A Twenty-First-Century Spencean

A photograph from one of my early modern runs. Image by Rachel Hammersley (2005).

As regular readers of this blog will know, I enjoy running. I particularly enjoy running along the seafront near to my home. Not surprisingly it is a popular place to run and I regularly spot the same people out enjoying their own early morning exercise. One of the characters who always makes me smile is the man my daughter and I call 'Tories Out Man'. For weeks in the run up to the 2024 General Election he would run along the seafront wearing a black tee-shirt emblazoned with the words 'Tories Out' in large white letters. On being offered any sign of encouragement from those running in the opposite direction he would smile, raise a clenched fist and shout 'Tories Out'. As I worked on my paper for the Radical North conference that I reported on last month, it struck me that this man is adopting a twenty-first-century example of the kind of methods that Thomas Spence used more than two hundred years ago to disseminate political messages.

An original copy of Spence’s lecture ‘Property in Land Every One’s Right’ from the Hedley papers at the Newcastle Literary and Philosophical Society. Reproduced with permission.

While living in Newcastle in the 1770s Spence came to the conclusion that the oppression and poverty that he saw around him could be eradicated if the land was owned not by individual landowners but collectively by local residents. In a lecture that he delivered to the Newcastle Philosophical Society on 8th November 1775, he set out his vision for how this plan could be enacted. Each parish would form a corporation, composed of all adult males who had been resident within the parish for at least a year. The corporation would take ownership of the land within the parish, renting out portions of it for cultivation by local residents. The rents paid for use of the land would replace taxes, providing revenue to cover central government charges and to fund local facilities and services. Having composed this potentially transformative plan, Spence was keen to share it in the hope of having it implemented. For the rest of his life, he deployed various means of sharing his land plan with as wide a public as possible.

Immediately after delivering his lecture Spence had it printed, incurring the anger of members of the Philosophical Society who did not want to be publicly associated with Spence's ideas. Another printed version appeared under the title 'The Real Rights of Man' in Spence's Pigs' Meat periodical in 1795. Yet Spence was not content with simply reprinting the lecture, in addition he produced multiple versions of the plan in a variety of written forms. He incorporated it into works of utopian fiction in A Supplement to the History of Robinson Crusoe (Newcastle, 1782), 'The Marine Republic' - which appeared in Pigs' Meat in 1794, and Description of Spensonia (London, 1795). Several of these works also made use of dialogue form to address potential objections to the plan. He also presented his ideas in A Letter from Ralph Hodge, to his Cousin Thomas Bull (London, 1795), which adopted the epistolary form and concluded with a series of questions and answers. In addition he produced two model constitutions The Constitution of a Perfect Commonwealth (London, 1798) and The Constitution of Spensonia (London, 1803), and he printed two accounts of trial proceedings against him - The Case of Thomas Spence (London, 1792) and The Important Trial of Thomas Spence (London, 1803) both of which again served as vehicles for him to disseminate his ideas. Presenting his plan in different forms - and especially using genres like utopian fiction and dialogue that engaged the imagination - was a way of reaching as wide an audience as possible.

Nor did Spence limit himself to texts that were designed to be read. He also wrote songs which again conveyed his ideas, but which could be shared in political meetings and gatherings, making them more accessible to those who were unable to read. The songs were to be sung to familiar tunes such as 'Hearts of Oak' and 'Derry Down'. Some were even set to well-known patriotic tunes including 'Rule Britannia' ('The Progress of Liberty', 1793 and 'The Liberty of the Press', 1794) and, most provocatively, 'God Save the King' ('Rights of Man', 1793). This was a deliberately subversive act - in which Spence filled an establishment vessel (the tune of the national anthem) with his own radical content.

One of Spence’s counter-stamped coins. Image taken from Wikimedia Commons.

Spence performed a similar act of subversion with coins. After his move to London he began counter-stamping coins of the realm. In this case the establishment vessel was a coin bearing the image of the King's head and Spence's radical content was the subversive slogan which would be stamped across it. The example illustrated here shows a coin from the reign of George III that has the phrase 'NO LANDLORDS YOU FOOLS SPENCES PLAN FOREVER' obscuring the King's head.

A Spence token celebrating the Rights of Man owned by the author. Image Rachel Hammersley.

