Thompson, William (economist)

Born in Cork (according to other sources - in Carbury ) in the family of one of the most prosperous merchants of this city, Alderman John Thompson, who, among other things, held the post of mayor in 1794. Thus, it belonged to the Anglo-Irish elite of wealthy landowners and merchants. After his father died in 1814, William inherited a small merchant fleet and estate near Glandor in West Cork.

He rejected the way of life of most of his brothers in the estate, who preferred to manage their property while being at a distance from it (usually in cities); Despite frequent travels, he lived in the estate entrusted to him, introduced agricultural innovations there and sought to improve the life of his wards, providing them with the necessary services, and education for their children.

Suffering from an early age from poor health, Thompson during the last 13 years of his life became a non-smoking teetotaler and vegetarian. Giving up bad habits, he acknowledged, helped him focus on reading and writing. However, in the 1830s he suffered from chest pains, and ultimately the disease claimed his life on March 28, 1833. He was never married and did not leave direct heirs.

In his will, Thompson left his estate to the cooperative movement (according to E.T. Craig, such a decision was made after a visit to the Ralakhin commune). However, his relatives started a lawsuit, as a result of which the will was declared invalid. Long trials of the case made the Thompson legacy process one of the longest in the history of Irish law ^[4] .

An enthusiastic admirer of the ideas of the Enlightenment , in particular Condorcet , Thompson became a staunch egalitarian and democrat. His support of the French Revolution provided him with the label of “Red Republican” in secular circles of Cork, and his speech in support of the emancipation and equality of Irish Catholics alienated him from the rest of the rich Protestant elite.

At first, Thompson was impressed by the utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham , with whom he corresponded and became friends (during a trip to London, he remained in the house of the English philosopher for several months in 1821-1822). Thompson read and corresponded with other contemporaries, utilitarians (including James Mill ). Thompson also became acquainted with the work of the French Utopian socialists, including Charles Fourier and Henri Saint-Simon , as well as the economist Sismondi . In addition, he was influenced (both positive and negative) by William Godwin and Thomas Malthus .

Wanting to overcome the limitations of Godwin's “mental speculation” and Malthus's “mechanical speculation”, Thompson offers a new synthesis: social science — Thompson was the first to introduce the term. It was intended to combine the most important aspects of political economy, methods of scientific materialism and the rational morality of utilitarianism.

Contribution to Political Economy

Comparing the ideas of Malthus and Godwin encouraged Thompson to explore the role of distribution in political economy . Arriving in London, in 1824 he published his book, “An Examination of the Principles of the Distribution of Wealth that Most Promotes Human Happiness; applied to the proposed system of voluntary equality of wealth. "

In "Research ..." Thompson continues the line of the labor theory of value put forward by Adam Smith and David Ricardo . However, he defines the appropriation of the lion's share of surplus value by the owner of the means of production (capitalist) as exploitation and comes to a sharp criticism of capitalism: "The higher the profit of capital, the lower - ceteris paribus - there should be wages." Contrasting his humanistic ideal with the existing system, he defines capitalism as a “system of insecurity” based on the dominance of capital and exploitation.

Thompson considers the level of wages and exploitation of workers as the result of a fierce struggle between owners and producers. He rejects the statement of Malthus / Mill that any increase in the wages of workers can only lead to their further impoverishment, noting that such a theory only serves the selfish interests of the capitalists and substantiates legislation prohibiting any means of struggle for raising wages for workers. Applying the utilitarian principle of “the greatest good for the greatest number of people” to existing and possible alternative schemes of (re) distribution, Thompson comes to the idea of ​​equalizing the distribution of the product.

John Minter Morgan, one of Thompson’s co-operative movement colleagues, came to the conclusion that he was the first to use the term “competitive” to describe the existing economic system. The anarchist Max Nettlau subsequently emphasized the originality of Thompson’s work: “ This book, however, reveals his [Thompson's] own evolution; starting with the demand for a complete product of labor, as well as regulation of distribution, he came to his conversion to communism, that is, unlimited distribution . ”

In 1827, another “Ricardian socialist,” Thomas Godskin, in his book Labor Defended , spoke out with the similar idea that the appropriation of the main share of the fruits of production by landowners and capitalists is exploitation, theft of workers' products of their labor. However, Godskin suggested that the path to economic justice for workers lies through reforming the competition system. Thompson answered the book of his own colleague - “ Labor Rewarded ”, in which he defended cooperative communism against unequal salaries at Godskin.

