Category: Political Theorists, Philosophers and Economists

I first encountered Jeremy Bentham (1745-1832) in my O-level history class. Miss Brown expounded briefly upon Utilitarianism, adding “Bentham is a philosopher of whom you would approve, Josephine.”  She was right: while her conservative values made Bentham anathema to her, I warmed to his radical, democratic view that “the greatest happiness of the greatest number…is the measure of right and wrong.”

Bentham had reasoned,

Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do.

The greatest happiness principle consisted in the predominance of pleasure over pain.

JS Mill later distinguished between higher and lower pleasures, asserting that human happiness could not be reduced to mere sensual pleasure and that it was better to be an unhappy Socrates than a happy pig:

It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question.

But for Bentham it was essential that the principle applied to all individuals equally. All pleasures, intellectual or physical, were accorded equal weight in his ethical calculations.

He measured individual pain and pleasure by the “felicific calculus” taking account of their intensity, duration, certainty, proximity, purity, extent and productive nature.

Yet this universal hedonism would not result in selfish and thoughtless egoism, for people would realise that their own interests were inextricably linked with the interests and good of others and adapt their behaviour accordingly.

And if this failed then there might be recourse to the Pannomion, Bentham’s codified philosophy of law. He challenged Blackstone’s traditional commentaries on the law with their antipathy to reform, arguing that “judge made laws” should be replaced with rational statues enacted by democratic legislation. For Bentham, all law was a restriction on liberty, inculcating pain rather than pleasure. Limited legal control by state could only be justified if it clearly promoted individual and community well-being:

Every law is an evil, for every law is an infraction of liberty: And I repeat that government has but a choice of evils: In making this choice what ought to be the object of the legislator? He ought to assure himself of two things; first that in every case the incidents which he tries to prevent are really evils; and secondly that if evils they are greater than those which he employs to prevent them.

Rejecting concepts of natural law, inherent human rights, divine commandments, social contracts and other legal fictions as “nonsense on stilts,” he espoused legal positivism. Laws were just social constructs created by legislators for the protection and advantage to society, and as such they could be altered in response to changes in society.

In his own time, Bentham advocated changes in the law to give women equal rights, including suffrage, the right to public office and the right to divorce on the same terms as men; to de-criminalise homosexuality; to make slavery a crime; and to protect animals from unnecessary suffering.

A political radical, he reasoned that better law making would come through constitutional reform making government more accountable and open. A wider franchise, a more representative democracy, a more transparent government with greater checks on its power, and freedom to criticise government were essential.

And if the law were broken? Punishment clearly involved the infliction of pain and should only be used “so far as it promises to exclude some greater evil.” Like the laws, punishment should be designed to achieve more good than harm, and while penalties should outweigh the immediate advantages arising from crime, the punishment should ultimately benefit both society and the individual.

Bentham opposed capital and corporal punishment. He sought to redesign and reform prisons.

His brother, supervising Potemkin’s factories in Russia, had designed a system whereby a circular building at the centre of a larger compound enabled a small number of managers to oversee the activities of a large workforce. Shutters on the central building ensured that the workforce did not know when they were being observed and this encouraged self-regulation.

Bentham adapted this model for use in prisons, designing a central, circular, shuttered tower, the Panopticon, with the prisoners’ cells facing inwards around its circumference. All the prisoners could be observed at various times by one person: not knowing whether they were being watched or not would ensure elective self-policing.

Bentham’s Panopticon has been tainted by the association of constant surveillance with violation of privacy and totalitarian control, but the Panopticon was designed purely for criminals. Moreover, it was only part of a wider proposal, according to which there would be no locks on cell doors, and prisoners would be free to move around the prison attending workshops and educational facilities which were at the heart of Bentham’s plan. Meaningful work and rehabilitation would see

morals reformed…health preserved…industry invigorated… instruction diffused…public burthens lightened.

The latter was effected by the decreased cost of prisons with fewer warders required. Finally, the issue of “who guards the guards” would be resolved by regular inspections guaranteeing humane management of the Panopticon.

There were always right-wing critics of Bentham:  those who favoured law and government based on tradition rather than reason, and who were ever alert to the danger that, once enfranchised, “the masses” might pose a threat to the existing social order and hierarchy.