Spence also produced coins or tokens of his own which he was said to toss out into the street, so that local people could pick them up for free and then exchange them at his shop for a pamphlet. Again the tokens generally reflected Spence's ideas, such as the one bearing the slogan 'Man over man he made not lord'. They were also explicitly used to advertise his pamphlets. The reverse of the token just described advertises Spence's Pigs' Meat while another, which depicts two men throwing title deeds onto a bonfire, bears the label 'The End of Oppression' which was the title of another of Spence's works. Spence also used tokens to commemorate his own experience of oppression or that of others - such as John Thelwall and George Gordon - or to comment on current affairs.

It was not only via paper and metal that Spence conveyed his ideas. He etched his slogans wherever he could. In 1780 he visited a former miner known as 'Jack the Blaster' who lived in a cave at Marsden Rock on the coast between South Shields and Sunderland. The cave or grotto still exists and currently houses a bar. 'Jack the Blaster' had apparently gone to live at Marsden Rock having not been able to afford the rent on a more conventional home. Spence claimed that this inspired him to chalk the following words above the hearth:

The bar inside Marsden Grotto. Image by Rachel Hammersley (2022).

Ye landlords vile, whose man’s place mar

Come levy rents here if you can,

Your steward and lawyers I defy

And live with all the Rights of Man.

(Thomas Spence, 'The Rights of Man for

Me', in his Pigs Meat (London, 1794-5),

Volume 3, p. 250)

On this basis Spence claimed to have coined the phrase 'the Rights of Man' more than ten years before it became associated with Thomas Paine. Decades later, Spence's followers were said to have chalked Spencean phrases on the walls around London. The Home Secretary reported that "Spence's Plan and full Bellies", and other similar messages, had appeared "on every wall in London" and in 1816 William Cobbett wrote to Henry Hunt saying:

We have all seen for years past written on walls in and near London the words

'Spence's Plan' and I never knew what it meant until ... I received a pamphlet from

Mr. Evans ... detailing the Plan very fully. (Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. London,

1820, p. 381).

I cannot help but think that had custom-printed tee-shirts been available in Spence's time, he would have had one printed with a suitable slogan and would have worn it (and urged others to do so) on the streets of London and his native North East.

For those wondering what happened to 'Tories Out Man' in the aftermath of the election, I am pleased to say that he is still running along the seafront. When we saw him in December he was wearing a new tee-shirt which read 'Tories Outed, 2024'!

The Power of Editors

Last month's blogpost centred on the radical periodicals produced by Thomas Spence and Daniel Isaac Eaton during the 1790s. This month I am extending that discussion by considering Spence's role as editor, and his use of his position to curate the words of others in such a way as to advance his own political ideas.

Spence’s Lecture, ‘Property in Land Every One’s Right’. From the collection of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle upon Tyne. Hedley Papers, Volume 1. Reproduced with kind permission.

Pig's Meat was composed almost entirely of extracts from a variety of political texts. Spence chose his extracts carefully, deliberately presenting key political themes. Prominent among these were: the importance of free speech and thought; the rights of man; and the superiority of republican over monarchical government. But Spence's main concern throughout was the oppression of the poor by the rich.

That theme also lay at the heart of Spence's Land Plan, which he first set out in a lecture to the Newcastle Philosophical Society on 8 November 1775. He argued that, in the state of nature, land was shared equally among all inhabitants for them to use to secure their own subsistence. On this basis, he insisted that 'the land or earth, in any country or neighbourhood, with everything in or on the same, or pertaining thereto, belongs at all times to the living inhabitants of the said country or neighbourhood in an equal manner' and that the state ought to protect this right to land (Thomas Spence, 'Property in Land Every One's Right'). In reality, however, land had been claimed by a few and divided among them for their own ends, making others dependent on them for subsistence. This injustice had been perpetuated through inheritance and purchase. Although this was the current state of affairs, Spence argued that things could be different if people were to acknowledge the injustice and take action. He suggested that each parish could form a corporation with the power to let, repair, or alter any part of the land, but without the power to sell the land. Individual inhabitants would pay rent to the parish for a portion of the land and those rents would be used to provide local and national amenities.

The section ‘Lessons for Monopolisers of Land’ from Thomas Spence, Pig’s Meat, Volume 1 (London, 1793). Robinson Library, Newcastle University. Rare Books RB 331.04 PIG. Reproduced with kind permission.

