Thomas Hodgskin

For the historian and banker (1831–1913), see Thomas Hodgkin (historian).

Thomas Hodgskin (12 December 1787 – 21 August 1869) was an English socialist writer on political economy, critic of capitalism and defender of free trade and early trade unions.

Thomas Hodgskin
Born	(1787-12-12)12 December 1787 Chatham, Kent, England
Died	21 August 1869(1869-08-21) (aged 81) Feltham, Middlesex, England
Nationality	English
Citizenship	British
Academic background
Influences	John Locke, Jean-Baptiste Say, Adam Smith
Academic work
Discipline	Political economy

His views differ from some of the views later assigned to the word 'socialism'. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the term socialist included any opponent of capitalism.^[1][2][3]

Biography

Hodgskin's father, who worked at the British Admiralty dock stores, enrolled him in the navy at the age of 12. Coming into conflict with the naval discipline of the time, Hodgskin was retired by the Navy at the age of 25. Publication of his Essay on Naval Discipline brought Hodgskin to the attention of radicals such as Francis Place.

Entering the University of Edinburgh for study, Hodgskin later came to London and entered the utilitarian circle around Place, Jeremy Bentham and James Mill. With their support, he spent the next five years in a programme of travel and study around Europe. In 1815 Hodgskin travelled in France and Germany, experiences which he documented in his Travels in the North of Germany (1820).^[4] He married Eliza Hegewesch in Edinburgh in 1819.^[4]

In 1823, Hodgskin joined forces with Joseph Clinton Robertson in founding the Mechanics Magazine. In the October 1823 edition of the Mechanics Magazine, Hodgskin and Francis Place wrote a manifesto for a Mechanics Institute.^[5]

His main works were Labour defended against the claims of Capital (1825) and the four lectures collected as Popular Political Economy (1827). Hodgskin's assertion of the right of workers to the whole produce of their labour was influential but gave rise to his estrangement from his previous supporters, Mill denouncing it as "mad nonsense" which amounted to "the subversion of civilised society".^[6]: 288

Hodgskin retreated into the realm of Whig journalism after the Reform Act 1832. He had a family of seven children to support.^[4] He advocated free trade and was economics editor for The Economist from 1843 to 1857.^{[7][8]: 165–172  [6]: 21}

In 1848 Hodgskin was also an editorial writer on Herbert Ingram's London Telegraph, where he advocated "Free Trade in the enlarged sense" in all fields of life and denounced what he characterised as "the bureaucracy": "a sordid set of self-willed men associated together, and armed, to obtain their own selfish ends and object, under the name of government".^{[8]: 166–171}

From 1855 to April 1857 Hodgskin published a series of articles setting out his views on the criminal system in The Economist which led to the magazine's proprietor, James Wilson, breaking with him. Hodgskin then developed his theme in two lectures at St Martin's Hall.^[9]

Legacy

Hodgskin was a pioneer of anti-capitalism, individualist anarchism and libertarian socialism.^[10][11] 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.^[4]