Remembering is always good and necessary - William Thompson( of Clonkeen, Cork): a very interesting article

Saoradh Tír Eoghain
July 14, 2017 ·
 Saoradh believe that , William Thompson of Clonkeen , Roscarberry , Co Cork , demands recognition as the formulator of the economic theories usually associated with Karl Marx.
Thompson was the anticipator of many Marxian theories and thus could be described as the founding father or Scientific Socialism. Harold S Lanski , in introducing the Communist Manifesto , says that Thompson laid the foundations which Marx and Engels brought so remarkably to completion.
William Thompson was born in Cork City in 1775 , one of the Protestant Ascendancy class who had acquired land in Ireland in 1682-6. Thompson was thirty nine years old when he inherited his father's estate's - 1,400 acres and a trading fleet - in 1814. But he was not a businessman. On inheriting his father's estate he was confronted with the Irish land question , immediately ceasing to be an absentee landlord and giving his tenants lease's on such generous terms that he brought about the wrath of the Establishment about his head . He became obsessed with a sense of guilt for living on rents , " the produce of the effort's of other's " .
Thompson became interested in Bentham's doctrine of Unitarianism and then he studied the economic theories of David Ricardo , who argued that the value of a commodity was equal to the value of the labour that produced it . Under capitalism the labourer was paid the lowest wage that market competition for labour determined . The rest of the produce went to the capitalist in profit and interest . Few explained this as clearly as Thompson , certainty no one worked out the economic significance more clearly and it is this that made Thompson the founding figure of Scientific Socialism . The concept of surplus value is the fundamental principle of Marxist Socialism .
In 1824 Thompson published his 276,000 word work : AN INQUIRY INTO THE PRINCIPLES OF DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH MOST CONDUCTIVE TO HUMAN HAPPINESS . In this work Thompson became the first writer to explain the evolution towards Socialism and that the rich as a class would oppose the advance of the majority towards agalitarian society .A few individuals , he added ,may rise above the impulses of their class ------ but these will be the exception's .
Thompson's work had an electrifying effect on workers movement's growing in Europe . John Minter Morgan acclaimed the work as a masterpiece . Robert Owen distributed his work and when he set to establish his commune in America he took large numbers of copies with him . Thompson was also an avowed feminist , a ceaseless advocate of women's emancipation . In 1824 , Thompson took part in the historic debates of the co- operator's at Chancery Lane and Red Lion Square London
When it was believed that the term socialism was first coined .
In Thompson's day the discussion among pioneer socialist's was not that of the Marxian era - eg - whether socialism could be achieved in one country surrounded by a capitalist world . The discussion was whether socialism , or communes , could succeed in one district .
Thompson was no mere theoretician and he had long urged the establishment of commune's . In 1826 , Thompson urged that communities should be formed " not only by agriculturalists alone to produce food , but by labourers and tradesmen of every description to supply each other with all the comforts as well as the necessities of life " . In 1827 ,Thompson published "A PROSPECTUS OF THE CORK CO-OPERATIVE COMMUNITY". In this Thompson proposed a community of 2,000 people , each having one acre of land . The constitution provided complete freedom of thought and expression ; religion was a private thing , women were eligible for advancement to any office to which their talent might lead them " idlers and persons with vicious tendencies would if deemed irreclaimable by mild treatment " be exiled from the commune .
In July , 1830 , Thompson's most important work was published : PRACTICAL DIRECTIONS FOR THE SPEEDY AND ECONOMIC ESTABLISHMENT OF COMMUNITIES ,ON THE PRINCIPLE OF MUTUAL CO- OPERATION , UNITED POSSESSIONS , EQUALITY OF EXERTIONS AND THE MEANS OF ENJOYMENT. This work placed Thompson rather than Owen , in the forefront of the Co- operative movement and , because of Thompson's more radical , revolutionary socialist outlook . He pressed his ideas for establishing communes but received no aid from Owen who saw Thompson as a threat to his position in the movement.
Thompson suffered from a chest ailment which grew steadily worse and on March 28 , 1833 ,he died aged fifty eight . Despite the fact that Thompson's works were still in print in the 1880s , he remains a largely unknown and overlooked figure to all but a few students of socialist history.
Saoradh salute William Thompson who rightly demands recognition as a pioneer who championed liberation.