Throughout his lifetime, Spence produced a number of his own works (including political pamphlets, fictionalised utopias or travel writing, and even songs) which presented the key elements of his plan. The plan is also central to Pig's Meat, but here it is presented not in Spence's own words, but through those written by others. We can see how he does this by focusing on several extracts that appeared in the eighth issue (in autumn 1793). Under the title 'Lessons for Monopolisers of Land', Spence presents two biblical quotations. The first, which comes from Leviticus chapter 25, presents the Jewish idea of Jubilee. This required that every fifty years land within the state would be redistributed, reflecting the notion that the land belonged to God and was only granted to the people for their use. The second, which comes from Isaiah (chapter 5, verse 8), condemns those who parcel up land for themselves leaving none for others. These biblical passages are immediately preceded by an excerpt from the works of Jonathan Swift entitled 'An unpleasant lesson for the pigs' betters', which argues that those who enjoy wealth and power in society gained - and maintain - their position by vicious means, including incest, betrayal, poisoning, perjury and fraud. The biblical passages are then followed by an extract from the works of Samuel Pufendorf, to which Spence gives the title 'On Equality. From Puffendorf's Whole Duty of Man, according to the Law of Nature'. This passage includes the line: 'no man, who has not a peculiar right, ought to arrogate more to himself than he is ready to allow his fellows' (Thomas Spence, Pig's Meat, Volume 1, London, 1793, p. 91). Together, these passages reinforce key elements of Spence's Land Plan: that the land and the fruits thereof should benefit all members of society; that the current possessors of land have gained and maintained their position via unseemly means; and that it is possible (as in the example of Jubilee) to overthrow an unfair system.

Presenting what was a controversial plan via the words of others had obvious advantages for Spence, who was at this point an unknown London bookseller, recently arrived from Newcastle. Spence gives the impression that his Land Plan was in line with the views of serious political philosophers such as Pufendorf and respected authorities such as Swift. By labelling the Pufendorf extract 'On Equality' Spence was, of course, reinforcing this point. The inclusion of biblical quotations was another clever move. It simultaneously showed the poor that their cause was in line with the word of God (giving them greater confidence to assert their rights) and alerted wealthy elites to the fact that in oppressing the poor they were disobeying biblical injunctions and therefore God.

Spence’s ‘Rights of Man’ song from Pig’s Meat. Volume 1 (London, 1793). Robinson Library, Newcastle University. Rare Books RB 331.04 PIG. Reproduced with kind permission.

Very occasionally, Spence includes his own writings among the Pig's Meat extracts. The first volume includes a couple of his songs, and a version of his Plan in question and answer form. Here too, the juxtaposition of the extracts serves a deliberate purpose. Spence's first song appears immediately after an extract from John Locke's Two Treatises of Government; his second, between an extract from James Harrington and a speech by Oliver Cromwell; and the question and answer piece is sandwiched between two biblical quotations. By this means, Spence implies that his works are on a par with the texts surrounding them, thereby giving his works greater power and authority than if he had simply presented them in a pamphlet bearing his own name.

I discussed these ideas at a recent workshop on 'The Role of the Editor' at Newcastle University. Just as Spence's words gained greater power by being set alongside those of others, so my thoughts on this topic were enriched by listening to the other speakers.

The titles of the papers in the programme immediately raise questions about what we mean by 'editing'. The speakers discussed various examples including: authors editing of their own texts (Emily Price on William Lithgow, Joe Hone's paper which drew on evidence from proof copies); those editing texts written by others (Katie East on early modern editions of Cicero's works, Filippo Marchetti on John Toland's editions of the works of Giordano Bruni); the curation of a range of other 'texts' in periodicals and miscellanies (Kyra Helberg on the Lancet, Tim Somers on jestbooks); and even the editing of an archive (Harriet Gray on the Hedley Reports of the Newcastle Literary and Philosophical Society). By the end of the workshop we were wondering whether it would be better to think of editing as a task that various people undertake rather than a job title assigned to specific individuals.

Title page of the Hedley Papers. From the Collection of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle upon Tyne. Reproduced with kind permission.

