My interest in things political has always been moved more by the theoretical rather than practical, specifically focusing upon the manner used by the various factions in their policies, creeds, literature, even just their title, in an attempt to either advertise, expound or is some instances disguise their principles, ideologies and foundations.
Naturally over time, specifically in the examples of systems existent over multiple centuries or even millennium the exact meaning and ramifications of a specific system, any system, changes dramatically as social, ethical, and economic conditions alter. The democracy as practiced in BC Greek culture is hardly suited for 21st century situations, nor would the republicanism as known in the turn of the first millennium Rome be recognizable in today’s exemplars. Add the complication of adequately meaningful translations betwixt similarly appearing or sounding words in completely unrelated languages then we really must make minimal assumptions about the comprehension of any historical governance, body, or hierarchy.
The Levellers were a faction that came into being between the years 1646 and 1648, in the comparative peace between the first and second English civil wars. A grass roots movement originating in the New Model Army but echoed in the newly liberated citizenship they tended towards a decidedly equalizing force between aristocracy, landed gentry, commercial classes, and simple working peoples, looking for general suffrage, and universal improvement in social order and circumstance. Not considering the complete overthrow of existing hierarchy as being a plausible or Christian goal, the Levellers quite happily accepted the established structure as being divinely ordained, with the private ownership of property and land as being sacrosanct. The more strident branch of this national outcry were the Diggers, whom did consider private property as theft and sacrilege and are widely considered the first example of an anarchistic based movement in modern history.
The Levellers took their name from their intent to level the hedgerows so predominant in the rolling English countryside, to at minimum allow them to glimpse the many splendors beyond. The Diggers insisted on possession and communal cultivation of such glorious assets for the general benefit of all.
Daily Abstract Thoughts 