Today, people making such an argument openly would most likely be dismissed out of hand as neo-Nazis or, at best, elitists. Hobson sees this argument for what it is, an appeal to the vanity of others. The same "social efficiency" that is supposed to explain why some societies win wars and become global superpowers, requires a selective application of the idea to nation-states; a nation that is socially efficient, of course, will not have a ruthless scramble for mere survival within its borders. He intermediates among these rival notions of community versus competition, aware of the argument by eugenic imperialists of his day that nations are somehow a social atom that cannot be compared to the relations of humans within the nation; but the historical accident of the state wins out:

The studied ignoring of those vital facts in the more recent statecraft, and the reversion, alike of legal theorists and high politicians of the Bismarck school, to a nationalism which emphasises the exclusive rather than the inclusive aspect of patriotism and assumes the antagonism of nations as an all-important and a final fact, form the most dangerous and discreditable factor of modern politics. This conduct in politics we have already in part explained in our analysis of the economic driving forces that exhibit certain sectional interests and orders within the nation usurping the national will and enforcing their private advantages, which rest upon international antagonism, to the detriment of the national advantage, which is identical with that of other nations.

This obstinate halt in the evolution of such relations at the limit of political nationality now reached will be recognised as the most difficult of all present political phenomena for the future historian to explain. The community of interests between nations is so great, so multifarious, and so obvious, the waste, pain, and damage of conflicts so gross and palpable, that to those who do not understand the strong sectional control in every modern State it may well appear that some natural barriers of race, boundaries, or colour make any real extension of "society" outside the area of nationality impossible.
[Ibid.]

In other words, eugenics is utterly inapplicable to the nation-state.

At last we see, I hope, the error of "eugenics" to describe this doctrine of "social efficiency winning out through aggression." I chose the word with the utmost reluctance, because it opens the door to all manner of confusing associations; it is not an ideology that promoted selective breeding, but did rely on the same logic that scarce resources should be allocated to "superior" peoples. The eugenic imperialist was unlikely to have any patience with the eugenic movement, because the latter was dominated by do-gooders who sought to replace social Darwinism with management of reproductive outcomes. The eugenic movement sought to achieve a clean and appealing society by managing the personal lives of citizens; the eugenic imperialist regarded the squalor of the underclass as a crucible for toughening the national character for more aggression-and eternal domination.

What united the two was, of course, the ugly thing about them: the idea that the sorts of people who would consume resources, enjoy attractive homes and high-paying jobs, was to be determined by ideology. The eugenic movement saw social degradation as a byproduct of inferior people; the eugenic imperialist saw political conquest as a byproduct of the same thing. Both remained secure in the notion that privilege belonged to the powerful and successful; neither saw privilege and squalor as a disgrace. In the end, this was the atrocity of both.

OTHER VERSIONS OF THE "EUGENIC" ARGUMENT

In addition to II.ii., "The Scientific Defence of Imperialism," Hobson wrote a chapter entitled I.iii., "Imperialism as an Outlet for Population." This was written expressly to refute the claim that imperialism served as an outlet for surplus population:

There is a widely prevalent belief that imperial expansion is desirable, or even necessary, in order to absorb and utilise the surplus of our ever-growing population. "The reproductive powers of nature," runs the argument, "brook no restraint: the most dominant force in history is the tendency of population to overflow its ancient banks, seeking fuller and easier subsistence. Great Britain is one of the most congested areas in the world; her growing population cannot find enough remunerative occupation within these islands; professional and working-classes alike find it more and more difficult to earn a decent and secure living, every labour market is overstocked, emigration is a prime economic necessity.

There is also a third chapter, II.iv., "Imperialism and the Lower Races" (in which, except for the heading, nearly all uses of the phrase "lower races" use quotation marks; "lower" is not Hobson's choice of words). Hobson summarizes a narrowly economic version of "eugenic imperialism" here:

It is an expansion of this plea of material necessity that constitutes the first claim to a control of the tropics by "civilised" nations. The European races have grown up with a standard of material civilisation based largely upon the consumption and use of ...natural products of tropical countries. The industries and the trade which furnish these commodities are of vital importance to the maintenance and progress of Western civilisation ...Partly from the rising standard of material life, this dependence of the temperate on the tropical countries must grow. In order to satisfy these growing needs larger and larger tracts of tropical country must be cultivated, the cultivation must be better and more regular, and peaceful and effective trade relations with these countries must be maintained. Now the ease with which human life can be maintained in the tropics breeds indolence and torpor of character. The inhabitants of these countries are not "progressive people"; they neither develop the arts of industry at any satisfactory pace, nor do they evolve new wants or desires, the satisfaction of which might force them to labour. We cannot therefore rely upon the ordinary economic motives and methods of free exchange to supply the growing demand for tropical goods. The resources of the tropics will not be developed voluntarily by the natives themselves.