Just as the notion of an 'editor' proved more slippery than we had appreciated, so too the 'audience' to which editors addressed their works was far from static. Anthony Hedley may originally have produced the reports on the Newcastle Literary and Philosophical Society for himself (they appear to have only been presented to the Society by his daughter after his death) or at most as working documents for a small number of Society members. As Harriet Gray noted, this might explain why he was able to include details of controversies relating to the Society which were kept out of more public accounts. In his paper, Filippo Marchetti observed that Toland had more than one audience in mind when seeking to spread knowledge of Bruno's works, and that he deliberately produced different versions of the text for different audiences - adjusting the wording and accompanying evidence accordingly. Where Toland produced different texts for different audiences, Thomas Wakely (the subject of Kyra Helberg's paper) sought to address several different audiences through a single publication. The Lancet was intended for the medical profession (including both surgeons and students) but there is also evidence that it was directed towards - and read by - the wider public. As Emily Price's paper demonstrated, editors were not always in control of their audiences. She showed how Lithgow's travel narrative was originally directed towards members of the Court as a vehicle for advancing Lithgow's career and furthering anti-Catholic arguments, but that after his death it became a forerunner of the Baedeker or Rough Guide for travellers to the Continent.

There was also much discussion of particular editorial techniques, with a plethora of these on display in the papers. Katie East suggested that the context in which particular texts appeared could significantly affect how they were read - and even whether a particular text was considered 'political' or not. Cicero's speeches on Catiline were presented to early modern audiences in a range of formats: including in editions of Cicero's speeches; in collections of ancient speeches by various orators; in compilations of Cicero's works; in collections presenting historical evidence relating to the Catiline conspiracy; and even as interventions in contemporary political affairs, such as the South Sea Bubble. In each case the setting will have affected how the speeches were read. Both Harriet and I addressed the role that curation - and especially the juxtaposition of particular texts - can play in presenting a particular reading of an event or text. Emily and Tim both provided examples of adapting a text to fit new circumstances. And Kyra showed that Wakley was not above inventing correspondents to the Lancet to introduce particular topics or pursue his own ends.

The title page of the first edition of Gulliver’s Travels. Image courtesy of Joe Hone.

Finally, Joe Hone provided more insight into the question hovering over much of our discussion, namely how we can be sure of precisely who was responsible for editorial decisions in any given case. Emily had noted that Lithgow was away on his second voyage in 1614 when the first edition of his work appeared, and she wondered how his absence affected his editorial input. Joe demonstrated that the issue is complex. He showed us proof sheets in which an author insisted that particular words be rendered in italics - suggesting a high level of authorial intervention was possible. Yet he also explained how Jonathan Swift was furious when his printer removed the sharpest satirical barbs from the first edition of Gulliver's Travels, without informing him before publication. Of course, in most cases we simply do not have the evidence to be sure where responsibility lay. Yet, as the workshop made abundantly clear, there is much to be gained from thinking more deeply about editorial activity, and how this has shaped the documents that scholars use as evidence.

'Ut Spargam' and other Hollis Marginalia

An example of the smoke printed symbol of the pilius or liberty cap taken from Henry Neville, Plato Redivivus, or a dialogue concerning government (London, 1763). This copy, which was donated by Hollis to the Advocates Library in Edinburgh, is now held at the National Library of Scotland: ([Ad]. 7/1.8). It is reproduced here under a Creative Commons License with permission from the Library.

In last month's blogpost I noted that social media platforms have now taken over as the dominant source of news and political information for younger citizens in the UK. One of the main concerns about this shift in news consumption habits is the notion that such platforms tend to generate echo chambers. This results in individuals rarely being confronted by - and therefore required to engage with - views that differ significantly from their own. It can produce a polarisation of positions and a tendency to demonise - rather than seeking to understand - alternative viewpoints. The political dissemination campaigns of the late eighteenth century that were the focus of my last blogpost could be seen as leading to a similar outcome, with campaigners voicing particular viewpoints (such as the benefits of political reform), and dismissing alternative views. Yet in the case of Thomas Hollis, the picture is more complex.

I have touched on Hollis and his campaign several times in previous blogposts, so will not go into great detail here. Suffice to say that he sent a huge number of books to university and public libraries in Britain, continental Europe, and North America. Harvard College in Massachusetts was the recipient of the largest collection of donations, with around 3,000 volumes being sent over several years. Part of Hollis's aim in sending works to university libraries was to influence the education of the rising generation.

