Thomas Hobbes De
Cive, v. 5
“Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of
knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.”
John Locke
“Your slavery is their liberty, your poverty is their
prosperity...Peace is their ruin,...by war they are enriched...Peace is their
war, peace is their poverty”
―Christopher Hill, The World Turned Upside Down: Radical
Ideas During the English Revolution
The discerning reader will recognise that this website is
named after Meiksins-Wood's notable book, 'A Trumpet of Sedition: Political
Theory and the Rise of Capitalism, 1509–1688' (1997), co-authored by Ellen
Meiksins Wood and her husband Neal Wood. I received the book from my friend
Tony Hyland, and its title seemed apt for a site created to share my interest
in the English bourgeois revolution. Given that the website has been around for
over eighteen years, a review of this book has long been overdue.
It is, without a doubt, an important work in the history of
political thought. The book shows how modern political theory, from Thomas More
to Hobbes and Locke, emerged as both a response to and an ideological
expression of the rise of capitalism in England. Its central claim is that
modern political philosophy was shaped not in an abstract world of ideas, but
in the real social conflicts produced by agrarian capitalism, enclosure, and
the dispossession of the peasantry.
The Woods carefully chose the title A Trumpet of Sedition
because it evokes the radical political pamphlet culture of 17th-century
England, the era of the Levellers, Diggers, and other popular movements that
emerged during the English Civil War. This phrase, originating from the
polemical language of that era, was used to describe writings that defied
established authority. The Woods use it ironically and provocatively: their
book explores how the political theory of that period could both justify the
growing capitalist system (as in Hobbes and Locke) and oppose it (as in radical
democratic movements later repressed).
Wood's approach marks a genuine advance on idealist
histories of political thought, which treat Hobbes or Locke as merely
responding to ideas rather than to material social conditions. Her insistence
that political theory must be understood in relation to the class struggles and
property relations of its time is fundamentally Marxist in method, even if Wood
herself worked within the framework of "Political Marxism" associated
with Robert Brenner rather than the classical Trotskyist tradition.
The Woods and the
Historiographical Debate
Lawrence Stone once characterised writing about the English
Revolution as navigating a 'battleground heavily contested, filled with mines,
booby-traps, and ambushes manned by fierce scholars ready to fight every inch.”
Ellen Meiksins Wood and Neal Wood entered a historiographical landscape already
shaped by Christopher Hill, the influential Marxist historian of the period. As
Ann Talbot's obituary of Hill notes, his achievements were twofold: he
identified the mid-17th-century crisis as a true bourgeois revolution that
replaced one class's dominance with another, and he highlighted the vital role
of the masses in revolutions, stressing that a change in consciousness among
the people is essential for revolution. His works, The World Turned Upside
Down, God's Englishman, The Intellectual Origins of the English
Revolution*, and Milton and the English Revolution presented a materialist
view that influenced a whole generation's understanding of the era.[1]
The Woods built upon this tradition but added a unique
theoretical focus. Their framework, "Political Marxism," linked to
historian Robert Brenner, argues that capitalism began specifically with
English agrarian property relations—particularly the competitive dynamic
between landlords and tenant farmers that arose from the way feudalism broke
down in England, unlike in France or other countries. As a result, the Woods emphasised
the connection between property relations and political ideas.
Political Marxism shows significant shortcomings. Although
Ellen Meiksins Wood was a thorough theorist of capitalism and its historical
evolution, Political Marxism as a movement lacks a cohesive theory of
revolutionary organisation, a clear strategy for capturing state power, and any
link to the legacy of the Fourth International. It primarily developed and
thrived in academic circles—through journals like New Left Review and
Historical Materialism, whose social base is centred on left-wing intellectuals
rather than the working class itself. This influences the questions it
considers and, importantly, which questions it neglects. The crucial debates on
revolutionary strategy—such as how workers can break free from trade union
bureaucracies, the relationship between the working class and its leaders, and
why the Russian Revolution failed are largely missing from Wood's work.
In A Trumpet of Sedition, it is shown that the great
political thinkers from Thomas More (in 1516) through Hobbes and Locke were not
just tackling abstract philosophical issues but were also engaging, sometimes
secretly and sometimes openly, with the social upheavals caused by the rise of
agrarian capitalism. The enclosure of common lands, the dispossession of
peasants, and the commercialisation of agriculture were the material forces
that led to the political crises of the 17th century and shaped the political
ideas that sought to understand these changes.
