{"id":1015,"date":"2019-03-10T23:48:17","date_gmt":"2019-03-10T23:48:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wsm.prolerat.org\/?page_id=1015"},"modified":"2019-10-21T16:09:35","modified_gmt":"2019-10-21T15:09:35","slug":"william-godwin-shelley-and-communism","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/william-godwin-shelley-and-communism\/","title":{"rendered":"William Godwin, Shelley and Communism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

From November 1986 Socialist Standard<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Just over a hundred and fifty years ago died William Godwin, author of Enquiry Concerning Political Justice<\/em>,\n one of the seminal works in Britain of radical criticism of existing \nclass society. Godwin had been born in 1756, the son of a nonconformist \npreacher, as he himself had been for a few years before coming to see \nthrough religion as untrue. The first edition of his Political Justice<\/em>\n appeared in 1793, his contribution to the ferment of social and \npolitical ideas sparked off by the French Revolution, then still in \nprogress. In 1797 he married Mary Wollstonecraft, author of the pioneer \nfeminist work, Vindication of the Rights of Woman<\/em>. Godwin was also the author of a number of novels expressing his views, one of which\u2014Caleb Williams\u2014<\/em>has been a television serial. In addition his Of Population<\/em>, written in 1820, was the classic contemporary refutation of the nonsense peddled by Malthus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Godwin has been described as a \u201cutilitarian anarchist\u201d. This is not \nan unfair description since he was very much in the Age of Reason \nphilosophical tradition which saw humans as isolated individuals \npursuing happiness as a measurable quantity and he could be described as\n an anarchist insofar as he looked forward to the \u201ceuthanasia of \ngovernment\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Political Justice<\/em> Godwin set out to examine what form of \nsociety would have to be established to conform to the principles of \njustice as laid down by Reason. Defining government as \u201cregulated \nforce\u201d, he came to the conclusion that this would have to be \u201ca simple \nform of society without government\u201d. What he envisaged was the division \nof a country like Britain into self-administrating districts which would\n run their own affairs without the need for laws, or prisons, or \n\u201cregulated force\u201d in any form and which would send delegates to a \ncentral confederal assembly in the rare event of any situation requiring\n co-ordinated action on a national scale. It is this proposal for a \n\u201csociety without government\u201d that has led to anarchists regarding him as\n one of their forebears.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Godwin was not simply an advocate of a society without \ngovernment. He was also an advocate of \u201cequality of conditions\u201d, \u201ca \nstate of equal society\u201d as he called it. \u201cEquality of conditions\u201d, he \nwrote, \u201cor, in other words, an equal admission to the means of \nimprovement and pleasure, is a law rigorously enjoined upon mankind by \nthe voice of justice\u201d (All quotes are from 1976 Pelican Classic \nedition). His argument went as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHuman beings are partakers of a common \nnature; what conduces to the benefit or pleasure of one man will conduce\n to the benefit or pleasure of another. Hence it follows, upon the \nprinciples of equal and impartial justice, that the good things of the \nworld are a common stock, upon which one man has as valid a title as \nanother to draw for what he wants.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn every society, the produce, the means \nof contributing to the necessities and conveniences of its members, is \nof a certain amount. In every society, the bulk at least of its members \ncontribute by their personal exertions to the creation of this produce. \nWhat can be more desirable and just than that the produce itself should,\n with some degree of equality, be shared among them?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was a familiar argument with advocates of an equal society in \nplace of existing unequal class society. It led some of them to advocate\n \u201ca community of goods to be maintained by the vigilance of the state\u201d \nas Godwin described one such proposal current in his day. Naturally, as \nan advocate of a society without government, he strongly rejected this \nspeaking of \u201chow pernicious the consequences would be if government were\n to take the whole permanently into their hands, and dispense to every \nman his daily bread\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What, then, did he propose? How did he envisage goods being \ndistributed in his \u201cfree and equal state of society\u201d? Here a \nmisunderstanding has sometimes arisen due to the fact that, in Book VIII\n (\u201cOf Property\u201d), Godwin defends a right to property. He distinguishes \nthree \u201cdegrees\u201d of property. The first is property in the goods an \nindividual uses personally. The second is property in the product of an \nindividual\u2019s own labour. The third is property which entitles the \nbeneficiary to appropriate the labour of others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Godwin, this third type of property was unjust as it involves exploitation:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAll wealth, in a state of civilised \nsociety, is the produce of human industry. To be rich is merely to \npossess a patent entitling one man to dispose of the produce of another \nman\u2019s industry.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPrivilege entitles a favoured few to \nengross to themselves gratifications which the system of the universe \nleft at large to all her sons.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This \u201cmonopoly of property\u201d, exercised by both landlords and \ncapitalists (Godwin actually uses the term), should simply be abolished \nby the state ceasing to uphold it. The other two types of property \nshould remain inviolate. Nobody, neither another person nor the \ncommunity, had a right to deprive a person of their personal effects nor\n the produce of their own labour. This is where the misunderstanding has\n arisen, with some misinterpreting this defence of a right to property \nas meaning that Godwin was not a \u201ccommunist\u201d but merely a \u201cleveller\u201d, \nsomebody who did not want to abolish property but merely to equalise \nproperty holdings within the framework of a commodity society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this was not at all what Godwin meant. For although he argued \nthat no-one, not even the community as a whole, had the right forcibly \nto deprive someone of the product of their own labour, he argued equally\n forcefully that it was the duty of everyone to make available to other \npeople the products of their labour over and above their own needs. In \nother words, instead of selling their surplus produce for money and \naccumulating wealth from the proceeds, they ought to make it available \nfree for other people to satisfy their needs. Godwin did not go into the\n practical details of how this would work but he was quite clear that \nbuying and selling would not enter into it. Discussing the division of \nlabour, he wrote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShall each man manufacture his tools, \nfurniture and accommodations? This would perhaps be a tedious operation.