Early modern communism: The Diggers and community of goods

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Hessayon, Ariel. 2009. Early modern communism: The Diggers and community of goods. Journal for the Study of Radicalism, 3(2), pp. 1-49. ISSN 19301189 [Article]

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Abstract or Description

Since their rediscovery in the nineteenth century—first by Liberal, Socialist, and Marxist historians and then by Protestant nonconformists—the English Diggers of 1649–50 have been successively appropriated; their
image refashioned in the service of new political doctrines that have sought legitimacy partly through emphasizing supposed ideological antecedents. In a previous article I demonstrated that recent attempts to incorporate the Diggers within a constructed Green heritage are unconvincing and that at worst these emerging “Green narratives” are insensitive to historical context. Similarly, here I want to show how, either through lack of understanding the finer points of Protestant theology or deliberate distortion, most explanations of the Diggers’ implementation of the doctrine of community of goods have been misleading.
(Abstract)

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Article

Keywords:

Diggers; theology

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