{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2016}} {{Use British English|date=August 2016}} '''Piercy Ravenstone''' was a pseudonym used by a nineteenth-century political economist whose work led him to being variously described as a socialist, a tory and as an institutionalist. His contribution was noted by David Ricardo and Karl Marx and brought to wider attention via Piero Sraffa's editing of Ricardo's collected works. Sraffa suggested that Ravenstone's true identity was Richard Puller (1789–1831).<ref>Piero Sraffa and M.H. Dobb, editors (1951-1973). ''The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo''. Cambridge University Press, 11 volumes</ref><ref>King J. E. (1983) Utopian or scientific? A reconsideration of the Ricardian Socialists, History of Political Economy 15:3</ref>
==Context== It has been argued that Ravenstone was a Ricardian socialist. He contributed to the economic debates of the 1820s in England. Edwin Seligman credits him with being "the earliest advocate of the surplus value theory later adopted by Marx."<ref name = "Seligman">{{cite journal|last=Seligman|first=Edwin|title=On Some Neglected British Economists-II|journal=The Economic Journal|date=December 1903|volume=13|issue=52|pages=514–515|jstor=2221318|doi=10.2307/2221318|url=https://zenodo.org/record/1449424}}</ref>
==Identification== Joseph Dorfman argued from circumstantial evidence that Ravenstone was a Rev. Edward Edwards. Noel W. Thompson, in reviewing Sraffa's case and other evidence, concludes that there is no compelling reason now to contest the identification with Richard Puller the younger (not his father of the same name).<ref name="Allington2010">{{cite book|author=Nigel F. B. Allington|title=English, Irish and Subversives Among the Dismal Scientists|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6YPu0n04GfIC&pg=PA304|accessdate=7 July 2013|year=2010|publisher=Emerald Group Publishing|isbn=978-0-85724-062-0|pages=304–6}}</ref> He also views Edwards and Ravenstone as birds of a feather, however, proponents of a physiocratic Tory anti-capitalism.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Noel W. Thompson|author2=Nigel F. B. Allington|title=English, Irish and Subversives Among the Dismal Scientists|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4fjwxnH8VPcC&pg=PA324|accessdate=7 July 2013|year=2010|publisher=Emerald Group Publishing|isbn=978-0-85724-061-3|page=324}}</ref>
== Economics == Ravenstone published at least two writings in economic theory, ''A Few Doubts as to the Correctness of the Opinions generally maintained on the Subjects of Population and Political Economy''<ref name = "Seligman" /> in 1821, and ''Thoughts on the Funding System and its Effects'', in 1824.<ref name="Marx">{{Cite web |title=Economic Manuscripts: Results of the Direct Production Process by Karl Marx 1864 |url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1864/economic/notes.htm |access-date=2023-03-11 |website=www.marxists.org}}</ref> Seligman writes that the former work contained criticism of Malthusianism which "[did] not differ from other works of the kind."<ref name = "Seligman" /> Ravenstone wrote that private property "is the right to the work of one's own hands," but distinguished this from profit and rent: "But this right is very different from the artificial right by which a man is enabled to appropriate for himself the ownership of lands which he does not occupy, and on which he does not exercise any industry ... On this pretension of the landlord are built the pretensions of the merchant-manufacturer, of the tradesman, of the capitalist. All are founded on the same principle." In this way, Ravenstone claimed, "the labor of the industrious is made subservient to the maintenance of the idle. The laborer must purchase the permission to be useful." Profits arise "from the ''surplus product'' of the productive laborer."<ref name = "Seligman" />
== Other references to his work == In an unplaced footnote, Marx quotes Ravenstone as denying that government debt may be a "burden" on future generations.<ref name = "Marx" /> This argument would have anticipated similar arguments from Paul Samuelson in the 20th Century<ref>Skousen, Mark, The Perseverance of Paul Samuelson's Economics, The Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 11, No. 2, Spring, 1997</ref> and Paul Krugman.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2011-12-28 |title=Debt Is (Mostly) Money We Owe to Ourselves |url=https://archive.nytimes.com/krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/28/debt-is-mostly-money-we-owe-to-ourselves/ |access-date=2023-03-11 |website=Paul Krugman Blog |language=en}}</ref> Marx discusses Ravenstone's value theory in a section of Theories of Surplus Value, but it seems he was only aware of the second of Ravenstone's books mentioned; Marx refers to it as "a most remarkable work."<ref>{{Cite web |title=Economic Manuscripts: Theories of Surplus-Value, Chapter 21 |url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1863/theories-surplus-value/ch21.htm |access-date=2023-03-11 |website=www.marxists.org}}</ref> The same volume has an extended discussion describing Ravenstone's "surplus product" analysis. Henryk Grossman also refers to Ravenstone, along with William Thompson and Thomas Hodgskin, as a thinker who drew out the egalitarian principles implicit in the labor theory of value espoused by William Petty, David Hume, Adam Smith, and David Ricardo, leading to its abandonment by subsequent economists.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Henryk Grossman - Marx, Classical Political Economy and the Problem of Dynamics. 1941 |url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/grossman/1941/dynamics1.htm |access-date=2023-03-11 |website=www.marxists.org}}</ref>
== Key works == *{{cite book|author=Piercy Ravenstone|title=A Few Doubts as to the Correctness of Some Opinions Generally Entertained on the Subjects of Population and Political Economy|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1JlhAAAAcAAJ|year=1821|publisher=J. Andrews}} *{{cite book|author=Piercy Ravenstone|title=Thoughts on the Funding System and its effects|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DhRUxslPhIwC|year=1824|publisher=J. Andrews}}
== References == {{Reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Ravenstone, Piercy}} Category:Classical economists Category:19th-century British economists Category:English socialists Category:Year of birth unknown Category:Year of death unknown Category:19th-century pseudonymous writers