Godwin, William (1756–1836) British politi-
cal philosopher, novelist, and anarchist
In his book An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice,
Godwin puts forth his radical anarchist idea that all
government AUTHORITYis corrupt and oppressive and
that it should be eliminated. From his very positive
view of human beings as naturally rational, peaceable,
and virtuous, Godwin asserts that evil behavior is not
from innate sin but from mistaken beliefs. All a soci-
ety has to do to become perfectly just is provide LIB-
ERTYand enlightened education to citizens. This will
produce happy, moral individuals and social harmony.
All social ills results from people in authority who
coerce and frustrate others and incite passions and
conflict in society. Then, to retain their power, gov-
ernments keep their citizens ignorant, poor, and con-
tentious. The sooner they are overthrown, the better
for humanity.
In typical ENLIGHTENMENTfashion, Godwin has faith
in the PROGRESSof reason and knowledge: People are
rational, and the truth will ultimately prevail, produc-
ing FREEDOM and JUSTICE. History is progressively
improving humanity’s condition and ultimately will
perfect human beings. He even believed that eventu-
ally humans’ intelligence will allow them to control
their natural lives completely—to avoid all sleep
(which comes from inattention) and conquer death by
medical means. Such scientific optimism and individ-
ual control of one’s destiny (and rejection of tradition
NATURAL LAWand religion) represents the radical mod-
ern materialism of Godwin’s time. His arguments for
redistribution of private PROPERTY foreshadow both
UTILITARIANISMand SOCIALISM. Like his contemporary
Thomas PAINE, Godwin’s radical attack on TRADITION
and authority lends itself to political DEMOCRACY, social
EQUALITY, and FEMINISM.
Originally a Presbyterian minister, Godwin left the
church and his Christian faith by 1783. He married
Mary Wollstonecraft (an early advocate of feminism),
who died in childbirth. Their child was Mary Shelley,
who wrote the novel Frankenstein. Godwin’s novel
Caleb Williamsinfluenced a generation of English writ-
ers, notably Robert Southey, Wordsworth, Coleridge,
and Percy Shelley, but with the end of radical literature
in the 1790s, Godwin declined into poverty and
obscurity in his last 30 years.
Further Readings
Clark, J. P. The Philosophical Anarchism of William Godwin.
Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1977.
Godwin, W. An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice,I. Kramnick,
ed. Harmondsworth, Eng.: Penguin, 1976.
———. Caleb Williams,D. McCracken, ed. New York: W. W.
Norton, 1977.
Locke, D. A Fantasy of Reason: The Life and Thought of William
Godwin.London: Routledge, 1980.Goldman, Emma (1869–1940) Russian–Amer-
ican anarchist feminist socialistAs a Russian Jewish immigrant to the United States of
America, Goldman became a leading writer and
activist for ANARCHISM, FEMINISM, and COMMUNISM. She
held that all evil comes from AUTHORITY: in the gov-
ernment, the church, the family, and people. Freed
from these oppressive authority structures, humans,
for Goldman, will be happy, moral, cooperative, and
loving. Government, she wrote, is “the dominion of
human conduct”; religion is “the dominion of the
human mind”; private PROPERTYis “the dominion of
human needs”; and the traditional family is “slavery”
for women. Through the revolutionary overthrow of
the STATE, CAPITALISM, the church, and the family and
establishment of anarchism, “the freest possible
expression of all the latent powers of the individual
will emerge,” for Goldman. This emphasis on individ-
ual LIBERTYand the belief that only the destruction of
authority is needed to accomplish social harmony,
peace, and abundance reveals the Russian anarchist
roots of Goldman’s political thought. Anarchy will
usher in a kind of “Heaven on Earth” for her: “It is
the philosophy of the sovereignty of the individual. It
is the theory of social harmony. It is the great, surg-
ing, living truth that is reconstructing the world, and
that will usher in the Dawn.” This passionate, quasi-
Messianic message (anarchism or human salvation
and heavenly peace) caused some to follow the move-
ment, especially from among poor, European, immi-
grant industrial workers in New York early in the
20th century. However, with the increasingly violent
tactics of some anarchists, the failure of anarchism in
the Russian Revolution of 1917, and the increased
prosperity in the U.S. economy, Goldman’s philoso-
phy went out of favor by the 1920s. Some of its
themes (SOCIALISTredistribution of wealth, women’s
liberation, secular anti-Christianity) continued in the
U.S. labor movement, the feminist movement, and
the LIBERAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY throughout the 20th
century.124 Godwin, William