An example of the embossed symbol of the wise owl again taken from the National Library of Scotland’s copy of Neville’s Plato Redivivus: ([Ad].7/1.8). Reproduced under a Creative Commons License with permission from the Library.

As well as sending the works free of charge, Hollis also manipulated the physical appearance of the volumes he sent in order to shape how they were read and understood. One technique he deployed was to add symbols or emblematic tools to the works (either smoke printed into the text or embossed onto the binding) which served as a shorthand for the content. A pilius or liberty bonnet indicated that the work advocated liberty, a sword was associated with the right to overthrow tyrants, the cock symbolised alertness or vigilance, and an owl showed that the work was wise (unless it appeared upside down in which case it had the opposite meaning). More details on the emblematic tools Hollis used are provided in William Bond's lecture, 'Thomas Hollis: His Bookbinders and Book binding', which can be accessed here.

Another method Hollis used was to add handwritten comments to the texts expressing his views on them or pointing readers towards related works in the collection. Most of these comments were specific to the text itself (and I discussed some of these in a previous blogpost) but there were at least three phrases that can be found repeatedly in works that form part of the Harvard collection.

An example of Hollis’s handwritten marginalia. This comes from an edition of John Milton’s Works, ed. Richard Baron (London, 1753). Reproduced with permission from the Harvard Library copy.

One of these is the phrase 'Ut Spargam', which translates roughly as 'that we may scatter them', 'spargo' being the Latin verb meaning to scatter, strew, or sprinkle. Hollis added this phrase by hand to more than twenty of the volumes he sent to Harvard College. For the most part these are works that set out and celebrate the rights and liberties of the people in politics and religion. They include: several works from the French monarchomach tradition, written by Huguenots in the late sixteenth century, opposing absolute monarchy and justifying tyrannicide; several collections of speeches, acts, or declarations by the English parliament of the 1640s during its confrontation with Charles I; English republican texts such as James Harrington's The Commonwealth of Oceana and Catharine Macaulay's History of England; and several works that deal explicitly with the rights of the people, including Benjamin Hoadly's The common rights of subjects, defended, William Petyt's, The antient right of the Commons of England, and a 1658 work called simply The rights of the people. The point of the Latin phrase was presumably to indicate that these works should be disseminated so that people around the world would come to know their rights.

A box commemorating the repeal of the Stamp Act. From the National Museum of American History. Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons under a Creative Commons License.

There were, of course, particular reasons why this message was pertinent to the American colonists in the 1760s (when Hollis sent most of these works to Harvard). This was a period during which the conflict between the colonists and the British government was escalating. The imposition of the Sugar Act in April 1764 and of the Stamp Act in March 1765 had led the colonists to fear that the British were seeking to exploit and oppress them - imposing taxes without according them representation, thereby infringing their rights as British subjects. The second of these acts provoked the Stamp Act Congress in October 1765 - an early example of co-ordinated action on the part of the colonists. Yet despite securing the repeal of the Stamp Act the following year, the exercise of British control continued. The repeal was deliberately accompanied by the Declaratory Act, which asserted Parliament's right to control the colonies. In June 1767 further customs duties were imposed, and the following year British troops moved into Massachusetts, which had been the focus of the colonial protests. It is not difficult to read off from Hollis's gifts to Harvard his attitude towards the crisis and the fact that he saw it as crucial in this context to remind young American citizens of their rights and the threats posed by overbearing power.

The second phrase Hollis adds to multiple volumes is 'Felicity is Freedom and Freedom is Magnanimity'. It appears in seven works, most of which are recognisably republican texts and two of which also bear the 'Ut Spargam' tag (Harrington's Oceana and Macaulay's History). Interestingly it also appears in A short narrative of the horrid massacre, which described the Boston Massacre of 1770 when British troops fired on protestors. A direct connection is, therefore, drawn between the events of mid-seventeenth-century England and recent colonial affairs. In fact there is a third strand to the parallel, since Hollis attributes the phrase 'Felicity is Freedom and Freedom is Magnanimity' to Thucydides. In Book 2 of The History of the Peloponnesian War Thucydides praises the bravery of the Athenians who died in that war, sacrificing themselves for their country, and he urges their successors to follow their example:

For heroes have the whole earth for their tomb; and in lands far from their own,

where the column with its epitaph declares it, there is enshrined in every breast a

record unwritten with no tablet to preserve it, except that of the heart. These take as

your model and, judging happiness to be the fruit of freedom and freedom of

valour, never decline the dangers of war.

