The Age of Hobsbawm: A Historian Without a Reckoning

 

Eric Hobsbawm has historically held a contradictory position in modern history writing: a Marxist who became the most popular historian of capitalism, a lifelong Communist gaining mainstream respectability, and a scholar whose broad analyses of the long nineteenth century were celebrated. At the same time, his political views remained largely unexplored. Fourteen years after his death, this paradox persists. Emile Chabal’s The Age of Hobsbawm, the second comprehensive biography after Richard Evans’s 2019 work, is well-informed, thoroughly researched, but ultimately either unable or unwilling to address the core political issue in Hobsbawm’s life.

An intellectual biography that circles its subject

Chabal aims to craft an intellectual biography rather than a traditional chronological life story, focusing on the ideas, institutions, journals, and networks that influenced Hobsbawm’s worldview. In this focus, the book excels. It highlights Hobsbawm’s international connections—his correspondence with Braudel, his impact on Latin American economists, and his reputation in India and Chile. The author illustrates how Hobsbawm’s intellectual development was deeply linked to the transnational Communist environment of the 1930s and 1940s, and how his later significance was rooted in a cosmopolitan network that extended well beyond the British academic realm.

However, this strength also limits the book. Chabal emphasises intellectual formation but avoids addressing its accountability. The political commitments that shaped Hobsbawm’s life are seen as context rather than issues or contradictions. Consequently, the book offers a detailed portrayal of Hobsbawm’s ideas but largely leaves his political choices unexplored. Eric Hobsbawm’s reputation as the “most widely read Marxist historian of the twentieth century” hinges on a contradiction that not only defines his work but also the course of academic Marxism in Britain. He was a revolutionary historian who refused to challenge the actual revolution of his era; a Marxist who spent his life accommodating the forces that dismantled Marxism; a chronicler of class struggle who ultimately supported New Labour, which ended the last traces of the labour movement. The establishment’s veneration of Hobsbawm is deliberate, indicating how much his Marxism had been weakened.

The Stalinist Imprint: A Political Formation in the Service of Counterrevolution

Hobsbawm’s political formation was shaped more by the bureaucratic structure that suppressed Lenin and Trotsky's legacy than by their revolutionary ideas. He joined the Communist movement in Berlin during the Third Period, a time when the Stalin-controlled KPD labelled Social Democrats as "social fascists” and facilitated Hitler’s rise, effectively aligning with a counterfeit Marxism. This influence persisted throughout his life. He remained committed to the Communist Party of Great Britain until 1991, enduring events like the Moscow Trials, the Hitler-Stalin Pact, the suppression of the Hungarian Revolution, and the invasion of Czechoslovakia. His loyalty was not due to ignorance but a conscious allegiance to an organisation whose crimes he later acknowledged or suspected.

For a historian whose reputation rested on fearless engagement with evidence, this silence was not merely political cowardice. It was a betrayal of the very principles of historical materialism.

The CP Historians Group: Achievement Built on Avoidance

The group of Communist Party historians—Christopher Hill, E.P. Thompson, Rodney Hilton, Dona Torr, and Hobsbawm—revolutionised English historiography by emphasising class relations as central to history and creating works of lasting significance. However, their success was marred by a significant omission: they deliberately avoided the twentieth century, especially the Russian Revolution. This was not a mere oversight but stemmed from strict Party discipline, which prohibited honest analysis of Soviet history—an order Hobsbawm adhered to. He authored comprehensive histories of capitalism’s development but steadfastly avoided addressing the socialist revolution that shaped the modern era. This silence remains the most defining aspect of his historiographical legacy.

The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 fractured the CP Historians Group, with Thompson, Hill, and others distancing themselves from Stalinism. In contrast, Hobsbawm did not. His later claim that remaining in the Party was only a “biographical question” dismisses the event as insignificant, but it was a political choice with serious consequences. By staying, Hobsbawm accepted the suppression of revolutionary truth as the cost of remaining in the Party. Thompson and Hill gained renewed intellectual energy after 1956, whereas Hobsbawm developed a stronger dedication to the bureaucratic worldview that influenced him.

Hobsbawm’s approach to history—marked by its wide scope and synthesis—was influenced by his political commitments. His works emphasise long-term social and economic patterns rather than individual political actions, focusing on societal structures instead of revolutionary choices. This is intentional, reflecting Stalinism’s ideology of structure devoid of agency, emphasising continuity over change, and viewing history as apolitical. Hobsbawm’s methodology and political views mutually reinforced each other. Consequently, his Marxism lost its revolutionary essence.

Eurocommunism and New Labour: The Final Capitulation

In the 1970s and 1980s, Hobsbawm shifted clearly to the right. His support for Eurocommunism and the Marxism Today group signalled a move away from traditional class politics. His 1978 essay, "The Forward March of Labour Halted," claimed that the working class was no longer the main force for social change—an idea that aligned closely with bourgeois sociology. This essay became a key reference for New Labour, and Tony Blair’s team openly recognised its impact. Hobsbawm even took pride in being called “the Marxist who inspired Blair."

Emile Chabal’s The Age of Hobsbawm sheds light on this capitulation. Chabal explains that Hobsbawm was not just a historian of revolutions but a key figure in an era where Marxism shifted towards cultural critique, academic sociology, and establishment-oriented analysis. His insight is powerful: Hobsbawm was a “revolutionary historian” who experienced revolutions he could not endorse and wrote about ones he could not participate in. His Marxism was global, structural, and analytical, yet never political. He documented capitalism’s growth while avoiding addressing socialism’s crisis. This is the reason the establishment supported him—he posed no challenge to their power.

The Unresolved Legacy: A Marxism Without Revolution

Hobsbawm’s historical work, especially on the long nineteenth century, remains highly influential. Yet, his political journey reveals the shortcomings of a Marxism detached from revolutionary action. Although he dedicated his career to studying revolutions, he avoided engaging with the revolution that truly mattered. Ultimately, he became a respected figure within the very political establishment Marxism sought to overthrow. His legacy is not only contradictory but also reflects the broader trend of twentieth-century academic Marxism—rich in analysis but lacking political vitality.

Chabal thoughtfully acknowledges that Hobsbawm’s Stalinist period is not entirely sanitised. He points out that before 1956, Hobsbawm saw Marxism as a comprehensive ideology and regarded the Soviet Union as its sacred heart. This highlights the almost religious loyalty he held. Additionally, Chabal revisits an episode often overlooked by more favourable accounts: Hobsbawm’s early-1950s review of Jozsef Révai’s pamphlet criticising György Lukács for lacking ideological purity. This was more than just literary critique; it was a form of policing orthodoxy during a time when such accusations had serious consequences.

Chabal stops short of applying the full extent of his critique. The instinct that once pushed the young Hobsbawm to uphold Kremlin cultural policies persisted throughout his career, though in a milder form. His 2007 defence of the Spanish Communist Party’s actions during the Civil War—criticised by Marxists as merely recycling "old Kremlin orthodoxies" and contradicting archival evidence—was not unusual. Instead, it reflected a consistent mindset rooted in the Comintern era that he never fully shed. While Chabal observes these continuities, he does not fully confront or analyse them.

Chabal presents his book as an “ethical act,” especially as the historical field feels under attack. This defensive stance reveals a bias: he admires Hobsbawm’s skills as a communicator but is more lenient towards his Communist past. The political beliefs that influenced Hobsbawm are seen as mere background details rather than crucial to understanding him. The main question—why Hobsbawm stayed in the Communist Party until 1991, despite later condemning Stalinism’s crimes—gets some context but no real analysis. Chabal echoes Hobsbawm’s late statement that this was “a one-off biographical question,” not a political issue. An honest intellectual biography should have challenged this avoidance. Instead, Chabal notes it without critique, reflecting a field hesitant to face its own contradictions.

This does not undermine the book’s valuable insights. Chabal’s detailed analysis of Hobsbawm’s global network offers clear illumination, and his careful interpretation of key texts is more focused than many posthumous reviews. However, like Evans’s earlier work, the book ends with a similar stance: admiration for the historian, discomfort with the Communist, and a lack of serious inquiry into why a scholar so aware of the material forces shaping the nineteenth century seemed unable or unwilling to address the twentieth honestly.