\n Every man performs the task to which he is accustomed, more skilfully, \nand in a shorter time than another. It is reasonable that you should \nmake for me that which perhaps I should be three or four times as long \nin making, and should make imperfectly at last. Shall we then introduce \nbarter and exchange? By no means. The moment I require any further \nreason for supplying you than the cogency of your claim, the moment, in \naddition to the dictates of benevolence, I demand a prospect of \nreciprocal advantage to myself, there is an end to that political \njustice and pure society of which we treat.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And in The Enquirer<\/em>, a collection of essays he published in 1797, he was even more explicit:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWere the members of any community \nsufficiently upright and disinterested, I might supply my neighbour with\n the corn he wanted, and he supply me with the cloth of which I was in \nneed, without having recourse to the grovelling and ungenerous methods \nof barter and sale. We might supply each other for this reason only, \nbecause one party had a superfluity and the other a want, without in the\n smallest degree adverting to a reciprocal bounty to be by this method \nengendered; and we might depend upon the corresponding upright and \ndisinterested affections of the other members of the community, for the \nbeing in like manner supplied with the commodities of which we were in \nwant.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So Godwin resolved the problem of who, in his \u201cfree and equal state \nof society\u201d, was to distribute goods according to people\u2019s needs by \nsaying that it would be the producers of particular goods of their own \nfree will. His equal society was to be a \u201cspontaneous equality of \nconditions\u201d not an enforced one. Although he did not use the term \n\u201ccommunism\u201d (which was not then in use) or even that of\u201d community of \ngoods\u201d\u2014in fact, to tell the truth, he was too much in the individualist \ntradition to have used such terminology\u2014his system was equivalent to \nwhat might be called a \u201cvoluntary\u201d communism (as opposed to one \n\u201cmaintained by the vigilance of the state\u201d). For, if we assume that the \nproducers deposit the surplus over their needs of their particular \nproduct in some general storehouse from which they can take the products\n of other producers that they need, then we have the classic \ndistribution system proposed by previous pre-industrial communists such \nas Thomas More and Gerrard Winstanley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although the social change Godwin advocated\u2014the euthanasia of \ngovernment and the abolition of \u201cthe monopoly of property\u201d\u2014was a radical\n one, the method by which he saw this coming about\u2014the slow and gradual \n\u201cprogress of the human mind\u201d\u2014was in stark contrast and led him to oppose\n any kind of organised political action to further the cause of an equal\n society. In fact the only kind of organised activity he would accept \nwere philosophical debating societies. In this sense, Godwin was a \nclassical armchair philosopher. However, as often happens in such cases,\n his radical social criticism was taken up by others who did not share \nhis qualms about political action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of those to be influenced by Godwin\u2019s ideas was the poet Shelley,\n who the previous year had been expelled from Oxford University for \nproducing an atheist pamphlet. Shelley came across Godwin\u2019s works at the\n age of 18 and was very impressed. He was eventually to marry Godwin\u2019s \ndaughter who, among things, wrote the original Frankenstein story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So impressed was Shelley by Godwin\u2019s proposals for a new society in \nwhich people would be motivated by \u201cdisinterestedness\u201d rather than \nselfishness that he set out to express them in verse, in a long poem \ncalled Queen Mab<\/em> which he published privately in 1813. This is a\n vision of the past, present and future of mankind. In it Shelley \nattacks kings, war, commerce and, in particular, priests and religion. \nIn fact the criticism of christianity, in the poem as well as in prose \nnotes attached to it was so hard-hitting that when it was republished in\n the 1820s the publisher was sent to prison for blasphemy. Queen Mab<\/em>\n became the work that publishers used in defiance of the restrictive \npress laws of the time. Each time they were convicted of blasphemy. But \nas a result Queen Mab<\/em>, and thus Godwin\u2019s social ideas, came to be widely read in Chartist and radical circles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In part V of Queen Mab<\/em> Shelley attacks commerce which he \nsees as a product of selfishness in the sense of people wanting to sell \ntheir surplus for money rather than give it to others to satisfy their \nneeds:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hence commerce springs, the venal interchange<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of all that human art or nature yield;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which wealth should purchase not, but want demand,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And natural kindness hasten to supply<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the full fountain of its boundless love,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For ever stifled, drained, and tainted now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Commerce! Beneath whose poison-breathing shade<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No solitary virtue dares to spring,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Poverty and Wealth with equal hand<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scatter their withering curses, and unfold<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The doors of premature and violent death,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To pining famine and full-fed disease,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To all that shares the lot of human life,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which poisoned, body and soul, scarce drags the chain,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That lengthens as it goes and clanks behind,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Commerce has set the mark of selfishness,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The signet of its all-enslaving power<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Upon a shining ore, and called it gold:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before whose image bow the vulgar great,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The vainly rich, the miserable proud,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mob of peasants, nobles, priests and kings,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And with blind feelings reverence the power<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That