Sorry, that’s not quite right. English had maintained Anglo Saxon (germanic < Corded Ware < Yamna(Kurgan)) law that evolved significantly during manorialism, such that the relation between the ruler (sovereign), and the freeman (sovereign) was purely contractual – and that his “rights as an Englishman” (his sovereignty) as they were later expressed, were consistent regardless of territory.
This is how all militial cultures must operate, whether agrarian (militia), pastoral (raiders), or seafaring (pirates). It’s not a choice. Unlike the agrarian river valleys, where production is concentrated, returns are high, armies are affordable, the europeans could not produce other than mlitial armies until trade had evolved sufficient for state formation – approximately the time of Napoleon – meaning it took from the late roman period to the Napoleonic period to restore the economy of europe.
The english extended their practice of common (traditional germanic) law to their broader understanding of the world, and in doing so produced empiricism, and the anglo empirical revolution.
The REST OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT was a counter-revolution AGAINST this empirical, legal, contractual, individualism, while at the same time, the middle class (thanks to the Viking trade first, the Hansa trade second, then the atlantic trade third) attempted to sought to take power from the landed aristocracy now that trade was as important or more so than agrarian production – and given that international relations were now nearly as important as internal relations. Once this was possible, both the upper (aristocratic, landed, military) class and the emergent middle class (burghers so to speak), attempted successfully to liberate the 50% of dead capital in europe that was in the hands of the church.
So no. The english had it right, and the rest of the world has been fighting against the empirical model, being dragged into science, markets, and technology one war at a time.
One must choose between rule of law, and rule by discretion.
We make this false claim that the argument is between capitalism and socialism both of which are alien ideas to european civilization, which has always been one of markets – precisely because individualism in the west is 3500 years old.
We invented the combination of militia, contract, truth, duty, sovereignty. And it is the very and only reason for our more rapid rates of evolution in the ancient world and in the modern world.