The absence of any reckoning, even fourteen years after Hobsbawm’s death and across two major biographies, is noteworthy. It shows that the historical field is still hesitant to confront the political ties of one of its most renowned figures, preferring to see those ties as quirks rather than fundamental issues. Chabal’s book, despite its merits, ultimately sustains this hesitance. The Age of Hobsbawm offers a meaningful intellectual biography. However, it does not fulfil the political scrutiny Hobsbawm’s life warrants. Until such scrutiny occurs, the core paradox of his legacy will persist, and the profession’s own avoidance of these questions will remain unexamined.

Sources and Bibliography

Primary Works by Eric Hobsbawm

• Hobsbawm, Eric. The Age of Revolution: 1789–1848. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1962.
• ——. The Age of Capital: 1848–1875. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1975.
• ——. The Age of Empire: 1875–1914. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1987.
• ——. The Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, 1914–1991. London: Michael Joseph, 1994.
• ——. Interesting Times: A Twentieth‑Century Life. London: Allen Lane, 2002.
• ——. “The Spanish Background.” The Guardian, 12 January 2007.
• ——. Labouring Men: Studies in the History of Labour. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1964.
• ——. Primitive Rebels. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1959.
• ——. Bandits. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1969.

Primary Communist and Comintern‑Era Material

• Révai, József. The Tasks of Hungarian Literature. Budapest: Szikra, 1951. (English edition with introduction by Eric Hobsbawm.)
• Lukács, György. The Meaning of Contemporary Realism. London: Merlin Press, 1963.
• Lukács, György. Record of a Life. London: Verso, 1983.
• The Communist International: Documents, 1919–1943. Various volumes.

Biographies and Studies of Hobsbawm

• Chabal, Emile. The Age of Hobsbawm: The Life of a Revolutionary Historian. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2024.
• Evans, Richard J. Eric Hobsbawm: A Life in History. London: Little, Brown, 2019.
• Anderson, Perry. “The Ends of History.” New Left Review 193 (1992): 1–20.
• Thompson, E.P. “The Poverty of Theory.” In The Poverty of Theory and Other Essays. London: Merlin Press, 1978.
• Callinicos, Alex. “Hobsbawm’s Century.” International Socialism 100 (2003): 155–166.
• Birchall, Ian. “Hobsbawm and the Spanish Revolution.” International Socialism 114 (2007).

Marxist Critiques of Stalinism and the CPGB

• Deutscher, Isaac. Stalin: A Political Biography. London: Oxford University Press, 1949.
• ——. The Prophet Outcast: Trotsky, 1929–1940. London: Oxford University Press, 1963.
• Broué, Pierre. The German Revolution, 1917–1923. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2006.
• Harman, Chris. The Fire Last Time: 1968 and After. London: Bookmarks, 1988.
• Cliff, Tony. State Capitalism in Russia. London: Pluto Press, 1974.
• Rees, John. The Algebra of Revolution: The Dialectic and the Classical Marxist Tradition. London: Routledge, 1998.
• Birchall, Ian. The Spectre of Babeuf. London: Pluto Press, 1997.

Historiography and Theory

• Braudel, Fernand. Civilisation and Capitalism, 15th–18th Century. 3 vols. New York: Harper & Row, 1981–84.
• Carr, E.H. What Is History? London: Penguin, 1961.
• Thompson, E.P. The Making of the English Working Class. London: Victor Gollancz, 1963.
• Anderson, Perry. Considerations on Western Marxism. London: Verso, 1976.
• Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities. London: Verso, 1983.
• Scott, James C. Seeing Like a State. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998.

Studies of the CPGB and British Communism

• Morgan, Kevin. Bolshevism and the British Left. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 2006.
• Worley, Matthew. Class Against Class: The Communist Party in Britain Between the Wars. London: I.B. Tauris, 2002.
• Francis, Hywel. Miners Against Fascism: Wales and the Spanish Civil War. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1984.
• McIlroy, John, and Alan Campbell, eds. The Communist Party of Great Britain and the Trade Unions, 1933–1945. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 2001.

Spanish Civil War and Communist Strategy

• Graham, Helen. The Spanish Republic at War, 1936–1939. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
• Preston, Paul. The Spanish Holocaust. London: HarperCollins, 2012.
• Broué, Pierre, and Émile Témime. The Revolution and Civil War in Spain. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2006.
• Orwell, George. Homage to Catalonia. London: Secker & Warburg, 1938.

Hungary 1956 and Soviet Repression

• Sebestyen, Victor. Twelve Days: The Story of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2006.
• Granville, Johanna. The First Domino: International Decision Making During the Hungarian Crisis of 1956. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2004.
• Lukács, György. The Lukács Reader. Edited by Arpad Kadarkay. Oxford: Blackwell, 1995.

General Works on Stalinism and the Twentieth Century

• Conquest, Robert. The Great Terror. London: Macmillan, 1968.
• Getty, J. Arch, and Oleg Naumov. The Road to Terror: Stalin and the Self‑Destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932–1939. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999.
• Fitzpatrick, Sheila. Everyday Stalinism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.
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Diary of a Nobody and Some News From Nowhere

In recent months, both of my websites have undergone a transformation that I could not have anticipated even a year ago. What began as a modest corner of the internet — a place to publish essays, polemics, and historical reflections — has suddenly become a destination for thousands of readers across the world. Yesterday alone brought 6,000 hits, a figure that would once have seemed fantastical. If this trajectory continues, the month’s total will exceed 70,000. For a project built slowly, often in solitude, this surge feels both surreal and strangely vindicating.

Several forces have converged to produce this moment. The most obvious is the political climate. Periods of instability always drive people back to history, theory, and analysis that can explain the world’s accelerating contradictions. My work, rooted in Marxist historiography and the long arc of revolutionary movements, has found itself unexpectedly aligned with the needs of a growing audience.

Another catalyst arrived unexpectedly: two of the world’s most influential Marxists, David North and Joseph Kishore, followed my Twitter account. Their interest acted as a signal, prompting thousands of politically engaged readers to explore my work. On the very first day of this surge, visitors from 32 countries arrived — a reminder that political inquiry is now global, and that the questions raised by the English Revolution, the Levellers, Winstanley, or Trotsky resonate far beyond Britain.

A further transformation has come from technology. The integration of AI into my research and editorial workflow has been nothing short of revolutionary. Socialism AI on the WSWS has sharpened the political edge of my work. Copilot and Claude have accelerated the research process to a degree I would once have considered impossible. Tasks that previously required days or weeks — collating sources, structuring arguments, revising drafts — can now be completed within hours. The bottleneck is no longer labour but thought itself.

This acceleration has made possible a project I have long postponed: a complete rewrite of the entire archive. Beginning with the earliest essays from 2008, I am now working through 2012. Many of these pieces were written quickly, often under pressure, and with limited resources. They deserve better. Some of the more substantial articles will be republished later this year in significantly improved form.

Two major rewrites deserve mention. My BA dissertation — previously weak and not up to the subject — has been completely revised, incorporating the latest historiography and a more rigorous analytical framework. Likewise, my work on Raphael Samuel, originally part of an incomplete Master’s degree, has been revised to a standard I can finally accept. There is a real possibility that this material may develop into a book. Samuel’s relationship to working‑class history, memory, and radical historiography aligns closely with my own intellectual trajectory.

The Why I Write series has also been fully edited and is now fit for publication. It may be time to add new essays to this collection, reflecting the changes in my work and the political moment.

A CALL FOR CONTRIBUTORS

This website has never been a passive repository of historical curiosities. It is a platform built in the tradition of the Levellers, the Chartists, the early Marxists, and every working‑class intellectual who refused to accept the official version of history. It exists to challenge the complacency of academic orthodoxy, to expose the distortions of bourgeois historiography, and to confront the political lies that saturate public life.

The present moment demands more voices, not fewer.

If you are a historian, a socialist, a researcher, a polemicist, or simply someone who refuses to accept the intellectual poverty of mainstream commentary, I invite you to contribute. The only requirement is seriousness — seriousness about history, seriousness about politics, and seriousness about the working class as the decisive force in world events.

I am not looking for polite essays that tiptoe around the truth. I am looking for writers who understand that history is a battleground, that ideas have consequences, and that the struggle for clarity is inseparable from the struggle for emancipation. If you have something to say — about the English Revolution, the Paris Commune, the Russian Revolution, the rise of fascism, the crisis of capitalism, or the lived experience of the working class today — then say it here.

