Power is founded on property. Few people nowadays would
deny this doctrine. The political philosopher James Harrington formulated it in
the mid-seventeenth century. Living in per-industrial England he still
considered land, not money, the most important form of property.
The social group that held most of the country’s land also held the largest amount of power. In early modern England this was the monarch and his nobility, including the bishops.
The social group that held most of the country’s land also held the largest amount of power. In early modern England this was the monarch and his nobility, including the bishops.
However, from the reign of Henry VII onwards, and
especially through the Reformation and the dissolution of the monasteries and
sale of Church lands, power relations began to change. Over time, the King (or
Queen) and nobility lost land and power in favour of the next social group, the
gentry and the commoners, represented in the lower house of Parliament.
By the early Stuart period the power balance had been upset so badly that struggles between the King and the House of Commons led to a breakdown or ‘dissolution’ of the government in the English Civil War. Anyone trying to reconstruct the English government in the aftermath of the war would therefore have to create a new superstructure that took into account the changed power relations.
By the early Stuart period the power balance had been upset so badly that struggles between the King and the House of Commons led to a breakdown or ‘dissolution’ of the government in the English Civil War. Anyone trying to reconstruct the English government in the aftermath of the war would therefore have to create a new superstructure that took into account the changed power relations.
The most famous elaboration of Harrington’s theory can be
found in his utopian Commonwealth of Oceana of 1656, in which he tried to
persuade Oliver Cromwell to play the sole legislator, set up the perfect
republican state and retire to the country.
‘Good laws’, Harrington believed, could give the country
stability, and these laws had to be infallible, so that bad men would not be
able to corrupt the state. Harrington never saw his dream come true. The
Restoration of the Stuarts in 1660 meant a return of many of the old problems.
But his ideas of mixed government and a balance of power remained influential
in the writings of the Neo-Harringtonians of the later 17th and early 18th
century. They influenced both the American and French Revolutions, while his
materialist theory of political change would also strike a chord with Marxists
and modern economic and political thinkers.
James Harrington would have celebrated his 400th birthday
today. He was born in Upton, Northamptonshire on 3 January 1611 and died in
Little Ambry on 11 September 1677.
2 comments:
I am afraid that these assertions about the transfer of land between the nobility and gentry. The peerage in 1601 may have held less land than in 1558 but it still held more than in 1534. By 1641, the much enlarged peerage had far more land in its hands than in 1601. This is true even using Lawrence Stone's highly improbable figures. The English Civil War or Revolution was preceded by a notable shift in landed possessions towards the peerage and by the rise of "aristocratic constitutionalism".
That's an interesting point. The 'rise of the gentry' hypothesis has long been contested. However, I find it significant that Harrington still perceived a shift of property and power towards the gentry and yeomanry. Of course one might wonder how far this perception was influenced by a political agenda.
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