Ricardian socialism is a branch of classical economic thought based upon the work of the economist

David Ricardo David Ricardo (18 April 1772 – 11 September 1823) was a British political economist. He was one of the most influential of the classical economists along with Thomas Malthus, Adam Smith and James Mill. Ricardo was also a politician, and a m ...

(1772–1823). The term is used to describe economists in the 1820s and 1830s who developed a theory of capitalist exploitation from the theory developed by Ricardo that stated that labor is the source of all wealth and

exchange value In political economy and especially Marxian economics, exchange value (German: ''Tauschwert'') refers to one of the four major attributes of a commodity, i.e., an item or service produced for, and sold on the market, the other three attributes b ...

. This principle extends back to the principles of English philosopher

John Locke John Locke (; 29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704) was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "father of liberalism". Considered one of ...

. The Ricardian socialists reasoned that labor is entitled to all it produces, and that rent,

profit Profit may refer to: Business and law * Profit (accounting), the difference between the purchase price and the costs of bringing to market * Profit (economics), normal profit and economic profit * Profit (real property) A profit (short for ...

and

interest In finance and economics, interest is payment from a borrower or deposit-taking financial institution to a lender or depositor of an amount above repayment of the principal sum (that is, the amount borrowed), at a particular rate. It is disti ...

were not natural outgrowths of the

free market In economics, a free market is an economic system in which the prices of goods and services are determined by supply and demand expressed by sellers and buyers. Such markets, as modeled, operate without the intervention of government or any o ...

process but were instead distortions. They argued that private ownership of the

means of production The means of production is a term which describes land, labor and capital that can be used to produce products (such as goods or services); however, the term can also refer to anything that is used to produce products. It can also be used as an ...

should be supplanted by

cooperatives A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-contro ...

owned by associations of workers. This designation is used in reference to economists in the early 19th century that elaborated a theory of capitalist exploitation from the classical economic proposition derived from

Adam Smith Adam Smith (baptized 1723 – 17 July 1790) was a Scottish economist and philosopher who was a pioneer in the thinking of political economy and key figure during the Scottish Enlightenment. Seen by some as "The Father of Economics"——� ...

and David Ricardo stating that labor is the source of wealth. Although Ricardian socialist thought had some influence on

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

's theories, there is disagreement about the extent to which this is the case. Some believe Marx rejected many of the fundamental assumptions of the Ricardian socialists, including the view that labor was the source of all wealth; while others believe the Ricardian socialists, though "generally dismissed as incoherent utopians", were in fact "an important though very largely neglected" influence on Marxist economic theories.

Economics

Ricardian socialism is considered to be a form of socialism based on the arguments made by Ricardo that the equilibrium value of commodities approximated producer prices when those commodities were in elastic supply, that these producer prices corresponded to the embodied labor and that profit, interest and rent were deductions from this exchange-value. This is deduced from the axiom of Ricardo and Adam Smith that labor is the source of all value. The first imputation that early British and Irish socialists were influenced by Ricardo is made by

in his 1846 '' Poverty of Philosophy'':

Anyone who is in any way familiar with the trend of political economy in England cannot fail to know that almost all the Socialists in that country have, at different periods, proposed the equalitarian application of the Ricardian theory. We quote for M. Proudhon: Hodgskin, Political Economy, 1827; William Thompson, An Inquiry into the Principles of the Distribution of Wealth Most Conducive to Human Happiness, 1824; T. R. Edmonds, Practical Moral and Political Economy, 1828 8 etc., etc., and four pages more of etc. We shall content ourselves with listening to an English Communist, Mr. Bray. We shall give the decisive passages in his remarkable work, Labor's Wrongs and Labor's Remedy, Leeds, 1839...

The link is later re-asserted by

Herbert Foxwell Herbert Somerton Foxwell, FBA (17 June 1849 – 3 August 1936) was an English economist. Biography Foxwell was born in Somerset, the son of an ironmonger and slate and timber merchant. He received his early education at the Wesleyian Collegi ...

in his introduction to the English translation of Anton Menger's "The Right to the Whole Produce of Labor" (1899). Consequently, the category of Ricardian socialist came to be accepted by supporters and opponents both of Marxism by the early 20th century. However, in recent years a number of scholars have challenged the validity of the category based on the lack of evidence that its proposed members had either read Ricardo's "Principles of Political Economy" or the contradictory internal evidence of their own value theory which appears to owe more to

than Ricardo. So much so that several scholars prefer the term "Smithian Socialism".

Ricardian socialists

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 ...

* Charles Hall * John Francis Bray * John Gray * William Thompson *

Percy Ravenstone Piercy Ravenstone was a pseudonym used by a nineteenth-century political economist whose work led him to being variously described as a socialist, a tory and as an institutionalist. His contribution was noted by David Ricardo and Karl Marx and br ...

References

Bibliography

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External links

"Utopians and Socialists", ''History of Economic Thought,'' New School for Social Research
{{History of economic thought Eponymous economic ideologies Market socialism Classical economics Eponymous political ideologies Types of socialism

Economics

Ricardian socialists

See also

References

Bibliography

External links