Macpherson: The Political Theory of Possession Individualism. 1980, p. 163.
7. ↑ CB Macpherson: The Political Theory of Possession Individualism. 1980, p. 139.
8. ↑ CB Macpherson: The Political Theory of Possession Individualism. 1980, p. 140.
9. ↑ CB Macpherson: The Political Theory of Possession Individualism. 1980, p. 140.
10. ↑ Levellers. In: Pierer's Universal Lexicon. Volume 10: Paint Color - Matelea. 4th, revised and greatly increased edition. Pierer, Altenburg 1860, p. 323.