For as other men partake
of their labors, so it is reason they should partake of other
men's."
It should be scarcely necessary to pause to point out that what
Winstanley here describes is exactly what is taking place, in his time
as in our times, all the world over. Commodities of every description
are continuously being produced, and being brought to the Storehouses,
wholesale and retail, thence to be redistributed to those who require
them. The Social Problem, of Winstanley's time and of our time, is how
to secure to each co-operating worker his fair share of the returns to
the labours of all. And manifestly this is impossible so long as some
can command any share thereof without having in any way shared in the
toil or rendered any equivalent counter-service. In 1905, as in 1652, an
ever increasing portion and proportion of the wealth thus harvested and
garnered constantly gravitates towards those who, under the prevailing
"kingly laws," claim to control the use of the land, whence alone it can
be derived. This was the basic social injustice, the parent source of
innumerable other social ills and injustices, which Winstanley was one
of the first clearly to apprehend, and to combat which he devoted his
life.
Winstanley, moreover, fully and clearly realised that:
"THE KING'S OLD LAWS CANNOT SERVE A FREE COMMONWEALTH."
And this formed the heading of his next chapter, in which in a specially
lively manner he first points out that the Laws of a Monarchy--which,
being based upon inequality, necessarily tend to produce inequality, and
whose main function is to legalise and to maintain privileges--are
necessarily essentially different from those suitable to a Free
Commonwealth--which, being based upon the recognition of the equality of
rights, would necessarily tend to produce an equality of social
conditions; and whose main function would be to establish and to
legalise Justice, equal rights and equal duties, to maintain and to
enforce the equal claims of all to the use of the earth, to life, to
liberty, and to the pursuit of happiness.
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