William Thompson (philosopher)
William Thompson (* 1775 in Cork, † March 28, 1833 in Rosscarbery in Cork) was an Irish philosopher, writer and social reformer who further developed his views on utilitarianism towards an early critique of capitalist exploitation whose ideas both the cooperative, trade union - as also influenced the reform movement of the Chartists and Karl Marx inspired. In the Anglo- Irish society characterized by landowners and wealthy merchants of Corker society sparked his desire to leave his assets of the cooperative movement, after his death, one of the longest disputes in Irish legal history, since other branches of the family wanted to annul the testament.
Life
Thompson was born in Cork, the son and heir to one of the richest merchants of this city, the Assistant Secretary John Thompson, who held among other offices including that of Lord Mayor ( 1794). William inherited the small merchant fleet and put his fortune after the death of the Father ( 1814) in Glandore, West Cork on. Because he rejected the then common role of absentee landlords, he chose this as the center of life and invested in spite of his frequent trips a lot of time working with his tenants, with whom he planned agricultural improvements, public services and educational institutions to improve the situation of the population.
From childhood in poor health, Thompson was in the last 13 years of his life, Non smoking, teetotaler and vegetarian. The moderate lifestyle helped him according to his own statement while studying and writing. However, he suffered from the 30s to lung ailment in which he died on 28 March 1833. Thompson had never married and left no direct descendants.
Idea of historical contributions
As an avid student of the ideas and thinkers of the Enlightenment, especially Condorcet, Thompson became an advocate of egalitarianism and a staunch Democrat. His enthusiasm for the French Revolution brought him in Corker company called " Red Republicans " a; later his support of equal rights for Catholics alienated him in elections even further from its original Protestant class.
Thompson was deeply impressed by utilitarianism Jeremy Bentham, he joined with him in exchange of letters between them became friends; later ( 1821-22 ) he lived for several months while visiting London in the house of the English philosopher. As Bentham studied and corresponded Thompson with other utilitarian contemporaries, including David Ricardo, and was influenced in both positive and negatives of William Godwin and Thomas Malthus. His desire to overcome the limitations of Godwin's intellectual mind games and Malthus ' mechanistic mind games, let him formulate a synthesis of the two positions: Social Science - Thompson was the first who used this concept ( social science ) - would the national economic interests of scientific materialism with the utilitarian demands of a rational morality reconcile.
Contributions to Political Economy
The contrasting views of Godwin and Malthus inspired Thompson to advance his own research project on the role of distributive justice in the economy; it took him first to London, where he published his 1824 study of the fundamentals of human happiness conducive for distribution of wealth. Just as Malthus ' student David Ricardo also Thompson had become familiar with the work of the French utopian socialists, among them Charles Fourier, Henri de Saint- Simon and the Swiss economist Jean -Charles- Léonard de Sismondi Simonde.
In the argumentation Thompson follows the labor theory of value, which had set out Ricardo in his seven years earlier published Principles of Political Economy (Principles of Political Economy ). However, he characterizes the appropriation of the lion's share of the surplus value by the capitalist means of production as exploitation. He has the position of Malthus / Ricardo back that any increase in wages can only lead to the further impoverishment of the workers, not without pointing out the self-serving nature of such a theory, which makes it possible capitalists, called the disenfranchisement of workers, higher wages to legitimize. As he applied the utilitarian Maximum Happiness principle of the greatest good for the greatest number of existing and possible alternatives to the distribution of goods, Thompson takes the view of an egalitarian sales of goods.
John Minter Morgan, one of his colleagues in the Cooperative movement, noted that Thompson used the term competitive first ( based on competition ) for the description of the current economic system. Thompson also emphasizes originality Max Nettlau when he says: Thompson's book reveals his own development; starting with the demand for the entire product of labor [ for the workers ] and the control of distribution, he finally developed communist views, ie the unlimited distribution.
1827 published his companion, the Ricardian socialists Thomas Hodgskin, the work Labour Defended, which also denounced the appropriation of the lion 's share of the production gains from landowners and capitalists as exploitation, depriving the workers of the fruits of his labors. However Hodgskin suggested that the way to distributive justice for the worker on a reformed system of competition lead. Thompson replied with Scripture Labour Rewarded, in which he defended the cooperative communism Hodgskin unequal wages.
Feminism
Although Thompson rejected the political and economic predictions of Malthus ' essay on population, he realized that especially in Ireland unchecked population growth, the risk of increasing impoverishment of the population harbored in itself. In this respect he was like Jeremy Bentham and Francis Place a champion of contraception. Thompson's development of his critique of a contemporary view of the woman question was extraordinarily determined by his many years of close friendship with Anna Doyle Wheeler. He had met Wheeler at Bentham; both frequented the utilitarian circles of James Mill Its publication "On the state power" (On Government), which called for the male suffrage, the angry reaction of Wheeler and Thompson provoked and led them to the answer in her work an objection by one half of the human race ....
Influence on the co-operative movement
Opposition to Robert Owen
Thompson's views have been like the other pioneers of the cooperation movement, often identified with the ideas of Robert Owen. In fact, he was but the authoritarian and anti- democratic tendencies set to be very critical, even if Owens writings and the social experiments of New Lanark helped to form the co-operative movement. Thompson also displeased Owens Advertising richer and more powerful advocates, because he was of the opinion that the rich would never decide as a class in favor of any project of the poor, because that threatens their privileges. Thompson believed in the necessity that workers themselves would combine into cooperatives in order to enforce any country and capital entitlements. For this he won a considerable following, which differs from that represented Owens positions ..
These differences led to open conflict between Thompson and Owen at the Third Congress of the cooperative, which was held in London in 1832. Owen, who was perhaps disillusioned by the failure of the community of New Harmony, insisted on the need for support by government actions and stock market, and that we must invest in large community projects. Thompson and his supporters claimed, however, that one must establish small communities that could be discharged from the movement itself. At this congress, the issue is not resolved, the next time Thompson was not already present, five months later he died of his lung disease.
Influence on Karl Marx
Karl Marx was encountered Thompsons work during his visit to Manchester in 1845; he quotes it in The Poverty of Philosophy (1847 ) as well as in the capital. Of course, you can also tell from the other proto- socialist political economists such as Thomas Hodgskin, John Grey and John Francis Bray. So it is surprising that Beatrice and Sidney Webb Marx as "the most famous pupil " of Thompson and Hodgskin call. Such opinions also exist in Harold Laski and other British historians of socialism. You agree that the older view Anton Menger in the right to the full product of labor in historical representation to summarize all Mentioned in a more or less uniform category " Ricardian socialists ". The fundamental difference between Thompson's communist criticism and Hodgskin market liberalism gets by but out of sight.