Inquiry Concerning Political Justice by William Godwin 1793 INQUIRY CONCERNING POLITICAL JUSTICE AND ITS INFLUENCE ON MODERN MORALS AND HAPPINESS BOOK I: OF THE POWERS OF MAN CONSIDERED IN HIS SOCIAL CAPACITY CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION The object proposed in the following work is an investigation concerning that form of public or political society, that system of intercourse and reciprocal action, extending beyond the bounds of a single family, which shall be found most to conduce to the general benefit. How may the peculiar and independent operation of each individual in the social state most effectually be preserved? How may the security each man ought to possess, as to his life, and the employment of his faculties according to the dictates of his own understanding, be most certainly defended from invasion? How may the indi...
BOOK V Of Legislative and Executive Power CHAPTER XII OF TITLES Their origin and history. - Their miserable absurdity. - Truth the only adequate reward of merit. THE case of mere titles is so absurd that it would deserve to be treated only with ridicule were it not for the serious mischiefs they impose on mankind. The feudal system was a ferocious monster, devouring, wherever it came, all that the friend of humanity regards with attachment and love. The system of titles appears under a different form. The monster is at length destroyed, and they who followed in his train, and fattened upon the carcasses of those he slew, have stuffed his skin, and, by exhibiting it, hope still to terrify mankind into patience and pusillanimity. The system of the Northern invaders, however odious, escaped the ridicule of the system of titles. When the feudal chieftains assumed a geographical appellation, it was from some place really...
[From a Speech delivered by James Blackwell at the Central Democratic Club, November 6, 1889.] It is a very common error on the part of a large section of the public to confound Socialism with a particular method proposed for its realization. With these people any trifling Act of Parliament which proposes to protect the worker against the rapacity of the Capitalist or the Landlord is termed Socialistic, and a condition of society in which the State--meaning Parliament and the Government--will control and direct industry in the interest of the workers, is looked upon by them as the goal of Socialist ambition. Socialists themselves, however, know very well that Socialism is something quite apart from any particular plan of action; that it is ... (From : AnarchyArchives.)
THE LESSONS OF TODAY. THE HYDE PARK DEMONSTRATION. There is something cruel in the part which is assigned to the people in the present political system. Their advice is never asked on a purely and simply defined question. Even the few who are called upon to take part in an election are asked to choose a representative simply as an expression of sympathy and confidence, and if any question at all is put to them, it is so involved in personal and party wranglings that the intrinsic merit of it is quite lost sight of. The usual course, however, is to simply ignore them, and they are only called upon when the time comes for one party to deal an effective blow at another in order to turn it out of office. Then the whole machinery of party is put... (From : AnarchyArchives.)