Stefan Westkemper

Economic Participation in Revolutionary 17th Century England. a Closer Look at Gerrard Winstanley Stefan Westkemper

Seminar paper from the year 2012 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 1,7, Ruhr-University of Bochum (Englisches Seminar), course: British Republicanism. Harrington, Cromwell, Milton, language: English, abstract: [...] Therefore, the aim of this paper is to have a closer look at one radical vision of political and economic participation in England put forward by George Winstanley after the execution of Charles I. In order to show Winstanley's unique status among seventeenth-century political philosophers, I will make use of and quote some of Winstanley's many writings and pamphlets, e.g. The Law of Freedom in a Platform and An Appeale to all Englishmen. First, the main ideas and concepts of Winstanley are going to be discussed in order to, in a second step, compare them and to point out the main differences. Since this paper is restricted in its length, I can only point out the main ideas and concepts of Winstanley. The events of the English Civil War(s) or the later Commonwealth will not be discussed in this paper, since they function only as the backdrop to Winstanley's political theories and should be familiar to the reader. [...]