William Thompson (philosopher): Difference between revisions

| name = William Thompson

Born into the [[Anglo-Irish]] [[Protestant Ascendancy|Ascendancy]] of wealthy landowners and merchants of [[Cork (city)|Cork]] society, his attempt to will his estate to the [[Agricultural cooperative|cooperative movement]] after his death sparked a long court case as his family fought successfully to have the will annulled.<ref>Fintan Lane, "William Thompson, bankruptcy and the west Cork estate, 1808-1834", in ''Irish Historical Studies'', vol. xxxix, no. 153 (May 2014), pp 24–39.</ref> According to E. T. Craig, this decision to will his estate to the cooperative movement was taken after a visit to the pioneering [[Ralahine]] Commune.

In the ''Inquiry'', Thompson follows the line of the [[labour theory of value]] put forward by [[Adam Smith]]. However he characterizes the appropriation of the lion's sharemajority of "[[surplus value]]" – a term he coined, though it was later popularized by Marx<ref>{{cite bookjournal |first=Anton |last=Menger |authorlinkauthor-link=Anton Menger |title=The Right to the Whole Produce of Labour |journal=Nature |year=1899 |pagevolume=59 |issue=1537 |url=https://archive.org/details/righttowholepro00menggoog/page/n225 p|page=101|doi=10.1038/059555a0 |bibcode=1899Natur..59..555A |s2cid=9110691 101}}</ref> – by the capitalist owner of the tools of production as exploitation. He rejects the Malthus/Mill proposition that any increase in the wage of the workers can only result in their further [[immiseration]], noting the self-serving nature of this theory for capitalists pressing for legislation to outlaw workers efforts to raise their wages.

In 1827, fellow [[Ricardian socialist]] [[Thomas Hodgskin]] published ''Labour Defended'' which also characterised the appropriation of the lion's sharemajority of the fruits of production by landlord and capitalist as exploitation defrauding the worker of the full product of their labour.

Thompson became a non-smoker, [[Teetotalism|teetotaller]] and [[Vegetarianism|vegetarian]] for the last 17 years of his life.<ref name="Pankhurst 1954">Pankhurst, Richard. (1954). ''William Thompson (1775-1833): Britain's Pioneer Socialist, Feminist, and Co-operator''. Watts. p. 8</ref><ref>Feehan, John. (2003). ''Farming in Ireland: History, Heritage and Environment''. University College Dublin. p. 105</ref> These abstemious habits, he explained, helped him to concentrate on his reading and writing.<ref name="Pankhurst 1954"/>

Thompson ate bread and jam for breakfast and he would lunch on potatoes and turnips.<ref name="Pankhurst 1954"/> He did not eat butter or eggs but was fond of [[honey]]. Honey was produced in large quantities on his farm and Thompson supplied his workers with his favourite beverage, honey tea.<ref name="Pankhurst 1954"/>

[[Thorstein Veblen]] has said Marx had a "large...unacknowledged debt" to Thompson.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/veblen/soc-econ.htm |title = The Socialist Economics of Karl Marx and His Followers-1}}</ref> [[Harold Laski]] remarks that Thompson "laid the foundations" for Marxism.<ref>{{Cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nFilAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA219&dqq=harold+laski+william+thompson#v=onepage&qpg=harold%20laski%20william%20thompson&f=falsePA219 |title = Happiness, Democracy, and the Cooperative Movement: The Radical Utilitarianism of William Thompson|isbn = 9781438452050|last1 = Kaswan|first1 = Mark J.|date = 21 May 2014}}</ref> [[James Connolly]] held Thompson in high regard saying he was an "original thinker, a pioneer of Socialist thought, superior to any of the Utopian Socialists of the Continent" who had "a merciless fidelity to truth".<ref name="marxists.org">{{Cite web|url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1910/lih/chap10.htm|title=James Connolly: Labour in Irish History - Chapter 10|website=www.marxists.org}}</ref> [[Herbert Foxwell]] believed Thompson to be "the first writer to elevate the question of the just distribution of wealth to the supreme position it has since held in English political economy. Up to his time political economy had been rather commercial than industrial".<ref>https://www. name="marxists.org"/archive/connolly/1910/lih/chap10.htm</ref>

[[Karl Marx]] had come across Thompson's work on a visit to Manchester in 1845, and cites it in passing in ''The Poverty of Philosophy'' (1847), and also in ''Capital'' itself.{{sfn|Marx|1992|pp. =397–399}} Thompson's "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" is acknowledged by Marx as one of the works on political economy he studied.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.ria.ie/news/dictionary-irish-biography/karl-marx-and-dib|title=Karl Marx and the DIB|date=3 May 2018|website=Royal Irish Academy}}</ref>

* [[James Connolly|Connolly, James]], [https://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1910/lih/chap10.htm 'The first Irish socialist: A forerunner of Marx'] in ''Labour in Irish History'', (Dublin, 1910; London, 1987)

* {{cite book |last=Marx, |first=Karl ''|title=Capital: A critique of Political Economy,'' Volume |volume=2, trans.|translator-first= David |translator-last=Fernbach, |location=London: |publisher=Penguin / New Left Review [Originally: Pelican Books], |year=1992 [|orig-year=1978]: |pages=397–399.}}

[[Category:19th-century Irish philosophers]]

[[Category:CooperativeIrish cooperative organizers]]

[[Category:FeministScholars philosophersof feminist philosophy]]

[[Category:PeopleActivists from Cork (city)]]

[[Category:VegetarianismUtopian activistssocialists]]