This platform is growing. The readership is international. The political situation is accelerating. If you have been waiting for the right moment to write, that moment has arrived.

Send your work. Add your voice. Join the fight for historical truth.

 

The Yahoo Boys: A Portrait of Global Loneliness and the Criminality of Capitalism

Carlos Barragán’s The Yahoo Boys offers a disturbing yet insightful look into the world of investigative journalism. It explores one of the most grotesque consequences of the global capitalist crisis: Nigerian online romance scammers who prey on the loneliness and desperation of individuals in wealthy countries. The book avoids sensationalism and moral judgment, instead providing a sober, humane, and often harrowing account of young men in Lagos who turn to cyber-fraud because legitimate avenues for social mobility have collapsed.

Amid the deepening contradictions of global capitalism, this book explores the increasingly grotesque and tragic behaviours these contradictions produce. Based on six months of reporting in Lagos, it delves into the lives of the “Yahoo Boys”: young Nigerians who make a living by executing online romance scams targeting lonely individuals in Europe and the U.S. However, Barragán’s observations—often despite his own framing—reveal more than a typical crime story; they depict the social ruin caused by imperialist influence, structural adjustment, and capitalism’s fragmentation of daily life.

The book starts with a personal injury: Barragán’s mother, alone in Madrid, is tricked by a fake American soldier named “Brian.” The con artist is never caught. Instead, Barragán discovers a generation of Nigerian youth drawn into an underground digital economy after the formal economy has been systematically broken down. The “Yahoo Boys” are not anomalies but expected outcomes of IMF, World Bank, and multinational oil policies that have exploited Nigeria’s resources and left millions unemployed and in poverty.

Barragán portrays four scammers — Biggy, Chibuike, Azeez, and Richie — with striking specificity. Rather than caricatures of criminality, they appear as young men forced into a form of labour after other options have been shut off. Azeez, a tailor’s apprentice, faces the brutal arithmetic of survival in a country where inflation has made honest work untenable. Richie bears the psychological weight of a scam that ended in a victim’s death. In their world, the platforms of global capital — Tinder, Instagram, Apple IDs, and gift cards — become the only viable labour market.

The "Yahoo Boys": A Product of Imperialist Plunder and Capitalist Decay

This reality affects a generation whose future has been damaged by imperialist reforms. Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy, has experienced decades of structural adjustment policies that have dismantled public services, privatised state assets, and put international financial interests above development. Consequently, many young people are seen as surplus to capital’s needs—often turning to digital fraud as a risky occupation. The “Yahoo Boys'—young Nigerians engaged in online scams like advance-fee fraud, romance fraud, and business email compromise—are often seen by bourgeois commentators as a moral crisis, a cultural failing, or issues stemming from weak law enforcement. However, a Marxist perspective reveals that they are not an anomaly. Instead, they are a predictable result of Nigeria’s systemic exploitation by imperialism and its local comprador bourgeoisie.

The economic reality that produces them

Nigeria, Africa’s biggest oil producer and most populous nation, has earned hundreds of billions of dollars from oil since gaining independence. However, as documented by the WSWS, Nigeria captures only about 10–15 per cent of the crude's value at the wellhead. The remaining 80–90 per cent—generated through refining, petrochemicals, logistics, and finance—is siphoned off offshore by transnational corporations. Nigeria exports raw crude oil, and then imports refined gasoline at higher prices. According to Jean Shaoul's detailed June 2026 analysis of Africa's political economy, Nigeria exemplifies a system in which every profitable part of the oil value chain is systematically externalised.

The concrete consequences have been devastating. Nigeria’s oil sector employs less than 1 per cent of its 70-million-strong workforce — about 20,000 to 65,000 direct workers. In the 1970s and 1980s, the influx of petrodollars inflated the currency, made domestic goods uncompetitive, and gutted agriculture and manufacturing. Textile employment collapsed from 350,000 jobs to just 25,000, with nothing to replace what was lost. The result is mass unemployment — officially 27 per cent, and far higher among young people — while 102 million people, more than half the population, live in poverty.

The Yahoo Boys phenomenon originates from the economic marginalisation faced by many young Nigerians, many of whom are university graduates with skills, ambition, internet access, and fluency in English. Despite these assets, they encounter limited legitimate job opportunities. As a result, they are forced to choose between honest employment and criminal activity, or develop alternative survival strategies within an economy intentionally designed to exclude them.

The comprador state and the real criminals

Nigeria’s ruling class—a comprador bourgeoisie acting as an intermediary layer that benefits from foreign capital—continues to oversee this social disaster while accumulating vast personal wealth. Aliko Dangote is Africa’s richest individual, and Nigeria’s four billionaires have experienced a significant increase in their fortunes. Meanwhile, the government depends on police units like the infamous SARS (Special Anti-Robbery Squad), which has been linked to extortion, kidnapping, torture, and extrajudicial killings. These abuses overwhelmingly target young people aged 18 to 35, as documented by WSWS during the 2020 EndSARS protests.

The extent of theft by Nigeria's ruling class—whether through embezzling state funds, corruptly granting oil concessions to transnational corporations, or systematically siphoning public revenue into private accounts—far exceeds what Yahoo Boys could achieve. The key difference is that this form of theft is legal and often celebrated, while internet fraud is criminalised and penalised. Ironically, the very state condemning internet fraud is actually the largest criminal enterprise in Nigeria.

Not a revolutionary force, but a symptom

None of this is to romanticise the Yahoo Boys. Their activity is not a form of anti-imperialist resistance. It is an individualistic, lumpen response to social conditions that preys indiscriminately on working people abroad while enriching a layer of young men who often flaunt their wealth in ways that reproduce the values of the very bourgeoisie that has destroyed their country. The Yahoo Boys do not challenge the system — they aspire to join its beneficiaries.

The moral condemnation of Nigerian cybercriminals by the Nigerian government and Western media is deeply hypocritical. The same imperialist nations criticising these hackers have corporations that drain Nigeria's resources, making honest work impossible. Similarly, Nigerian officials who vow to crack down are often the ones who have looted the treasury. The Yahoo Boys' actions reflect a broken social system, not its root problem. Tackling this issue requires more than increased police, surveillance, or moral lectures. True change involves societal transformation through socialism—taking control of oil from multinational and local partners, organising Nigeria's productive sectors to create decent jobs for everyone, and building global worker solidarity to oppose capitalism, which causes poverty and crime. Nigerian youth don’t need sermons; they need a revolution.

Barragán’s access to these young men — their routines, chat logs, and self-justifications — enables an account that is both intimate and socially devastating. Rather than cartoon villains, they emerge as people shaped by intolerable conditions: mass unemployment, decaying infrastructure, and the extreme inequality that marks Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy and one of its most fractured societies.

Loneliness as a global commodity

Barragán’s notable insight is that the Yahoo Boys have harnessed a new resource for global capitalism: loneliness. In Europe and the U.S., years of social fragmentation, declining living standards, and weakened community ties have left millions feeling isolated. Scammers exploit this vulnerability with precision, weaving complex tales of love, military duties, grief, and financial hardship. Their targets are mainly working-class individuals — pensioners, widows, insecure workers, and others pushed aside by social structures — who seek connection. These scams succeed because capitalism has fostered significant social dislocation in the West.

Barragán does not excuse the scammers, but he refuses to reduce them to moral aberrations. Their actions grow out of the catastrophic failure of Nigerian capitalism: staggering youth unemployment, unreliable electricity, underfunded education, entrenched corruption, and a ruling elite enriched by oil revenues and foreign investment while abandoning an entire generation. In this context, cyber-fraud becomes a rational, if destructive, means of survival. The Yahoo Boys often justify themselves by invoking colonialism and global inequality — “We are taking back what the West stole” — but this pseudo-radical rhetoric collapses under scrutiny. Their victims are not imperialist governments or multinational corporations, but ordinary working people. The scams do not redistribute wealth; they transfer suffering from one section of the global working class to another.

