Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction
- Part I Contexts and possibilities
- Part II Texts
- 4 The Real Rights of Man, Thomas Spence, 1775
- 5 An Essay on the Right of Property in Land, William Ogilvie, 1782
- 6 Enquiry concerning Political Justice and Its Influence on Morals and Happiness, William Godwin, 1798
- 7 The Effects of Civilization on the People in European States, Charles Hall, 1805
- 8 A Lay Sermon Addressed to the Higher and Middle Classes on the Existing Distresses and Discontents, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1817
- 9 Report to the County of Lanark, Robert Owen, 1821
- 10 A Few Doubts as to the Correctness of Some Opinions Generally Entertained on the Subjects of Population and Political Economy, ‘Piercy Ravenstone’, 1821
- 11 An Inquiry into the Principles of the Distribution of Wealth Most Conducive to Human Happiness; Applied to the Newly Proposed System of Voluntary Equality of Wealth, William Thompson, 1824
- 12 Labour Defended against the Claims of Capital or the Unproductiveness of Capital Proved with Reference to the Present Combinations amongst Journeymen, Thomas Hodgskin, 1825
- 13 Rural Rides, William Cobbett, 1830
- 14 Conclusion
- Notes
- Index
11 - An Inquiry into the Principles of the Distribution of Wealth Most Conducive to Human Happiness; Applied to the Newly Proposed System of Voluntary Equality of Wealth, William Thompson, 1824
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction
- Part I Contexts and possibilities
- Part II Texts
- 4 The Real Rights of Man, Thomas Spence, 1775
- 5 An Essay on the Right of Property in Land, William Ogilvie, 1782
- 6 Enquiry concerning Political Justice and Its Influence on Morals and Happiness, William Godwin, 1798
- 7 The Effects of Civilization on the People in European States, Charles Hall, 1805
- 8 A Lay Sermon Addressed to the Higher and Middle Classes on the Existing Distresses and Discontents, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1817
- 9 Report to the County of Lanark, Robert Owen, 1821
- 10 A Few Doubts as to the Correctness of Some Opinions Generally Entertained on the Subjects of Population and Political Economy, ‘Piercy Ravenstone’, 1821
- 11 An Inquiry into the Principles of the Distribution of Wealth Most Conducive to Human Happiness; Applied to the Newly Proposed System of Voluntary Equality of Wealth, William Thompson, 1824
- 12 Labour Defended against the Claims of Capital or the Unproductiveness of Capital Proved with Reference to the Present Combinations amongst Journeymen, Thomas Hodgskin, 1825
- 13 Rural Rides, William Cobbett, 1830
- 14 Conclusion
- Notes
- Index
Summary
Faced with the problems of poverty and inequality, theorists, Thompson insists, divide into two schools: the intellectual and the mechanical. Intellectual speculators such as Godwin, concerned with ideals, favour equality, but they overstress the powers of mere mind; in phrases reminiscent of Marx's later critique of the young Hegelians in the German Ideology, ‘the intellectual aristocrat … [forgets] … that without [labour's] kindly and ever-recurring aid in the supply of food, clothing and shelter, the high intellectual energies, of which he boasts, could scarcely for one hundred hours preserve themselves’ (v). Mechanical speculators such as Malthus, concerned with material realities, argue that inequality is inevitable and beneficial to production, but they ignore moral considerations. ‘Here is the important problem of moral science to be solved, “how to reconcile equality with security; how to reconcile just distribution with continued production”’ (xiv). This is the issue addressed in Thompson's weighty volume. The essentials of his solution are furnished in the first chapter, a chapter that would by itself constitute a modest book in late twentieth-century terms. The job is done by the establishment of three principles: first, that labour is the sole parent of wealth; second, that an equal distribution is most conducive to happiness; and third, that production is maximized if each labourer receives the full fruits of his labour, an arrangement that tends to equality.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Socialism, Radicalism, and NostalgiaSocial Criticism in Britain, 1775-1830, pp. 214 - 231Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1987
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