Abstract
Thomas Hodgskin (1797–1869) is still studied as a forerunner of modern socialism: in fact, he is typically characterized as a prominent “Ricardian socialist”. Among the most influential of Hodgskin’s works was his pamphlet Labour Defended Against the Claims of Capital (1825a), thus prefiguring with its very title announces a denunciation of capitalism. Hodgskin’s work should be considered instead in its entirety, paying proper attention to its nuances. If Hodgskin indeed chastised “capitalism,” he meant precisely what we now call “crony capitalism.” He did not condemn the “higgling of the market,” which he thought should be the sole mechanism by which resources, including human labour, are allocated. But he saw clearly that legislative meddling served specific interests and often prevented market forces to emerge and blossom. If he was unfriendly towards the “capitalist” class, it was only because he saw them as disproportionally benefiting from the favour of political power. Hodgskin denounced the idle classes but did not want to substitute the market process with any alternative distributive scheme. He considered a sound understanding of an innovation-fostering economy incompatible with archaic distribution of privilege on the part of government. His work can help to clarify how embracing the market economy did and does not entail a defence of the status quo.
Bibliography
Babbage, C. 1832. On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures. London: Knight.10.5479/sil.975430.39088015716483Search in Google Scholar
Bastiat, F. 1849. “Coalitions Industrielles”. In The Collected Works of Frédéric Bastiat. Vol. 2: The Law, The State, and Other Political Writings, 1843–50, edited by Jacques De Guenin, Indianapolis, In: Liberty Fund, 2012, 348–61.Search in Google Scholar
Beer, M. 1919 [1980]. A History of British Socialism. London: Spokesman.Search in Google Scholar
Berg, M. 1980. The Machinery Question and the Making of Political Economy 1815–1848. Cambridge: Cambridge.10.1017/CBO9780511560330Search in Google Scholar
Eugen, B.-B. 1884 [1890]. Capital and Interest: A Critical History of Economic Theory. London: Macmillan.Search in Google Scholar
Calabresi, S. G., and L. Prise. 2012. “Monopolies and the Constitution: A History of Crony Capitalism.” Faculty Working Papers, Paper 214, http://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1213&context=facultyworkingpapers.10.2139/ssrn.2130043Search in Google Scholar
Clapham, J. H. 1926 [1950]. An Economic History of Modern Britain. The Early Railway Age 1820–1850. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Clayes, G. 2000. “Political Economy and Popular Education: Thomas Hodgskin and the London Mechanics’ Institute, 1823–8.” In Radicalism and Revolution in Britain: Essays in Honour of Malcolm Thomis, edited by M. Davis, 157–75. London: Macmillan.10.1057/9780230509382_11Search in Google Scholar
Dicey, A. V. 1917 [2008]. Lectures on the Relation between Law and Public Opinion in England During the Nineteenth Century. Edited and with an Introduction by Richard Vande Wetering. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.Search in Google Scholar
Driver, C. H. 1932. “Thomas Hodgskin and the Individualists.” In The Social & Political Ideas of Some RepresentativeThinkers of the Age of Reaction and Reconstruction 1815–65, edited by F. J. C. Hearnshaw. London: Harrap.Search in Google Scholar
Edwards, R. D. 1993. The Pursuit of Reason. The Economist1843–1993. London: Hamish Hamilton.Search in Google Scholar
Foote, G. 1985. The Labour Party’s Political Thought: A History. London: Palsgrave Macmillan.Search in Google Scholar
Forget, E. L. 1999. The Social Economics of Jean-Baptiste Say: Markets and Virtue. London: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar
Foxwell, H. S. 1899. “Introduction.” In The Right to the Produce of the Whole Labour, edited by A. Menger. London: Macmillan.Search in Google Scholar
Haber, S. 2002. “Introduction: The Political Economy of Crony Capitalism.” In Crony Capitalism and Economic Growth in Latin America: Theory and Evidence, edited by S. Haber, 11–21. Stanford: Hoover Institution.Search in Google Scholar
Halevy, E. 1903 [1956]. Thomas Hodgskin. Edited in translation with an introduction by A.J. Taylor. London: Ernest Benn Limited.Search in Google Scholar
Hodgskin, T. 1813. An Essay on Naval Discipline, Shewing Part of its Evil Effects on the Minds of the Officers, on the Minds of the Men, and on the Community; with an Amended System, by which Pressing may be Immediately Abolished. London: C. Squire.Search in Google Scholar
Hodgskin, T. 1820. Travels in the North of Germany. Describing the Present State of the Social and Political Institutions, the Agriculture, Manufacture, Commerce, Education, Arts and Manners in that Country, Particularly in the Kingdom of Hannover. Edinburgh: Archibald Constable.Search in Google Scholar
Hodgskin, T. 1825a [1964]. Labour Defended Against the Claims of Capital. London: Hammersmith Bookshop.Search in Google Scholar
Hodgskin, T. 1825b. Signed T.H. “Is It men or Engines That Work?” The Trades’ Newspaper September 25.Search in Google Scholar
Hodgskin, T. 1826. “Political Economy”. The Trades’ Newspaper January 29.Search in Google Scholar
