Rainsborough’s death and the command that Cromwell and the Grandees took over the process of the debates have a sense of “everything needs to change, so everything can stay the same.”28 We can wonder what might have happened for the Levellers, Britain, and maybe even Europe. However, the longer-term implications and relevance of the Levellers movement are profound.
The Leveller movement could ultimately be judged a failure because of the manner and the speed with which the Leveller flame was quenched. However, against the longer run of history, the Leveller movement is a beacon in the practical, popular development of democracy and of a concept of equality. In many ways, it was the movement that pioneered these ideas across the Western world. In the context of the seventeenth century, the fact that the Putney Debates were held, that the agreements were published, and that a democratic political system grew from the New Model Army and the Levellers is significant.
The Levellers are also interesting because they may offer a guide to how political sentiment and ideas evolve today. There are some parallels between the times of the Levellers and today: both are periods of economic dislocation, change, and creativity.
Economically the late 1640s were stark. Extreme weather conditions marked the middle of the seventeenth century. Poor harvests and resulting high taxes led to poverty, hunger, and unemployment. As with all revolutions, empty bellies were one of the key motivating factors for unrest in England. In 1647 there was a sense that an era was ending as the place of the monarchy was threatened owing to the unpopularity of the king and as the progress of the New Model Army through the country gave a glimmer of a potentially different system.
In addition, the period when the Levellers came about was one of fascinating intellectual creativity and significant geopolitical change and was ripe with a sense of social and political shifts. In the mid-seventeenth century, English society was abuzz with the tingle of change rippling across public life, or to quote the historian Christopher Hill, of “great forces at work in society,” as he describes the impact of Thomas Hobbes’s Behemoth and James Harrington’s The Commonwealth of Oceana.29
The Levellers are also relevant to the current debate on politics in that they represent a move beyond populism because their ethos is bottom up and constructive rather than demagogic and destructive. Unlike many of the protest groups that arise today, the Levellers did not simply want to tear down the existing system; rather, they wanted to improve it and build a system or democratic architecture worthy of their ideals. Yet another quotation from Overton emphasizes this: “That if a leveller be one, who bears affection to anarchy, destroying propriety or government, then I am none. But if upon the account of New–market and other engagements, for the setling of a well-grounded government, redress of grievances; civil, ecclesiastical, or military, or inflicting condign punishment upon capital offenders, if this be levelling, I was and am a leveller.”30 Echoing this, the Levellers did not want a levelling of wealth; they rejected “childish fears” that their aim was to “make all men’s estates equal.”
It may well be that the various new sociopolitical movements that are springing up in the United States and around Europe are just the very first, fragmentary signs of a political system revolution and growing civic engagement. In this context, the Levellers should serve to remind many of the critics of populism (or, more precisely, the intended victims of populist politics) that budding political change, and in particular the formation of new parties, is not simply a blunt attack on elites or on the liberal order as conceived by them but, rather, an authentic response to a world gone awry.31 The example of the Levellers focuses more on some of the solutions to what might follow populism.
At the same time, no matter how attractive their story is, admirers of the Levellers should avoid making too idealistic comparisons between them and modern political developments. What does make the comparison with events in today’s world relevant, however, is the disillusionment and detachment of very large proportions of the population in a number of developed countries from their respective political establishments and structures, and the growing sense that the world is divided between Grandees (we could make a very long list of Grandees today: most members of Trump’s cabinet, Dick Cheney, the Bush and Clinton families, Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Schumer are just a few who come to mind) and Levellers (who want to restart the system in a more equal way).
In the previous chapter I traced the passage of new ideas through paradigm shifts and specifically mentioned Karl Popper’s idea of the “open society,” which shares a common ethic with the Levellers. Their project was perhaps the first attempt at an open society in the sense that the Levellers militated against the total powers of the monarch and Parliament with an aim to create a liberal democracy.
The deeper parallels with classical republican texts lie in the way in which the Levellers embodied a change in sociopolitical views, which they then sought to formalize through legal, political, and economic reforms. In his work, Popper treats the rise of the “dictator Oliver Cromwell” and poses the question, “How is the state to be constituted so that bad rulers can be got rid of without bloodshed, without violence?”32—a question that in the context of today’s world is highly apt. Another testimony that is relevant here is that of A. D. Lindsay, master of Balliol College, Oxford, in the 1920s, better known as “Sandie” and later formally as Lord Lindsay. He held that the agreements of the Levellers were the starting point of “modern discussions of democracy.”33 This is significant because in 1938 Lindsay stood as an independent candidate in the general election, in opposition to the Munich Agreement, which he viewed as appeasing Adolf Hitler. Lindsay’s election slogan was “A vote for Hogg [Quintin Hogg, his opponent] is a vote for Hitler.”
