The “Ricardian Socialists”

In the literature there is an extensive debate about the naming and recognition of the group of so-called “Ricardian socialists” (see, for example, Burkitt 1984; Kenyon 1997). In general these were often social scientists in the broad sense rather than economists, and can be considered a group of thinkers having in mind an alternative organization of the social system, more sensitive to workers’ needs.

Ravenstone denied the validity of the Malthusian progressions because he argued that the population tended to grow constantly in every place and every nation and there could not be an imbalance between population and resources since “every man brings into the world the means of his own sustenance” (Ravenstone 1821 [1997]: 23).

Among the “Ricardian socialists”, Thomas Hodgskin is considered the most liberal. He was firmly convinced that population growth was not an obstacle to the improve­ment of society but was in fact the main stimulus to human progress. This happened because the division of labour was explained as a consequence of population growth and therefore also indirectly of the growth of wealth produced (Kenyon 1997: xxxiii).

The eclectic William Thompson took up positions that were both liberal and socialist. He argued that population growth could be controlled in the cooperative society that he had theorized and that the reduction of the population, following Malthusian prescrip­tions, was not only hard to achieve but also counterproductive from the economic point of view (Kenyon 1997: ix-x).

Finally, John Gray also rejected Malthus’s theory on the grounds that its basic prin­ciples were inapplicable and pointless. Gray maintained that, first, it was not possible to argue that the human reproductive instinct was unchangeable if this might result only in a calamity from the environmental and economic point of view. Secondly, he denied that all living beings tended to reproduce above the limits of survival. Lastly, like the other authors analysed so far, he challenged the validity of the Malthusian progressions (Gray 1825).

As we have seen, in the social models these four authors put forward as an alternative to the kind of production described by the classical authors, they did not believe there would be an excessive growth of population, because the social and economic reorganiza­tion would lead to a better organization of production. There would be a higher level of production and essentially a better social order. This would happen because population and resources were not regulated by forces “external” to the capitalist system, namely, by the principle of population and the law of diminishing returns, but by mechanisms “internal” to the system, determined over time, which set limits on production resulting in the population being relatively excessive.