The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth: As Revealed in the Writings of Gerrard Winstanley, the Digger, Mystic and Rationalist, Communist and Social ReformerBerens, Lewis Henry
History
The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth: As Revealed in the Writings of Gerrard Winstanley, the Digger, Mystic and Rationalist, Communist and Social Reformer
Berens, Lewis Henry
Communism; Land use; Winstanley, Gerrard, 1609-
"While God gave to man a capacity to labour, He also gave him a
right to the object (the earth) on which that labour must be
employed to produce the necessaries of life. This gift of God is to
all men alike. No compact or consent or legislation on the part of
one portion of the community, can ever justly deprive another
portion of the community of their right of their share of the
earth, and of its natural productions. No arrangement or agreement
or legislation of men now dead, can justly deprive the present
inhabitants of the earth, or any portion of those inhabitants, of
their right to labour, and to labour for their own profit, on some
portion of the earth which God has given to man."--PATRICK EDWARD
DOVE, _Elements of Political Science_. 1854.
"Our postulates are the primary perceptions of human reason, the
fundamental teachings of the Christian faith. We hold: That--This
world is the creation of God. The men brought into it for the brief
period of their earthly lives are the equal creatures of His
bounty, the equal subjects of His provident care.... Being the
equal creatures of the Creator, equally entitled under His
providence to live their lives and satisfy their needs, men are
equally entitled to the use of land, and any adjustment that denies
this equal use of land is morally wrong."--HENRY GEORGE, _An Open
Letter to Pope Leo XIII_. 1891.[228:1]
Here, then, we must bid farewell to Gerrard Winstanley. We are uncertain
as to the place and year of his birth; we know not where he lived, nor
where or when he died; yet his words still appeal to us, prompting us to
cast off the blinding and distorting spectacles of convention and
custom, to look the facts of social life fairly and squarely in the
face, and boldly to proclaim whatever social truths reflection and study
may reveal to us. Such are the lessons which his life and teachings seem
to us to inculcate.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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