John Wesley and the Political Economy of Enclosure

Abstract

This article engages two pamphlets written by John Wesley in 1772, “Thoughts on the Origin of Power” and “Thoughts on the Present Scarcity of Provisions,” in which he addressed issues of politics and economics. Wesley rejected republican understandings that power emanates from the people, arguing instead that God is the source of power, although his description of God as “governor” troubles the notion of sovereign power he upholds. This article describes this as an incongruency that need not be harmonized as it reveals how the shifting nature of power impacted Wesley’s theology. Writing about the “scarcity of provisions,” Wesley associated food inflation with the “monopolization of farmland,” a process tied to land enclosures in Great Britain. This article argues that Wesley refused to recognize the power of “gentlemen farmers” as divine. In its conclusion, the article derives some lessons for political theology in dialogue with Wesley.