These disparagements aside, there are flaws in Bentham’s philosophy: the practicalities of quantitative measurement by the felicific calculus and of effective inspection of prisons; his overly sanguine view of democratic government; the possibility of the pleasures of one generation having a negative impact on the next; the obvious danger to minorities. Bentham wrote copiously throughout his life refuting criticisms with varying degrees of success. If I no longer swallow the greatest happiness principle with quite the enthusiasm of my sixteen-year-old self, nonetheless, there remains a compassionate decency at its core.

Yet what charms me most about Bentham is the manner of his leaving. A convinced atheist, committed to the separation of church and state, he was adamantly opposed to Christian burial. At a time when it was illegal to provide anatomists with bodies save those of criminals who had been hanged, Bentham left instructions that his corpse should be made available for dissection in the interests of medical research.

Following this his skeleton and his head were to be preserved as an “auto-icon” which would be his memorial. His instructions were specific: the skeleton would sit in his favourite chair wearing one of his suits padded out with hay. His mummified head would be placed on top and the whole displayed in a wooden cabinet.

This did not go entirely to plan: Bentham’s head was desiccated using an air pump over a bath of sulphuric acid, the result was macabre, especially when two cobalt glass eyes were added. A wax head fitted with his own hair was substituted while the original head sat at his feet. This would, no doubt have delighted Bentham whose instructions regarding his remains may well have been designed to cock a snook at religious sensibilities about life and death.

He would have been gratified too that the auto-icon found a resting place at University College, London, “the godless institution in Gower Street,” established in line with his own beliefs to provide university education for those of all religions and none, unlike the older universities which still enforced the Test Acts.

The auto-icon has always evoked affection at UCL and inspired the urban myth that he attends meetings of the college council casting a deciding vote, always in favour of the motion, when the votes of other council members are equally split. In July 2013 at the final council meeting of the retiring provost, Malcolm Grant, the myth became reality when Bentham was removed from his box and sat in council, recorded in the minutes as “present but not voting.”

After his original head was stolen and held to ransom by a rival college in 1975 (although not as the rumours said used as a football nor discovered in a left luggage locker on a Scottish railway station) it was put away for safe keeping in the strong room of the college records department. Recently the auto-icon has been moved to a new glass display case. Visitors are welcome and he remains a popular attraction.

1960s planning law led to the expansion of Newtown in Powys, formerly Montgomeryshire, but the heart of the stolid little market town remains huddled in a bend of the river Severn, impervious to the late twentieth century developments which stretch beyond it. The main street is a cheerful jumble of Victorian redbrick and arts and crafts timbers; there are three museums, a contemporary art gallery, and a theatre. And outside the ruined church of St. Mary on the south bank of the river I found a jewel. For there, against a backdrop of ivy-draped stone walls, sat a splendid contrivance of wrought iron swirls and twists, as though an exotic Parisian fantasy from the Belle Epoque had been dropped into the unpretentious Welsh town.

It is the grave of Robert Owen (1771-1858), variously acclaimed as The Father of British Socialism, a Capitalist Paternalist, and the Inspiration of the Co-operative Movement.

Owen was born in Newtown, leaving school at ten years old to become an apprentice draper in Lincolnshire. After working in London and Manchester he opened and managed his own mill. In 1799 he bought the New Lanark Mill in Scotland. There 2,000 people, five hundred of them children, were employed in cotton spinning.

Conditions in cotton mills were harsh: workers, including children, worked twelve to fourteen hours a day, the machinery was dangerous, discipline brutal, and wages low. Orphans and young children from poor families were often not paid at all, receiving only basic food and a place to sleep. By this exploitation of labour mill owners accrued substantial profits and accumulated great wealth.

Owen’s approach was different. He and his partners, who included Jeremy Bentham, chose to limit themselves to a 5% return on their capital. Owen transformed the factory, introducing the eight-hour day, and campaigning for its introduction elsewhere under the slogan

 Eight Hours Labour, Eight Hours Recreation, Eight Hours Rest.

Setting an example in his own mill, Owen campaigned for the introduction of child labour laws, outlawing the employment of children under ten years old. He increased wages, improved working conditions and housing, and reformed the truck system. Under the latter workers had received their pay in tokens which could only be used in the owners’ truck shops where high prices were charged for shoddy goods. Owen did not abolish the system, but his shops sold quality goods at just above wholesale price, passing on savings from bulk purchases. With the profits returned to the community, Owen’s shops were the forerunners of the Co-operative Movement later established by the Rochdale Pioneers.

