hi i was waundering what the comunitie thinks about the diggers and levellers. i have breifly read about them and what they wanted.to me the beleif that that the poor should be allowed land is spot on and that we should live in small communities. i was also wandering if there are any active communities of diggers out there now. thanks \m/
I don't know too much about the period of the English Civil and the political movements that developed out of the conflict, but here's a cover of an old folk song about the Diggers by the Rebel Spell: http://therebelspell.bandcamp.com/track ... pside-down
thanks nz61287n i will check that shit out. im surprised no one else have answered to this post i thought the diggers movement would of been known by the anarchist community. here is some basic information which ive robbed of a site. The Levellers were a relatively loose alliance of radicals and freethinkers who came to prominence during the period of instability that characterized the English Civil War of 1642 - 1649. What bound these people together was the general belief that all men were equal; since this was the case, then a government could only have legitimacy if it was elected by the people. The Leveller demands were for a secular republic, abolition of the House of Lords, equality before the law, the right to vote for all, free trade, the abolition of censorship, freedom of speech, the abolition of tithes and tolls, and the absolute right for people to worship whatever religion they chose, or none at all. This program was published as "The Agreement of the People". The Levellers argued that since God had created all men as equals, the land belonged to all the people as a right. Their program was, then, essentially an attempt to restore the situation that they believed had existed previous to the Norman Conquest in 1066; they wanted to establish a 'commonwealth' in which the common people would be in control of their own destiny without the intervention of a King, a House of Lords and other potential oppressors. It is hardly surprising, given this program of demands, that the rich and powerful felt threatened by the Levellers. This is particularly so, given that some of the Leveller demands, almost 400 years on, have still not been met! O.K i understand they do have some draw backs such as their religious but they do also say that people should be allowed the right to worship any god they want or none, which back in them times must of been a really radical thing to think. i personally think this movement was a cool one and i would consider them anarchists for their time, if you think im wrong id be happy to hear your opinion. \m/
I think thats mainly due the level of traffic on the forum. In terms of the Levellers, here are also a number of similar anti-private property and egalitarian movements that came out of that era that were also heavily rooted in Christianity such as the Anabaptists and a number of peasant uprisings. The views on property and labor partially developed out of the Bubonic Plague. The enormous death toll left a lot of good agricultural land open for the taking as well as a massive reduction the size of the peasant and serf classes creating an environment where serfs and peasants could challenge the standing labor conditions and relations. As a response many in the nobility made it illegal for serfs to move from the land and the land owning classes also set ceilings on how much the serfs could earn or keep. Essentially land owners were employing almost every trick in the book to exploit and restrict the peasants during a time where the demand for labor skyrocketed (putting the peasants in one of the best bargaining positions they would ever be in). The reason why these groups were so heavily rooted in Christianity has to do with the Protestant Reformation. While Martin Luther despised the lower classes many of those who adopted Protestantism and its rejection of the Papacy's hierarchy expanded this concept in (what for the times was) radical ways. This is when you start to see more democratic practices in some places (for example congregations electing the priests).
