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J. A. Hobson and Idealism In International relations*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2009

David Long
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Extract

J. A. Hobson died on April Fools’ Day in the first year of the Second World War. This, and a whimsical anecdote from A. J. P. Taylor, might appear to be enough to justify the portrayal of Hobson as an idealist. This paper critically assesses the work of J. A. Hobson and its relation to idealism as a category of international relations thought. An examination of Hobson’s writings on international relations shows that there are three distinct strands of thought, three modes of idealism. These modes of idealist thought differ on fundamental propositions about international relations as well as in their prescriptions for a reformed world order. In short, consideration of Hobson’s work destabilizes the monolithic category of idealism in international relations. Put another way, idealism blurs important distinctions in Hobson’s work.

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 17 , Issue 3 , July 1991 , pp. 285 - 304
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 1991

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Footnotes

*

A version of this paper was presented at the International Studies Annual Convention, Washington, DC, 10–14 April 1990. The author wishes to thank Peter Wilson, Martin Ceadel, Michael Banks, Ronen Palan and tw o anonymous referees for their comments on an earlier draft of the paper.

References

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56 Hobson’s major works in economics are The Evolution of Modern Capitalism (London, 1894)Google Scholar, The Economics of Distribution (New York, 1900)Google Scholar, The Industrial System (London, 1909)Google Scholar, Work and Wealth (London, 1914), and Wealth and Life.Google Scholar

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59 Towards International Government, p. 127–8Google Scholar, though he did not make much advance with regard to the unequal benefits of international exchange. Indeed, his position from Imperialism to the First World War and to some extent beyond, was a more orthodox free trade argument. See Cain, P. J., ‘J. A. Hobson, Cobdenism, and the Radical Theory of Imperialism, 1898–1914’, Economic History Review, 31 (1978), pp. 565–84Google Scholar.

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61 Another area where the idealism of new liberal internationalism is betrayed is in Hobson’s paternalist suggestions for international development of ‘backwar d countries’, which was to be guided by an impartial international council in the interests of both the local peoples and the world at large without succumbing to the sectional interests of the capitalist Great Powers. On this issue, see, for instance, Democracy and a Changing Civilisation, p. 134, 145Google Scholar; The Modern State, p. 36Google Scholar; Poverty in Plenty (London, 1931), p. 81Google Scholar; Wealth and Life, p. 403–4Google Scholar.

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73 This applies in particular Richard Cobden and The Morals of Economic Internationalism, that might superficially appear to be straightforward tributes to Cobden.

74 See the extensive bibliography of Hobson’s work provided in Lee, A. J. F., ‘The Social and Economic Thought of J. A. Hobson’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of London, 1970Google Scholar.

75 See Confessions of an Economic Heretic, ch. 16.

76 See Michael Freeden, New Liberalism; P. F. Clarke, Liberals and Social Democrats; and Weiler, Peter, The New Liberalism (New York, 1982)Google Scholar.

77 This transition is explored at length in my ‘J. A. Hobson on Internationa l Economic Relations: Surplus Value, Free Trade and International Government’, in D. Long and P. Wilson (eds.), Thinkers of the Twenty Years’ Crisis (forthcoming).

78 This is spelled out most clearly in ‘The Morality of Nations’, in The Crisis of Liberalism and The Morals of Economic Internationalism.

79 These are now among the classics of the discipline: E. H. Carr, The Twenty Years’ Crisis; H. Morgenthau, Scientific man vs. Power Politics; Herz, J., Political Realism and Political Idealism (1951; Chicago, 1959)Google Scholar. While Carr refers to utopianism, Morgenthau to liberalism and rationalism, and Herz to idealism, these writers identify a particular body of thought now labelled idealist.

80 Olson, William C., ‘The Growth of a Discipline’, in Porter, B. (ed.), The Aberystwyth Papers, p. 23Google Scholar.

81 A similar conclusion can be drawn from Niebuhr, R., ‘Introduction’, Moral Man and Immoral Society (New York, 1932)Google Scholar. See, particularly , the wayjn which Morgenthau’s critique of rationalism becomes a set of rigid rules in Morgenthau, H., Power Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, 3rd edn (New York, 1965)Google Scholar.

82 In the haste to reinstate power (or the passions) alongside or over reason In politics, realism Itself became an apolitical theory of international politics. The best example of this Is Waltz, K., Theory of International Politics (Reading, MA, 1979)Google Scholar. Thus, international theory under the hegemony of realism has been emptied of politics; the choice is between an ideal polity where the common good is administered and an international balance of power operating according to the logic of micro-economics.

83 The implications of this division for the study of international relations In general are considered in Fred Halliday, ‘State and Society In International Relations: A Second Agenda’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 16 (1987)Google Scholar.

84 For examples of the conflation, see Inis Claude, Power in International Relations (New York, 1962)Google Scholar and J. Herz, Political Realism and Political Idealism.

85 For example, see Mitrany’s critique of Clarence Streit’s proposals in A Working Peace System, p. 13–16.Google Scholar

86 Carr, , The Twenty Years’ Crisis, ch. 14.Google Scholar Carr’s approach is probably too collectivist for the label New Liberal internationalist. None the less, the influence of New Liberal internationalism is clear. For an exploration of Carr’s ‘idealism’, see Suganami, H., Domestic Analogy and World Order Proposals, pp. 101–5Google Scholar. Similarly, Morgenthau, in his introduction to the 1966 edition of Mitrany’s A Working Peace System (Chicago, 1966), advocates functionalism as a route to peace.Google Scholar