Barragán’s book unintentionally highlights the limited capacity of individual actions during social collapse. The Yahoo Boys see themselves as rebelling against the global system. Yet, they rely entirely on its infrastructure: Western social media, international payment platforms, Chinese gift-card resellers, and the interconnected digital networks that sustain the global economy. Their form of "resistance” is more parasitic than revolutionary, leaving Nigeria’s ruling elite unaffected, failing to challenge imperialism, and ultimately worsening the social fragmentation and cynicism that capitalism fosters. The scammers are not opponents of the system but rather its desperate, informal offshoots.

The Yahoo Boys and the World Capitalist Swindle

One of the most revealing parts of the book details a gift card taken from a victim in the U.S. It travels through Nigerian middlemen, is laundered on online marketplaces, and finally ends up with Chinese vendors. This chain reveals how modern capitalism encompasses even fraudulent romance as part of a global system of value extraction. Barragán’s investigation demonstrates that cybercrime isn’t separate from capitalism. Still, a sign of its decline: the same issues—unemployment, inequality, and social collapse—that give rise to the Yahoo Boys are present worldwide in various forms.

Barragán’s reporting clearly illustrates this labour process. The Yahoo Boys establish their own division of tasks, terminology, and social structures. They are skilled in algorithms, adaptable, and entrepreneurial within the limited scope allowed by their environment. Their main offering is manufactured intimacy — a commodity derived from Western victims’ loneliness. The book’s most referenced line, “white men pay fast, but white women pay long,” is not a joke but an insightful market analysis by workers who have become experts in the emotional economies of the global North.

The Yahoo Boys are more than just Nigerian romance scammers; they represent a part of the worldwide cybercrime scene, which has emerged from neoliberalism’s fallout and is driven by the despair of millions left behind by capitalism. These individuals are not exotic criminals, but the marginalised children of a global system that provides them with no prospects. The young men Barragán encounters in Lagos are products of a society eroded by years of IMF austerity measures, oil industry exploitation, and a parasitic Nigerian bourgeoisie. Youth unemployment is dire; education systems are failing; infrastructure is minimal. In such circumstances, cyber-fraud shifts from being a moral issue to a necessary survival tactic. However, Lagos is just one part of a worldwide network. West Africa is known for romance scams and “419” fraud; Southeast Asia hosts large-scale scam operations dependent on trafficked labour; Eastern Europe produces ransomware and other cybercrimes; China engages in money laundering through extensive grey markets; and the West provides both victims and digital infrastructure. This situation isn't traditional crime but rather the informal labour market characteristic of modern capitalism.

Barragán’s key insight is that the Yahoo Boys exploit loneliness, which is the West’s often overlooked epidemic. Years of social fragmentation, declining living standards, and weakening community bonds have driven millions into isolation. These scammers do more than take money; they demand emotional effort, offering digital intimacy to those left behind by society. Their victims are not affluent elites but pensioners, widows, and insecure workers — all victims of the same system that created the scammers.

The Yahoo Boys and the Pseudo‑Lefts

Carlos Barragán’s The Yahoo Boys highlights the social crisis in Nigeria. Still, its true meaning becomes clear when viewed in the context of the politics of developed capitalist nations, especially the pseudo-left’s role. The Yahoo Boys—young Nigerians resorting to digital scams to survive—are not just a social anomaly but a sign of capitalism’s worldwide crisis, a reality that the pseudo-left has often hidden with identity politics, moralism, and middle-class focus.

Barragán’s book highlights two interconnected tragedies: the decline of youth in Lagos and the profound loneliness of millions in the West. Both stem from the same global system. However, the pseudo-left—comprising NGOs, academic radicals, lifestyle progressives, and those aligned with the US Democratic Party or Labour’s Blairite and soft-left factions in Britain—refuses to see this link. It attributes Nigerian suffering to “corruption,” “bad governance,” or “postcolonial trauma,” while dismissing Western workers' pain as “toxic masculinity,” “misinformation,” or “individual vulnerability.” In each case, the underlying class dynamics of the crisis are often hidden.

The pseudo‑lefts’ moralism: a substitute for analysis

The pseudo-left often reacts to phenomena like the Yahoo Boys with either moral condemnation or nostalgic pity. They label the scammers as misogynists, exploiters, or “digital predators,” while also romanticising them as victims of “global inequality.” In both perspectives, the scammers’ class background is overlooked. Instead of viewing them as products of systemic issues like IMF-driven structural adjustments, resource exploitation, and the decline of Nigeria’s industrial sector, they are cast as characters in a moral story.

This moral stance is deliberate, representing the beliefs of a privileged middle class whose material gains rely on maintaining capitalism. The pseudo-lefts refuse to recognise the structural causes of the Yahoo Boys' rise, because admitting this would reveal the influence of Western imperialism — encompassing the institutions they back, the governments they choose, and the NGOs they fund — in fostering the environment that pushes Nigerian youth into digital fraud.

Pseudo-left groups often analyse global inequality primarily through identity politics. They describe Nigeria’s crisis as “Black suffering,” “postcolonial wounds,” or “racial capitalism,” instead of pointing to specific causes like IMF conditionalities, currency devaluations, privatisation, and the exploitation of oil wealth by multinational corporations. This racialised framing serves a clear purpose: it enables them to criticise “whiteness” while ignoring the broader global mechanisms of capital.

In this perspective, the Yahoo Boys are seen not as products of structural adjustment but as symbols of “Black resistance,” “hustle culture,” or “diasporic survival.” Their victims, typically older Western women, are often dismissed as manifestations of “white fragility” or “privilege,” instead of being recognised as victims of neoliberal atomization that has dismantled unions, communities, and social supports. Consequently, identity politics serves its main ideological role: dividing the working class into racial, gendered, and cultural segments and hindering a unified understanding of the global crisis.

Barragán highlights the deep loneliness experienced by Western victims, many of whom send money to scammers over years due to their near-total isolation. The pseudo-lefts interpret this loneliness as a psychological issue — labelling it as “emotional labour,” “gendered vulnerability,” or “digital manipulation” — but fail to see it as a class issue caused by capitalism’s dismantling of collective institutions.

The pseudo-lefts often deny this truth because they have historically supported policies like privatisation, austerity, union-busting, and promoting 'flexibility,' which have contributed to social atomization. Their politics tend to originate from the professional-managerial class, which has gained materially from neoliberal reforms while claiming to champion 'social justice.” The Yahoo Boys are not rare exceptions but are emblematic of a global system that creates excess populations in the Global South and marginalises groups in the Global North. They are workers pushed into digital black markets due to the collapse of formal economies; their victims are those whose social structures have been broken down. The pseudo-lefts avoid confronting this reality because it reveals their own complicity. Having abandoned meaningful critiques of capitalism, they resort to moral performances, academic jargon, and outrage that lacks deep analysis. As a result, class struggle is replaced by identity politics, internationalism by NGO-driven humanitarianism, and socialism by lifestyle choices.

The Yahoo Boys are more than just criminals; they are victims of imperialism, and their victims are not simply naïve but also victims of social fragmentation. These scams reflect a worldwide crisis that the ruling class fails to address effectively. The same forces behind widespread unemployment in Nigeria also foster loneliness in Europe and the U.S. Similarly, digital platforms that facilitate gig economy exploitation also support romance scam schemes. The capitalist system that erodes livelihoods in Lagos is equally responsible for breaking social ties in Los Angeles.

Barragán’s book is important because it provides essential insight into this crisis. It offers a detailed account of what occurs when a generation excluded from formal jobs resorts to the only available labour market. However, this description must be linked to the broader history of imperialist control, structural adjustments, and the breakdown of capitalist society. Only through this context can the true significance of the Yahoo Boys be understood.

Moral condemnation, police crackdowns, and digital literacy campaigns are insufficient solutions to the worldwide crisis that yields both scammers and victims. This crisis can only be addressed by dismantling the economic system that has resulted in surplus populations, broken communities, and the commodification of intimacy. The Yahoo Boys are not exceptions but signals of a future where millions more could be forced into similar survival strategies unless a united international working class acts to overthrow the system behind this disaster.

Barragán’s achievement

The strength of The Yahoo Boys lies in its refusal to dehumanise its subjects. Barragán shows their contradictions, cruelty, humour, aspirations, and failures. He avoids romanticising or demonising them, instead placing them within the context of a broader crisis affecting a world system incapable of providing stable, meaningful lives for billions. In this way, the book aligns with the tradition of honest, socially conscious reporting praised by the WSWS for films like Eyimofe. It dismisses exoticism and moral panic, focusing instead on a straightforward analysis of the conditions that shape human behaviour.

