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 C. FIFIELD, 13 CLIFFORD'S INN, E.C. 
 
THREEPENCE NETT 
 
 \ ON-GOVERNMENTAL 
 SOCIETY 
 
 BY EDWARD CARPENTER 
 
 LONDON : A. C. FIFIELD, 13 CLIFFORD'S INN, E.C. 
 
Recent Biography. 
 
 Edward Carpenter : The Man and his Mes- 
 sage. By T. Swan. New edition, with two portraits of Carpenter 
 in 1887 and 1905. 64. nett, postage id. 
 
 Contains : The Man, his Philosophy, his Message to the Individual, his 
 Message to Society. '* It will be read with interest as a study of a curiously 
 illusive personality." Sheffield Daily Telegraph. "In its new form it deserves 
 a wide circulation." Manchester Guardian. "To those who wish to understand 
 Carpenter's philosophy of life this little book affords an excellent guide." Labour 
 Leader. 
 
 Richard Jefferies : His Life and his Ideals. 
 
 By Henry S. Salt. Cloth gilt, with portrait, is. 6d. nett, postage 
 3^. Wrappers, without portrait, 6a. nett, postage i\d. 
 
 Contains : Jefferies as Man, as Naturalist, as Poet-Naturalist, as Thinker, 
 as Writer. "For a true appreciation of Jefferies' work nothing could be 
 better. ^nv Age." 
 
 Walt Whitman. By William Clarke, M.A. 
 Cloth, is. 6d. nett, postage 3^. With portrait. 
 
 Contains : Whitman's Personality, his Message to America, his Art, his 
 Democracy, his Spiritual Creed. " It is still, perhaps, the best life of Whit- 
 man," A. E. Fletcher (reviewing the present re-issue). 
 
 Garrison, the Non-Resistant. By Ernest 
 
 Crosby. Cloth, is. 6d. nett, postage "$d. 
 
 A fresh and vigorous account of the career of William Lloyd Garrison, with 
 a consideration, from an entirely original point of view, of the results of the 
 Civil War in America. 
 
 Edward Carpenter : Poet and Prophet. 
 
 By Ernest Crosby. Wrappers, 6d. nett, postage id. 
 
 A valuable and illuminative essay, with selections from Carpenter's work, 
 and a portrait. 
 
 Ernest Crosby : A Valuation and a Tribute. 
 By Leonard D. Abbott. Wrappers, is. nett, postage id. 
 
 A finely sympathetic sketch of the noble and lovable reformer lately 
 passed. 
 
 London : A. C. Fifield, 13 Clifford's Inn, E.G. 
 
Non- Governmental 
 Society 
 
 By Edward Carpenter 
 
 Author of 
 
 "Towards Democracy," "Civilization : Its Cause and Cure," 
 " Prisons, Police, and Punishment," etc. 
 
 London 
 
 A. C. Fifield, 13 Clifford's Inn, E.C 
 1911 
 
Uniform with this : 
 
 State Socialism and Anarchism 
 How far they agree, and wherein they differ 
 By Benj. R. Tucker. New edition, with Postscript 
 3</. nett, postage \d. (U.S.A. edition, 10 cts.) 
 
 WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD. PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH 
 
Non-Governmental Society 1 
 
 I HAVE already (see note at foot of this 
 page) framed a serious indictment of 
 the whole institution of Law, Police and 
 Punishment, by which our present society is 
 regulated. I have shown that this institution 
 actually creates and gives rise to huge masses 
 of evil bribery, blackmail, perjury, spying 
 and lying, wrongful accusation, useless and 
 deliberate suffering and cruelty ; that it 
 publicly sanctions and organizes violence, 
 even in extreme forms ; that it quite directly 
 and deliberately supports vast and obvious 
 wrongs in Society as, for instance, land 
 monopoly ; that it is absurd and self-con- 
 tradictory in much of its theory and practice ; 
 that (as Herbert Spencer so frequently insists) 
 it paralyzes the folk that submit or trust to 
 it ; and finally, that it is to-day for the most 
 part so antiquated and out of date that 
 (even if this were thought desirable) it might 
 
 1 This essay forms chapter six of Prisons, Police and 
 Punishment by the same writer. (A. C. Fifield. is. nett. 
 Cloth, 2s. nett.) 
 
 333987 
 
4 Non ^Governmental Society 
 
 well seem impracticable to patch it up for 
 real human use. 
 
 I do not say that these charges cover the 
 whole case, and that there is nothing on the 
 other side to be said in favour of these 
 institutions ; but still, even so, every one 
 must admit that the benefits of the latter 
 must be shown to be very great, if they are 
 to compensate for such huge drawbacks and 
 evils. Practically, every one does admit that 
 Law is an evil ; but the defence usually is 
 that it is a necessary evil, that we cannot 
 dispense with it, and that without it disorder, 
 violence and social disruption would ensue. 
 
