Sir Ernest John Pickstone Benn, 2nd Baronet, (25 June 1875 – 17 January 1954) was a British publisher, writer and political publicist. His father, John Benn, was a politician, who had been made a baronet in 1914. He was an uncle of the

Labour Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

politician

Tony Benn Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn (3 April 1925 – 14 March 2014), known between 1960 and 1963 as Viscount Stansgate, was a British politician, writer and diarist who served as a Cabinet of the United Kingdom, Cabinet minister in the 1960s and 1970s. ...

Biography

Benn was born in

Oxted Oxted is a town and civil parish in the Tandridge district of Surrey, England, at the foot of the North Downs. It is south south-east of Croydon in Greater London, west of Sevenoaks in Kent, and north of East Grinstead in West Sussex. Oxte ...

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...

. He attended the

Central Foundation Boys' School ''(By hope, by work, by faith)'' , established = 1865 , closed = , type = Voluntary aided school , religious_affiliation = , president = , head_label = , ...

As a

civil servant The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...

in the Ministry of Munitions and Reconstruction during the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

he came to believe in the benefits of state intervention in the economy. In the mid-1920s, however, he changed his mind and adopted "the principles of undiluted ''

laissez-faire ''Laissez-faire'' ( ; from french: laissez faire , ) is an economic system in which transactions between private groups of people are free from any form of economic interventionism (such as subsidies) deriving from special interest groups. ...

''". From his conversion to

classical liberalism Classical liberalism is a political tradition Political culture describes how culture impacts politics. Every political system is embedded in a particular political culture. Definition Gabriel Almond defines it as "the particular patt ...

in the mid-1920s until his death in 1954 Benn published more than twenty books and an equivalent amount of pamphlets propagating his ideas. His ''The Confessions of a Capitalist'' was originally published in 1925 and was still in print twenty years later after selling a quarter of a million copies. In it he rejected the

labour theory of value The labor theory of value (LTV) is a theory of value that argues that the economic value of a good or service is determined by the total amount of " socially necessary labor" required to produce it. The LTV is usually associated with Marxian ...

and argued that wealth is a by-product of exchange. Benn admired

Samuel Smiles Samuel Smiles (23 December 1812 – 16 April 1904) was a British author and government reformer. Although he campaigned on a Chartist platform, he promoted the idea that more progress would come from new attitudes than from new laws. His prim ...

and in a letter to ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

'' Benn claimed ideological descent from leading classical liberals:

In the ideal state of affairs, no one would record a vote in an election until he or she had read the eleven volumes of
Jeremy Bentham Jeremy Bentham (; 15 February 1748 Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates">O.S._4_February_1747.html" ;"title="Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Old Style and New Style dates">O.S. 4 February 1747">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.htm ...
and the whole of the works of
John Stuart Mill John Stuart Mill (20 May 1806 – 7 May 1873) was an English philosopher, political economist, Member of Parliament (MP) and civil servant. One of the most influential thinkers in the history of classical liberalism, he contributed widely to ...
,
Herbert Spencer Herbert Spencer (27 April 1820 – 8 December 1903) was an English philosopher, psychologist, biologist, anthropologist, and sociologist famous for his hypothesis of social Darwinism. Spencer originated the expression "survival of the fittest" ...
and Bastiat as well as
Morley Morley may refer to: Places England * Morley, Norfolk, a civil parish * Morley, Derbyshire, a civil parish * Morley, Cheshire, a village * Morley, County Durham, a village * Morley, West Yorkshire, a suburban town of Leeds and civil parish * M ...
's ''Life of Cobden''.

Benn was also a member of the

Reform Club The Reform Club is a private members' club on the south side of Pall Mall in central London, England. As with all of London's original gentlemen's clubs, it comprised an all-male membership for decades, but it was one of the first all-male cl ...

and a founder of what would become the

Society for Individual Freedom The Society for Individual Freedom (SIF) is a United Kingdom-based association of libertarians, classical liberals, free-market conservatives and others promoting individual freedom. It has links to the British intelligence community. Early ye ...

Ernest Benn Limited

Benn was also a principal and manager of the publishing firm Benn Brothers, later Ernest Benn, Ltd.

Quotes

"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies."

This quote is often misattributed to

Groucho Marx Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx (; October 2, 1890 – August 19, 1977) was an American comedian, actor, writer, stage, film, radio, singer, television star and vaudeville performer. He is generally considered to have been a master of quick wit an ...

, with slightly different wording ("Politics is the art of looking for trouble; finding it everywhere, diagnosing it wrongly, and applying unsuitable remedies").

Gyles Brandreth Gyles Daubeney Brandreth (born 8 March 1948) is an English broadcaster, writer and former politician. He has worked as a television presenter, theatre producer, journalist, author and publisher. He was a presenter for TV-am's '' Good Morning ...

, Word Play: ''A cornucopia of puns, anagrams and other contortions and curiosities of the English language'', Coronet, 2015.

Books

*
The Trade of To-morrow
', (London: Jarrolds Publishers (London) Limited, 1917; New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1918) *
The Trade as a Science
' (London: Jarrold & Sons, ca. 1917) *
Trade Parliaments and their Work
' (London: Nisbet & Co. Ltd., 1918) *
The Confessions of a Capitalist
' (London: Hutchinson, 1925; London: Ernest Benn Limited, 1948) *
If I Were a Labour Leader
' (New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1926) *
The Return to Laisser Faire
' (New York: D. Appleton & Company, 1929) *''About Russia'' (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1930) *
Debt
' (London: Ernest Benn Limited, 1938) *
Happier Days: Recollections and Reflections
' (London: Ernest Benn Limited, 1949) *''Governed to Death'' (London: Society of Individualists, 1948; New York: National Economic Council, 1949) *
The State, the Enemy
' (London: Ernest Benn Limited, 1953) *

Notes

External links

Ernest Benn
biography and quotations
Catalogue of Benn's papers
held at the

Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick The Modern Records Centre (MRC) is the specialist archive service of the University of Warwick in Coventry, England, located adjacent to the Central Campus Library. It was established in October 1973 and holds the world's largest archive collecti ...

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Benn, Ernest 1875 births 1954 deaths People from Oxted People educated at Central Foundation Boys' School Baronets in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom British classical liberals British book publishers (people) High Sheriffs of the County of London Commanders of the Order of the British Empire

Ernest Ernest is a given name derived from Germanic languages, Germanic word ''ernst'', meaning "serious". Notable people and fictional characters with the name include: People *Archduke Ernest of Austria (1553–1595), son of Maximilian II, Holy Roman ...