The Yahoo Boys is more than just a book about Nigerian scammers; it explores the worldwide crisis of capitalism—a system that fosters loneliness in the West and desperation in the Global South, linking both through exploitation and deception. Barragán’s work should be seen not as a crime story but as a warning: when society neglects its youth, leaves millions hopeless, and commodifies human relationships, the consequences will be destructive, unpredictable, and deeply destabilising.

Sources and Bibliography

Books and Monographs

Ake, Claude. Democracy and Development in Africa. Brookings Institution Press, 1996. A foundational critique of how structural adjustment destroyed African developmental capacity.

Amin, Samir. Unequal Development: An Essay on the Social Formations of Peripheral Capitalism. Monthly Review Press, 1976. Classic analysis of dependency and the global division of labour.

Barragán, Carlos. The Yahoo Boys: Love, Deception, and the Real Lives of Nigeria’s Romance Scammers. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2026. Primary text under review.

Bello, Walden. The Food Wars. Verso, 2009. Useful for understanding how IMF/World Bank policies create surplus populations.

Berman, Bruce. Control and Crisis in Colonial Kenya. James Currey, 1990. A model for analysing colonial labour structures that applies to Nigeria’s postcolonial trajectory.

Brenner, Robert. The Economics of Global Turbulence. Verso, 2006. Key text on the long downturn and global capitalist restructuring.

Comaroff, Jean and John Comaroff. Theft of History. Cambridge University Press, 2006. Important for understanding the commodification of identity and pseudo‑left cultural politics.

Davis, Mike. Planet of Slums. Verso, 2006. Essential for situating Lagos within global patterns of urban immiseration.

Ferguson, James. Global Shadows: Africa in the Neoliberal World Order. Duke University Press, 2006. A central text for understanding how neoliberalism produces informal economies.

Gore, Charles. The Rise and Fall of Structural Adjustment. Oxford University Press, 2021. Directly relevant to Nigeria’s economic collapse.

Guyer, Jane. Marginal Gains: Monetary Transactions in Atlantic Africa. University of Chicago Press, 2004. Important for understanding informal monetary economies.

Harvey, David. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford University Press, 2005. Key text on the global restructuring that produced both Nigerian immiseration and Western loneliness.

Hochschild, Arlie Russell. The Managed Heart: Commercialisation of Human Feeling. University of California Press, 1983. Useful for theorising the “manufacture of intimacy” as labour.

Klein, Naomi. The Shock Doctrine. Metropolitan Books, 2007. On the political logic of IMF/World Bank interventions.

Marx, Karl. Capital: Volume I. Penguin Classics, 1990. Foundational for understanding surplus populations, labour markets, and exploitation.

Mbembe, Achille. On the Postcolony. University of California Press, 2001. Useful for understanding the political economy of African states under neoliberalism.

Meagher, Kate. Identity Economics: Social Networks and the Informal Economy in Nigeria. James Currey, 2010. Directly relevant to Yahoo Boys’ informal labour networks.

Sassen, Saskia. Expulsions: Brutality and Complexity in the Global Economy. Harvard University Press, 2014. On how global capitalism produces surplus populations.

Standing, Guy. The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class. Bloomsbury Academic, 2011. Useful for situating Yahoo Boys within global precarity.

Tilly, Charles. Coercion, Capital, and European States. Wiley‑Blackwell, 1992. For understanding state formation and disintegration under capitalism.

Weber, Max. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Routledge, 2001. Useful for contrasting moral framings of labour with materialist analysis.

Articles and Reports

Adesina, Jimi O. “Rethinking African Development: Beyond Impoverishing Adjustment.” Journal of International Development 16, no. 6 (2004): 825–846. On the destructive impact of structural adjustment.

Akinyoade, Akinyinka, and Chibuike Uche. “Oil and the Rentier State in Nigeria.” African Affairs 115, no. 459 (2016): 1–23. On oil extraction and elite capture.

Burgis, Tom. “The Looting Machine.” Financial Times, 2015. Investigative reporting on multinational extraction in Nigeria.

Guyer, Jane. “Marginal Gains and Monetary Transactions in Africa.” Africa 74, no. 3 (2004): 389–405. On informal economies.

International Monetary Fund. Nigeria: Structural Adjustment Program Review. IMF Country Report, various years. Primary documentation of IMF policies.

Meagher, Kate. “Informal Economies and the State in Africa.” African Studies Review 47, no. 1 (2004): 1–15, on informal labour networks.

Nwankwo, Chima. “Youth Unemployment and Informal Economies in Lagos.” Journal of Modern African Studies 57, no. 2 (2019): 245–268. Directly relevant to Yahoo Boys.

World Bank. Nigeria Economic Update. Various years. On inflation, unemployment, and currency crises.

Digital Labour, Scamming Economies, and Platform Capitalism

Abidin, Crystal. “Digital Intimacy and Platform Labour.” Social Media + Society 4, no. 3 (2018). Useful for theorising intimacy as labour.

Brunton, Finn, and Helen Nissenbaum. Obfuscation: A User’s Guide for Privacy and Protest. MIT Press, 2015. On digital deception as a rational response to surveillance capitalism.

Gershon, Ilana. “The Breakup 2.0: Disconnecting over New Media.” Cornell University Press, 2010. On digital intimacy and loneliness.

Marwick, Alice. “The Public Domain: Social Media and the Commodification of Attention.” New Media & Society 15, no. 3 (2013). On attention economies.

Zuboff, Shoshana. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. PublicAffairs, 2019. On platform capitalism’s extraction of human behaviour.

Pseudo‑Lefts, Identity Politics, and the Professional‑Managerial Class

Brenner, Johanna. “Identity Politics and the Left.” Monthly Review 48, no. 2 (1996). Classic critique of identity politics.

Fraser, Nancy. “From Progressive Neoliberalism to Trump.” American Affairs 1, no. 4 (2017): 46–64. On the alliance between the pseudo‑left and neoliberalism.

Lind, Michael. The New Class War. Atlantic Books, 2020. On the professional‑managerial class.

Reed, Adolph. “The Limits of Anti‑Racism.” Left Business Observer, 2000. Foundational critique of pseudo‑left racial politics.

Reed, Adolph, and Walter Benn Michaels. “The Trouble with Disparity.” Jacobin, 2015. On how identity politics obscures class.

WSWS Editorial Board. Various analyses on identity politics, pseudo‑left tendencies, and global capitalism. Essential for the political framing.

Historical and Theoretical Foundations

Lenin, V. I. Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism. For understanding global extraction and surplus populations.

Luxemburg, Rosa. The Accumulation of Capital. On capitalism’s need for external markets and the creation of surplus populations.

Trotsky, Leon. The Permanent Revolution. On uneven and combined development — crucial for understanding Nigeria’s position.

Trotsky, Leon. History of the Russian Revolution. Methodologically relevant for analysing class forces.

 

Gerrard Winstanley and the Politics of Appropriation: Bernstein, Hill, and the Modern Left

 Whose Winstanley?

The modern left has inherited Gerrard Winstanley like how it has inherited the English Revolution: selectively, mythically, and often in ways that obscure more than they clarify. John Gurney’s posthumously published article, “Gerrard Winstanley and the Left” (2017), serves as more than just a reception history. It offers a subtle yet sharp critique of how political traditions create usable pasts — and how these constructed histories can distort the real figures they aim to honour.

As Gurney illustrates, the Winstanley known to many socialists, radicals, and activists today is not the Winstanley of Cobham and Walton-on-Thames in 1649. Instead, he has been repeatedly reconstructed to serve the ideological agendas of figures like Eduard Bernstein, Christopher Hill, and later the counterculture, environmentalists, and the modern pseudo-left. The Digger colony at St George’s Hill lasted less than a year, and Winstanley himself largely disappears from historical records for extended periods. Nonetheless, his symbolic presence has grown so significant that he is now one of the most recognisable symbols of seventeenth-century radicalism. This amplification is deliberate and rooted in ideology.

