Thomas Hodgskin Quotes

British writer (1787-1869)

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. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the term socialist included any opponent of capitalism, at the time defined as a construed political system built on privileges for the owners of capital.

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The journeymen, however, know their own interest better than it is known to the legislator; and they would be all richer if there were not an idle capitalist in the country.

But it is quite plain that the sum the weaver will be disposed to give for the thread will depend on his view of its utility.

The skill and the art of the labourer have been overlooked, and he has been vilified; while the work of his hands has been worshiped.

The labourers are still more unfortunate in being descended from bondsmen and serfs. Personal slavery or villanage formerly existed in Britain, and all the living labourers still suffer from the bondage of their ancestors.

It would be better for men to be deprived of education than to receive their education from their masters; for education, in that sense, is no better than the training of cattle that are broken to the yoke… The workers of London must proceed, like those of Glasgow, and found the new institution at their own expense.

The simple means of making the race frugal is to supply the wants of no man and to leave every man the produce of his own labour.

The evils of society cannot be remedied by acts of parliament.

The evil of confinement is not to be remedied by outrage, but it is so great an evil, that it looks like tameness of apathy to be perfectly resigned to it.

[T]he real business of men, what promotes their prosperity, is always better done by themselves than by any few separate and distinct individuals, acting as a government in the name of the whole.

Men had better be without education… than be educated by their rulers; for then education is but the mere breaking in of the steer to the yoke; the mere discipline of the hunting dog, which, by dint of severity, is made to forego the strongest impulse of his nature, and instead of devouring his prey, to hasten with it to the feet of his master.

The British government has hitherto been always so much occupied in devising means to secure its power, that it has been able to pay but little attention to the instruction of the people; nor do we wish that it should. The education of a free people, like their property, will always be directed most beneficially for them when it is in their own hands; when government interferes, it directs its efforts more to make men obedient and docile than wise and happy. It desires to control the thoughts and to fashion even the minds of its subjects…