Profile Major Works Resources

Thomas Hodgskin, 1787-1869.

One of its brightest and most eloquent of Ricardian Socialists, who peculiarly doubled as a free trade liberal anarchist and defender of natural rights individualism.

Son of a storekeeper on the Chatham shipyards in Kent, Thomas Hodgskin left home at the age of twelve and enlisted in the Royal Navy.  He served during the Napoleonic Wars and retired as a naval officer on half-pay in 1812.  Fresh off the boat, he put out his polemical Essay on Naval Discipline (1813), a blistering attack on the press-gang, conscription and the lash, decrying the brutality and despotism of the navy as inconsistent with a free society and calling for far-reaching reforms in naval structure and operations.

Hodgskin subsequently left for the continent and traveled through northern Germany.  He returned around 1818, publishing his travelogue soon after. Around 1820, Hodgskin read David Ricardo and fell in with the Benthamites for a while, notably James Mill and Francis Place.  It was through their intercession that Hodgskin secured a position as a reporter for the Morning Chronicle in 1822.  He also became involved in education, participating with Place and Birkbeck in founding the London Mechanics Institute in 1823.  Hodgskin would remain associated with the institute and lecture there for the next decade. 

Hodgskin covered the parliamentary debate on the combination laws in 1824-25.  The state of the debate on the parliamentary floor prompted Hodgskin to publish his famous pamphlet,  Labour Defended, anonymously in 1825.  Here he took the Ricardian labor theory of value to its exploitation logic, arguing that labor was not only underpaid, but by being the source of capital itself, labor was also the best guarantor of private property and the prosperity of Britain.   His 1829 Natural and Artificial Rights of Property were originally published as newspaper letters Henry Brougham. His 1828 textbook, derived from his lectures at LMI, was perhaps the best English-language textbook in socialist economics at the time - even though he later became involved with the The Economist

 

  

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Major Works of Thomas Hodgskin

  • 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,1813. [bk] [Lib]
  • Travels in the North of Germany, describing the present state of the social and political institutions, the agriculture, manufactures, commerce, education, arts and manners in that country, particularly in the Kingdom of Hannover, 1820. v.1, v.2 [Lib: v.1, v. 2]
  • Labour Defended Against the Claims of Capital, or the unproductiveness of capital proved with reference to the present combinations amongst journeymen, 1825. - [McM,  ava, mrx]
  • Popular Political Economy: Four lectures delivered at the London Mechanics Institute, 1827.[bk]
  • The Natural and Artifical Right of Property Contrasted: A series of letters, addressed without permission to H. Brougham, Esq. M.P. F.R.S., 1832 [bk] [Lib]
  • 'Peace, Law and Order': a lecture delivered in the hall of the National Association, 1842
  • A Lecture on Free Trade in Connexion with the Corn Laws: Delivered at the White Conduit House, 1843 [Lib]
  • "On Works of David Ricardo", 1846, The Economist, (v.4, Nov 28) p.1556
  • "On J.S. Mill's Principles", 1848, The Economist (v.6, May 27), p.603
  • "Presumption of the Literary Classes", 1848, The Economist (v.7, Oct 21), p.1190
  • "Herbert Spencer's Social Statics", 1851, The Economist (v.9 Feb 8), p.149
  • "National Education", 1852, The Economist, (Jan 17)
  • "On Jennings's Natural Elements", 1855, The Economist (June 23), p.681
  • What Shall We Do With Our Criminals? Don't Create Them. 1857 [bk]
  • Our Chief Crime: Cause and Cure. Second lecture on What shall we do with our criminals?, 1857 [bk]
HET

 
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Resources on Thomas Hodgskin

  • Thomas Hodgskin (1787-1869) by Elie Halevy, 1903 [av]
  • "Thomas Hodgskin", by Esther Lowenthal, 1911, The Ricardian Socialists [Ch. 4]
  • "Hodgskin, Thomas" in C. Coquelin and G.U. Guillaumin, editors, 1852, Dictionnaire de l'économie politique [1894 ed.]
  • "Hodgskin, Thomas" in R.H. Inglis Palgrave, editor, 1894-1901 Dictionary of Political Economy [1901 ed.]
  • Hodgskin at McMaster, incl. Bibliography
  • Hogskin at Akamac
  • Hodgskin atWiki

 

 
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