Let's try something interesting here in the Monastery. I'll start things off with a little [paraphrased] chapter and then you can continue it. Or I'll continue it if people don't feel like seriously participating. This way we'll learn together. ~:) I hope this becomes the standard. I'm a dreamer I know... ~;p
Ok, I'll start off.
William Godwin wrote about what would become the future anarchist critiques of government, economics, and society in "An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice" . He is widely considered to be the "founder of philosophical anarchism", however he never used the word anarchism. So far the term 'anarchiste' was known only as an insult by the Girondins at revolutionaries. The first to call himself an Anarchist was French political writer and socialist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in 1840 when he wrote his controversial "What Is Property". To this his answer was "Property is Theft". He opposed the concept of property as it is established in capitalism; but he sugested a more limited form of 'possession' by individuals. This he said, was to be achieved by the means and produce of their own labour. Proudhon's vision of anarchy, which he named mutualism, thus involved a non-coercive exchange economy where individuals would trade the produce of their labour. This would be a new form of market system without any profit; goods would be exchanged on the precept of the labour-time; a national bank would lend without interest to support production. Without property interests, the state would thus become superfluous.
To be continued or improved...
