Peter Linebaugh’s The Magna Carta Manifesto: Liberties and Commons for All argues that the foundational document of Anglo-Saxon law, the Magna Carta, is at once a revolutionary document, in so far as, according to the author, it is a statement against “state despotism.” (22) With a particular emphasis on the exploitations being practiced by the dominant political ideology of neoliberalism and its “economic doctrine of globalization and privatization that depends on police regimes of security and privatization” (11) a return to the true spirit and meaning of the Magna Carta would mean an establishment of the “commons”, a “theory that vests all property in the community and organizes labor for the common benefit of all.” (6) Against private interests, against the exploitation of the environment and labor for the rule of the few, Linebaugh envisions that the Magna Carta can be used as a legal defense of the commons against neoliberalism. A legal basis for the commons therefore opposes the destruction of ecology, economy and human rights.
The strength of his argument thus relies upon the merits of his interpretation of this historical document. For example, Linebaugh interprets the “Charter of the Forest”, which appeared alongside the Magna Carta, as a document that protects “economic survival” (6), in that it prohibits the exploitation of resources at the expense of the common man and in favor of the hegemonic class. Chapters 7 and 8 of the Magna Carta are interpreted by Linebaugh as a robust defense of women’s rights, a crucial instance in legal history that anticipates human rights discourse and the equality of all persons. Chapters 28, 30, and 31 prevent “a stop to the robbery of petty tyrants” (Linebaugh, 49), therefore having direct relation to issues of privatization and the exploitation of resources at the expense of the commons.
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Despite these references to the Magna Carta, however, Linebaugh does not seem to answer the following point: the exploitative system of neoliberalism also emerged within the Anglo-Saxon philosophical, legal and cultural milieu, much like the Magna Carta. In some ways, therefore, the Magna Carta provided the soil for the future neoliberalism. Is it therefore necessary to return to the Magna Carta? Certainly, Linebaugh does give interpretations of the Magna Carta that are compelling defenses of an idea of the commons. But neoliberalism also emerged within an Anglo-Saxon cultural and legal context, therefore, it seems that Linebaugh’s aim is to preserve Anglo-Saxon culture, to defend it against its historical crimes, such as colonialism, the genocide of indigeneous peoples all over the world, and the current exploitation of the working class on a global level.
But is the Magna Carta necessary to fight for some notion of the commons? In this regard, Linebaugh’s arguments are not convincing: an Anglo-Saxon legal horizon is not needed to oppose neoliberalism – any historical body of laws, any political theory, any organization of the commons – can also serve this role.