The foremost contributions of the Levellers were that they provided the bedrock for the growth of democracy and constitutional republicanism, for the development of a coherent sense of the rights of the citizen in Britain, and for the spread of such ideas to France and America. For instance, members of the Rainsborough family left Britain for America and joined the Puritan movement. Notably, some parts of the 1776 US Declaration of Independence could be seen as a Leveller text in their ethos and roots. Also, an important conduit of Leveller thought to countries like France, Ireland, and America was Thomas Paine, author of Common Sense and The Rights of Man. Elsewhere the work of writers associated with the Levellers, such as the work of Gerrard Winstanley (a religious reformer and founder of the Diggers, whose political philosophy was to the left of the Levellers’), found their way to Amsterdam and were later picked up by radical thinkers such as Spinoza, the Dutch Enlightenment philosopher.34
This is why the Levellers matter today. Not only were they a popular movement that militated for political reform, but they did so on a principled basis that remains relevant. In this way they are not only a point of reference for political protest movements but a guide to how the codes, policies, and identities of new parties can be structured. The Levellers formulated how they wanted the world around them to change and set out both principles and tangible policies as to how this could be achieved. They desired a democratic form of government that was representative, accountable, and responsible. These goals may sound obviously desirable today, but that was not at all the case in the mid-seventeenth century. Professor Martin Loughlin writes, “They nevertheless managed to formulate a set of ideas that can now be recognised as the first clear expression in European thought of the basic precepts of constitutional democracy.”35 They resonate with our time because they represent a bottom-up approach to revitalizing politics, public life, and a sense of equality. At a time when so many people seem to disagree (bear in mind that in March 2017, Foreign Policy magazine asked readers if another US civil war was likely), the notion of an “agreement” is something that turns heads.36
The Levellers’ agreements have several modern applications. First, the agreements are practical. They are based on common sense and revolve around concrete measures that c
an be put in place. They are neither too idealistic nor so specific as to cause splits. Second, the way the Levellers organized themselves may be a useful example to groups today in showing how a more streetwise approach to politics can work better.
The Leveller Code Today
In essence, the Levellers wanted a political system that fostered responsibility to the people on the part of their leaders, one where those leaders or representatives were more accountable. Their aim was a sociopolitical-legal environment where there was no uneven distribution of outcomes. Given the resonances between the Levellers’ political climate and what many people today feel is a broken political contract, we can ask, What would they want if they existed today?
If the Agreements of the People were to be couched in the terms of how the world will look in, say, five years’ time in 2024, they might strike the following points. The first would probably center on tangible political reform, specifically on reducing corruption, on bringing political representatives closer to those who vote for them, and on permitting new blood to enter the political system. Tangible measures could take the form of term limits, restrictions on officials’ passing political positions on through their family, the use of information technology (even blockchain) to reduce corruption in procurement, a broad use of technology to reduce clientelism, public information on the funding and remuneration of political parties and individuals, and public monitoring of political mandates and programs. Importantly, this could take place at local- as well as national-level politics.
The Levellers also had a no-nonsense approach to institutions. To put it concisely, they wanted institutions that were strong and fair and executed the law in a transparent way. The classical republican ethos of many of the Levellers is a pillar of the agreements, especially the last one, where there is a sense that institutions should be the bedrock on which the state operates.
The second point is equality, where the Levellers had in mind equality between all “freeborn” men (as highlighted earlier there was also an active women’s Leveller group). Today, the desire for equality is urgent and can take various forms, but an end to discrimination on the basis of gender, sexuality, color, and religion is a cornerstone. Economic equality can be expressed in many ways, but one might specify it as the provision of decent public goods (education, health, legal representation). Related to this, in some countries the legal system is a source of domination, violence, and intimidation. In others, it is more a case of the crafting of laws and regulations taking place far away from the people, with lobbyists involved in crafting the fine print of laws baked both in Brussels and on Capitol Hill in Washington.
The Levellers were also keen that the law be written and applied in plain English so that ordinary people might understand it. Today, legal and financial systems are complex and willfully beyond the apprehension of many people. Improving financial literacy and, for example, making banks better communicate financial statements and products in a clear everyday manner might be one specific demand here.
In terms of economic policy, there is less recorded about the thoughts of the Levellers on economics than about their views on politics, but from what we know they were against the running up of large amounts of debt and the arbitrary resolution of indebtedness. In this respect they might well feel threatened by the very high levels of debt in today’s world and, to use the example of the eurozone crisis, by the very different and somewhat arbitrary way in which bad debts were resolved.
Condensing some of these thoughts, we might presumptuously make a first stab at a modern agreement, which could run as follows:
AGREEMENT OF THE PEOPLE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
This agreement is made with the aims of repairing the broken contract of trust between elected representatives and their electorates, of offering a constructive alternative to negative political and public debate, and of providing an expression of what we believe people want their societies to look like. Our goal is a world where people are not dominated by technology, by the food and goods they consume, or by finance and science; where societies are democratic; and where countries build high-quality institutions to support them. We want political systems that encourage responsibility and that focus decision making on long-term problems. We want laws that are enforced for everyone. Leaders—be they in business, politics, or other fields—should be responsible for the risks and imbalances they create. Human development as a central pillar of economic growth needs to be given much greater credence, and public goods such as privacy and education need to be cherished.