Bernstein’s Winstanley: Revisionism and the Search for Precedents

Gurney’s key insight — and one that merits more recognition — is the vital role Eduard Bernstein played in Winstanley’s modern resurgence. The irony is striking: Bernstein, known for developing revisionist social democracy and aiming to reform capitalism via parliamentary channels, also championed Winstanley, who called for abolishing private property, ending trade, and establishing a “common treasury for all.”

Bernstein’s appropriation was not driven by curiosity about history but served a political purpose. He aimed to identify a native English precursor for his form of evolutionary socialism, and Winstanley — appropriately softened — fit this role. In Bernstein’s interpretation, Winstanley shifted from a millenarian communist reacting to the fall of feudal authority to a proto-social democrat, a forward-thinking reformer. This shift exemplifies a wider trend: the left, during its reformist stages, often downplays its revolutionary roots to align with gradualist politics.

Christopher Hill: Marxism, Secularisation, and the Limits of the Canon

Christopher Hill’s approach was more scholarly, rigorous, and rooted in class analysis. He brought Winstanley out of obscurity and highlighted his role in a plebeian communist tradition during the English Revolution. However, Hill also modified Winstanley’s depiction. In The World Turned Upside Down (1972), Hill downplayed Winstanley’s theology, recast his millenarianism as rational and proto-scientific, and portrayed his communism as an early form of modern materialism.

Hill later addressed this imbalance in The Religion of Gerrard Winstanley (1978), reintroducing the theological aspect he had earlier minimised. However, the secularised Winstanley had already become part of the Marxist canon. While Hill’s contribution was significant, his portrayal of Winstanley was ultimately a constructed image—tailored to fit the intellectual expectations of mid-twentieth-century Marxism.

The Counterculture: Winstanley as Symbol, Lifestyle, and Brand

By the 1960s, Winstanley evolved into a versatile icon. The Haight-Ashbury Diggers, squatters, land rights activists, environmentalists, and later anti-road and anti-fracking groups all saw him as a prophet of resistance against enclosure and commodification. He was reimagined as a proto-hippie, a green anarchist, and a supporter of “living lightly on the land.” This depiction of Winstanley was even further removed from the historical figure. His theological beliefs were entirely discarded; his communism was transformed into a lifestyle rebellion; and his critique of property was separated from the specific historical context of feudal collapse and revolutionary potential. In the counterculture’s hands, Winstanley stopped being a communist and became more of a brand— a symbol of authenticity rather than a force for social change.

This appropriation clearly serves a political purpose. It enabled the emerging pseudo-left to assert a radical heritage without adopting genuinely radical politics. Winstanley’s real agenda—abolishing private property, ending wage labour, and creating communal production—clashed with movements that accepted capitalism's permanence and divided social struggles into identity-based factions. By sanitising and secularising Winstanley, he became a safe figure.

Gurney’s Contribution: Restoring Winstanley to History

Gurney’s work, especially Brave Community (2007), disputes the long-standing mythologization of Winstanley. By placing Winstanley within the specific local, social, and economic context of Surrey in 1649, Gurney highlights the material roots of his ideas. The Diggers were not merely utopian dreamers, but actively involved in real struggles over land, rents, and the weakening of manorial power. Winstanley’s communism was born from particular grievances, opportunities, and contradictions, rather than from timeless ideals.

This clarification does not lessen Winstanley’s importance; it increases it. A radical tradition that avoids engaging with its history cannot fully grasp its purpose. Gurney’s Winstanley is not a mere symbol but a revolutionary figure responding to capitalism’s emergence.

Gurney’s article teaches us that the real lesson isn’t about Winstanley himself, but about how the left uses history. Different political groups create their own idealised past to support their views. Bernstein looked for a respectable English ancestor to back revisionism; Hill needed a commoner who was a communist to fill out the Marxist story of the English Revolution; the counterculture aimed for a prophet of the commons; and environmentalists sought a 17th-century voice opposing enclosure. Each group found what suited their goals, but only by modifying Winstanley to match their narrative. As your essay correctly asks: Whose Winstanley are we analysing, and what do our choices say about our own politics?

Winstanley and the Pseudo‑Lefts

The modern pseudo-left has reduced Gerrard Winstanley to a harmless mascot—depicted as a seventeenth-century eco-sage, a proto-hippie, or a prophet of “living lightly on the land.” This distortion is not only poor history but also a form of political falsification, deliberately neutralising one of the most steadfast communist voices of the English Revolution. As I mentioned elsewhere, “The Winstanley familiar to generations of socialists, radicals, and activists isn’t the same as the Winstanley of Cobham and Walton-on-Thames in 1649.” The historical Winstanley called for abolishing private property, ending wage labour, and establishing a “common treasury for all.” He based these demands on millenarian theology and the economic collapse of feudalism. His programme bears no resemblance to the lifestyle anarchism, identity-driven activism, or anti-political individualism prevalent in the pseudo-left.

The 1960s counterculture initiated this distortion. The Haight-Ashbury Diggers, squatters, and environmentalists adopted Winstanley as a symbol of authenticity—viewing him as a figure who could legitimise their rejection of “the system” without challenging capitalism itself. They stripped away theology, softened communism into communal living, and replaced class struggle with personal rebellion. Winstanley became a brand. The pseudo-left then inherited this distorted image of Winstanley and intensified the deception. Their politics—centred on identity, moral posturing, and accommodation to the capitalist state—reject the idea of overthrowing property relations. Consequently, they reinvent him: transforming a communist into a “commons activist,” a millenarian into a proto-environmentalist, and a revolutionary into a lifestyle image.

This is deliberate, not accidental. It aims to serve a specific ideological purpose. The pseudo-left merely seeks the appearance of radicalism without its substance. They desire the recognition of history without the weight of revolutionary demands. They want Winstanley’s name, but not his programme.

John Gurney’s thorough scholarship quietly dispels this myth. By placing Winstanley within the concrete social and economic setting of Surrey in 1649, Gurney reaffirms the revolutionary core of his ideas. He demonstrates that Winstanley was not merely a dreamer but a materialist responding to the contradictions of early capitalism. His work shows that the pseudo-left’s appropriation is ultimately a political evasion. "To claim Winstanley is to confront the revolutionary demands he genuinely articulated — demands that, at their heart, remain incomplete." The pseudo-left cannot confront them. Marxists must.

Winstanley is rooted in the revolutionary tradition, not the pseudo-left. He aligns with those aiming to abolish private property, rather than those advocating for gentler management. He supports universal emancipation instead of dividing struggles into identities and moral acts. He looks forward to the future, not clinging to current political dead-ends. The goal is clear: reintroduce Winstanley to the revolutionary movement he helped inspire, away from the pseudo-left.

Conclusion: Recovering the Revolutionary Winstanley

A Marxist interpretation of Gurney’s work should highlight that the aim is not to dismiss Winstanley’s relevance today but to recognise it genuinely. Winstanley was neither a proto-social democrat, secular Marxist, nor green anarchist. Instead, he was a seventeenth-century revolutionary communist influenced by the fall of feudalism, motivated by millenarian beliefs, and dedicated to ending private property.

Understanding him through these terms shows the English Revolution as a moment when early capitalist contradictions were exposed — and when ordinary people briefly aimed to resolve them for universal emancipation. As your essay notes, “To claim Winstanley is to face the revolutionary demands he actually articulated — demands that remain, at their core, unfinished.” This article honours John Gurney, whose scholarship and generosity deepened the study of seventeenth-century radicalism. His work reminds us that engaging with the radical past has consequences. Recovering Winstanley means confronting the revolutionary vision he saw — a vision that still challenges today.

Sources and Bibliography

Primary Sources: Gerrard Winstanley and the English Revolution

• Winstanley, Gerrard. The True Levellers Standard Advanced (1649).
• Winstanley, Gerrard. A New Year’s Gift for the Parliament and Army (1650).
• Winstanley, Gerrard. The Law of Freedom in a Platform (1652).
• Winstanley, Gerrard. The Saints Paradise (1648).
• Winstanley, Gerrard. The Mysterie of God (1648).
• Hill, Christopher (ed.). The Law of Freedom and Other Writings. Penguin Classics, 1973.

