Bibliographie
Primary sources
Anon, "Lecture on Cooperation." Manchester Times & Gazette (Manchester), 4 June 1831
Bentham, Jeremy, "Constitutional Code, vol. 1." In The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham, eds. F. Rosen and J. H. Burns (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1983)
Bentham, Jeremy, The Correspondence of Jeremy Bentham: January 1817 to June 1820, ed. S. Conway, vol. 9 (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1989)
Bentham, Jeremy, A Fragment on Government, eds. J. H. Burns and H. L. A. Hart (Cambridge England, and New York, Cambridge University Press, 1988)
Bentham, Jeremy, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, eds. J.H. Burns and H.L.A. Hart, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996)
Bentham, Jeremy, "Supply without Burthen or Escheat Vice Taxation", in Jeremy Bentham's Economic Writings: Critical Edition Based on His Printed Works and Unprinted Manuscripts, ed. W. Stark (New York, Burt Franklin, 1952), pp. 279-367
Bentham, Jeremy, The Theory of Legislation, trad. Richard Hildreth, eds. E. Dumont and C.K. Ogden (London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1931)
Carpenter, William, "Proceedings of the Third Cooperative Congress", in Owenism and the Working Class: Six Pamphlets and Four Broadsides, 1821-1834 (New York, Arno Press, 1972)
Mill, John Stuart, Autobiography (London and New York, Penguin Books, 1989)
Owen, Robert. "Report to the County of Lanark", in A New View of Society and Other Writings, ed. G. Claeys (London, Penguin Classics, 1991), pp. 250-308
Smith, Adam, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, ed. E. Canaan. (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1976)
Thompson, William, Appeal of One Half of the Human Race, Women, against the Pretensions of the Other Half, Men, to Retain Them in Political, and Thence in Civil and Domestic, Slavery; in Reply to a Paragraph of Mr. Mill's Celebrated "Article on Government", ed. D. Dooley (Cork, Ireland, Cork University Press, 1997)
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 (New York, B. Franklin, 1968)
Thompson, William, "Labor Rewarded: The Claims of Labor and Capital Conciliated: Or, How to Secure to Labor the Whole Products of Its Exertions", in Ricardian Socialism, ed. David Reisman (London, Pickering & Chatto, 1996)
Thompson, William, Practical Directions for the Speedy and Economical Establishment of Communities on the Principles of Mutual Co-Operation, United Possessions and Equality of Exertions and of the Means of Enjoyments (London, Strange, and E. Wilson, 1830)
U.N., Status and Role of Cooperatives in the Light of New Social and Economic Trends: Report of the Secretary-General (New York, NY, United Nations, 1992)
U.N., Status and Role of Cooperatives in the Light of New Economic and Social Trends: Report of the Secretary-General (New York, United Nations, 1994)
Secondary sources
Beer, Max, A History of British Socialism (New York, The Humanities Press, 1940)
Bevir, Mark, The Making of British Socialism (Princeton and Oxford, Princeton University Press, 2011)
Claeys, Gregory, "'Individualism,' 'Socialism,' and 'Social Science': Further Notes on a Process of Conceptual Formation, 1800-1850", Journal of the History of Ideas 47, 1 (1986), pp. 81-93
Claeys, Gregory, Machinery, Money, and the Millennium: From Moral Economy to Socialism, 1815-60 (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1987)
Cole, G.D.H., A Century of Co-Operation (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1944)
Epshtein, David, "Cooperative Movement in the Soviet Union: History and Future Prospects", in Agricultural Cooperatives in Transition, eds. C. Csaki and Y. Kislev (New York, Routledge, 2021), pp. 291-99
Hardt, Michael, and Antonio Negri, Assembly (New York, Oxford University Press, 2017)
Harrison, J. F. C., Quest for the New Moral World: Robert Owen and the Owenites in Britain and America (New York, Scribner, 1969)
Hunt, E.K., "Utilitarianism and the Labor Theory of Value: A Critique of the Ideas of William Thompson", History of Political Economy 11, 4 (Winter 1979), pp. 545-571
Jevons, W. Stanley, The Theory of Political Economy (New York, Augustus M. Kelley, 1965)
