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John A. Hobson | |
|---|---|
 Hobson inc. 1910 | |
| Born | John Atkinson Hobson 6 July 1858 |
| Died | 1 April 1940(1940-04-01) (aged 81) Hampstead, London, England, United Kingdom |
| Academic career | |
| Field | |
| School or tradition | Liberal socialism |
| Alma mater | Lincoln College, Oxford |
| Influences | |
| Contributions | |
John Atkinson Hobson (6 July 1858 – 1 April 1940) was an Englisheconomist andsocial scientist. Hobson is best known for his writing onimperialism, which influencedVladimir Lenin, and his theory ofunderconsumption.[1]
His principal and earliest contribution to economics was the theory of underconsumption, a scathing criticism ofSay's law and classical economics' emphasis on thrift. However, this discredited Hobson among the professional economics community from which he was ultimately excluded. Other early work critiqued the classical theory of rent and anticipated the Neoclassical "marginal productivity" theory of distribution.[2]
After covering theSecond Boer War as a correspondent forThe Manchester Guardian, he condemned British involvement in the war and characterised it as acting under the influence of mine owners. In a series of books, he explored the associations between imperialism and international conflict and asserted that imperial expansion is driven by a search for new markets and investment opportunities overseas.
Later, he argued that maldistribution of income resulted, through oversaving and underconsumption, in unemployment and that the remedy was in eradicating the "surplus" by the redistribution of income by taxation and the nationalization of monopolies. He opposed the First World War and advocated the formation of a world political body to prevent wars. Following the war, he became a reformist socialist.
Hobson was born inDerby inDerbyshire,[3] the son of William Hobson, "a rather prosperous newspaper proprietor",[4] and Josephine Atkinson. He was the brother of the mathematicianErnest William Hobson.
When Hobson relocated to London in 1887, England was in the midst of a major economic depression. While classical economics was at a loss to explain the vicious business cycles, London had many societies that proposed alternatives. While living in London, Hobson was exposed to theSocial Democrats andH.M. Hyndman,Christian Socialists, andHenry George'sSingle-tax system. He befriended several of the prominentFabians who would found theLondon School of Economics, some of whom he had known atOxford.[5] However, none of these groups proved persuasive enough for Hobson; rather it was his collaboration with a friend, the businessman and mountain climberAlbert F. Mummery, that would produce Hobson's contribution to economics:the theory of underconsumption. First described by Mummery and Hobson in the bookPhysiology of Industry (1889), underconsumption was a scathing criticism ofSay's law andclassical economics' emphasis onthrift. The forwardness of the book's conclusions discredited Hobson among the professional economics community. Ultimately he was excluded from the academic community.
During the very late 19th century, his works includedProblems of Poverty (1891),Evolution of Modern Capitalism(1894),Problem of the Unemployed (1896) andJohn Ruskin: Social Reformer (1898). They developed Hobson's critique of theclassical theory of rent and his proposed generalization anticipated the Neoclassical "marginal productivity" theory ofdistribution.[6]
Soon after this period Hobson was recruited by the editor of the newspaperThe Manchester Guardian to be their South African correspondent. During his coverage of the Second Boer War, Hobson began to form the idea thatimperialism was the direct result of the expanding forces of moderncapitalism. He believed the mine owners, led byCecil Rhodes, wanted control of theTransvaal. Accordingly, he believed they manipulated the British into fighting the Boers so that they could maximize their profits from mining.[7] His return to England was marked by his strong condemnation of the conflict.
His publications during the next few years demonstrated an exploration of the associations between imperialism and international conflict. These works includedWar in South Africa (1900) andPsychology of Jingoism (1901). In what is arguably his magnum opus,Imperialism (1902), he espoused the opinion that imperial expansion is driven by a search for new markets and investment opportunities overseas.Imperialism gained Hobson an international reputation, and influenced such notable thinkers asVladimir Lenin andLeon Trotsky, andHannah Arendt'sThe Origins of Totalitarianism (1951).[8]
In a 1902Political Science Quarterly article, Hobson challenged numerous moral justifications for imperialism, including the notion that "less efficient" races benefitted from subordination to "more efficient" races.[9]
Hobson wrote for several other journals before writing his next major work,The Industrial System (1909). In this tract he argued that maldistribution of income resulted, through oversaving andunderconsumption, in unemployment and that the remedy was in eradicating the "surplus" by theredistribution of income by taxation and the nationalization of monopolies.
Hobson's opposition to theFirst World War caused him to join theUnion of Democratic Control. His advocacy for the formation of a world political body to prevent wars can be found in his pieceTowards International Government (1914). However, he became staunchly opposed to theLeague of Nations.
In 1919, Hobson joined theIndependent Labour Party. This was soon followed by writings for socialist publications such as theNew Leader, theSocialist Review and theNew Statesman. During this period it became clear that Hobson favoured capitalist reformation over communist revolution. He was critical of theLabour Government elected in 1929.