(http://classics.mit.edu/Thucydides/pelopwar.2.second.html)

Like the ancient Athenians and the republicans of seventeenth-century England, the American colonists were displaying a spirit of patriotism that led them to put the good of their country ahead of their own personal interests. The 'Felicity is Freedom' tag endorsed their willingness to fight - even to the death - to defend their rights.

Yet Hollis's strategy was not simply to present his readers with one side of the story. One of the works to which he added the phrase 'Ut Spargam' was Henry Sacheverell's account of his trial. Sacheverell was an Anglican clergyman and popular preacher. In a sermon delivered in November 1709, which he subsequently printed illegally, he attacked Catholics and Protestant Dissenters, comparing the Gunpowder Plot to the execution of Charles I. At his trial, which opened in February 1710 and was accompanied by rioting, Sacheverell was found guilty. As a strong advocate of the Dissenting cause, Hollis will not have shared Sacheverell's views and the parallel drawn between Catholics and Dissenters will have been an affront to Hollis's staunch anti-Catholicism. Yet he still believed that Sacheverell's own account of his trial should be widely disseminated.

Moreover, the plot thickens further if we draw into the discussion Hollis's third repeatedly used inscription: 'Floreat Libertas, Pereat Tyrannis'. The words themselves celebrate the triumph of liberty over tyranny. Yet the works to which Hollis added these words were produced not by advocates of liberty, but by their tyrannical opponents. They include: the collected works of Charles I and his account of his trial; the Letters and dispatches of Charles's close advisor the Earl of Strafford who was executed by Parliament in 1641; and The free-holders grand inquest by the divine right theorist Robert Filmer. It is no doubt significant that while he strongly opposed the arguments reflected in these works, Hollis did not hide them from the Harvard students, but deliberately sent them copies, alerting them by his handwritten inscription that these works contained the arguments of tyrants. Hollis's position seems to have been that it was not sufficient for the colonists to be educated on their rights, they also needed to have a clear picture of what tyranny looked like so that they could recognise it and act quickly when it was imposed against them.

Underlying these decisions by Hollis we can perhaps glimpse the hand of the man he described as 'the divine Milton' (Memoirs of Thomas Hollis, Esq., ed. Francis Blackburne. London, 1780, pp. 60 and 93). In Areopagitica (1644) John Milton argued against the censorship of books, drawing a contrast between the food of the body and that of the mind:

Bad meats will scarce breed good nourishment in

John Milton in the ‘Temple of British Worthies’ at Stowe in Buckinghamshire. Image by Rachel Hammersley

the healthiest concoction; but herein the

difference is of bad books, that they to a discreet

and judicious Reader serve in many respects to

discover, to confute, to forewarn, and to illustrate (John

Milton, Areopagitica. London, 1644, p. 11).

Hollis, following Milton, believed that the American colonists needed to engage with and understand tyranny in order to be able to defend their rights and liberties. The same argument holds today. We cannot understand, let alone defend, what is right, if we are not prepared to listen to, and engage with, alternative viewpoints - even those we might find distasteful.

Liberty, Equality, Fraternity

Since the anniversary of the start of the first lockdown in the UK is approaching, it seemed appropriate to interrupt my 'Experiencing Political Texts' series of posts to reflect on the current situation.

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought restrictions to our liberties of a kind that would not previously have been imagined. Under the current lockdown the reasons for which we can leave our homes are severely limited, our right to gather with others in public places is almost completely denied us, and even the control we have over our own bodies is compromised through the requirement to wear a face covering in shops and on public transport. There is also pressure being exerted on us to be vaccinated, and there have even been suggestions that some types of worker will be forced to do this.

This situation has led me to reflect in more detail on the concept of liberty and its history. The right to liberty in the abstract - as well as to the more concrete liberties of free movement, gathering in public spaces, and control over one's own body - were by no means a given in the past. They were only secured after hard fought battles and painful individual sacrifices. Nor are they universally enjoyed across the globe today. Nonetheless, liberty is central to contemporary political philosophies, and politicians of all stripes in the UK are keen to defend and protect liberty.

