Thomas Hodgskin, Ricardian socialist, and very possibly the major pre-Marxian socialist political economist. (I tend to read few chapters of Capital vol.1 as Marx’s attack on Hodgskin, but maybe that’s just me.) He went to sea when he was 12, and served with the Navy until he retired at 25, publishing An Essay on Naval Discipline in 1813. Having travelled in Germany and moved to Edinburgh, he returned impoverished to London in 1822 and started writing for the Morning Chronicle. His major works were published over the following years: Labour Defended Against the Claims of Capital in 1825, a course of lectures for the mechanics’ institute published in 1827 as Popular Political Economy, and The Artificial and Natural Right of Property Contrasted in 1832. (He later wrote pamphlets for the Anti-Corn Law League, and wrote for The Economist, which I suppose helps to explain why his works appear at both the Online Library of Liberty and over at marxists.org.) Born at Chatham, 12 December 1787; died Feltham, 21 August 1869.
A few snippets of Hodgskin over the fold…