Voices from the Past: Gerrard Winstanley 1608 ? - 1660 ? (1960)

From the October 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

War

“Wheretofore is it that there is such wars and rumours of wars in the nations of the earth? And wherefore are men so mad to destroy one another? but only to uphold civil property of honour, dominion and riches one over another.  .  .  . But when once the earth becomes a common treasury again, as it must . . . then this emnity of all lands will cease, and none shall dare to seek dominion over others, neither shall any dare to kill another, nor desire more of the earth than other.”

The True Levellers Standard Advanced (1649).

Labour

"No man can be rich but he must be rich either by his own labours or by the labours of other men helping him. If a man has no help from his neighbour be shall never gather an estate of hundreds and thousands a year. If other men help him to work, then are those riches his neighbour's as well as his; for they be the fruit of other men's labours as well as his own.  . . . Rich men receive all they have from the labourer's hand, and what they give, they give away other men’s labours, not their own.”

The Law of Freedom in a Platform (1652).

Law

“Shall we have no lawyers?

There is no need of them, for there is to be no buying and selling; neither any need to expound laws; for the bare letter of the law shall be both judge and lawyer, trying every man's actions. And seeing we shall have successive Parliaments every year, there will be rules made for every action a man can do.”

The Law of Freedom in a Platform (1652).

Religion

“ [Priests] lay claim to heaven after they are dead, and yet they require their heaven in this world, too, and grumble mightily against the people that will not give them a large temporal maintenance. And yet they tell the poor people that they must be content with their poverty, and they shall have their heaven hereafter. But why may not we have our heaven here (that is, a comfortable livelihood in the earth) and heaven hereafter too, as well as you? "

An Appeal to all Englishmen (1650).

These extracts from the writings of Gerrard Winstanley are taken from The Good Old Cause (Lawrence & Wishart). edited by Christopher Hill and Edmund Dell.