Hobson's autobiographyConfessions of an Economic Heretic was published in 1938.
R. H. Tawney wrote the following inThe Acquisitive Society (1920):
The greater part of modern property has been attenuated to a pecuniary lien or bond on the product of industry which carries with it a right to payment, but which is normally valued precisely because it relieves the owner from any obligation to perform a positive or constructive function. Such property may be called passive property, or property for acquisition, for exploitation, or for power.... It is questionable, however, whether economists shall call it "Property" at all, and not rather, as Mr. Hobson has suggested, "Improperty," since it is not identical with the rights which secure the owner the produce of his toil, but is opposite of them.
V.I. Lenin, inImperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916)—which was probably his most influential work on later Marxian scholarship—made use of Hobson'sImperialism extensively, remarking in the preface "I made use of the principal English work,Imperialism, J. A. Hobson's book, with all the care that, in my opinion, that work deserves." In the work itself—despite disagreeing with Hobson's liberal politics—Lenin repeatedly cites Hobson's interpretation of imperialism approvingly; for example:
We see that Kautsky, while claiming that he continues to advocate Marxism, as a matter of fact takes a step backward compared with the social-liberal Hobson, who more correctly takes into account two "historically concrete" ... features of modern imperialism: (1) the competition between several imperialisms, and (2) the predominance of the financier over the merchant.
HistoriansPeter Duignan andLewis H. Gann argue that Hobson had an enormous influence in the early 20th century among people all around the world:
Hobson's ideas were not entirely original; however his hatred of moneyed men and monopolies, his loathing of secret compacts and public bluster, fused all existing indictments of imperialism into one coherent system....His ideas influenced German nationalist opponents of the British Empire as well as French Anglophobes and Marxists; they colored the thoughts of American liberals and isolationist critics of colonialism. In days to come they were to contribute to American distrust of Western Europe and of the British Empire. Hobson helped make the British averse to the exercise of colonial rule; he provided indigenous nationalists in Asia and Africa with the ammunition to resist rule from Europe.[10]
Later historians attacked Hobson and theMarxist theories of imperialism he influenced. Notably,John Gallagher andRonald Robinson in their 1953 articleThe Imperialism of Free Trade argued that Hobson placed too much emphasis on the role of formal empire and directly ruled colonial possessions, not taking into account the significance of trading power, political influence and informal imperialism. They also argued that the difference in British foreign policy that Hobson observed between the mid-19th-century indifference to empire that accompanied free market economics, and the later intense imperialism after 1870, was not real.
Hobson believed "colonial primitive peoples" were inferior. InImperialism he advocated their "gradual elimination" by an international organization: "A rationalstirpiculture in the wide social interest might, however, require a repression of the spread of degenerate or unprogressive races". Such a plan should be implemented, according to Hobson, following approval by an "international political organization".[11][12] While it can be said the 1902 work reflected theSocial Darwinism trend of the time, Hobson left this section mainly unchanged when he published the third edition in 1938.[13]
Hobson's early works were critical of the impact of Jewish immigration and Jewish financiers.[1][14][15] In the 1890s he argued that large scale Jewish immigration from theRussian Partition to Western Europe harmed the interests of native workers and advocated limitations on immigration. Writing on the South African war inWar in South Africa (1900), he linked the impetus towards war to "Jew Power" in South Africa and sawJohannesburg as a "New Jerusalem". Hobson wrote that "Jewish financiers", whom he saw as "parasites", manipulated the British government that danced to their "diabolical tune".[16][17] According to history professorNorman Etherington, the section on financiers inImperialism seems irrelevant to Hobson's economic discourse, and was probably included since Hobson truly believed it.[18] Hobson was innovative in tying between 1898 and 1902 the concept ofmodernity, empire, and Jews together; according to Hobson, the international financiers influenced the government partially through Jewish press ownership in South Africa and London.[19]
Hobson's analysis was widely disseminated by those opposed to the war and received significant attention. Other contemporary anti-war writers also alleged a mainly Jewish "capitalist conspiracy" was taking place.[20] Following Hobson's January 1900 articleCapitalism and Imperialism in South Africa, Labour leaderKeir Hardie in February 1900 repeated the same message in paraphrased form accusing "half a dozen financial houses, many of them Jewish" of leading the UK to war.[21] However, as the British working class tended to support the war in South Africa, Hobson's zeal in attacking "Jew Power" in South Africa and manipulation by a secret "racial confederacy" failed to attract popular support in Britain, though "anti-Alien" sentiments continued to be an issue. Among commentators inContinental Europe, in particular France and Germany, the alleged "robbery committed by international Jewry" was frequently linked by right-wing antisemites to "British imperialist piracy" during the Second Boer War.[22]
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