Editing Diggers (section)

== Theory ==
In 1649, [[Gerrard Winstanley]] and 14 others published ''The True Levellers Standard Advanced'',{{sfn|Winstanley|Jones|2002}} a pamphlet and manifesto in which they called themselves "True Levellers" to distinguish their ideas from those of the [[Levellers]].<ref name="Empson, 2017">{{cite magazine |magazine=International Socialism |title=A common treasury for all: Gerrard Winstanley's vision of utopia |issue=154 |date=5 April 2017 |first=Martin |last=Empson |url=https://isj.org.uk/a-common-treasury-for-all/ |access-date=12 September 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211007013718/https://isj.org.uk/a-common-treasury-for-all/ |archive-date=7 October 2021 |url-status=live |language=en}}</ref> Once they put their idea into practice and started to cultivate [[common land]], both opponents and supporters began to call them "Diggers". The Diggers' beliefs were informed by Winstanley's writings which envisioned an ecological interrelationship between humans and nature, acknowledging the inherent connections between people and their surroundings; Winstanley declared that "true freedom lies where a man receives his nourishment and preservation, and that is in the use of the earth".<ref>{{cite book |last=Grant |first=Neil |title=Hamlyn Children's History of Britain: From the Stone Age to the Present Day |edition=2nd Revised |publisher=Dean |date=1992 |page=144}}</ref> With this the Diggers sought to establish a communistic utopia.{{sfn|Woolrych|2002|pp=449–450}}

The True Levellers advocated for an early form of public health insurance and communal ownership in opposition to individual ownership.{{sfn|Stearns|Fairchilds|Lindenmeyr|Maynes|2001|p=290}}<ref name="Empson, 2017"/> They rejected the perceived immorality and [[Promiscuity|sexual liberalism]] of another sect known as the [[Ranters]], with Gerrard Winstanley denoting them as "a general lack of moral values or restraint in worldly pleasures".<ref>{{Cite web |date=1 September 2012 |title=English Dissenters: Ranters |url=http://www.exlibris.org/nonconform/engdis/ranters.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120901224037/http://www.exlibris.org/nonconform/engdis/ranters.html |archive-date=1 September 2012 |access-date=25 October 2022}}</ref><ref name="declaration">{{cite web |url=http://www.rogerlovejoy.co.uk/philosophy/diggers/diggers3.htm |title=A Declaration by the Diggers of Wellingborough – 1650 |website=www.rogerlovejoy.co.uk |access-date=21 March 2018 |archive-date=7 August 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110807191532/http://www.rogerlovejoy.co.uk/philosophy/diggers/diggers3.htm |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name=":0" />