Anarchy 44/Not quite an anarchist

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Not quite an anarchist

JOHN CRUMP

Thomas paine … was never enough of an opti­mist to let his na­tural anar­chism run its full course. His con­tempor­ary, William Godwin, said in his “En­quiry Con­cern­ing Polit­ical Just­ice” (1793), “With what de­light must every well-in­formed friend of man­kind look for­ward to the dis­solu­tion of polit­ical gov­ern­ment, of that brute engine which has been the only per­en­nial cause of the vices of man­kind … and no other­wise to be re­moved than by its utter an­nihil­a­tion.” Paine takes a more neg­at­ive stance:— “Some writers have so con­founded so­ciety with gov­ern­ment as to leave little or no dis­tinc­tion be­tween them; where­as they are not only dif­fer­ent, but have dif­fer­ent ori­gins. So­ciety is pro­duced by our wants and gov­ern­ment by our wick­ed­ness … So­ciety in every state is a bless­ing, but gov­ern­ment even in its best state is but a neces­sary evil.”