influenced influences nationality field article_title name
kevin carson , karl marx , francis place john locke , jean-baptiste say , adam smith british political economy thomas hodgskin
 thomas hodgskin
thomas hodgskin

thomas hodgskin -lrb- born 12 december 1787 , chatham , kent ; d. 21 august 1869 , feltham , middlesex -rrb- was an english socialist writer on political economy , critic of capitalism and defender of free trade and early trade unions .
-lrb- in the late 19th and early 20th centuries , the term `` socialist '' included any opponent of capitalism , which was construed as a political system built on privileges for the owners of capital . -rrb-
born of a father who worked in the chatham naval dockyard , hodgskin joined the navy at the age of 12 .
he rose rapidly in the years of naval struggle with the french to the rank of first lieutenant .
following the naval defeat of the french , the opportunities for advancement closed and hodgskin increasingly ran into disciplinary trouble with his superiors , eventually leading to his court martial and dismissal in 1812 .
this prompted his first book , `` an essay on naval discipline '' -lrb- 1813 -rrb- , a scathing critique of the brutal authoritarian regime then current in the navy .
entering edinburgh university for study , he later came to london in 1815 and entered the utilitarian circle around francis place , jeremy bentham and james mill .
with their support he spent the next five years in a programme of travel and study around europe which resulted , inter alia , in a second book , `` travels in north germany '' -lrb- 1820 -rrb- .
after 3 years in edinburgh , hodgskin returned to london in 1823 as a journalist .
influenced by jean-baptiste say amongst others , his views on political economy had diverged from the utilitarian orthodoxy of david ricardo and james mill .
during the controversy around the parliamentary acts to first legalise and then ban worker 's `` combinations '' , mill and ricardo had been in favour of the ban whereas hodgskin supported the right to organise .
he used ricardo 's labour theory of value to denounce the appropriation of the most part of value produced by the labour of industrial workers as illegitimate .
he propounded these views in a series of lectures at the london mechanics institute -lrb- later renamed birkbeck , university of london -rrb- where he debated with william thompson , with whom he shared the critique of capitalist expropriation but not the proposed remedy .
the results of these lectures and debates he published as `` labour defended against the claims of capital '' -lrb- 1825 -rrb- , `` popular political economy '' -lrb- 1827 -rrb- and `` natural and artificial right of property contrasted '' -lrb- 1832 -rrb- .
the title of `` labour defended '' was a jibe at james mill 's earlier `` commerce defended '' and signalled his opposition to the latter taking sides with the capitalists against their employees .
though his criticism of employers appropriation of the lion 's share of the value produced by their employees went on to influence subsequent generations of socialists , including karl marx , hodgskin 's fundamental deist beliefs identified production and exchange based on the labour theory of value -lrb- freed from the supposedly illegitimate expropriations of rent , interest and owner 's profits -rrb- as part of `` natural right '' , the divinely ordained proper relations of society , contrasted with `` artificial '' contrivances -- the source of disharmonies and conflicts .
he rejected the proto-communism of william thompson and robert owen by the same appeal to `` natural right '' .
in 1823 , hodgskin joined forces with joseph clinton robinson in founding the `` mechanics magazine '' , in the october 1823 edition of which , hodgskin and francis place wrote a manifesto for a mechanics institute .
this would be more than a technical school , but a place where practical studies could be combined with practical reflection about the condition of society .
the inaugural meeting to found the institute took place in 1823 , but the idea was taken over by people of less radical views concerned about hodgskin 's unorthodox economic views , including george birkbeck , a well-known educator from glasgow .
despite his high profile in the agitated revolutionary times of the 1820s , he retreated into the realm of whig journalism after the reform act 1832 .
he became an advocate of free trade and spent 15 years writing for `` the economist '' .
he worked on the paper with its founder , james wilson , and with the young herbert spencer .
hodgskin viewed the demise of the corn laws as the first step to the downfall of government , and his libertarian anarchism was regarded as too radical by many of the liberals of the anti-corn law league .
he left `` the economist '' in 1857 , but continued working as a journalist for the rest of his life .
