History of Economics, Socialism - General & Miscellaneous, 19th Century British History - Victorian Era (1837-1901), 18th Century British History - Georgian Era (1715-1837), 20th Century British History - Politics & Government, Working Class, Great Britai

The Real Rights of Man

Name: The Real Rights of Man
Author: Noel Thompson
ISBN: 9780745312705

by Noel Thompson

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Overview

Between 1775 and 1850, Britain was transformed from a country of largely rural communities into one built on the foundations of industrial capitalism. With this volume Noel Thompson provides an introduction to the plurality of anti-capitalist and socialist political economies which this development provoked; political economies which aimed to order the experience of the working class; to analyze the causes of their powerlessness and impoverishment and point to the manner and means by which they might fundamentally improve their material condition. Noel Thompson examines the writings of, amongst others, Thomas Spence, William Ogilvie, Thomas Hodgskin, William Thompson, Robert Owen, John Gray, John Francis Bray, Ernest Jones, "Bronterre" O'Brien and George Harney --- writers who argued that the real rights of man must be grounded in the possession of economic power and who, in many cases, worked with an economic conception and language of class and class antagonism. This book not only provides a lively introduction to the origins of anti-capitalist and socialist political economy, but also fundamentally challenges the notion of an ideological continuity between the work of these writers and the doctrines of political radicalism which has been advanced by Stedman Jones and others.