Noel Thompson – författare

G. D. H. Cole was one of the foremost British socialist thinkers of the twentieth century. His literary output was immense and encompassed works of social theory, economics, political economy, economic history, social and labour history, political theory, history of thought and sociology. The books and pamphlets chosen for this edition are amongst his most significant. They are representative of the different phases of his thinking and illustrative of an acute and inquiring socialist mind as it wrestled with the formidable political and intellect challenges confronted by socialists in this most turbulent of centuries.

This set re-issues 10 works of the well-known socialist thinker G. D. H. Cole and one volume of collected pamphlets, originally published between 1917 and 1956. The works in this collection encompass three critical periods of Cole’s socialist thinking: the guild socialist decade from 1913-23; the post 1929 period when his political economy was dominated by the notion of socialist economic intervention and planning, and the post-war period when, like other socialist theorists, he sought to come to terms with the particular challenges posed by the legacy of the Attlee governments, and the emergence of an affluent society. A substantial introduction by Noel Thompson places the works in their social, political and historical context and illustrates their continued relevance.

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The Market and Its Critics, first published in 1988, considers the reaction of socialist writers to the growth of the market economy in nineteenth century Britain, and examines in detail the diverse elements of the critique which they formulated.

Dr Thompson looks at the theoretic and thematic continuities and discontinuities over the century, structuring his study around the idea of a changing socialist response to the market economy. Much of the literature in question is comprehensive, perceptive and acute. However, the writers invariably discounted the possibility of the market playing a role in a future socialist or communist commonwealth. The solutions they posited to the problem were inapplicable to the increasingly industrial economy of the time. It was this that left their writing vulnerable to attack, and which had profound consequences both for the fate of the socialist political economy in nineteenth century Britain and its subsequent evolution in the twentieth century.

The Market and Its Critics, first published in 1988, considers the reaction of socialist writers to the growth of the market economy in nineteenth century Britain, and examines in detail the diverse elements of the critique which they formulated.

Dr Thompson looks at the theoretic and thematic continuities and discontinuities over the century, structuring his study around the idea of a changing socialist response to the market economy. Much of the literature in question is comprehensive, perceptive and acute. However, the writers invariably discounted the possibility of the market playing a role in a future socialist or communist commonwealth. The solutions they posited to the problem were inapplicable to the increasingly industrial economy of the time. It was this that left their writing vulnerable to attack, and which had profound consequences both for the fate of the socialist political economy in nineteenth century Britain and its subsequent evolution in the twentieth century.

A radical thinker and humanitarian employer, Owen made a major contribution to nineteenth-century social movements including co-operatives, trade unions and workers'' education. He was a pioneer of enlightened approaches to the education of children and an advocate of birth control.