Kaswan, Mark J., Happiness, Democracy and the Cooperative Movement: The Radical Utilitarianism of William Thompson (Albany, NY, State University of New York Press, 2014)
Kaswan, Mark J., "Cooperatives and the Question of Democracy", Zeitschrift für Gemeinwirtschaft und Gemeinwohl/Journal of Social Economy and Common Welfare 44, 4 (2021), pp. 486-500
Kelly, P. J., Utilitarianism and Distributive Justice: Jeremy Bentham and the Civil Law (Oxford and New York, Clarendon Press / Oxford University Press, 1990)
King, J.E., "Utopian or Scientific? A Reconsideration of the Ricardian Socialists", History of Political Economy 15, 3 (1983), pp. 345-73
Laidler, Harry W., History of Socialism: An Historical Comparative Study of Socialism, Communism, Utopia (United Kingdom, Taylor & Francis, 2013)
Lichtheim, George, A Short History of Socialism (New York, Washington, Praeger Publishers, 1971)
Lowenthal, Esther, The Ricardian Socialists (New York, Columbia University, 1911)
Menger, Anton, The Right to the Whole Produce of Labour, ed. H. S. Foxwell (New York, Augustus M. Kelley, 1962)
Ogden, C.K., "Introduction", in Bentham, Jeremy, The Theory of Legislation, ed. C.K. Ogden (London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1931)
Pankhurst, Richard K.P., William Thompson (1775-1833): Britain's Pioneer Socialist, Feminist, and Co-Operator (London, Pluto Press, 1991)
Pateman, Carole, The Sexual Contract (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1988)
Rhodes, Rita, "The Internationalism of the Co-Operative Movement", in Towards the Co-Operative Commonwealth: Essays in the History of Co-Operation, eds. B. Lancaster and P. Maguire (Loughborough, The Co-operative College, 1996), pp. 105-108
Rosen, Frederick, "Introduction", in An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1996)
Schofield, Philip, Utility and Democracy: The Political Thought of Jeremy Bentham (Oxford, England, Oxford University Press, 2006)
Stark, W., "Liberty and Equality Or: Jeremy Bentham as an Economist", The Economic Journal 51, 201 (April 1941), pp. 56-79.
Watkins, W.P., Co-Operative Principles: Today & Tomorrow (Manchester, Holyoake Books, 1986
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Notes
Claeys, Gregory, "'Individualism,' 'Socialism,' and 'Social Science': Further Notes on a Process of Conceptual Formation, 1800-1850," Journal of the History of Ideas 47, 1 (1986), pp. 81-93; see also Beer, Max, A History of British Socialism (New York, The Humanities Press, 1940), pp. 185-87.
Mill never cites Thompson in his work, but after one has read Thompson it is impossible not to see his influence on Mill. In his autobiography Mill has a brief passage where he makes his only reference to Thompson, calling him a “most estimable man with whom I was well acquainted,” Mill, John Stuart, Autobiography (London & New York, Penguin Books, 1989), p. 106.
Harrison, J.F.C., Quest for the New Moral World: Robert Owen and the Owenites in Britain and America (New York, Scribner, 1969), p. 64.
Menger, Anton, The Right to the Whole Produce of Labour, ed. H. S. Foxwell (New York, Augustus M. Kelley, 1962), pp. 101-102. Marx does not reference Thompson often, but there is no doubt that he was familiar with Thompson’s work, with the Inquiry, at least. His regard for Thompson is evident in the fact that Marx, who is critical of just about every author he cites, offers no criticism of Thompson, even after quoting long passages. One of the factors that may have affected Thompson’s reputation is that when Engels published some of Marx’s work after his death, he cited an abridged edition of the Inquiry, Thompson’s primary work (discussed below), rather than the full version. However, the abridged version has significant gaps that substantially diminish the power of its argument. The effects of this can be plainly seen in one of the only modern journal articles in the history of political economics focused on Thompson’s thought, in which the author effectively concludes that the problem with Thompson is that he isn’t radical enough. See Hunt, E.K.,"Utilitarianism and the Labor Theory of Value : A Critique of the Ideas of William Thompson," History of Political Economy 11, 4 (Winter 1979), pp. 545-571. But because Hunt references the abridged version—and only the abridged version—he misses important elements of Thompson’s argument.