Core Scholarship on Winstanley and the Diggers

• Gurney, John. Brave Community: The Digger Movement in the English Revolution. Manchester University Press, 2007.
• Gurney, John. Gerrard Winstanley: The Digger’s Life and Legacy. Pluto Press, 2012.
• Gurney, John. “Gerrard Winstanley and the Left.” Past & Present 235 (2017): 179–206.
• Gurney, John. “The Diggers and the Limits of Popular Radicalism.” History Workshop Journal (2008).
• Hill, Christopher. The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution. Penguin, 1972.
• Hill, Christopher. The Religion of Gerrard Winstanley. Oxford University Press, 1978.

The English Revolution and Seventeenth‑Century Radicalism

• Manning, Brian. The English People and the English Revolution. Bookmarks, 1991.
• Manning, Brian. The Far Left in the English Revolution. Bookmarks, 2002.
• Aylmer, G.E. The Levellers in the English Revolution. Thames & Hudson, 1975.
• Reay, Barry. The Quakers and the English Revolution. Temple Smith, 1985.
• Morton, A.L. The World of the Ranters. Lawrence & Wishart, 1970.
• Underdown, David. Revel, Riot and Rebellion. Oxford University Press, 1985.
• Sharp, Buchanan. In Contempt of All Authority. University of California Press, 1980.

Bernstein, Revisionism, and Marxist Critique

• Bernstein, Eduard. Evolutionary Socialism (1899).
• Bernstein, Eduard. Cromwell and Communism. George Allen & Unwin, 1930.
• Luxemburg, Rosa. Reform or Revolution (1900).
• Lenin, V.I. Marxism and Revisionism (1908).
• Lenin, V.I. State and Revolution (1917).
• Trotsky, Leon. The Revolution Betrayed (1937).
• Trotsky, Leon. In Defence of Marxism (1942).

The Pseudo‑Left, Identity Politics, and Post‑1968 Radicalism

• North, David. The Frankfurt School, Postmodernism and the Politics of the Pseudo‑Left. Mehring Books, 2015.
• North, David. The Heritage We Defend. Mehring Books, 1988.
• Callinicos, Alex. The Revolutionary Road to Socialism. Bookmarks, 1983.
• Eagleton, Terry. Why Marx Was Right. Yale University Press, 2011.
• Dean, Jodi. The Communist Horizon. Verso, 2012.
• Harvey, David. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford University Press, 2005.

Counterculture, Squatting, and Environmental Appropriations of Winstanley

• McKay, George. Senseless Acts of Beauty: Cultures of Resistance since the Sixties. Verso, 1996.
• White, Micah. The End of Protest. Knopf, 2016.
• Wall, Derek. The Commons in History. MIT Press, 2014.
• Cresswell, Tim. In Place/Out of Place. University of Minnesota Press, 1996.
• Linebaugh, Peter. The Magna Carta Manifesto. University of California Press, 2008.
• Linebaugh, Peter & Rediker, Marcus. The Many‑Headed Hydra. Beacon Press, 2000.

Archival Sources

• Surrey History Centre, Woking — manorial records for Cobham, Walton, and Oatlands.
• The National Archives (Kew) — Star Chamber and Chancery records relating to enclosure disputes.
• British Library, Thomason Tracts — pamphlets of the English Revolution.
• Guildhall Library, London — parish records relevant to Winstanley’s later life.

 

Congressional Revisionist History Museum

 

With regards to -Ancient Apothecary

@gulogulo40.bsky.social

Hats, hierarchy, and the reproduction of class power

While Bernard Capp’s article "The Cultural, Social, and Ideological Role of the Hat in Early Modern England," effectively captures the everyday experience of hat-honour, it also uncovers how early modern social hierarchy was maintained through intricate micro-rituals—tiny, habitual gestures so ingrained they appeared natural. The hat served not just as a symbol but as a daily tool for the ruling class to reinforce their authority. From a Marxist perspective, it was part of the ideological superstructure upholding property relations. Capp’s impressive evidence demonstrates that this superstructure operated not just through sermons or laws, but through the smallest bodily movements.

Doffing a hat was a simple act of submission that didn’t need literacy, catechism, or political knowledge. It embodied ideology physically—a reflex that signalled the legitimacy, visibility, and enforceability of social rank. The requirement to perform this gesture “indoors or out,” in every interaction, highlights its role: hierarchy had to be continuously demonstrated to maintain credibility. The hat served as a mobile display of class authority.

The refusal was so explosive because when the Quakers declined to remove their hats, it wasn’t just about etiquette; it challenged the very reproduction of hierarchy. They refused to partake in the ideological effort that kept the social order intact. In this way, refusing to wear hats is comparable to the Levellers’ push for political equality and the Diggers’ call for economic equality. All three challenged the ideological and material bases of inherited privilege.

Capp hints at a deeper connection but chooses not to delve into it. His analysis mainly revolves around surface-level cultural details—the gestures, anecdotes, and social reactions—rather than the underlying class conflicts that give these gestures their meaning. Nevertheless, the evidence he provides strongly indicates a structural interpretation. The anger exhibited by magistrates, fathers, and local gentry was not just personal insult; it signalled a panic among the ruling class as their routines, which reinforced their authority, started to unravel. Essentially, the hat was more than a trivial object; it was a small part of the larger system of class control that began to weaken in the 1640s.

Capp’s article reveals the core focus of Marxist historiography regarding the English Revolution, emphasising the intersection of ideology, property, and social practice. The hat was not merely a cultural object; it served as a micro-technology for the early modern ruling class to maintain power. His evidence aligns with the tradition established by Christopher Hill, expanded by E.P. Thompson, radicalised by Ellen Meiksins Wood, and explored through bodily gestures by Stallybrass & White.

Christopher Hill argued that ideology functions as a form of class struggle. He believed that the English Revolution centred on conflicts over the ideological basis of property and sovereignty—an insight missing from Capp’s analysis. Hat-honour was a daily ritual that upheld and naturalised hierarchy, embodying Hill's concept of the “world of obedience.” In this universe, deference was instinctive and bodily. When Quakers refused to remove their hats, they were not merely breaking social etiquette; they were challenging the ideological reproduction of class power. Their refusal disrupted the routine performance of subordination that upheld the divine legitimacy of the property system.

Hill would have seen the hat as a marker of where the Revolution’s underlying conflicts became visible. The anger displayed by magistrates and fathers was not just about personal insults; it was a sign of a ruling class terrified by the decline of the ideological rituals that maintained their power.

E.P. Thompson: class as lived experience

Thompson emphasises that class is not a fixed category but a dynamic relationship constantly negotiated in daily life. Capp’s evidence exemplifies this idea. Hat-honour was a common custom used to uphold hierarchy, and refusing to doff one’s hat was a way to challenge it. The Worcestershire parish officer who refused to remove his hat in 1608 was not just being rude; he was engaging in what Thompson calls a “moral economy of defiance,” asserting through his actions that the ritual of deference was neither natural nor unavoidable. Similarly, the Quakers’ refusals can be seen as a form of class struggle expressed through gestures. Their act was a practical rejection of the bodily discipline that reinforced the ruling class’s authority. Thompson would interpret Ellwood’s father’s confiscation of hats not as eccentricity but as an effort to enforce bodily submission, which supported the social order.

Ellen Meiksins Wood: property relations and the logic of domination

Wood’s contribution deepens the understanding that the English Revolution was not just a monarchy crisis but also a challenge to the property system shaping English society. Hat-honour served as an ideological practice that reinforced the perceived naturalness of this regime. It functioned as a ritual embodying the idea that rank—and consequently property—granted legitimate authority over others.

The Quakers’ refusal was more than symbolic; it challenged the core ideas of agrarian capitalism. By insisting on spiritual equality, they also implied social equality, which in turn questioned the property relations underpinning English society. According to Wood, the hat-refusal exemplified a micro-political act reflecting the same reasoning behind the Levellers’ push for political equality and the Diggers’ call for economic equality.

Stallybrass & White: the politics of the body

If Hill, Thompson, and Wood offer the structural framework, Stallybrass & White contribute the detailed anatomy. Their exploration of the “politics and poetics of transgression” demonstrates how the body functions as a site for inscribing and challenging hierarchy. Hat-honour was a bodily ritual involving lowering the head, removing the covering, and physically enacting submission. It embodied ideology in a tangible form.

