atest happiness principle' as applicable to the
social problem. He argues for equality upon Bentham's ground. Take a
penny from a poor man to give it to the rich man, and the poor man
clearly loses far more happiness than the rich man gains. With
Bentham, too, he admits the importance of 'security,' and agrees that
it is not always compatible with equality. A man should have the
fruits of his labour; and therefore the man who labours most should
have most. But, unlike Bentham, he regards equality as more important
than security. To him the main consideration is the monstrous mass of
evil resulting from vast accumulations of wealth in a few hands. In
the next place, he adapts to his own purpose the Ricardian theory of
value. All value whatever, he argues, is created by labour. The
labourer, he infers, should have the value which he creates. As things
are, the labourer parts with most of it to the capitalist or the owner
of rents. The capitalist claims a right to the whole additional
production due to the employment of capital. The labourer, on the
other hand, may claim a right to the whole additional production,
after replacing the wear and tear and allowing to the capitalist
enough to support him in equal comfort with the productive
labourers.[459] Thompson holds that while either system would be
compatible with 'security,' the labourer's demand is sanctioned by
'equality.' In point of fact, neither system has been fully carried
out; but the labourer's view would tend to prevail with the spread of
knowledge and justice. While thus anticipating later Socialism, he
differs on a significant point. Thompson insists upon the importance
of 'voluntary exchange' as one of his first principles. No one is to
be forced to take what he does not himself think a fair equivalent for
his labour. Here, again, he would coincide with the Utilitarians.
They, not less than he, were for free trade and the abolition of every
kind of monopoly. But that view may lead by itself to the simple
adoption of the do-nothing principle, or, as modern Socialists would
say, to the more effectual plunder of the poor. The modern Socialist
infers that the means of production must be in some way nationalised.
Thompson does not contemplate such a consummation. He denounces, like
all the Radicals of the day, monopolies and conspiracy laws. Sinecures
and standing armies and State churches are the strongholds of tyranny
and superstition. The 'hereditary possession