Public goods are the fabric of societies and the makings of economies—too many of these are privatized; more still are run with no greater sense of purpose than cost cutting. We advocate that they be rejuvenated and taken seriously as part of the debate on public life.
Our societies live in a tyranny of imbalances: environmental damage, debt, obesity, low productivity, and the domination of our time by social media. We want this to end, and we want politicians to act to rein in imbalances.
In public life, responsibility is actively evaded. Complacency and moral corruption are eating away at the body politic and must be stopped. We want politicians who are accountable but who exercise their power in a way that does no harm.
We want accountability in politics to be encouraged by term limits, limits on family monopolization of political positions, and the creation of incentives and supports for new blood to enter public life.
Representatives should be encouraged to take actions that are responsible. Public institutions like central banks should permit stability and be active in crises without fostering imbalances or diminishing the responsibility of elected bodies. Individual entities—be they companies, countries, or cities—should bear responsibility in a measurable way for the risks they create.
As countries grow larger and the problems they face grow more complex, governance must change so that regions and cities have more power to tackle problems at a local level and specifically at a city level. Immigration must be recognized as a major challenge and dealt with as a contract of integration and assimilation between migrants and hosts.
We favor greater transparency and the use of technology to make clear the involvement of politicians and their associates in procurement and public contracts and to make effective the policing and transparence of payments to and through political parties and to elected representatives themselves.
The law and its application has drifted far away from ordinary people in its complexity, in people’s ability to access legal advice, in the costs of being involved in legal action, and in the way in which legal systems can be more advantageous to companies than to individuals.
The law should be clearer and, in terms of its clarity and cost, should be equally applicable to all people and not favor companies over individuals. Exceptions to the law should be limited, redrafts of laws and the insertion of loopholes should be minimized, and legal costs should be reduced. Literacy regarding such areas as legal advice and financial products should be encouraged.
New questions in the law and philosophy—such as the role of the state in surveillance, robots as economic and legal actors, new forms of war, and ethical issues surrounding DNA-based innovation—should ideally have high global standards, be grounded in historical and religious principles, and be made on the basis that they maintain equality among people.
Human well-being should become a greater policy focal point in terms of the impact that diet, pharmaceuticals, and environmental pollution have on it and also in terms of the role of mental health in health care. Mental health is the root cause of many social, medical, and justice-related problems. It must have a much more prominent place as an element in health care, justice, and social welfare systems.
Technology has always been a force in societies and economies, but it is now pushing economic, ethical, and philosophical barriers in areas like gene editing. Technology should be used to enable transparency in public life, and its impact on education and soci
al cohesion should be managed by states. Social welfare systems and state infrastructure can benefit from technology, but the way they support society may need to change to reflect the way technology displaces people.
The intersection of technology and economics leads to imbalances in power, of governments over citizens, of data gatherers over data subjects, and of owners of technology over the rest. Ownership of technologically generated data must rest with its subjects, some technologies must be public goods, and there must be clear limits to governments’ use and holdings of data on their citizens. Ownership and transmission of personal data rests with individuals, and the right to use this data should rest strictly with them.
That is a first, rough draft of what a twenty-first century agreement might look like. I say rough, because I do not think I can do this alone and will in time need the help of many others, and, indeed, readers may have their own versions. Trying to reimagine and refit the Agreement of the People to today’s world is difficult. First, it is hard not to superimpose one’s own beliefs, prejudices, and biases. Second, it is harder still not to be overly moralistic and idealistic as well. In avoiding idealism, there is a need to, as the Levellers did, ground the agreement in the concerns of people and in so doing to make tangible, workable solutions. An additional level of complexity comes from our interconnected world, so that if the modern “Levellers” concept is to spread, it needs to cut across common concerns. Furthermore, it needs to be relevant to people in developed and developing countries and touch points that are common to them.
If Overton, Rainsborough, and the other leading Levellers were dropped into today’s world, they might recognize the growing sense of agitation around politics, public life, and the direction of the world economy. Many facets of society today, such as the rising culture of consumerism, might at the same time confuse them. However, they would recognize several traits: frustration with political classes, shifting views of society and economies that are not yet reflected in policy, and disenchantment with corruption, lack of transparency, and closed political systems. Economic uncertainty and the changes provoked by technology add to the worry list. Finally, they might comment that the breakdown of incumbent parties, the apparent rise of populism, and the selection by voters of apparently extreme electoral options mark the beginning of a wholesale change in the political-economic landscape but that this needs to be followed by a more constructive, bottom-up framework.
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