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 atten… - Thomas Hodgskin

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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…

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About Thomas Hodgskin

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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It is a not less important question, who is the law-maker, who made, who makes, who enforces obedience to these rules and practices? Can he show a title bestowed upon him by nature, derived from the laws of his organization, and the constitution of the universe, to have and to own, and to appropriate all the wealth that is created? Now it is an important fact, but it is so obvious that one is sneered at for drawing a deduction from it, that the law has always been, and is at present made, by men who are not labourers. It is actually made by those who derive from nature no title whatever to any wealth. But as law in fact is only a general name for the will of the law-maker, being, the expression of his desire to have wealth, and retain power and dominion, it is clear that in making laws for the appropriation of property, he will not, consistently with nature, give to every one what he produces. This object always has been, and now is, so to dispose of the annual produce as will best tend to preserve his power. Nature rewards industry and skill, the legislator be he who he may, is utterly regardless of the connection between industry and plenty.

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.

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