The seminal analysis of the economic and nationalistic forces leading to Imperialism. (This wonderful site allows one to search the entire text of numerous books and pull up the relevant passage). Reading Imperialism inspired me to create this web site.

Hobson's views on capitalism, neoliberal orthodoxy, and imperialism evolved over time; also, he was obligated to consider what was workable given the era in which he lived.

Other Works by Hobson on the Web

International Trade: An Application of Economic Theory, (1904)

Work and Wealth: A Human Valuation (1914)

About J.A Hobson

Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia

Many Links in Spartacus Educational

Tom Goldstein, Economic Manipulation: J.A. Hobson's Theory on the Role of Economic... Forces in Imperialism" Janus-Undergraduate Journal, University of Maryland (2002)

V.I. Lenin versus J.A. Hobson

Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism

In this essay, Lenin argues that the growing concentration of industrial capital has left the world under the effective control of a small group of capitalists. These men have ineluctably turned to world war and imperialism as they seek to divide the spoils among themselves. Lenin, having gotten much information and useful analysis from Hobson, condemns him for being "frankly pacifist and reformist." But most other references are favorable; Hobson's analysis

The new imperialism differs from the older, first, in substituting for the ambition of a single growing empire theory and the practice of competing empires, each motivated by similar lusts of political aggrandizement and commercial gain; secondly, in the dominance of financial or investing over mercantile interests (Part II, Chapter V, "Imperialism in Asia" paragraph II.V.29)

...Hobson... 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.

Negative review of Hobson

Writing some years before Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism, Lenin condemns Hobson for rejecting Communist revolution as the only means of salvation from global imperialism. Hobson furnishes Lenin with much of the framework for analyzing imperialism; but whereas Hobson argues that imperialism is something that a mature capitalist state can and should reject, Lenin insists that capitalism leads ineluctably to imperialism.

Many other J.A. Hobson works, at the Marxist Internet Archive