The virus challenges all of this not only by inducing governments to limit individual freedoms, but also by raising the uncomfortable question of whether the dominant place accorded to liberty in certain societies (including the UK) has actually increased the threat the virus poses to us and our lives. Many commentators have drawn attention to the fact that countries where restrictions on the freedoms of their citizens are more common often have far lower numbers of coronavirus cases and deaths than those countries that prize liberty. Vietnam is often cited on this point. At the time of writing it had recorded just 2,448 cases and only 35 deaths as compared with 4.18 million cases and 123,000 deaths in the UK. While I do not underestimate the value and importance of liberty, I do wonder whether we are paying too high a price for it just now.

Declaration fo the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Liberty has always had to be set against other values - and not just the right to life. Our modern veneration of liberty owes much to the revolutionary upheavals of the late eighteenth century, especially the French Revolution. Its motto was Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité. These three concepts were highlighted (and the relationship between them articulated) in the Declaration of the Rights of Man first issued in 1789, which began 'Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be founded only upon the general good.' Soon after 'Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité was being emblazoned on everything from official documents and political texts to medals and even buildings.

The pandemic has not only brought restrictions to our liberties, but has also raised questions about our commitment to equality. In recent times, equal treatment, in various respects, has been extended for example to women, those from ethnic minorities, and those with disabilities. This equality is widely recognised today and enshrined in legislation such as the 2010 Equality Act in the UK. However, our experience of the impact of Covid-19 might lead us to question (if we had not done so before) the extent to which equality operates in practice. Commentators have noted that in many homes the burden of childcare and home schooling is falling more heavily on women than men. A recent government advert that was quickly withdrawn after complaints that it was misogynistic in its depiction of lockdown life, was perhaps more realistic than we might care to admit. As a result, the long term effect of the pandemic on women's careers may be more significant and long-lasting than its impact on the careers of men. There is also clear statistical evidence that both infection and death rates have been higher in people from ethnic minority backgrounds than among the population as a whole. There may be several reasons for this, but it is certainly clear that those with lower levels of income, amongst whom ethnic minority families are overrepresented, have been more harshly affected by the virus. This is true both in terms of rates of illness and death and as regards the impact on employment and household income. Rather than complaining about the restrictions on our liberties imposed by Covid-19, perhaps we ought to be inquiring more deeply into the unequal nature of its impact on our lives.

Fraternity is perhaps less central to political life today than liberty or equality. Not only are the masculine connotations of the word off-putting, but it sits sharply at odds with the liberty of the individual that we so highly prize. Yet for the French revolutionaries, liberty and fraternity were seen as complementary rather than competing concepts, capable of both reinforcing and tempering each other. Certain phenomena this year - including the Thursday night clapping that punctuated the first lockdown and the actions of individuals like Captain Tom Moore - suggest that the sense of altruism and community to which the  concept of fraternity refers has certainly not disappeared completely. Yet at the same time the stockpiling of provisions and ugly scenes in supermarkets that were a feature of the first lockdown, together with vaccine nationalism, raises questions about this me-first attitude remains not just strong but also acceptable.

Early in the French Revolution, not long before the Declaration of the Rights of Man was drawn up, Emmanuel Sieyès published his pamphlet What is the Third Estate? In that work he considered what a nation requires in order to survive and prosper. The nation, he observed, could continue to function efficiently without the privileged orders (the clergy and the nobility). But without the third estate everything would fall to pieces. The third estate, Sieyès argued, contains within itself everything that is required to form a complete nation. He then used this observation to justify the third estate's claim to political representation on an equal footing to that of the other two estates. Within six months of its publication, What is the Third Estate? had been used to justify the establishment of the National Assembly which represented the nation as a whole, but was made up simply of the third estate and those members of the other two estates who chose to join it.

Portrait of Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès. Image taken from Wikimedia Commons.

I was reminded of Sieyès's pamphlet, and of the notions of equality and fraternity it upholds, in the first period of lockdown, when our attention was drawn to the list of key workers who would have to continue working because our society cannot function without them. Despite their importance, it was apparent that many of these roles are neither the best paid nor high status in our society.

We should use the forthcoming anniversary of the lockdown to reflect more deeply on what we have learnt this year, on what Covid-19 has revealed about our society, and on what measures we need to take to construct a better future. Rather than rushing to recapture our lost liberties, I suggest that we devote our energies to reinvigorating our understanding of the other two concepts in the triad - equality and fraternity.