John Atkinson Hobson Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

John Atkinson Hobson (1858–1940) was a British political economist and theorist who sought to defend liberalism while attaching a social element to it. His move to London in 1887 and his exposure to the plight of the urban industrial poor awakened his interest in the problems of unemployment and poverty as endemic to capitalism. This interest informed the course of his work over the next four decades. Hobson’s most lasting contributions pertain to two areas of study—his development of new liberalism and his work on the dynamics behind imperialism.

Hobson was a leading figure in the development of new liberalism, along with T. H. Green and L. T. Hobhouse. New liberalism sought to defend and upgrade liberal theory in light of the industrial revolution and the rise of socialist thought by finding justification within its principles for redistribution and a welfare state. The new liberals, including Hobson, were strongly influenced by the thought of John Stuart Mill, who defended individual liberty by appealing to its contribution to the common good. Liberty, they believed, was needed for individuals to develop their moral powers and capacities, upon which the well-being of society ultimately depended.

In furthering the idea of the individual and political community’s strong interdependence, the new liberals defended a “radical ideology of the cooperative commonwealth,” with unique capacities to justify specific economic rights and duties. The cooperative commonwealth view of the nation rests on the rather peculiar notion of the organic society. By employing the imagery of organicism, Hobson accounted for society as a thing naturally created by humans, much the same way that bees naturally create the beehive. This model of society contrasted with the passive view of society as a “mere aggregate, an accumulation of human atoms, incapable of any really organic action” (Hobson, 79). With the “discovery” of society and the social dimensions of wealth, Hobson’s new liberalism justified limits to individual rent-based income and redistribution to social elements of value, including individuals—in essence, a right to social property must exist alongside private property rights.

Hobson’s theory of imperialism was very influential and was endorsed and modified by diverse figures such as Lenin. Hobson sought to understand why the British Empire grew at such a phenomenal rate during the final decades of the nineteenth century (adding almost 5 million square miles [12.95 million square kilometers] of territory between 1870–1900), and he found the answer in the structural dynamics of late capitalist production. To Hobson, imperialism was ultimately an economic phenomenon. Due to the problem of underconsumption in advanced capitalist nations, monopoly capital had surplus capital and sought to invest it abroad. This new “creditor class to foreign” countries sought certainty and diminished risk in foreign investment sites, compelling their home governments to continually expand their empires. It is thus investment, and not trade per se, that mainly drives territorial expansion in Hobson’s theory of imperialism.

Bibliography:

Allet, John. New Liberalism: The Political Economy of J. A. Hobson. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981.
Freeden, Michael, ed. Reappraising J. A. Hobson: Humanism and Welfare. London: Unwin Hyman, 1990.
Hobson, J. A. The Crisis of Liberalism. London: P. S. King and Son, 1909.
Economics and Ethics. Boston: Heath and Company, 1929.
Imperialism: A Study. New York: J. Pott and Company, 1902.

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