Hodgskin, T. 1827. Popular Political Economy. London: Tait.Search in Google Scholar
Hodgskin, T. 1832. The Natural and Artificial Right of Property Contrasted. London: Steil.Search in Google Scholar
Hodgskin, T. 1843. A Lecture on Free Trade in Connexion with the Corn Laws. London: Palmer.Search in Google Scholar
Hodgskin, T. 1851. “(unsigned) Review of Social Statics by Herbert Spencer”. The Economist IX(389):149–51.Search in Google Scholar
Hodgskin, T. 1857a. What Shall We Do with Our Criminals? Don’t Create Them. London: Groombridge & Sons.Search in Google Scholar
Hodgskin, T. 1857b. Our Chief Crime: Cause and Cure. London: Groombridge & Sons.Search in Google Scholar
Hodgskin, T. 1865. “Labour-Capital”. Brighton Guardian January 18.Search in Google Scholar
Hodgskin, T. 1867. “Political Organisation”. Brighton Guardian March 20.Search in Google Scholar
Hunt, E. K. 1977. “Value Theory in the Writings of the Classical Economists, Thomas Hodgskin, and Karl Marx”. History of Political Economy ix(3):322–45.10.1215/00182702-9-3-322Search in Google Scholar
Hutchinson, T. W. 1978. On Revolutions and Progress in Economic Knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Jaffe, J. A. 2000. Striking a Bargain. Work and Industrial Relations in England 1815–1865. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Lachmann, L. 1955 [1978]. Capital and Its Structure. Kansas City: Sheer Andrews & McMeel.Search in Google Scholar
Mack, E. 2012. “Lysander Spooner: Nineteenth-Century America’s Last Natural Rights Theorists.” In Natural Rights Individualism and Progressivism in American Political Philosophy, edited by E. F. Paul, F. D. Miller, Jr, and J. Paul, 139–76. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9781139237116.006Search in Google Scholar
Menger, C. 1890 [2016]. “The Social Theories of Classical Political Economy and Modern Economic Policy.” Translated by Erwin Dekker and Stefan Kolev. Econ Journal Watch 13 (3):473–89.Search in Google Scholar
Milgate, M., and S. C. Stimson. 2009. After Adam Smith: A Century of Transformation in Politics and Political Economy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.10.1515/9781400831012Search in Google Scholar
Mill, J. S. 1836 [2006]. “Civilisation.” In Id, Collected Works. Vol XIII, edited by J. M. Robson. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Search in Google Scholar
Mokyr, J. 1999. “Editor’s Introduction: The New Economic History and the Industrial Revolution.” In The British Industrial Revolution: An Economic Perspective. Boulder: Westview Press.Search in Google Scholar
Perkin, H. 1969. The Origins of Modern English Society 1780–1880. London: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar
Ricardo, D. 1820. Letter to T. R. Malthus, October 9, 1820. In The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Viii, Indianapolis, In: Liberty Fund, 2004, edited by Piero Sraffa, XX–YY.Search in Google Scholar
Ricardo, D. 1821 [1951, 2004]. On the Principles of Political Economy, and Taxation. Edited by Piero Sraffa. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.Search in Google Scholar
Riley, P. 2013. Making Another World Possible. Anarchism, Anti-Capitalism and Ecology in Late 19th and Early 20th Century Britain. London: Bloomsbury.10.5040/9781501306754Search in Google Scholar
Rothbard, M. N. 1995. Classical Economics: An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought. Aldershot: Edward Elgar.Search in Google Scholar
Say, J.-B. 1803, 1821 [2001]. A Treatise on Political Economy; or the Production, Distribution, and Consumption of Wealth. Kitchener: Batoche Books.Search in Google Scholar
Scott, W. 1894. Familiar Letters of Sir Walter Scott. Edinburgh: Douglas, 2 volls.Search in Google Scholar
Schumpeter, J. A. 1954. History of Economic Analysis. London: Allen & Unwin.Search in Google Scholar
Smith, A. 1776 [1981]. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Vol. 2 of the Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.10.1093/oseo/instance.00043218Search in Google Scholar
Southey, R. (attrib). 1836. Letters from England. London: Dearborn.Search in Google Scholar
Spencer, H. 1851. Social Statics. London: Chapman.Search in Google Scholar
Stack, D. 1998. Nature and Artifice. The Life and Thought of Thomas Hodgskin, 1787–1869. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press.Search in Google Scholar
Thompson, W. 1827. Labour Rewarded. The Claims of Labour and Capital Conciliated. London: Hunt and Clarke.Search in Google Scholar
Thompson, E. P. 1963 [1980]. The Making of the English Working Class. London: Victor Gollancz.Search in Google Scholar
Thompson, N. W. 1984. The People’s Science. The Popular Political Economy of Exploitation and Crisis 1816–1834. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Webb, Sydney, and Beatrice. 1920. The History of Trade Unionionism. Revisited Edition Extended to 1920. London: Longmans.Search in Google Scholar
West, E. G. 1964. “Adam Smith’s Two Views on the Division of Labour”. Economica 31 (121):23–32.10.2307/2550924Search in Google Scholar
Zywicki, T. 2015. “Rent-Seeking, Crony Capitalism, and the Crony Constitution”. George Mason University Legal Studies Research Paper, 15–08.10.1086/686473Search in Google Scholar
©2016 by De Gruyter
