18:10. He instead advocated for the Commonwealth to be reorganised into a communist society, without private property or money, like that which he had attempted to establish at George's Hill. Property While land and commodities were to be held in common ownership, Winstanley also considered that men should be allowed to hold their house, family and basic necessities as personal property. All labour was also to be done collectively and overseers were to be appointed to ensure that everybody worked. People who refused to work were to be punished, by denying them of their civil rights and impressing them into forced labour. Law While still displaying the millenarianism of his earlier works, the Law of Freedom was focused largely on institutionalising coercion. Although he still maintained his belief in the rationality of humans that abided by natural law, and that individual freedom naturally arose from economic security, the Law of Freedom presented a more authoritarian vision of communism than his earlier libertarian works. His conflict with the Ranters and freeholders at George's Hill had convinced Winstanley of the need for social control by a "righteous government". He argued that, while he opposed government that acted as an instrument of private ownership, law enforced by a standing army was necessary in order to guard against "rudeness" and to repress expressions of monarchism. Winstanley proposed laws according to the principle of "an eye for an eye", in which capital punishment was applied to those caught committing murder, rape or trade would be subject, as well as those who were lawyers and parsons. Government For his "righteous government", Winstanley proposed an annually-elected parliamentary system, which would enforce laws, oversee a planned economy and uphold the patriarchy. He also upheld freedom of religion and compulsory education. No longer considering liberty to be universal, Winstanley narrowly defined freedom as the ability to vote, entitlement to the product of one's labour, and the capacity to employ domestic workers. Drawing upon themes from the reform movement and directly from Peter's work, Winstanley also advocated for every town to annually elect peace makers, who would settle local disputes without resorting to imprisonment. Analysis The anarchist Peter Marshall considered the Law of Freedom to be a work of proto-Marxism, which broke from Winstanley's earlier proto-anarchist works. The Marxist historian Christopher Hill considered it to be an example of possibilism, aimed at convincing Oliver Cromwell to implement its proposals. References