 And yet curiously enough the history of 
 nations and peoples is, on the whole, to 
 contrary effect. Not only have all the early 
 tribes of the world got on and cohered 
 together in order and social amity without 
 any rigid and ponderous system of laws ; 
 but even among the peasant peoples of to- 
 day like the Irish or the Swedes or the 
 Swiss where they are still living in moder- 
 ately primitive conditions, we find the same 
 thing. Law and its operations and institu- 
 tions occupy but small part in their lives. 
 It is true that Custom is strong among all 
 primitive folk, no doubt as a very necessary 
 backbone or framework to their society ; but 
 Custom is a very different thing from Law. 
 It is law in its inception when it is yet in a 
 
Non-Governmental Society 5 
 
 tentative, rudimentary condition ; and how- 
 ever harsh, rigid, or senseless the customs of 
 many savage tribes may be, they are yet 
 easier to alter than when they have become 
 ossified into written Law, with its huge 
 weight of age and ceremony, and the au- 
 thority of armed men to enforce it. 1 
 
 That human societies can subsist without 
 a considerable amount of Custom we may 
 well doubt ; but that they can subsist and 
 maintain themselves in good order and 
 vitality without written law and its institu- 
 tions there is no reason at all to doubt. 
 And when Custom, among a reasonable and 
 moderately advanced people, leaving behind 
 the barbarities of the savage age, takes on a 
 gentler form, and while exercising consider- 
 able pressure on individuals is itself fairly 
 plastic and adaptable to the general move- 
 ments of society we seem to see in such 
 pressure a force as far superior to Law as 
 life itself is superior to mere mechanism. A 
 vast amount of our social life to-day in all 
 departments of its activity is ruled by Custom, 
 
 1 See below, p. 19. Spencer and Gillen, in their late 
 book, The Northern Tribes of Australia, say that there 
 are no chiefs even or headmen among these people ; 
 but the old men constitute an informal council, which 
 punishes " crime " and the breaking of marriage rules, 
 organizes the ceremonies, and from time to time in- 
 augurates reforms. 
 
6 Non-Governmental Society 
 
 and some of these customs, like those of 
 " society " and fashion, have a very powerful 
 sway. There is no law for the recovery of 
 betting debts, yet their non-payment is 
 extremely rare. 
 
 Of course, accustomed as we are to " call 
 the policeman " on every emergency, we find 
 it hard to imagine life without this institution ; 
 and our life being largely founded on it, it is 
 so far necessary, and its removal would cause 
 dislocation. That is, since without the police 
 the present spoliation of the poor would not 
 be possible, and the enormous existing in- 
 equalities of wealth and poverty could never 
 have been heaped up without them the 
 society founded on these artificial inequalities 
 could not well be maintained. 1 But to say 
 that because a certain institution is necessary 
 to build up and retain society in a certain 
 abnormal and unnatural form, therefore 
 society cannot exist without that institution, 
 is the same as to say that because to a 
 Chinese woman of rank foot-bandages are 
 necessary, therefore women generally cannot 
 exist without foot-bandages. We have to 
 realize that our present social forms are as 
 ugly and inhuman as a club foot ; and then 
 
 1 Though, as all more primitive society shows us, 
 small inequalities and such as arise from natural 
 differences of human industry and capacity will always 
 be welcome. 
 
Non-Governmental Society 7 
 
 we shall begin to realize how little necessary 
 are these institutions, like law and police, 
 whose chief concern and office is to retain and 
 defend these forms. 
 
 The chief difficulty, then, which arises in 
 people's minds at the thought of a free non- 
 governmental society does not concern its 
 desirability they are agreed as a rule that [it 
 would be desirable but concerns its practi- 
 cability. And much of this difficulty is 
 derived from the society of the present. 
 People see, in fact, that an internecine 
 competition for subsistence is the ruling force 
 of life to-day, and the chief incentive to 
 production, and they infer that without 
 government society would dissolve into a mere 
 chaos of plunder on the one hand, and of 
 laziness on the other. 1 It is this difficulty 
 which has first to be removed. 
 
 Though it seems a hard thing to say, the 
 outer life of society to-day is animated first 
 and foremost by Fear. From the wretched 
 wage-slave, who rises before the break of day, 
 hurries through squalid streets to the dismal 
 sound of the " hummer," engages for nine, 
 ten, or twelve hours, and for a pittance wage, 
 in monotonous work which affords him no 
 interest, no pleasure ; who returns home to 
 
 1 Though it must, to be strictly impartial, be pointed 
 out that this difficulty is chiefly felt by those classes who 
 themselves live on interest and in ornamental idleness. 
 
8 Non-Governmental Society 
 
 find his children gone to bed, has his supper, 
 and, worn out and weary, soon retires 
 himself, only to rise again in the morning 
 and pursue the same deadly round, and who 
 leads a life thus monotonous, inhuman, and 
 devoid of all dignity and reality, simply 
 because he is hounded to it by the dread of 
 starvation ; to the big commercial man, 
 who, knowing that his wealth has come to 
 him through speculation and the turns and 
 twists of the market, fears that it may at any 
 moment take to itself wings by the same 
 means ; who feels that the more wealth he 
 has, the more ways there are in which he may 
 lose it, the more cares and anxieties belonging 
 to it ; and who to continually make his 
 position secure is, or thinks himself, forced 
 to stoop to all sorts of mean and dirty tricks ; 
 over the great mass of people the same 
 demon spreads its dusky wings. Feverish 
 anxiety is the keynote of their lives. There 
 is no room for natural gladness or buoyancy 
 of spirits. You may walk the streets of our 
 great cities, but you will hear no one singing 
 except for coppers ; hardly a ploughboy 
 to-day whistles in the furrow, and in almost 
 every factory (this is a fact) if a workman 
 sang at his work he would be " sacked/' We 
 are like shipwrecked folk clambering up a 
 cliff. The waves are raging below. Each one 
 clings by handhold or foothold where he 
 
Non- Governmental Society 9 
 
 may, and in the panic if he push his neighbour 
 from a point of vantage, it is to be regretted 
 certainly, but it cannot be helped. 
 
 But such a state of affairs is not normal. 
 Allowing that the struggle for existence in 
 some degree or form is unavoidable, history 
 still, except at rare crises, presents us with no 
 such spectacle of widespread anxiety ; the 
 study of native races whom we might con- 
 sider in a state of destitution reveals no 
 such dominion of dread. I want the reader 
 to imagine for a moment this burden of fear 
 lifted off the hearts of a whole people ; and 
 the result. 
 
 Let us imagine for a moment that some good 
 fairy some transcendental Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer with a stroke of his wand, has 
 assured to us all not only an old age pension, 
 but a decent provision for all our days of the 
 actual necessaries of life (to go no further 
 than that) ; so that for the future no man 
 could feel any serious or grinding anxiety for 
 his own material safety, or that of his family. 
 What would be the result on our actions ? 
 
 Perhaps, as many would maintain, nine- 
 tenths of the population would say, " I'm 
 blessed if I'll ever do another stroke of work." 
 Like the organ-grinder who came into a little 
 fortune, and who forthwith picked up an axe 
 and fell upon his organ, shouting as he 
 hacked it to pieces, " You shall neffer play 
 
io Non-Governmental Society 
 
 dat tarn Alabama Coon any more," we should 
 feel so sick of our present jobs that we should 
 want to turn our backs on them for ever. 
 Very likely, I should say and rightly enough 
 too ; for " work " in the present day is done 
 under such degrading and miserable con- 
 ditions by the vast majority of the population 
 that the very best and most manly thing 
 would be to refuse to continue doing it. 
 
 But let us suppose, since a bare living has 
 been assured to us, and we are in no danger 
 of actual starvation, that we all take a good 
 long holiday, and abstain religiously from 
 doing anything. Suppose that we simply 
 twirl our thumbs in idleness for two, three, 
 four, or six months. Still, is it not obvious 
 that at the end of that time nine-tenths of 
 the population would find sheer idleness ap- 
 pallingly dreary, and that they would set 
 themselves to work at some thing or other 
 to produce comforts or conveniences rising 
 above the level of sheer necessity objects of 
 use or beauty, either for themselves, or for 
 their families and neighbours, or even con- 
 ceivably for society at large ; that, in fact, a 
 spontaneous and free production of goods 
 would spring up, followed of course by a 
 spontaneous and free exchange a self-sup- 
 porting society, based not on individual 
 dread and anxiety, but on the common 
 fulness of life and energy ? 
 
Non- Governmental Society 1 1 
 
 That people relieved from care do spon- 
 taneously set themselves to work is sufficiently 
 shown by the case of the well-to-do classes 
 to-day. For these people, though having 
 everything provided for them, and not merely 
 the bare necessaries which we have supposed, 
 exhibit the most extraordinary and feverish 
 energy in seeking employment. A few decades 
 of years have been quite sufficient to make 
 them feel the utter failure of picnics as an 
 object in life ; and now we are flooded 
 with philanthropic and benevolent societies, 
 leagues, charity organizations, art missions 
 to the poor, vigilance crusades, and other 
 activities, which are simply the expression of 
 the natural energies of the human being 
 seeking an outlet in social usefulness. It 
 is, of course, to be regretted that owing to 
 the very imperfect education of this class 
 their ideas and their capacities of social 
 usefulness should be so limited. However, 
 this is a defect which will no doubt be 
 remedied in the future. All that concerns 
 us here is to see that since the rich, though 
 in many ways ill-adapted by training and 
 circumstance, do spontaneously take up a 
 life of this kind, there is nothing extravagant 
 in supposing that the average man, sur- 
 rounded by so many unfulfilled needs, might 
 do the same. 
 
 And if any one still doubts let him consider 
 
12 Non-Governmental Society 
 
 the thousands in our large towns to-day who 
 would give their ears to be able to get out 
 and work on the land not so much from any 
 prospect of making a fortune that way, as 
 from mere love of the life ; or who in their 
 spare time cultivate gardens or plots or 
 allotments as a hobby ; or the thousands 
 who when the regular day's work is over 
 start some fresh little occupation of their own 
 some cabinet-making, wood-turning, orna- 
 mental iron -work or whatnot; the scores 
 of thousands, in fact, that there are of 
 natural gardeners, cabinet-makers, iron- 
 workers, and so forth ; and then think how 
 if they were free these folk would sort them- 
 selves spontaneously to the work they de- 
 lighted in. 
 
