Levellers”

The economic reduction of political equality in the Putney debates, 1647

Datos Bibliográficos

ID9239293
AutoresJeff D Bass (Baylor University, autor de correspondencia)
Año1991
Volumen77
Número4
Páginas427-445
Fecha de publicación1991-11-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaQuarterly Journal of Speech (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0033-5630 • E-ISSN: 1479-5779
EditorialInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00335639109383972
OpenAlexW2042419513
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas1
Referencias citadas24

The Putney debates of 1647 between Puritan radicals and moderates within the New Model Army over political equality are a classic example of the de‐legitimation of demands for political change. The radicals sought to present their proposal for the institution of political equality as an extension of the consent theory of sovereignty that had been employed by Parliament to justify resistance to Charles I. The moderates’ response to this strategy was to reduce the idea of political equality from the level of a religiously‐grounded civil right to that of an economic liability that would plunge society into chaos. This reduction facilitated the ability of the upper classes to “misname” the radicals as self‐interested “Levellers” of all person's estates. The radicals’ inability to refute this charge stigmatized their proposals as irresponsible and irreparably damaged their ethos

Ethos · Institution · Law and economics · Legitimation · Parliament · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Sovereignty · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Law · Literature: history, themes, analysis · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity