Gerrard Winstanley’s Political Philosophy and its intertwining with Modern State Theories.

Theology, Monism and Tendencies towards an unlimited Political Power

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to analyse from a political philosophy perspective the project outlined by the leader of one of the radical movements during mid-seventeenth century England, Gerrard Winstanley. The aim is to explain how some concepts linked to the classical characteristics of the Modern State are interwoven into his political proposals, going so far as to set out an unlimited power for the creation of a new type of human being. These variables will be studied in light of the philosophy and theology that frames Winstanley’s entire political thought, with the purpose of envisaging the connections that on a theoretical level appear between his monist conception of the political community, the people seen as an homogeneous whole, his eschatological millenarianism and its derived political and institutional model.