 Thus it appears to be as least conceivable 
 that a people not hounded on by compulsion 
 nor kept in subjection by sheer authority, 
 would set itself spontaneously to produce 
 the things which it prized. It does not, of 
 course, at once follow that the result would be 
 perfect order and harmony. But there are a 
 few considerations in the positive direction 
 which I may introduce here. 
 
 In the first place, each person would be 
 guided in the selection of his occupation by 
 his own taste and skill, or at any rate would 
 be guided by these to a greater extent than he 
 is to-day ; and on the whole would be more 
 
Non-Governmental Society 13 
 
 likely to find the work for which he was fitted 
 than he is now. The increase in effective 
 output and vitality from this cause alone 
 would be great. While the immense variety 
 of taste and skill in human beings would lead 
 to a corresponding variety of spontaneous 
 products. 
 
 In the second place, the work done would 
 be useful. It is certain that no man would 
 freely set himself to dig a hole, only to fill it 
 up again though it is equally certain that a 
 vast amount of the work done to-day is no 
 more useful than that. If a man were a 
 cabinet-maker and made a chest of drawers, 
 either for himself or a neighbour, he would 
 make it so that the drawers would open and 
 shut ; but nine-tenths of the chests made on 
 commercial principles are such that the 
 drawers will neither open nor shut. They 
 are not meant to be useful ; they are meant 
 to have the semblance of being useful ; but 
 they are really made to sell. To sell, and 
 by selling yield a profit. And for that pur- 
 pose they are better adapted if, appearing 
 useful, they turn out really useless, for then 
 the buyer must come again, and so yield 
 another profit to the manufacturer and the 
 merchant. The waste to the community to- 
 day arising from causes of this kind is 
 enormous ; but it is of no moment as long as 
 there is profit to a certain class. 
 
14 Non-Governmental Society 
 
 Work in a free society would be done 
 because it was useful. It is curious, when 
 you come to think of it, that there is no other 
 conceivable reason why work should be done. 
 And of course I here include what is beautiful 
 under the term useful, as there is no reason 
 why one should separate what satisfies one 
 human need, like the need of beauty, from 
 another human need, like the need of food. 
 I say the idea of work implies that it is under- 
 taken because the product itself satisfies some 
 human need. But strangely enough in Com- 
 merce that is not so. The work is undertaken 
 in order that the product may sell, and so 
 yield a profit ; that is all. It is of no moment 
 what the product is, or whether bad or good, 
 as long as it fulfils this one condition. And 
 so the whole spirit of life and industry in the 
 other society would be so utterly different 
 from that of the present, that it is really 
 difficult for us to compare the results. But 
 it is not difficult to see that if on the principles 
 of freedom there was not so much produced in 
 mere quantity, and folk did not (as may 
 indeed be hoped) work so many hours a day 
 as now, still, the goods turned out being 
 sincere and genuine, there would really be far 
 more value shown in a year than on the 
 strictly commercial system. 
 
 In the third place, it follows as William 
 Morris so constantly maintained that 
 
Non-Governmental Society i 5 
 
 " work " in the new sense would be a pleasure 
 one of the greatest pleasures undoubtedly 
 of life ; and this one fact would transform its 
 whole character. We cannot say that now. 
 How many are there who take real pleasure 
 and satisfaction in their daily labour ? Are 
 they, in each township, to be counted on the 
 fingers ? But what is the good of life if its 
 chief element, and that which must always 
 be its chief element, is odious ? No, the only 
 true economy is to arrange so that your daily 
 labour shall be itself a joy. Then, and then 
 only, are you on the safe side of life. And, 
 your work being such, its product is sure to 
 become beautiful ; that painful distinction 
 between the beautiful and the useful dies out, 
 and everything made is an artistic product. 
 Art becomes conterminous with life. 
 
 Thus it will be observed that whereas 
 the present society is founded on a law- 
 enforced system of Private Property, in 
 which, almost necessarily, the covetous hard 
 type of man becomes the large proprietor, and 
 (supported by law and government) is enabled 
 to prey upon the small one ; and whereas the 
 result of this arrangement is a bitter and 
 continuous struggle for possession, in which 
 the motive to activity is mainly Fear ; we, 
 on the contrary, are disentangling a con- 
 ception of a society in which Private Property 
 is supported by no apparatus of armed 
 
1 6 Non-Governmental Society 
 
 authority, but as far as it exists is a per- 
 fectly spontaneous arrangement, in which the 
 main motives to activity are neither Fear nor 
 greed of Gain, but rather Community of life 
 and Interest in life in which, in fact, you 
 undertake work because you like the work, 
 because you feel that you can do it, and 
 because you know that the product will be 
 useful, either to yourself or some one else ! 
 
 How Utopian it all sounds ! How absurdly 
 simple and simple-minded to work because 
 you like the work and desire the product. 
 How delightful if it could be realized, but, 
 of course, how " unpractical " and impos- 
 sible. 
 
