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Explanation: At the conclusion of the English Civil War, the Parliamentarian military leader Oliver Cromwell assumed control over England - no longer a monarchy with the execution of Charles I. The first parliament of the new Commonwealth of England was very eager to implement widespread reforms. Cromwell, instead, dissolved parliament and ruled without them as Lord Protector.
Funny enough, there were proto-socialists active at this time
Billy Bragg - The World Turned Upside Down
🎶🎶🎶
In 1649 To St. George’s Hill A ragged band they called the Diggers Came to show the people’s will
They defied the landlords They defied the laws They were the dispossessed Reclaiming what was theirs
“We come in peace,” they said "To dig and sow We come to work the lands in common And to make the waste grounds grow This earth divided We will make whole So it will be A common treasury for all
The sin of property We do disdain No man has any right to buy and sell The earth for private gain
By theft and murder They took the land Now everywhere the walls Spring up at their command
They make the laws To chain us well The clergy dazzle us with heaven Or they damn us into hell
We will not worship The God they serve The God of greed who feeds the rich While poor men starve
We work we eat together We need no swords We will not bow to the masters Or pay rent to the lords We are free men Though we are poor You Diggers all stand up for glory Stand up now
on a sorta related note: the Enclosure Movement was one of the most transformational developments in western history responsible for shaping the modern world as we know it today, giving rise to land-based power dynasties central to feudalism, aristocratic control, and eventually definitions for what we understand today to be “private property” as enshrined in common law in civil society.
it was essentially the biggest land grab to ever occur at the time under the pretense of Law, and it under pins the Industrial Revolution and transition to wage based economies (ie, capitalism). it also established much of the legal precedent used by colonizers for hundreds of years to take away land from native peoples and the poor living off unenclosed lands.
anyone interested in some of the earliest examples of anti-landlord resistance in European history, it’s worth diving into.
Cromwell sucked. Genocidal fuck.