Opposition to Malthusianism and Feminism

In contrast to Malthusianism, Thompson put forward the law of population, according to which, in the process of economic development, the reproduction of people is increasingly subject to the control of the mind, respectively, the absolute growth of the population is accompanied by a relative reduction in comparison with the mass of means of subsistence. Rejecting the political and economic conclusions of Malthus' essay on population as hateful, Thompson acknowledged that, in particular, in Ireland, rampant population growth could indeed pose a threat to poverty. This was an argument for him in favor of the introduction of contraception .

Thompson was most strongly influenced by the long-term close friendship with one of the forerunners of feminism, an Irish writer and advocate for granting women political rights, Anna Wheeler, to further develop criticism of the then status of women. He met Wheeler at Bentham; they appealed to utilitarian circles, including James Mill (father of John Stuart Mill , also a supporter of women's rights). It was the publication of Mill-Sr. “On Government”, in which he advocated for suffrage exclusively for men, that provoked the fiery rebuff of Wheeler and Thompson in “Appeal to one half of humanity, women, against the claims of the second, men, to keep them political and civil and domestic slavery. "

In the cooperative movement of utopian socialists

Thompson and other representatives of the cooperative movement are somewhat unfairly classified as Owenists . In fact, although Robert Owen’s writings and his social experiment in New Lanark helped shape the cooperative movement, many in the latter, including Thompson, were critical of Owen’s authoritarian and anti-democratic tendencies. Thompson was also skeptical of Owen's attempts to appease the rich and powerful patrons, believing that the rich as a class should never be expected to support any project to free the workers, as such would simply threaten their privileges. He gained many followers in the ranks of the cooperative movement, and in order to distinguish himself from Owen’s position, this wing of the movement began to define itself as “socialists or communionists,” not “owenists.” Their letter to The Cooperative Magazine (London, November 1827) cites the Oxford English Dictionary as the first documented use of the term socialist.

These disagreements led to an open confrontation between Thompson and Owen at the Third Cooperative Congress, held in 1832 in London. Owen - probably annoyed by the failure of his attempt to create a new harmony communist productive community - said he should wait for help from the state and stock exchanges in financing such large-scale communities. Thompson, with supporters, argued that they should move towards creating independent small communities based on the movement’s own resources. The dispute remained unresolved following the results of this congress, but at the next Thompson was no longer able to attend due to an illness that claimed his life five months later.

Karl Marx , who came across Thompson's work during a visit to Manchester in 1845, referred to him in his writings “The Poverty of Philosophy ” (1847) and “ Capital ” ^[5] . From the point of view of Marxism , Thompson revealed a conflict of capitalist accumulation and distribution with productive forces , which determines the historical limitations of capitalist production. However, he, considering the transfer of "social capital" into the hands of workers historically unavoidable, hoped that this process could be carried out peacefully and without liquidating private property.

• Utopian socialism
• Classical Political Economy

• Thompson, William, State of the Education in the South of Ireland , 1818.
• Thompson, William, 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 , (Longman, Hurst Rees, Orme, Brown & Green: London), 1824.
• Thompson, William, Appeal of One Half the Human Race, Women, Against the Pretensions of the Other Half, Men, to Retain Them in Political, and thence in Civil and Domestic Slavery , (Longman, Hurst Rees, Orme, Brown & Green: London), 1825.
• Thompson, William, Labor Rewarded. The Claims of Labor and Capital Conciliated: or, How to Secure to Labor the Whole Products of Its Exertions , (Hunt and Clarke: London), 1827.
• Thompson, William, Practical Directions for the Speedy and Economic Establishment of Communities on the Principles of Mutual Co-operation, United Possessions and Equality of Exertions and the Means of Enjoyments , (Strange and E. Wilson: London), 1830.