Thomas Hodgskin

He was a Ricardian socialist. At the age of 12, he enlisted in the Royal Navy and was promoted to officer, but in 1812, he was discharged for disobeying his captain. After his discharge, he criticized the naval discipline that forced sailors to be conscripted and required absolute obedience to the captain, and summarized his proposal for reform based on utilitarian legal thought in An Essay on Naval Discipline (1813). After studying philosophy at the University of Edinburgh, he returned to London, and with the help of Francis Place (1771-1854), who was a friend of labor movement leaders and philosophical radicals, he traveled around the European continent from October 1815 for three years just after the Napoleonic Wars, observing politics and society through the eyes of the people. After returning to Edinburgh, he wrote Travels in the North of Germany (1820), which compares his experiences on the continent during the post-war reactionary period with those of England. Influenced by the Scottish Enlightenment, he abandoned utilitarian legal thought and advocated anarchism based on natural right ownership, which holds that labor is the only source of ownership, and individual freedom. He rejected Ricardo's differential rent theory and Malthus' population theory, and based his argument on Smith's absolute rent theory and labor theory of value, clearly demonstrating the injustice of rent and profits. He lived in London from around 1822-1823, and while working as a newspaper reporter, he participated in the publication of a magazine for educating workers and the establishment of a school. His book Labour Defended against the Claims of Capital (1825), which defended the unity of workers to obtain fair wages for their labor, was influential in the labor movement of the time.

[Takeharu Kamata]

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

リカード派社会主義者。12歳でイギリス海軍に志願し、士官に昇進したが、1812年に艦長に反抗したかどで退役処分になった。退役後、水兵の強制徴募や艦長への絶対服従を強制する海軍紀律を批判し、功利主義法思想による改革案を『海軍紀律に関する小論』An Essay on Naval Discipline（1813）にまとめた。エジンバラ大学で哲学などを勉強してロンドンに戻り、労働運動指導者や哲学的急進主義者と交友の多いプレースFrancis Place（1771―1854）の助力で1815年10月から3年間ナポレオン戦争直後のヨーロッパ大陸を旅行し、民衆の目で政治・社会を観察した。帰国後エジンバラで、戦後反動期の大陸での体験をイギリスと対比した『北ドイツ旅行』Travels in the North of Germany（1820）を著した。スコットランド啓蒙(けいもう)の影響を受けた彼は功利主義法思想を脱却して、労働だけが所有の根源であるとする自然権的所有と個人の自由を基盤にした無政府主義を主張し、リカードの差額地代論やマルサスの人口論を否定し、スミスの絶対地代論と労働価値論に依拠して地代と利潤の不当性を明確にした。1822～1823年ころからロンドンに住み、新聞記者のかたわら労働者教育のための雑誌の発行や学校の設立に参加した。また、労働の正当な報酬を獲得するための労働者の団結を弁護した『労働擁護論』Labour Defended against the Claims of Capital（1825）は、当時の労働運動に影響力をもった。

［鎌田武治］

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