By Richard Hoffman and Mike Head of WSWS
Today marks the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta, a major historical event in the social and political development of England and in the emergence of the rule of law against arbitrary power.
In 1215, English noblemen, rebelling against the abuses of power by King John, forced the king to agree to the Magna Carta (the “Great Charter”) at Runnymede. Their struggle was rooted in profound economic processes, which were undermining the foundations of feudal society and the political power of the monarch.
The development of agriculture and land productivity was more advanced in England than elsewhere. While still very much in their infancy, capitalist relations were emerging out of the constraints of feudalism, which were in any event less restrictive in England than on the Continent.
The Magna Carta enumerated, in fairly comprehensive terms, the rights of “freemen”—essentially, landowners. Its 63 clauses set out the restraints on the king’s absolute powers, especially over economic life, property and legal procedure. The Charter (as set out in the translation available on the British Library website) proclaimed: “To all free men of our kingdom we have also granted, for us and our heirs forever, all the liberties written out below, to have and to keep for them and their heirs, of us and our heirs.”
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Today, 800 years after the Magna Carta, the working class confronts the reversal of the social gains of centuries of struggle for political and democratic rights. No constituency remains within the bourgeoisie anywhere for the defence of even the most fundamental rights. The only progressive alternative is the independent political mobilisation of the working class, on the basis of a socialist program, to conquer state power. New forms of genuine democracy—arising in the course of revolutionary mass struggles by the working class, the vast majority of the population—will become the foundations for workers’ governments, committed to world socialism, that is, to peace, justice and social equality for all.
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