grinds them to the dust of misery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in the temple of their hireling hearts<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gold is a living god, and rules in scorn<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All earthly things but virtue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later Shelley continues his criticism:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All things are sold: the very light of Heaven<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is venal; earth\u2019s unsparing gifts of love,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The smallest and most despicable of things<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That lurk in the abysses of the deep,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All objects of our life, even life itself,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the poor pittance which the laws allow<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of liberty, the fellowship of man,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those duties which his heart of human love<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Should urge him to perform instinctively,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are bought and sold as in a public mart<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of undisguising selfishness, that sets<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On each its price, the stamp-mark of her reign,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even love is sold; the solace of all woe<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is turned to deadliest agony, old age<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shivers in selfish beauty\u2019s loathing arms,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And youth\u2019s corrupted impulses prepare<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A life of horror from the blighting bane<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of commerce; whilst the pestilence that springs<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From unenjoying sensualism, has filled<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All human life with hydra-headed woes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is quite clear that Shelley was expressing Godwin\u2019s idea that, in a\n just society, producers would give away their surplus produce free \nrather than sell it for money, Hence his opening description of commerce\n as \u201cthe venal interchange of all that human art or nature yield; which \nwealth should purchase not, but want demand, and natural kindness hasten\n to supply\u201d. When he later describes what will happen when people are \nmotivated by the \u201cconsciousness of good\u201d he naturally states that they \nwill have no need of \u201cmediative signs of selfishness\u201d\u2014of money\u2014and that \n\u201cevery transfer of the earth\u2019s natural gifts shall be a commerce of good\n words and works\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This commerce of sincerest virtue needs<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No mediative signs of selfishness,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No jealous intercourse of wretched gain,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No balancings of prudence, cold and long;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In just and equal measure all is weighed,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One scale contains the sum of human weal,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And one, the good man\u2019s heart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part V of Queen Mab<\/em> ends as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But hoary-headed Selfishness has felt<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Its death-blow, and is tottering to the grave:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A brighter morn awaits the human day,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When every transfer of earth\u2019s natural gifts<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shall be a commerce of good words and works;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When poverty and wealth, the thirst of fame,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fear of infamy, disease and woe,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

War with its million horrors, and fierce hell<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shall live but in the memory of Time,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who, like a penitent libertine, shall start,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Look back, and shudder at his younger years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is only by completely ignoring these passages that Paul Foot is able to claim in Red Shelley<\/em>\n (1980) that \u201cShelley was not a socialist. Shelley was a leveller\u201d. \nShelley, at least at this time, was just as much an advocate of a \n\u201cspontaneous equality of conditions\u201d that amounted to a voluntary \nmoneyless communism as was Godwin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In one sense this argument as to whether or not Godwin and Shelley were socialists is anachronistic since the modern idea of socialism, as the solution to the problems of a majority wage-working class within a capitalist industrial society, had not yet come into being. This is partly why in this article we have used the word \u201ccommunist\u201d rather than \u201csocialist\u201d to describe the moneyless equal society advocated by critics of the essentially agrarian class society that existed before industrial capitalism developed. It was of course the low level of development of the means of production that accounts for the frugal, even Spartan, character which the pre-industrial communists were obliged to give to the egalitarian society they advocated, but it still remains true that people like (in England) More, Winstanley and Godwin and Shelley and (in France) Morelly, Babeuf and Buonarotti were forerunners of the socialist industrial society of abundance that we modern socialists now advocate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(November 1986)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back to Socialist Writers index<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back to World Socialist Movement home page<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From November 1986 Socialist Standard Just over a hundred and fifty years ago died William Godwin, author of Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, one of the seminal works in Britain of radical criticism of existing class society. Godwin had been born in 1756, the son of a nonconformist preacher, as he himself had been for a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2095,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"magazine_newspaper_sidebar_layout":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1015","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1015"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1015\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2691,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1015\/revisions\/2691"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}