Reset the Table: How Winstanley & Adams Guide Us to Reclaim the Commons Now
Explore Winstanley & John Adams’ common-good ethos, exposing 2025 U.S. policies that favor elites. Learn actionable steps for civic reform, public banking, data dividends & climate justice.
Think of humanity as diners at a communal table set by history and nature. Winstanley reminds us the meal—the land itself—was meant for every seat. Adams reminds us the rules of the banquet—government—must guarantee that no guest hoards the bread while others starve. When either the meal or the rules are captured by a few, the feast collapses. Our task, generation after generation, is to reset the table so everyone can eat—and to keep watch over the stewards we appoint to serve it.
“Was the earth made to preserve a few covetous, proud men to live at ease;
or was it made to preserve all her children?” — Gerrard Winstanley, 1649
“Government is instituted for the common good … not for the profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men.” — John Adams, 1776 - 1780
Quick-Look Summary
Core question: Who are public resources—land, law, data, dollars—really for? Winstanley answers “everyone.” Adams says governments exist only insofar as they secure that answer in practice. Their shared yard-stick—the common good—lets us evaluate today’s U.S. policies and sketch concrete next steps.
1 │ A Lineage of “Common Good” Thinking
| Voice | Moment | Core Claim |
|---|---|---|
| Gerrard Winstanley (1649) | English Civil War | Earth is a “common treasury.” Private enclosure that starves the many is illegitimate. |
| John Locke (1689) | Second Treatise | Property is justified only when it leaves “enough and as good” for others. |
| Thomas Paine (1776) | Common Sense | Legitimate power comes from “the people” and must secure their welfare. |
| John Adams (1780 MA Constitution) | Early republic | Government must be altered when it fails to protect collective prosperity. |
| Franklin D. Roosevelt (1944) | “Second Bill of Rights” | Citizens deserve positive rights—work, housing, health—because democracy collapses under mass insecurity. |
| Martin Luther King Jr. (1967) | Where Do We Go from Here? | Poverty, racism, and war violate a single moral law of universal dignity. |
Each thinker re-states the same idea in new circumstances: any system that concentrates life-supporting resources in a few hands breaks faith with the social contract.
2 │ Moral Yardsticks for 2025
Definitions
Commons – resources so foundational that excluding people from them starves freedom (land, atmosphere, data).
Rawls’ Veil of Ignorance – a test: would you accept today’s rules if you could wake up tomorrow in any social position?
Aristotle’s Virtue Ethics – asks whether policies cultivate justice, courage, and practical wisdom in citizens.
We can distill Winstanley and Adams into three questions anyone can apply:
- Who Benefits? Does the policy enlarge the circle of security or shrink it?
- Who Decides? Are the affected allowed meaningful voice?
- What Character Grows? Does the rule encourage solidarity or selfishness?
3 │ Current Flashpoints in U.S. Governance
| 2025 Action | Common-Good Test |
|---|---|
| School Discipline EO (Apr 23) rejects any consideration of racial disparities and threatens funding for districts using “equity” tools. The White House | Who benefits? Primarily districts with low suspension rates for advantaged groups. Who’s excluded? Students who already face higher discipline rates; their safety net is removed. |
| NSPM-4 ordering the military to “seal” the southern border. The White House | Concentrates force without parallel investment in asylum processing or regional diplomacy—security for some, danger for others. |
| State Dept. purge of human-rights reports (Apr 18) drops references to prison abuse and election interference. NPR | Obscures facts essential to global accountability—truth itself moves behind a private curtain. |
| Procurement EO (Apr 16) insists agencies buy “commercial, cost-effective” products, limiting custom solutions. The White House | Efficiency can be good, but blank-check privatization risks funneling public dollars to the politically connected. |
Across all four, the pattern is familiar: public power tilting toward restricted benefit rather than broad protection.
4 │ Action Menu Grounded in Common-Good Ethics
The number one threat to those in power is "Ranked Choice" voting
A. Civic Guardrails
- Pass the Freedom to Vote Act (revived 2025) – ensures equal ballot access; fulfills Winstanley’s demand that all have a stake in commons-management.
- Restore the Office of Technology Assessment – public tech reviews keep procurement transparency when “cost-effective” becomes a lobbying slogan.
B. Economic Re-Balancing
- Universal Data Dividend – treat personal data like land rent; platforms pay into a public trust distributed equally.
- Public Banking & Postal Banking – extend low-fee financial services to every ZIP code, echoing FDR’s positive-rights logic.
C. Social Infrastructure
- National Service Guarantee – offer tuition-free college or debt forgiveness for two years of service, weaving solidarity across class lines.
- Climate/Permaculture Civilian Corps – positions green transition as a shared inheritance, not a private speculative rush.
D. Accountability Mechanisms
- Sunshine for Executive Orders – require GAO impact reviews on equity, climate, and constitutional rights within 90 days of issuance.
- Supreme Court Code of Ethics with enforcement – Adams’s “safety and happiness” collapses if the referee is perceived as partisan.
5 │ How Individuals & Communities Can Move the Needle
| Role | Immediate Step |
|---|---|
| Citizen | Ask every candidate: “How does this policy expand protection and prosperity for all?” Share answers publicly. |
| Parent/Educator | Track discipline data in local schools; publish disparities to maintain transparency the EO suppresses. |
| Technologist | Contribute to open-source public-interest AI projects that keep models and data in the commons. |
| Investor | Shift portfolios toward ESG funds that score governance—lobbying transparency, worker voice—above mere carbon metrics. |
| Faith & Civic Groups | Host town-halls applying Rawls’ veil exercise: congregants imagine themselves as migrants, suspended students, or minimum-wage workers when judging new laws. |
6 │ Closing Insight
Land, law, and knowledge are the triple-grain of modern life. Winstanley’s field laborers saw common soil fenced by lords; Adams saw monarchy’s laws bent to private estates. Today’s enclosures may be subtler—algorithms, procurement pipelines, redacted reports—but the remedy remains the same: re-center every rule on the security and flourishing of the many. Whenever policy drifts from that anchor, the social contract frays; when we pull it back, the republic renews.