 Yet is it really impossible ? From Solomon 
 to Dr. Watts we have been advised to go to 
 the Ant and the Bee for instruction, and lo ! 
 they are unpractical and Utopian too. Can 
 anything be more foolish than the conduct of 
 these little creatures, any one of whom will 
 at any moment face death in defence of his 
 tribe ? while the Bee is absolutely so ignorant 
 and senseless, that instead of storing up the 
 honey that it has gathered in a little cell of 
 its own, with a nice lock and key, it positively 
 puts it in the common cells, and cannot 
 distinguish it from the stores of the others. 
 Foolish little Bee, the day will surely come 
 when you will bitterly rue your " unthrifty >J 
 conduct, and you will find yourself starving 
 
Non- Governmental Society 17 
 
 while your fellow-tribesmen are consuming 
 the fruits of your labour. 
 
 And the human body itself, that marvellous 
 epitome and mirror of the universe, how about 
 that ? Is it not Utopian too ? It is com- 
 posed of a myriad cells, members, organs, 
 compacted into a living unity. A healthy 
 body is the most perfect society conceivable. 
 What does the hand say when a piece of work 
 is demanded of it ? Does it bargain first for 
 what reward it is to receive, and refuse to 
 move until it has secured satisfactory terms, 
 or the foot decline to take us on a journey 
 till it knows what special gain is to accrue to 
 it thereby ? Not so ; but each limb and cell 
 does the work which is before it to do, and 
 (such is the Utopian law) the fact of its doing 
 the work causes the circulation to flow to it, 
 and it is nourished and fed in proportion to 
 its service. And we have to ask whether the 
 same may not be the law of a healthy human 
 society ? Whether the fact of a member 
 doing service (however humble) to the com- 
 munity would not be quite sufficient to 
 ensure his provision by the rest with all 
 that he might need ? Whether the com- 
 munity would think of allowing such an 
 one to starve any more than a man would 
 think of allowing his least finger to pine away 
 and die ? Whether it is not possible that men 
 would cease to feel any anxiety about the 
 
1 8 Non-Governmental Society 
 
 " reward of their labour " ; that they would 
 think first of their work and the pleasure they 
 had in doing it, and would not doubt that the 
 reward would follow ? 
 
 For indeed the instinct to do anything 
 which is obviously before you to do, which is 
 wanted, and which you can do, is very strong 
 in human nature. Even children, those 
 rudimentary savages, are often extremely 
 proud to be " useful/' and it is conceivable 
 that we might be sensible enough, instead of 
 urging them as we do now to " get on," to 
 make money, to beat their fellows in the race of 
 life, and by climbing on other folk's heads to 
 ultimately reach a position where they would 
 have to work no longer, that we might teach 
 them how when they grew up they would 
 find themselves members of a self-respecting 
 society which, while it provided them gratis 
 with all they might need, would naturally 
 expect them in honour to render some service 
 in return. Even small children could under- 
 stand that. Is it quite inconceivable that 
 a society of grown men and women might act 
 up to it ? 
 
 But it is really absurd to argue about the 
 possibility of these things in human society, 
 when we have so many actual examples of 
 them before our eyes. Herman Melville, in 
 that charming book Typee, describes the 
 Marquesas Islanders of the Pacific, among 
 
Non-Governmental Society 19 
 
 whom he lived for some time during the year 
 1846. He says : " During the time I lived 
 among the Typees no one was ever put upon 
 his trial for any offence against the public. 
 To all appearances there were no courts of law 
 or equity. There was no municipal police for 
 the purposes of apprehending vagrants or 
 disorderly characters. In short, there were 
 no legal provisions whatever for the well-being 
 and conservation of society, the enlightened 
 end of civilized legislation." Nevertheless, 
 the whole book is a eulogy of the social 
 arrangements he met with, and with almost 
 a fervour of romance in its tone ; and yet, 
 like all his description of the natives of a the 
 Pacific Islands, undoubtedly accurate, and 
 well corroborated by the travellers of the 
 period. An easy communism prevailed. When 
 a good haul of fish was made, those who took 
 part in it did not keep the booty to themselves, 
 but parcelled it out, and sent it throughout 
 the tribe, retaining only their proportionate 
 share. When one family required a new 
 cabin, the others would come and help to 
 build it. He describes such an occasion, 
 when, " at least a hundred of the natives 
 were bringing materials to the ground, some 
 carrying in their hands one or two of the 
 canes which were to form the sides, others 
 slender rods of hibiscus, strung with palmetto 
 leaves, for the roof. Every one contributed 
 
2o Non- Governmental Society 
 
 something to the work ; and by the united 
 but easy labours of all the entire work was 
 completed before sunset." 
 