Espousing the philosophy that character is not inherent, but formed by environment, Owen sought to provide a sound physical, moral, and social background for the children of his workers. At New Lanark he funded schools, including the first nursery schools in Britain for four- to six-year-olds, with a curriculum which included dancing and music.

For Owen’s workers there was the opportunity for adult education, with lectures and concerts. There was recreation on the allotments and free health care.

New Lanark was not perfect: Owen was an autocrat, his workers constantly subjected to his scrutiny, he even inspected their houses for cleanliness; the work was still hard, monotonous, and dangerous; and the Silent Monitor was an alienating presence located above each machinist. The monitor was Owen’s own invention, a four-sided block with each side painted a different colour, it was turned to represent the quality and quantity of the worker’s output.

Nonetheless New Lanark flourished, more efficient than other factories, the output reflected the better working conditions, and it achieved an international reputation. It was a reputation which Owen hoped would appeal to the self-interest of other capitalists, illustrating to them that if they extended the same care to their workers as they did to their machines they might be rewarded with greater productivity.

By the 1820s Owen had embraced the more radical ideals of Utopian Socialism. Moving to the United States, he expended his by now considerable fortune to buy up an existing town of 180 buildings and several thousand acres in Indiana. He renamed the town, previously owned by a religious group which had relocated, New Harmony. In this experimental socialist Utopia, he pursued his belief that a clean, safe environment founded on moral values and equal opportunities would foster mutual respect in a prosperous society. To this end, he poured money into schools and libraries, established communal kitchens and dining rooms, promoted scientific research and the arts.

Yet New Harmony was as spectacular a failure as New Lanark had been a success, and after two years the community was dissolved.

Accounts for the failure vary. There were disagreements within the community and suggestions that some of its members were parasitic upon others, exploiting goodwill to their own selfish advantage. In common with other self-contained communities of the time New Harmony foundered in the absence of members with practical skills. Josiah Warren, the American Philosophical Anarchist who had joined Owen at New Harmony, later rejected Owenism suggesting that self-preservation and the desire for personal property would always prove stronger instincts than commitment to the common good.

Marx, while agreeing that the working class were creating the wealth from which they were not benefitting, did not share Owen’s view that a Socialist utopia within existing society would prove its superiority over time. He reasoned that it was not possible to circumvent international capitalism with small scale communes. The overthrow of the capitalist system could only come via a revolutionary party independent of all capitalist influence.

Owen returned to London with his fortune dissipated, but his beliefs untarnished. No longer wealthy, but increasingly radical, he dedicated the rest of his life to political propaganda in support of trades unionism, the Co-operative Movement, better housing for workers, legislation to improve wages and working conditions, the abolition of child labour, aid for the unemployed, free co-educational schools, the abolition of corporal punishment, equal opportunities, the establishment of libraries and museums, and secularism. He spoke tirelessly at public meetings, churned out pamphlets and periodicals… and died penniless.

Towards the end of his life, he had returned to Newtown seeking to be buried near his parents. There were protests at the prospect of such a dangerous radical and avowedly non-Christian individual being buried in sacred ground. But by good fortune the thirteenth century church of St. Mary, having served five hundred years as the parish church of Newtown, had been abandoned two years previously after repeated flooding when the winter Severn burst its banks. With his congregation relocated to the new St. David’s, the rector proved amenable to Owen’s burial beneath the south wall outside the nave of the old church.

Forty years later Owen’s friend and fellow reformer, George Jacob Holyoake, revisited the grave to find it neglected and decaying. He exerted his influence on the Co-operative Union to restore the tabletop slate tomb and erect the ornate Art Nouveau iron railings, awash with foliage and neo-classical symbols, around it. The tomb bears the Co-op motto

Each for All, and All for Each

and a quotation from Owen himself

It is the one great and universal interest of the human race to be cordially united and to aid each other to the full extent of their capabilities.

At the dedication ceremony in 1902 Holyoake reminded the assembled trade unionists that

Due to Owen – Knowledge is Greater; Life is Longer; Health is Surer; Disease is Limited; Towns are Sweeter; Hours of Labour are Shorter; Men are Stronger; Women are Fairer; Children are Happier.

No mean achievement.

Today a public garden has been created. It runs from the riverbank, through the now roofless church whose walls are lined with old gravestones, surrounds Owen’s tomb, and spills on towards the town in a summer riot of grasses and flowers.