Hobson, John Atkinson

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Hobson, John Atkinson (1858–1940). An economist with views that were unconventional for his time, and led him—he claimed—to be blackballed from academic posts. He earned his living therefore through part-time lecturing, journalism, and writing too many books. Two of those books however launched revolutions: The Physiology of Industry (1889), written in collaboration with the mountaineer A. F. Mummery, which undermined laissez-faire economics by arguing that its tendency was to over-produce; and Imperialism: A Study (1902), which attributed the militaristic colonial expansionism of that time to the resultant surpluses of goods and capital. In this way he can be said to have sown the seeds of two of the most powerful ideologies of the 20th cent.: Keynesian economics, and the Leninist interpretation of imperialism. He also contributed importantly to contemporary politics, especially the evolution of a ‘New’ kind of Liberalism around 1900 to replace the old. Later he dedicated himself to the cause of internationalism.

Bernard Porter

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