Thomas More was another figure of profound ambiguity. His
1516 work, Utopia, is frequently regarded as the first depiction of a socialist
community in English. However, Wood sees it not merely as a humanist fantasy
but as a sharp critique of the dispossession driven by enclosure. More's
well-known remark about sheep "devouring men" criticises primitive
accumulation, a process that Marx later analysed in Capital as the violent
severance of peasants from the land. Nonetheless, More was also rooted in the
old order, a supporter of the Church. His utopian ideas lacked revolutionary
potential; he could imagine an alternative society, but was unable to connect
that vision to any class capable of enacting it.
Wood portrays Hobbes as more than just a defender of
monarchy. She argues that his responses to social upheaval stemming from
capitalism's rise and conflicts caused by agrarian change are central to
understanding his support for a strong sovereign. This stance is seen as a
reaction to class conflict and instability, not an abstract view of human
nature. Wood challenges the common perspective among some liberal and
postmodern scholars that Hobbes was merely a reactionary advocate of
authoritarianism. Following Frederick Engels, she places Hobbes among the
founders of modern materialism. In her view, Hobbes is positioned alongside
Bacon and Locke in a philosophical tradition that, moving from England into the
French Enlightenment, influenced the intellectual groundwork for the French
Revolution and the development of dialectical and historical materialism.
Thomas Hobbes receives the most philosophically rich
treatment. As Ann Talbot's article carefully establishes, “Hobbes played a
vital role in the development of modern materialism and formed a link in a
chain that passed from Britain to France that was, in turn, an organic part of
the political developments that found expression in the French Revolution of
1789. Dialectical materialism and historical materialism would have been
impossible without that earlier development. In his battle against the power of
the Church, in his courageous stand for materialism at a time when the vagaries
of fate favoured superstition, in his struggle to create a science of politics,
and his insistence that no area of experience was not susceptible to scientific
analysis, Hobbes was a man who transcended his times. But he was a man of his
time and expressed the interests of his class and the experiences of the social
layer to which he belonged.”[2]
According to the Woods, Hobbes's political theory
illustrates the transitional phase of early capitalism: the bourgeoisie still
required a strong state to ensure the conditions for economic growth, but its
authority needed to be based on rational consent rather than divine right. As
Talbot points out, "His conception of the state was, in that sense, a
modern one rather than a feudal one." Importantly, Hobbes recognised
Cromwell's Commonwealth as a legitimate sovereign once it demonstrated the
ability to maintain order. This stance rendered him ineffective as a royalist
propagandist and aligned with his materialist philosophy.
James Harrington, author of *Oceana* (1656), which the Woods
also examine, is the thinker most clearly linking property to political power.
He argues that how land is distributed shapes the government. This
"agrarian law' idea is essentially a proto-materialist view of politics,
reflecting the gentry class's awareness that had gained victory in the Civil
War. They sought a theoretical justification for their political control.
John Locke faces the fiercest ideological critique in this
analysis. While mainstream liberal thought regards Locke's *Two Treatises of
Government* (1689) as a foundational theory of natural rights, individual
freedom, and limited governance, The Woods challenge this view as a form of
class mystification. Locke's property theory — that labour combined with nature
grants rightful ownership — is not a universal principle but a tool used by the
agrarian capitalist class. It endorses enclosure and dispossession by framing
private property as a natural right that precedes political society. For Locke,
the "consent of the governed" actually means the consent of property
owners; those without property lack a genuine political voice. According to
Locke, liberty is the liberty of those who already possess property.
Levellers, Diggers,
and the "Trumpet of Sedition"
The book's title hints at the suppressed radical currents of
the revolution within the bourgeois settlement. The Levellers, led by John
Lilburne, advocated for manhood suffrage, freedom of conscience, legal
equality, and the elimination of monopolies and tithes. Their 1647 Agreement of
the People was a truly democratic constitutional proposal that challenged the
limits of parliamentary gentry acceptance. Even more radical were the Diggers,
or True Levellers, led by Gerrard Winstanley, who believed that genuine
freedom depended on the common ownership of land. Winstanley's writings,
blending religious language with radical social ideas, are among the most
notable documents of 17th-century political thought.
In 1649, Cromwell defeated the Levellers, and local
landowners dismantled the Diggers' communes with government approval. The
Restoration of 1660 further suppressed these movements. The 1688 'Glorious
Revolution,' which placed William of Orange on the throne and endorsed Locke's
political ideas as justification, marked the final strengthening of the
bourgeois settlement: a palace revolution that safeguarded the propertied
classes from both royal absolutism and radical popular movements.
