Sir Ernest John Pickstone Benn, 2nd Baronet,CBE (25 June 1875 – 17 January 1954) was a British publisher, writer and political publicist. His father,John Benn, was aLiberal politician, who had been made a baronet in 1914. He was brother of the Liberal and laterLabour politicianWilliam Wedgwood Benn and an uncle of the Labour politicianTony Benn.
Benn was born inOxted,Surrey. He attended theCentral Foundation Boys' School.[1] As acivil servant in theMinistry of Munitions and Reconstruction during theFirst World War 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 undilutedlaissez-faire".[2]
From his conversion toclassical liberalism in the mid-1920s until his death in 1954 Benn published more than twenty books and an equivalent amount of pamphlets propagating his ideas. HisThe 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.[3] In it, he rejected thelabour theory of value and argued that wealth is a by-product of exchange.
Benn admiredSamuel Smiles and in a letter toThe Times 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 ofJeremy Bentham and the whole of the works ofJohn Stuart Mill,Herbert Spencer andBastiat as well asMorley'sLife ofCobden.[4]
Benn was also a member of theReform Club and a founder of what would become theSociety for Individual Freedom.[citation needed]
Benn married at the parish church,Edgbaston, on 3 January 1903 Gwendoline Dorothy Andrews.[5] Their sonJohn Andrews Benn (1904–1984) succeeded as3rd Baronet.
Benn was also a principal and manager of the publishing firm Benn Brothers, later Ernest Benn, Ltd.
"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies."[6]
This quote is often misattributed toGroucho Marx, with slightly different wording ("Politics is the art of looking for trouble; finding it everywhere, diagnosing it wrongly, and applying unsuitable remedies").[7]
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| Preceded by | High Sheriff of the County of London 1932–1933 | Succeeded by |
| Baronetage of the United Kingdom | ||
| Preceded by | Baronet (of Old Knoll) 1922–1954 | Succeeded by |
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