 Similar communistic habits prevail, of 
 course, through a vast number of savage 
 tribes, and indeed almost anywhere that the 
 distinctively commercial civilization has not 
 set its mark. They may be found close at 
 home, as in the little primitive island of St. 
 Kilda, in the Hebrides, where exactly the 
 same customs of sharing the hauls of fish or 
 the labours of housebuilding exist to-day, 1 
 which Melville describes in Typee ; and they 
 may be found all along the edges of our 
 civilization in the harvesting and house- 
 warming " bees " of the backwoods and 
 outlying farm-populations. And we may 
 fairly ask, not whether such social habits 
 are possible, but whether they are not in the 
 end the only possible form ; for surely it is 
 useless and absurd to call these modern 
 hordes of people, struggling with each other 
 for the means of subsistence, and jammed 
 down by violent and barbaric penal codes 
 into conditions which enforce the struggle, 
 societies ; as it would be absurd to call the 
 wretched folk in the Black Hole of Calcutta 
 a society. If anyone will only think for a 
 minute of his own inner nature he will see 
 
 1 See Chapter XI of Poverty and the State, by H. V. 
 
 Mills. 
 
Non-Governmental Society 21 
 
 that the only society which would ever really 
 satisfy him would be one in which he was 
 perfectly free, and yet bound by ties of 
 deepest trust to the other members ; and if 
 he will think for another minute he will see 
 that the only conditions on which he could be 
 perfectly free (to do as he liked) would be 
 that he should trust and care for his neighbour 
 as well as himself. The conditions are 
 perfectly simple ; and since they have been 
 more or less realized by countless primitive 
 tribes of animals and men, it is surely not 
 impossible for civilized man to realize them. 
 If it be argued (which is perfectly true) that 
 modern societies are so much more complex 
 than the primitive ones, we may reply that if 
 modern man, with his science and his school- 
 boards, and his brain cultivated through all 
 these centuries, is not competent to solve a 
 more complex problem than the savage, he 
 had better return to savagery. 
 
 But it is getting time to be practical. 
 
 Of the possibility of a free communal society 
 there can really, I take it, be no doubt. The 
 question that more definitely presses on us 
 now is one of transition by what steps shall 
 we, or can we pass to that land of freedom ? 
 
 We have supposed a whole people started 
 on its journey by the lifting off of a burden 
 of Fear and anxiety ; but in the long, slow 
 ascent of evolution sudden miraculous[changes 
 
22 Non-Governmental Society 
 
 are not to be expected ; and for this reason 
 alone it is obvious that we can look for no 
 very swift transformation to the communal 
 form. Peoples that have learnt the lesson of 
 " trade " and competition so thoroughly as 
 the modern nations have each man fighting 
 for his own hand must take some time to 
 unlearn it. The sentiment of the common 
 life, so long nipped and blighted, must have 
 leisure to grow and expand again; and we 
 acknowledge that in order to foster new 
 ideas and new habits an intermediate stage 
 of definite industrial organization will be 
 quite necessary. Formulae like the " nation- 
 alization of the land and the instruments of 
 production/' though they be vague and 
 indeed impossible of rigorous application, 
 will serve as centres for the growth of the 
 sentiment. The partial application of these 
 formulae will put folk through a lot of useful 
 drilling in the effort to work together and for 
 common ends. 
 
 When one looks sometimes at the awful 
 residue and dregs which are being left as a 
 legacy to the future by our present com- 
 mercial system the hopeless, helpless, 
 drunken, incapable men and women who 
 drift through London and the country districts 
 from workhouse to workhouse, or the equally 
 incapable and more futile idlers in high 
 places, one feels that possibly only a rather 
 
Non-Governmental Society 23 
 
 stringent industrial organization will enable 
 the coming society to cope with these burdens. 
 
 If I might venture (taking only the agencies 
 which we see already around us at work) to 
 sketch out how possibly the transitions to 
 the new society will be effected it would be 
 somewhat as follows : 
 
 In the first place the immense growth of 
 the unemployed which is so marked a 
 feature of the day, and which is due to the 
 monopoly of land and machinery in the 
 control of the few 1 is already forcing the 
 
 1 A moment's thought shows that as machinery per- 
 fects and perfects itself there is a tendency for fewer 
 workers to produce more goods or wealth. The balance 
 of increased wealth goes to the profit-receiving classes ; 
 and so there is a double result, namely, the increase 
 of the wealthy unemployed, and the increase of the 
 unemployed workers. The increase of these two classes 
 may not go on simultaneously, and there may and must 
 be fluctuations on both sides ; but the general tendency 
 is clear. It might, of course, be counteracted by shorter 
 hours of labour and increased wage, which by bringing 
 a greater number of workers in under better conditions 
 would immensely improve their lot, and at the same 
 time by reducing profits would clean up and improve 
 the lives of the wealthy ; but as the entire tendency of 
 the present system is the other way (in order to keep 
 up profits), this double shrinkage of employment must 
 go on as long, in fact, as the system goes on, and until 
 the unemployed problem forces a solution. 
 
 The unemployed (at the lower end of the scale) 
 break roughly into three classes, (i) The Poor. These 
 are the genuine workers who cannot get employment ; 
 
24 Non-Governmental Society 
 
 hand of the nation to the development of 
 farm-colonies, land-reclamations, and other 
 big industrial schemes. These, partly carried 
 on by voluntary contribution and enterprise, 
 and partly by municipal and State authority, 
 are already leading to a socialization (in some 
 
 and they form a large class, though their numbers, of 
 course, fluctuate greatly with the fluctuations of trade. 
 In general they suffer more, both mentally and physi- 
 cally in their terrible struggle for a livelihood than 
 any other class in the nation. (2) The Pauper and the 
 Vagrant. These are they who, having given up the 
 struggle for work, or being constitutionally averse or 
 incapable, resign themselves to a life of dependence and 
 parasitism. When a worker falls from class one into 
 class two, it is usually a period of great agony with him 
 the surrender of his home, his status, his independence, 
 etc. but having once fairly passed into class two, he 
 rarely returns. (3) The Criminal. These are they who 
 also having passed out of class one, instead of becoming 
 passive parasites, take to a life of deliberate attack and 
 warfare on society. 
 
