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On the heels of this event and other similar events developed the new concept and philosophy of "anarchy" -- the earliest known in a following series of organized bodies of thought which all have come to later be classified as "socialist". The considered "father" of this new anarchist doctrine was a British subject named William Godwin. Godwin was a well-known novelist and writer of the day. He posited that men seek the "good" (Godwin did not think in terms of profit motivation), but that they constantly reaped instead a harvest of evil. Godwin sought a reason for this perceived result in terms of some sort of generalization. Evil, he decided, was nothing more than man's lust for property and money. After all, did not the Bible say that money was the root of all evil? It was, Godwin decided, because of man's desire to own money and property that all crime was committed. War, murder, robbery, extortion, theft, and all kinds of crimes were nothing more than the result of man's lust for money and property. Therefore Godwin concluded, private ownership of property and the desire to own property were evils in and of themselves, since they invariably (in his view) led to evil. But who owned nearly all of the property and money? Still at that time, it was the men in government (nobles, royalty, and the Church). According to Godwin, it was government which acted to protect property as demonstrated by the Luddite massacre, that was the first enemy. If there were no government, he reasoned, then no one would be able to own property, and if no one owned property, then the evil lust for ownership and property would fade away. This is the peculiar characteristic of the early or classical anarchists. These believers had an objective, the abolition of ownership - including private ownership. The procedure to obtain this objective was, and is, the abolition of all government, since - they reasoned - if government itself was abolished, then no one would be able to own property. Clearly, Godwin's analysis was flawed. Limited to taking his observations from the past, he failed to understand that unlike feudal times and during the mercantilist period when the vast majority of property was held by royalty, nobility, and the politically privileged, the industrial revolution and industrialism was already challenging the old economic order and preparing the way for movement of vast amounts of property out of the control of kings and other politicians, and into the hands of private individuals. Godwin's arguments were however eagerly adopted by anti-property proponents of the anarchist and socialist view from that day to this. Such proponents attempt to establish the view, mentioned earlier, that 80 percent or more of all property and money was (or is) improperly held by a mere fraction of the population. We can only suppose that had Godwin obtained a clearer and more accurate view and interpretation of his own time as well as of history, he might well have given his support to industrialism instead of opposing it, and the entire history of the world might have departed from the unfortunate course it has followed ever since. It was industrialism after all that proved to have a greater stability, vitality, and potency than even the military might and hereditary authority of kings. But since Godwin viewed private ownership as well as royal ownership as an inherent evil cast in the form of special privilege, he could not understand that private ownership is a fundamental human right from which better methods of production and a better standard of living would develop. Certainly, Godwin did not believe or understand that private ownership is a natural right based in the nature of humanity itself, and NOT properly dependent upon political privilege, protection, or grant. Godwins's ideas as we know were quickly picked up and expounded by various thinkers in England, the European continent, and subsequently in America. Go to next lesson ...>>
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