Lowenthal, Esther, The Ricardian Socialists (New York, Columbia University, 1911), pp. 15-46.
King, J.E., "Utopian or scientific? A reconsideration of the Ricardian Socialists," History of Political Economy 15, 3 (1983), pp. 345-373 ; see also Claeys, Gregory, Machinery, Money, and the Millennium : From Moral Economy to Socialism, 1815-60 (Cambridge, Polity Press, 1987), pp. xxii-xxiii.
Beer, M., A History of British Socialism, p. 184, pp. 218-228.
For example, Thompson is not mentioned in any of Laidler’s 984 pages on the history of socialism. See Laidler, Harry W., History of Socialism : An Historical Comparative Study of Socialism, Communism, Utopia (United Kingdom, Taylor & Francis, 2013). Lichtheim only mentions him in passing as one of the Ricardian Socialists. See Lichtheim, George, A Short History of Socialism (New York, Washington, Praeger Publishers, 1971), 40. Bevir doesn’t mention him at all. See Bevir, Mark, The Making of British Socialism (Princeton & Oxford, Princeton University Press, 2011).
To be clear, he is one of many, including many who are often ignored. However, I hope to show in this paper just how important his ideas were. See Kaswan, Mark J., Happiness, Democracy and the Cooperative Movement : The Radical Utilitarianism of William Thompson (Albany, NY, State University of New York Press, 2014) for a fuller discussion of Thompson’s role than is possible in this paper.
The big difference between Thompson and modern forms of socialism has to do with the role of the state. Thompson is skeptical about state institutions and has doubts about representative democracy, so while he is not actively opposed to the concept of state governance, he doesn’t have all that much to say about the role of the state in a socialist society. Instead, the theoretical focus for Thompson is on the cooperative community.
There is a vast and rich literature from and on Bentham and his ideas. This paper largely avoids that literature, in order to maintain a focus on William Thompson and his work. However, as Thompson can best be understood as reacting to and drawing from Bentham, I feel that an understanding of Thompson requires some engagement with him. However, that engagement is limited so as not to distract from the main focus.
Bentham, Jeremy, A Fragment on Government, eds. J. H. Burns and H. L. A. Hart (Cambridge, England, & New York, Cambridge University Press, 1988).
Bentham, Jeremy, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, eds. J.H. Burns and H.L.A. Hart (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1996).
Bentham, Jeremy, "Constitutional Code, vol. 1," in The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham, eds. F. Rosen and J. H. Burns (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1983).
There is some controversy over whether the Traités should be authentically considered to be Bentham’s work. In his introduction to the 1931 edition, C.K. Ogden notes that Bentham gave Dumont a free hand in making revisions, although toward the end of his life he said of Dumont “in a moment of annoyance…, ‘He does not understand a word of my meaning.’”. See "Introduction," in The Theory of Legislation, ed. C.K. Ogden (London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1931), p. xlvii. Yet earlier he had been full of praise for it, suggesting that it was the best available presentation of his work. See The Correspondence of Jeremy Bentham : January 1817 to June 1820, ed. Stephen Conway, vol. 9 (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1989), p. 360. However, any contemporary controversy over the Traités is irrelevant because it is Thompson’s work that we are interested in here and, as will be seen, Thompson specifically references that work as his principal source. Since Thompson spent some considerable time with Bentham, we may assume that he had a good understanding of Bentham’s ideas, and his referencing of the Traités should be sufficient to establish their authenticity as Bentham’s ideas, at least for the purposes of this paper.
Bentham, Jeremy, The Theory of Legislation, trans. R. Hildreth, eds. E. Dumont and C.K. Ogden (London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, Ltd., 1931), p. 98.
Bentham, J., Theory, p. 97.
Bentham, J., Theory, p. 104.
Bentham, J., Theory, p. 105.
Bentham, J., Theory, p. 108.
Rosen, Frederick, "Introduction," in An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1996), xxxvii; Stark, W., "Liberty and Equality or: Jeremy Bentham as an Economist," The Economic Journal 51, 201 (April 1941), p. 69.