The Quakers’ refusal represented a physical act of rebellion, rejecting hierarchical control over even the smallest bodily actions. Stallybrass & White interpret Ellwood’s reluctance to go bareheaded “like a Mad-Man” as indicative of how deeply society had conditioned the body to conform to hierarchy — and how significant it was to break that conditioning. Their perspective helps explain why the hat was such a powerful symbol. In their view, clothing is more than just functional; it is a medium through which the body is disciplined, categorised, and made understandable. The hat served as a mobile sign of status, and removing it was a performative act of submission. By refusing the gesture, one was rejecting the imprinting of hierarchy onto the body itself. 

Synthesis: the hat as a microcosm of the Revolution

Bringing these historians together offers a much more radical interpretation of Capp’s material than the article alone suggests: Hill argues that hat-honour was part of the ideological worldview broken by the Revolution. Thompson demonstrates that refusing to wear a hat was a tangible expression of class conflict. Wood explains that the gesture was closely linked to the property relations within agrarian capitalism. Stallybrass & White reveal that the hat served as a technology for disciplining the body and enforcing hierarchy.

Viewed from this perspective, Capp’s article extends beyond cultural history, serving as a case study on the extent of class domination in daily life and how revolutionary forces could challenge that control. The conflict over the hat symbolised a fight over whether hierarchy had any rightful claim to the body. When the body resisted, it triggered a ripple that threatened to destabilise the social order.

Material culture and the English Revolution: where Capp sits in the historiography

Capp’s article continues a long tradition in English social and cultural history that views everyday life as a battleground of ideas. Christopher Hill saw radicalism rooted in the beliefs of common people; Keith Thomas explored the cultural reasoning behind beliefs and actions; E.P. Thompson emphasised that class was experienced firsthand before being theorised. While Capp’s work fits well within this tradition, it also highlights some limitations of its empirical approach. Might Hill have questioned: What class dynamics made hat-honour essential? Could Thomas have asked: What mental frameworks gave it significance? Thompson would have inquired: What acts of resistance undermined it?

Capp provides the most comprehensive answer to the third question by illustrating how resistance arose, how it was perceived, and the consequences it faced. However, he largely leaves the first two questions unaddressed. Consequently, his article offers rich detail but lacks deep structural analysis—it reconstructs the ritual without fully exploring the underlying social relations that created it. This isn't necessarily a weakness but an opportunity. Capp’s detailed evidence offers a valuable resource for historians to link the ideological framework with actual lived experiences of class. The hat serves as a crucial connection point between cultural history and political economy, revealing how property was established, naturalised, and challenged through everyday gestures.

A more dialectical interpretation of Capp’s material would see hat-honor as: a ritual for ideological reinforcement—daily displays of hierarchy that make class power seem natural; a site of hidden conflict—a gesture that can be inverted, withheld, or refused, exposing the coercive core beneath politeness; a point of revolutionary rupture—in the 1640s, when monarchy and property legitimacy were openly challenged, the hat became a battleground for ideological disputes of the old order; a material expression of egalitarian theology—for Quakers, refusal was not just symbolic but a doctrinal practice, embodying spiritual equality that also implied social equality; and a microcosm of the Revolution’s broader logic—the fight over the hat symbolized a struggle over whether hierarchy had any legitimate claim on the body and, by extension, on society.

Viewed this way, Capp's article transcends simple cultural history to become an insight into the mechanisms of class control and the resistance they provoke when challenged. Capp reveals — perhaps unintentionally — that revolutions are fought not only in big arenas like parliaments, pulpits, and battlegrounds but also through small everyday acts. The English Revolution wasn’t just a matter of sovereignty; it challenged the body’s submission to inherited social rank. The Quakers’ refusal to remove their hats was a minor gesture with profound meaning: a practical rejection of the ideological order supporting property rights. When examined alongside the radical movements of the 1640s and 1650s, Capp’s article illustrates how revolutionary pressure can deeply infiltrate society, showing that questioning hierarchy can turn even a hat’s brim into a battleground.

I am grateful to C Thompson for bringing this article to my attention

Sources and Bibliography

Primary Sources

• Ellwood, Thomas. The History of the Life of Thomas Ellwood, Written by Himself. London, 1714. A crucial firsthand account of Quaker practice and persecution, including Ellwood’s recollection of hat‑refusal and domestic conflict.
• Fox, George. Journal. Various editions. Foundational Quaker text articulating the theological basis for refusing hat‑honour and other gestures of deference.
• Winstanley, Gerrard. The Law of Freedom (1652); The True Levellers Standard Advanced (1649). Essential for situating egalitarian gestures (including hat‑refusal) within broader revolutionary challenges to property and hierarchy.
• Lilburne, John. The Legal Fundamental Liberties of the People of England (1649). A Leveller articulation of political equality that parallels the Quaker rejection of bodily deference.

Secondary Sources: Marxist and Radical Historiography

Christopher Hill and the ideological foundations of hierarchy

• Hill, Christopher. The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution. London: Penguin, 1972. The classic account of ideological rupture; indispensable for framing hat‑refusal as part of a broader crisis of obedience.
• Hill, Christopher. Society and Puritanism in Pre‑Revolutionary England. London: Secker & Warburg, 1964. Key for understanding the ideological world in which hat‑honour operated.
• Hill, Christopher. The Experience of Defeat. London: Allen Lane, 1984. Useful for situating Quaker radicalism within the post‑Revolution settlement.

E.P. Thompson and class as lived experience

• Thompson, E.P. Customs in Common. London: Merlin Press, 1991. Essential for theorising hat‑honour as a “custom” that encoded hierarchy and hat‑refusal as a lived form of class struggle.
• Thompson, E.P. The Making of the English Working Class. London: Gollancz, 1963. Foundational for understanding class as a relationship expressed through everyday practices.

Ellen Meiksins Wood and the logic of property relations

• Wood, Ellen Meiksins. The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View. London: Verso, 2002. Provides the structural framework for linking hat‑honour to agrarian property relations.
• Wood, Ellen Meiksins. Liberty and Property: A Social History of Western Political Thought. London: Verso, 2012. Crucial for understanding how political and ideological practices (like doffing) naturalised property‑based hierarchy.

Stallybrass & White and the politics of the body

• Stallybrass, White. The Politics and Poetics of Transgression. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986. The definitive study of how hierarchy is inscribed on the body; essential for theorising hat‑honour as bodily discipline.

Cultural and Social History of Early Modern England

• Thomas, Keith. Religion and the Decline of Magic. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1971. A model for integrating belief, gesture, and social order.
• Capp, Bernard. England’s Culture Wars: Puritan Reformation and Its Enemies in the Interregnum, 1649–1660. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Contextualises Capp’s broader work on cultural conflict and everyday life.
• Capp, Bernard. “The Cultural, Social, and Ideological Role of the Hat in Early Modern England.” The Historical Journal (2026), 1–19. The article under review.
• Sharpe, J.A. Early Modern England: A Social History 1550–1760. London: Arnold, 1987. Useful for situating hat‑honour within broader social practices.
• Underdown, David. Revel, Riot and Rebellion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985. Classic study of how everyday gestures and rituals encoded political tensions.

Material Culture, Embodiment, and Ideology

• Brewer, John, and Roy Porter (eds.). Consumption and the World of Goods. London: Routledge, 1993. For situating hats within the broader field of early modern material culture.
• Cressy, David. Dangerous Talk: Scandalous, Seditious, and Treasonable Speech in Pre‑Modern England. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Complements Capp’s focus on gesture with a focus on speech as ideological performance.
• Hunt, Margaret. The Middling Sort: Commerce, Gender, and the Family in England, 1680–1780. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996. Useful for understanding how clothing and gesture marked status among non‑elite groups.

Quaker Studies

• Bauman, Richard. Let Your Words Be Few: Symbolism of Speaking and Silence Among Seventeenth‑Century Quakers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. A key anthropological study of Quaker embodied practice.
• Reay, Barry. The Quakers and the English Revolution. London: Temple Smith, 1985. Essential for situating Quaker radicalism within the revolutionary context.

Additional Works on Hierarchy, Gesture, and Authority

• Goffman, Erving. Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face‑to‑Face Behaviour. New York: Pantheon, 1967. Classic sociological framework for understanding ritualised deference.
• Bourdieu, Pierre. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977. For theorising habitus and embodied hierarchy.