This brings me nicely to the importance of Leon Trotsky’s
intervention in the debate over the English bourgeois revolution. Trotsky, in
his book Where Is Britain Going? (1925), pointed to "two
revolutionary traditions in British history — that of Cromwell in the
seventeenth century and later of Chartism. For Trotsky, leadership was
decisive, and this is summed up in these words: " Different classes in
different conditions and for different tasks find themselves compelled in
particular and indeed, the most acute and critical, periods in their history,
to vest an extraordinary power and authority in such of their leaders as can
carry forward their fundamental interests most sharply and fully. When we speak
of dictatorship, we must, in the first place, be clear as to what interests of
what particular classes find their historical expression through the
dictatorship. For one era, Oliver Cromwell; for another, Robespierre, expressed
the historically progressive tendencies in the development of bourgeois
society. William Pitt, likewise extremely close to a personal dictatorship,
defended the interests of the monarchy, the privileged classes and the top bourgeoisie
against a revolution of the petty bourgeoisie that found its highest expression
in the dictatorship of Robespierre. The liberal vulgarians customarily say that
they are against a dictatorship from the left just as much as from the right.
However, in practice, they do not let slip any opportunity to support a
dictatorship of the right. But for us, the question is whether one dictatorship
moves society forward while another drags it back. Mussolini's dictatorship is
a dictatorship of the prematurely decayed, impotent, thoroughly contaminated
Italian bourgeoisie: it is a dictatorship with a broken nose. The 'dictatorship
of Lenin' expresses the mighty pressure of the new historical class and its
superhuman struggle against all the forces of the old society. If Lenin can be
juxtaposed with anyone, then it is not with Napoleon, nor even with Mussolini,
but with Cromwell and Robespierre. It can be said, with some justice, that
Lenin is the proletarian twentieth-century Cromwell. Such a definition would at
the same time be the highest compliment to the petty-bourgeois
seventeenth-century Cromwell.[3]
The Wood’s Contribution
and their Limits
The Woods make a meaningful and enduring contribution
in A Trumpet of Sedition. Their focus on interpreting political ideas
through property relations and class struggle is inherently Marxist.
Highlighting how Lockean liberalism functions as a class-based ideology rather
than a universal philosophy is especially important, as is their revival of the
revolution's overlooked radical traditions.
However, the constraints of Political Marxism are also
evident. Its tendency to limit capitalism's origins to English agrarian
conditions results in a somewhat narrow analytical scope. More critically, this
reflects the academic left tradition that Woods figures in the book excels in
historical sociology and intellectual history but remains largely silent on
revolutionary strategy and the role of political parties. The Levellers' defeat
was due not merely to an insufficiently radical program but also to their lack
of a clear theory of state power and an organisational structure capable of
challenging it. Winstanley's concept of communal ownership was more radical
than Lilburne's constitutionalism, yet neither offered a concrete strategy for
seizing political power.
Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution was
created to address a key issue. In every bourgeois revolution, plebeian and
working-class forces are mobilised but ultimately betrayed by the bourgeoisie,
which fears social revolution more than the old regime. This lesson is both
historical and strategic — the working class must struggle for political
independence, led by its own party, aiming not for the completion of a
bourgeois revolution but for socialist societal change. The Woods offer a
detailed account of how the bourgeoisie in 17th-century England manipulated and
later suppressed revolutionary masses. However, their framework lacks a
political theory capable of preventing history from repeating itself.
A Trumpet of Sedition is a profound and essential work
in materialist intellectual history, recommended for anyone exploring the
ideological roots of capitalism. Wood's approach—placing political ideas within
their class context—is genuinely Marxist and offers insightful analyses of
figures like More, Harrington, Hobbes, and Locke. Its shortcomings are not in
its analysis but in what it omits: the shift from merely understanding the
world to actively transforming it, along with the programmatic and organisational
issues that the Trotskyist movement has always emphasised as integral to any
serious socialist politics.
[1]
"These are the times ... this is the man": an appraisal of historian
Christopher Hill-www.wsws.org/en/articles/2003/03/hill-m25.html
[2]
The ghost of Thomas Hobbes-www.wsws.org/en/articles/2010/05/hobb-m12.html
[3]
Two traditions: the seventeenth-century revolution and Chartism-www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/britain/ch06.htm
