Proto-Socialism
Proto-Socialism is a label for a number of left-wing ideas concerning the contemporary and ideal future state of society. In Civil War England a number of groups became known, which could be grouped under this label. Some of them derived their radical political ideas from religion, some of them were completely a-religious. The best known of these were the Levellers and the Diggers.
Religion in the 1600s still had an all-encompassing role, it formed the set of values which sanctioned more or less all social practices. This was especially true in rural areas of Britain. The call for religious freedom, which followed the 16th Century Reformation and Counterreformation movements therefore was implicitly also a questioning of the existing social order, of received hierarchies and ideologies beyond the religious realm.
The Civil War being fought against a King deemed tyrannical and milking the country through arbitrary taxation such as Ship's money further complicated things. While the wealthy elite, be they Aristocrats, Land-Owners or Merchants saw this as their major problem, the lower classes, especially in rural areas more often felt much more exploited by their local noblemen or landlord overcharging them or enclosing the common land. The war aim of the parliamentary army to establish a "true religion, the laws, liberty and peace of the Kingdome" (Petegorsky, 1995. 60) thus had a very different meaning to common people then to the Armies commanders, mostly recruited from the nobility. In fact, the meaning of "liberty" for a landowner was diametrically opposed to that of a peasant working the land.
The late 1640s then featured a series of devastating harvests, which lead to constantly rising food prices. Additionally the Long Parliament introduced the excise ordinant, essentially a tax on common goods, which disproportionately burdened low-income families. The Civil War had also led to a breakdown of the economy, and what little was left was often taken by looting armies. Furthermore landowners in many cases used the breakdown of authority to their advantage and began enclosing more common land than would have been possible before.
The parliamentary soldiers were also disaffected. While in the beginning of the civil war thousands of volunteers joined the armies, by 1643 voluntary service became adaequate. This, and an increase in cases of desertion, led to impressment, that is forcing people to become soldiers. In addition, the rank and file became more and more aware of their difference from their commanders, which were mostly noblemen or otherwise of high status. This and the constantly late payments of soldiers led both to mutiny and the easy spreading of proto-socialist ideas in the military.
In one of the first petitions to parliament A remonstrance of many thousand citizens..., Richard Overton wrote in 1646: "Ye are rich and abound in goods and have need of nothing; but the afflictions of the poor — your hunger-starved brethren — ye have no compassion of." This, in condensed form, stated the common belief that the upper classes fought this war for their self-interest and saw the common men as mere tools in their schemes, not as fellow citizens worthy of respect and a loaf of bread.
References
- Hill, Christopher. The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution. London: Temple Smith, 1972.
- Mendle, Michael (ed). The Putney Debates of 1647: The Army, the Levellers, and the English State. Cambridge: CUP, 2001
- Lingard, John. "The Commonwealth" A history of England from the first invasion of the Romans to the accession of William & Mary in 1688. By John Lingard. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Library, 2005.
- Coward, Barry. A companion to Stuart Britain. Oxford: Blackwell, 2003.