Assuming that the arts of "progress," or some of them, are communicable, a fact which is hardly disputable, there can be no inherent natural right in a nation to refuse that measure of compulsory education which shall raise it from childhood to manhood in the order of nationalities. The analogy furnished by the education of a child is primâ facie a sound one, and is not invalidated by the dangerous abuses to which it is exposed in practice.

[...]

That the white Western nations will abandon a quest on which they have already gone so far is a view which does not deserve consideration. That this process of development may be so conducted as to yield a gain to world-civilisation, instead of some terrible débâcle in which revolted slave races may trample down their parasitic and degenerate white masters, should be the supreme aim of far-sighted scientific statecraft.

If Imperialism were the Qur'an, this would be the "satanic verses." He goes on in this vein:

So far, we have established two tentative principles. First, that all interference on the part of civilised white nations with "lower races" is not primâ facie illegitimate. Second, that such interference cannot safely be left to private enterprise of individual whites. If these principles be admitted, it follows that civilised Governments may undertake the political and economic control of lower races-in a word, that the characteristic form of modern Imperialism is not under all conditions illegitimate.

What, then, are the conditions which render it legitimate? They may be provisionally stated thus: Such interference with the government of a lower race must be directed primarily to secure the safety and progress of the civilisation of the world, and not the special interest of the interfering nation. Such interference must be attended by an improvement and elevation of the character of the people who are brought under this control. Lastly, the determination of the two preceding conditions must not be left to the arbitrary will or judgment of the interfering nation, but must proceed from some organised representation of civilised humanity.

In fact, Hobson labors to propose a just solution to the quandary of states looking at commercially active, stateless communities (e.g., Native Americans beyond the pale of European settlement). He recommends a trustee system under international supervision. When he wrote, this was a reasonable concept. For the sad fact remains that either the state did not intervene because it was allowing private capital to do the job (as with, for example, the plantations and slave economy of pre-1807, or the various joint-stock India companies); or else, it intervened selectively, to serve the interests of one group of natives against another, more "White-friendly" group of natives; or it ventured to take over the place and try to transform it into a march of Europe.

(Strategic Imperialism)

MORE ON EUGENICS: A former journalist in software and other computer-related matters, Mr. Edwin Black, has published a series of books that purported to link the American Eugenics Movement with the Holocaust in Germany. War Against the Weak (link is to Black's site). I have not read the book; however, I have read the linked articles in which Black spells out his thesis, and feel an important point needs to be made: the Eugenics Movement in the USA was a social movement that sought to promote socially advantageous reproduction. Some of its adherents were naturally racist and elitist; however, the EM did not, to my knowledge, promote genocide or expansionism. Black makes the argument that the Nazis required the research of eugenicists in the USA to dream up the Final Solution. Such an argument can only survive in a complete ignorance of European history.

Eugenics is an abhorrent and distasteful concept, and with excellent reason. It allows racist societies the opportunity to take racial domination to extremes. The 1924 US immigration laws also reflected ugly racial prejudices (mainly against Asians); however, to deposit the blame for all this at the door of the Eugenics Movement is absurd and counterfactual. Moreover, there are serious costs to doing so. First, the gratuitous lumping together of social policy with genocide leads to a dismissal of the ancient origins of the latter (i.e., the notion that only do-gooders and "socialists" commit genocide, whereas right-wing fanatics do not); second, because it treats scientific research, including on matters that were new and controversial at the time, as somehow on a par with the mass slaughter of millions. As someone rather accustomed to seeing people equate the New Deal with Pol Pot's regime (e.g.), I find these leaps of logic or causality to be vexing in the extreme.

Finally, I think it is a very dangerous form of prattle to demonize people for not knowing what we know today, or for choosing among unpleasant options when we ignore the others.