As Stark puts it, the poor would “starve themselves into riches”. Stark, W., "Liberty and Equality," p. 76.
Bentham, J., Theory, p. 109-110.
Bentham, J., Theory, p. 116.
Bentham, J., Theory, p. 117.
Bentham, J., Theory, p. 120.
Kelly, P.J., Utilitarianism and Distributive Justice: Jeremy Bentham and the Civil Law (Oxford & New York, Clarendon Press; Oxford University Press, 1990); see also Jeremy Bentham, "Supply Without Burthen or Escheat Vice Taxation," in Jeremy Bentham's Economic Writings: Critical Edition Based on his Printed Works and Unprinted Manuscripts, ed. W. Stark (New York, Burt Franklin, 1952).
It is worth noting that, in his seminal work that is one of the cornerstones of neoclassical economics, Jevons takes Bentham as his starting point. Jevons, W. Stanley, The Theory of Political Economy (New York, Augustus M. Kelley, 1965), p. 26.
Bentham, IPML, p. 11.
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 (New York, B. Franklin, 1968), p. 1.
To be clear, Thompson never directly references Bentham’s subsidiary principles, with the exception of security and equality. What I offer here is an interpretation of Thompson’s ideas articulated as a corresponding set of principles. Subsistence and abundance receive little attention in the Inquiry, with which this paper is primarily concerned, although they make an appearance in a later work, Practical Directions for the Speedy and Economical Establishment of Communities on the Principles of Mutual Co-operation, United Possessions and Equality of Exertions and of the means of Enjoyments (London, Strange, and E. Wilson, 1830). There he considers the relationship between basic “necessaries,” “comforts,” and “superfluities.” Necessaries are always worth the labor of production ; comforts are not necessary but the pleasure produced by them offsets the labor of production ; and superfluities do not provide sufficient pleasure to offset the pain of the labor required to produce them (2).
Thompson, W., Inquiry, p. x.
Thompson, W. Inquiry, p. xiv, emphasis in the original.
Thompson, W., Inquiry, p. 178.
Although not often noted, Adam Smith says that “The produce of labour constitutes the natural recompence or wages of labour”. Smith, Adam, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 5th ed., ed. E. Canaan (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1976), p. 72.
I do not mean to suggest that racial domination and the oppression of women by men are not features of our own times, but at least they are no longer directly enforced by statute. Thompson’s feminism is discussed below.
Per the Google Ngram tool, the term “capitalism” only came into common usage around 1880. The chart shows a short period of usage in the early 1830s, but closer examination shows that many of the publication dates reported in the database are incorrect. (Google Ngram search on “capitalism” conducted 28/7/2022.)
Thompson, W., Inquiry, pp. 384-391. See also Owen, Robert, "Report to the County of Lanark," in A New View of Society and Other Writings, ed. G. Claeys (London, Penguin Classics, 1991), pp. 250-308.
While Owen’s role as a visionary was of great importance, Thompson provides much greater substance and depth. It is not possible to determine what their personal relationship may have been like (Thompson’s correspondence has been lost, and there is but one letter between them in the Owen archives), but Thompson was quite critical of Owen on a number of points. This came to a head at the Third Cooperative Congress of 1832, where Owen was, for lack of a better term, ejected from the meeting and Thompson was named its leader in his stead. See Carpenter, William, "Proceedings of the Third Cooperative Congress," in Owenism and the Working Class : Six Pamphlets and Four Broadsides, 1821-1834 (New York, Arno Press, 1972).
Claeys, G., Machinery, Money, and the Millennium, p. 51. After seeing Owen speak in Dublin in 1822, Thompson referred to Owen’s plans as “merely ‘an improved system of pauper management’,” although his endorsement of Owenism is much stronger in the Inquiry. See Pankhurst, Richard K.P., William Thompson (1775-1833) : Britain’s Pioneer Socialist, Feminist, and Co-operator (London, Pluto Press, 1991), p. 15. He later became quite critical of Owen, particularly in the wake of the failure of the New Harmony community in the U.S. See Anon., "Lecture on Cooperation," Manchester Times & Gazette, 4 June 1831, p. 600.
