I. _In consequence of his unconditional rejection of law, Godwin necessarily has to reject property also without any limitation. Nay, property, or, as he expresses himself, "the present system of property,"_[88]--_that is, the distribution of wealth at present established by law,--appears to him to be a legal institution that is peculiarly injurious to the general welfare._ "The wisdom of law-makers and parliaments has been applied to creating the most wretched and senseless distribution of property, which mocks alike at human nature and at the principles of justice."[89]
The present system of property distributes commodities in the most unequal and most arbitrary way. "On account of the accident of birth, it piles upon a single man enormous wealth. If one who has been a beggar becomes a well-to-do man, we usually know that he has not precisely his honesty or usefulness to thank for this change. It is often hard enough for the most diligent and industrious member of society to preserve his family from starvation."[90] "And if I receive the reward of my work, they give me a hundred times more food than I can eat, and a hundred times more clothes than I can wear. Where is the justice in this? If I am the greatest benefactor of the human race, is that a reason for giving me what I do not need, especially when my superfluity might be of the greatest use to thousands?"[91]
This unequal distribution of commodities is altogether opposed to the general welfare. It hampers intellectual progress. "Accumulated property treads the powers of thought in the dust, extinguishes the sparks of genius, and reduces the great mass of mankind to be immersed in sordid cares, beside depriving the rich of the most salubrious and effectual motives to activity."[92] And the rich man can buy with his superfluity "nothing but glitter and envy, nothing but the dismal pleasure of restoring to the poor man as alms that to which reason gives him an undeniable right."[93]
But the unequal distribution of commodities is also a hindrance to moral perfection. In the rich it produces ambition, vanity, and ostentation; in the poor, oppression, servility, and fraud, and, in consequence of these, envy, malice, and revenge.[94] "The rich man stands forward as the principal object of general esteem and deference. In vain are sobriety, integrity, and industry, in vain the sublimest powers of mind and the most ardent benevolence, if their possessor be narrowed in his circumstances. To acquire wealth and to display it, is therefore the universal passion."[95] "Force would have died away as reason and civilization advanced, but accumulated property has fixed its empire."[96] "The fruitful source of crimes consists in this circumstance, one man's possessing in abundance that of which another man is destitute."[97]