 When we consider that Mr. Charles Booth in 1891 
 found that about thirty per cent, of the entire population 
 of London were unable to obtain the necessaries for a 
 sound livelihood ; and that Mr. B. S. Rowntree some 
 ten years later gave about twenty-nine per cent, for 
 the corresponding figures in the city of York, we realize 
 what a terrible problem this of unemployment is 
 becoming, and how it must inevitably force modern 
 society into great new organizations and transformations. 
 At present the obvious thing to do is simply to organize 
 a graduated and continuous scheme of farm-colonies 
 and industrial production for (i) prisoners, (2) paupers, 
 and (3) the ordinary unemployed. 
 
Non-Governmental Society 25 
 
 degree) of land and machinery. At the same 
 time the rolling up of companies into huge 
 and huger trusts is making the transference 
 of industries to public control and to public 
 uses, daily more obviously necessary and, 
 in a sense, more easy to effect. 
 
 On the other hand, the Trade Unions and 
 Co-operative Societies by the development of 
 productive as well as distributive industries, 
 and by the interchange of goods with each 
 other on an ever-growing scale, are bringing 
 about a similar result. They are creating a 
 society in which enormous wealth is produced 
 and handled not for the profit of the few, 
 but for the use of the many ; a voluntary 
 collectivism working within and parallel with 
 the official collectivism of the State. 
 
 As this double collectivism grows and 
 spreads, profit-grinding will more and more 
 cease to be a lucrative profession. Though 
 no doubt great efforts will be made in the 
 commercial world to discountenance the 
 public organization of the unemployed (be- 
 cause this will cut away the ground of cheap 
 labour on which commercialism is built), 
 yet as we have seen, the necessity of this 
 organization has reached such a point that 
 it can no longer be denied. And as it comes 
 in more and more, it will more and more 
 react on the conditions of the employed, 
 causing them also to be improved. Besides 
 
26 Non-Governmental Society 
 
 we are fain to hope that something else of 
 which we see growing signs on every hand, 
 will also come in namely a new sense of social 
 responsibility, a new reading of religion 
 which will help on and give genuine life to the 
 changes of which we speak. If so, it might 
 not be so very long before the spread of 
 employment, and the growing security of 
 decent wages, combined with the continual 
 improvement of productive processes and 
 conditions, would bring about a kind of 
 general affluence or at least absence of 
 poverty. The unworthy fear which haunts 
 the hearts of nine-tenths of the population, 
 the anxiety for the beggarly elements of 
 subsistence, would pass away or fade in the 
 background, and with it the mad nightmarish 
 competition and bitter struggle of men with 
 each other. Even the sense of Property itself 
 would be alleviated. To-day the institution 
 of Property is like a cast-iron railing against 
 which a human being may be crushed, but 
 which still is retained because it saves us 
 from falling into the gulf. But to-morrow, 
 when the gulf of poverty is practically gone, 
 the indicating line between one person and 
 another need run no harsher than an elastic 
 band. 1 
 
 1 This alleviation indeed is already in some curious 
 ways visible. Forty years ago the few dressed in broad- 
 cloth, the masses in fustian ; but now that silk is made 
 
Non-Governmental Society 27 
 
 It is possible that some such general rise in 
 well-being, due to a few years of wise and 
 generous organization of labour, may play 
 the part of the good fairy in the transforma- 
 tion-scene of modern society. With the 
 dying-out of fear and grinding anxiety and 
 the undoing of the frightful tension which 
 to-day characterizes all our lives, Society 
 will spring back nearer to its normal form 
 of mutual help. People will wake up with 
 surprise, and rub their eyes to find that they 
 are under no necessity of being other than 
 human. 1 
 
 Simultaneously (i.e. with the lessening of 
 the power of money as an engine of interest 
 and profit-grinding) the huge nightmare which 
 weighs on us to-day, the monstrous incubus 
 
 out of wood-pulp, and everybody can dress and does 
 dress in the latest fashion, it is no distinction to have 
 fine clothes. Similarly with books, travel, and a hundred 
 other things. What is the good of being a millionaire 
 when the man with three pounds a week can make 
 almost as good a show as you ? 
 
 1 At the same time it must not be blinked that in the 
 growth of the modern millionaire we are face to face 
 with a serious evil. Now that any man endowed with a 
 little low cunning, and tempted by self-conceit and love 
 of power, has a good chance of making himself enor- 
 mously rich, society is in danger of being ruled by as 
 mean a set of scoundrels as ever before in history. 
 And nothing less than a great transformation of our 
 moral and social standards will enable us to cope with 
 this danger. 
 
