Is The Levellers left wing or right wing?

On economic organisation The Levellers scores +04 on a scale from −10 (common ownership) to +10 (private property and markets). On social and cultural order it scores −05. A single left–right figure combines these and four further measurements that move independently, which is why the atlas reports six.

Is The Levellers authoritarian?

On the organisation of power, which measures whether authority is dispersed among institutions that can stop each other or concentrated in a single centre, The Levellers scores −08. Annual parliaments, a paramount written 'Agreement of the People' limiting what any parliament could do.

Atlas / Organisations / The Levellers

The Levellers

1645–1650 · England · Radical Democratic · Movement · coding confidence medium

+04ECmarket

−05CUpluralist

−08AUpluralist

−05SClocal

−05IDuniversal

+03CHcoercive

Each axis runs from −10 to +10, with zero a genuine mixed or balanced position rather than an absence of opinion. A score describes a stated position and a governing record; it is not a judgement of merit. What each score means →

Core principles

Popular sovereignty, a written constitution, near-universal male suffrage, religious toleration, equality before law.

Economic model

Small-property individualism: they defended private ownership and opposed common ownership schemes.

Organisation of powers

Annual parliaments, a paramount written 'Agreement of the People' limiting what any parliament could do.

Reading note

Routinely confused with the Diggers. The Levellers were property-defending constitutional radicals, not communists.

Check a claim about The Levellers. The interactive atlas measures the distance between any two organisations across all six axes and shows which ones carry the disagreement.

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The evidence for every score

All six cells are sourced. A rationale explains what the score is measuring and each artefact is something a third party can check without taking anyone's word for it.

EC · Economic organisation · scored +04

Coded +4: small-property individualism, explicitly against common ownership.

Programme textThe Leveller leaders publicly repudiated the charge of levelling estates in the 1649 Agreement.

CU · Social and cultural order · scored −05

Coded −5: religious toleration and equality before law.

Programme textThe Agreement of the People bars parliament from compelling anyone in matters of religion.

AU · Organisation of power · scored −08

Coded −8: a written constitution binding on any future parliament.

Programme textThe Agreement places named powers beyond parliament's reach, the first such proposal in English.

SC · Scale of decision · scored −05

Coded −5: annual parliaments and equal constituencies against a centralised court.

Programme textThe Agreement requires biennial elections and redistribution of seats by population.

ID · Rule of membership · scored −05

Coded −5: near-universal male suffrage debated at Putney.

Programme textRainsborough: 'the poorest he that is in England hath a life to live as the greatest he.'

CH · Method and tempo · scored +03

Coded +3: agitation within the army, with mutinies suppressed at Burford in 1649.

Documented act or statuteThree Leveller soldiers were shot at Burford church after the mutiny collapsed.

Where it came from, and what came after

gave doctrine toChartism
The six points restate the Agreement of the People after two centuries.

Nearest organisations by measured distance

Straight-line separation across all six axes, out of a maximum of 49.0. Proximity means similarity of stated position, not endorsement and not resemblance in outcome.

Countries

Britain · England

Cite this page

Scores are revised on evidence, so a citation should carry the version it refers to. Version 4.3.1 is current; the revision log records every change.

McGrath, K. (2026). The Levellers. The Political Atlas, version 4.2. https://thepoliticalatlas.com/organisations/levellers/ (accessed 2026-08-01).

Free to quote and reproduce with attribution. This is a synthesis rather than a peer-reviewed dataset — where an authoritative figure is needed, cite the Chapel Hill Expert Survey, the Manifesto Project or V-Dem.