Thompson distinguishes between selfishness and self-interest. Like any Benthamite he recognizes self-interest as the only rational motivation for taking action. Selfishness is the pursuit of self-interest in ways that have undesirable social consequences and are short-sighted.
While it might be easy to critique this as failing to recognize informal structures of power and dominance that might be expected to form despite every attempt to maintain equality, it is important to remember that Thompson’s theory is utopian in form. Thompson’s claim is that by removing the principal features of society that drive us apart—competition and private property—the reasons for people exercising dominance would disappear.
Thompson, W., Inquiry, pp. 212-213; 91-92.
Thompson, William, Appeal of One Half of the Human Race, Women, against the Pretensions of the Other Half, Men, to Retain them in Political, and Thence in Civil and Domestic, Slavery; in reply to a paragraph of Mr. Mill's celebrated "Article on Government", ed. D. Dooley (Cork, Ireland, Cork University Press, 1997). There is some confusion around Bentham’s position on women’s suffrage. After the French Revolution he was a strong advocate for universal suffrage—for France. Not for England. In a letter of 1792, he said he was, “a royalist in London…a republican in Paris” (quoted in Schofield, Philip, Utility and Democracy : The Political Thought of Jeremy Bentham (Oxford, England, Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 81). In the 1817 Radical Reform Bill he explicitly excluded women in his call for “virtual universality,” and again in one of his last works, the Constitutional Code. See Kaswan, M., Happiness, pp. 139–40.
Pateman, saying that Thompson “laid the foundation for subsequent feminist criticism of marriage as a contractual relation,” exclaims that, “The vehemence of his polemic has rarely been equaled.” See Carole Pateman, The Sexual Contract (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1988), p. 156. She also notes “striking similarities” between the Appeal and John Stuart Mill’s The Subjection of Women written some forty years later (p. 160).
Thompson, W., Inquiry, p. 595.
Thompson, William, "Labor Rewarded: The Claims of Labor and Capital Conciliated: or, How to Secure to Labor the Whole Products of its Exertions," in Ricardian Socialism, ed. D. Reisman (London, Pickering & Chatto, 1996), p. 122.
Cole, G.D.H., A Century of Co-operation (London, George Allen & Unwin, 1944), p. 25.
Harrison, J.F.C., Quest for the New Moral World, pp. 6, 27-32, 170-71.
Kaswan, M., Happiness, p. 6.
For example, David Epshtein discusses agricultural cooperatives in the early history of the Soviet Union. See Epshtein, David "Cooperative movement in the Soviet Union : History and future prospects," in Agricultural Cooperatives in Transition, eds. C. Csaki and Y. Kislev (New York, Routledge, 2021).
Fifty-seven percent in “developing countries,” 62% of “developed market economies,” and 70% of “transitional economies.” U.N., Status and role of cooperatives in the light of new economic and social trends : Report of the Secretary-General, A/49/213 (New York, United Nations, 1994). Since the 1990s, the U.N. has produced an annual “Cooperatives in Social Development” report.
Actually, this might be a good reason not to associate the cooperative movement with socialism, given the strong anti-socialist attitudes in the U.S. But that is a topic for another paper.
See Hardt, Michael, and Antonio Negri, Assembly (New York, Oxford University Press, 2017), chapter 4 for a recent example.
Kaswan, Mark J. "Cooperatives and the Question of Democracy," Zeitschrift für Gemeinwirtschaft und Gemeinwohl/Journal of Social Economy and Common Welfare 44, 4 (2021).
U.N., Status and role of cooperatives in the light of new social and economic trends: Report of the Secretary-General, A/47/216 (New York, NY, United Nations, 1992).
U.N., Status and role of cooperatives in the light of new economic and social trends: Report of the Secretary-General, A/49/213 (New York, NY, United Nations, 1994).
Rhodes, Rita, "The Internationalism of the Co-operative Movement," in Towards the Co-operative Commonwealth: Essays in the History of Co-operation, eds. B. Lancaster and P. Maguire (Loughborough, The Co-operative College, 1996).
See, e.g., Watkins, W.P., Co-operative Principles: Today & Tomorrow (Manchester, Holyoake Books, 1986), pp. 4-5.
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