28 Non- Governmental Society 
 
 of " business " with its endless Sisyphus 
 labours, its searchings for markets, its dis- 
 placement and destruction of rivals, its 
 travellers, its advertisements, its armies of 
 clerks, its banking and broking, its accounts 
 and checking of accounts will fade and 
 lessen in importance ; till some day per- 
 chance it will collapse, and roll off like a 
 great burden to the ground ! Freed from the 
 great strain and waste which all this system 
 creates, the body politic will recover like a 
 man from a disease, and spring to unexpected 
 powers of health. 
 
 Meanwhile in the great industrial associa- 
 tions, voluntary and other, folk will have 
 been learning the sentiment of the Common 
 Life the habit of acting together for common 
 ends, the habit of feeling together for common 
 interests and once this has been learnt, the 
 rest will follow of its own accord. We need 
 not fear that State-organization will run to 
 the bitter end so often prophesied nor is 
 there any danger of poetry and ginger-beer 
 being converted into government monopolies. 
 But it may perhaps be hoped that it will go 
 far enough to form the nucleus of immense 
 growths of voluntary Socialism, and to give 
 (as government action does) a very distinct 
 direction to the current of public opinion. 
 
 In the course of these changes, moving 
 always towards a non-governmental and 
 
Non-Governmental Society 29 
 
 perfectly voluntary society in the end, it is 
 probable that some Property-founded institu- 
 tions, like the payment of labour by wages, 
 though not exactly ideal in their character, 
 will continue for a long period. It has to be 
 remembered that there is not the smallest 
 chance of any " ideal," pure and simple, of 
 society being at any time absolutely realized. 
 Besides, an ideal is at best an awkward thing. 
 For while it is obviously either Smith's ideal 
 or Brown's ideal, it is pretty certain that 
 Brown's ideal would not suit Smith, nor 
 Smith's ideal suit Brown. So that while we 
 can see plainly enough the more communal 
 direction in which society is trending we may 
 both hope and fairly expect that the resulting 
 form will not be the exact ideal of any party ; 
 but will be broad enough and large enough to 
 include an immense diversity of institutions 
 and habits, as well as a considerable survival 
 of the social forms of to-day. It may perhaps 
 be said that in some ways a generous wage- 
 payment convention (as for instance sketched 
 in the last chapter of Carruthers' Commercial 
 and Communal Economy} on a thoroughly 
 democratic basis, gives more freedom than a 
 formless Anarchism in which each one takes 
 " according to his needs," simply because 
 under the first system A could work two 
 hours a day and live on the wage of two, and 
 B could work eight and live on the wage of 
 
30 Non- Governmental Society 
 
 eight, each with perfect moral freedom 
 whereas if there was no wage system, A 
 (however much he might wish to loaf) would 
 feel that he was cheating the community 
 and the community would think so too 
 unless he gave his eight hours like everybody 
 else. 1 
 
 The great point however to bear in mind 
 in all this matter is that though the Cash 
 nexus may and no doubt will linger on for a 
 long time in various forms of Wages, Pur- 
 chase, Sale, and so forth, it must inevitably 
 with the changing sentiment and conditions 
 of life lose its cast-iron stringent character, 
 and gradually be converted into the elastic 
 cord, which while it may indicate a line of 
 social custom will yield to pressure when the 
 need arises. Private Property will thus lose 
 its present virulent character, and subside 
 into a matter of mere use or convenience ; 
 monetary reckonings and transfers, as time 
 goes on, will seem little more than for- 
 malities as to-day between friends. 
 
 Finally, Custom alone will remain. The 
 subsidence of the Property feeling will mean 
 the subsidence of brute-force Law, for whose 
 
 1 It is difficult also to see how things like railways 
 and the immense modern industries (if these survive) 
 could be carried on without some such system of wage- 
 payment and the definite engagement to fulfil certain 
 work which it carries with it. 
 
Non-Governmental Society 3 1 
 
 existence Property is mainly responsible. 
 The peoples accustomed to the varied ac- 
 tivities of a complex industrial organism, 
 will still though not suffering from the 
 compulsion either of hunger or of brute 
 authority continue through custom to carry 
 on those activities, their Reason in the main 
 approving. 
 
 Custom will remain slowly changing. And 
 the form of the Societies of the future will be 
 more vital and organic, and far more truly 
 human, than they have been or could be 
 under the rigid domination of Law. 
 
1 50 pages. Wrappers, Is. nett ; postage id. 
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 Prisons, Police and 
 Punishment 
 
 (An Enquiry into the causes and treatment of 
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 By Edward Carpenter 
 
 CONTENTS : i. Penal Systems, Past and Present. 2. Law and 
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 "We can cordially recommend this little work to all who are 
 interested in the problem of crime, though we do not concur in all 
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 tracing the origin of the great majority of crimes to our present 
 laws of property, and especially of landed property, would do well 
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 would propose" The ^uman^ Review. 
 
 "It is a temperate, -patient, and reasonable restatement and con- 
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 sensitively intelligent person confronted with the operations of the 
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 human life, now and in the days to come." 
 
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