J. A. Hobson and idealism in international relations

Review of International Studies

Volumn 17, Issue 3, 1991, Pages 285-304

  Long, David ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 84974027336     PISSN: 02602105     EISSN: 14699044     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0260210500112161     Document Type: Article

References (84)

1. Hobson's review of W. E. Dodd, Woodrow Wilson and His Work, The Nation, 111 (1920), pp. 189–90.
2. Article commemorating the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of J. A. Hobson, South Place Monthly Record, 63 (July 1958).
3. See Taylor, The Trouble-Makers (1957; Harmondsworth, 1985), p. 145–6. Taylor uses Hobson's tumble down the stairs from the 1917 Club as a metaphor for the collapse of idealism in 1931.
4. D. J. Markwell, ‘Sir Alfred Zimmern Revisited: Fifty Years On’, Review of International Studies, 12 (1986), pp. 279–292; Brian Porter, ‘David Davies: A Hunter After Peace’, Review of International Studies, 15 (1989), pp. 27–36; Cornelia Navari, ‘The Great Illusion Revisited: The International Theory of Norman Angell’, Review of International Studies, 15 (1989), pp. 341–58.
5. See M. Banks, ‘The Inter-Paradigm Debate’, in M. Light and A. J. R. Groom (eds.), International Relations: A Handbook of Current Theory (London, 1985), pp. 14–15; K. J. Holsti, The Dividing Discipline (Boston, 1985), pp. 28–31; and S. Smith, ‘International Relations as a Social Science’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 16 (1987), pp. 190–2.
6. M. Wight, ‘Why is there no International Theory?’, in H. Butterfield and M. Wight (eds.), Diplomatic Investigations (London, 1966).
7. Hedley Bull, The Theory of International Politics 1919–1969', in B. Porter (ed.), The Aberystwyth Papers (London, 1972), p. 34.
8. For various discussions of the liberal, rationalist world-view which underlies idealism in international relations, see B. L. Crowley, The Individual, Self and Community (Oxford, 1987), p. 2; J. Gray, Liberalism (Milton Keynes, 1986), p. x; M. Oakeshott, Rationalism in Politics (New York, 1962), p. 11; B. Crick, In Defence of Politics (1962; Chicago, 1967), p. 128; and H. Morgenthau, Scientific Man vs. Power Politics (Chicago, 1943).
9. Carr, The Twenty Years' Crisis (1939; London, 1946), p. 27.
10. R. N. Berki, On Political Realism (London, 1981), pp. 193–4; E. H. Carr, Twenty Years' Crisis, ch. 2. Thus, both Hobson and Carr are idealists in Berki's definition. The difference between Carr and Hobson is that in The Twenty Years' Crisis, Carr placed himself on the realist side, while Hobson remains on the utopian, according to Carr's criteria.
11. Democracy After the War (London, 1917), part 2, ch. 1.
12. The initial formulation of his critique of imperialism appears in the article, ‘Free Trade and Foreign Policy’, Contemporary Review, 74 (1898), pp. 167–80. References to Cobden appear throughout Hobson's work, but one of the most explicit appears in Morals of Economic Internationalism (New York, 1920), p. 29.
13. On the influence of sectional interests, see Imperialism: A Study (1902, 1905, 1938; London, 1988), part 1, chs. 4 and 6. For the connection of imperialism and tyranny, see part 2, ch. 1.
14. Imperialism, pp. 86–90, 360.
15. The Modern State (London, 1931), p. 30; Confessions of an Economic Heretic (1938; Brighton, 1976), p. 96, 104; Rationalism and Humanism (London, 1933), p. 31.
16. Rationalism and Humanism, p. 10, 34–46.
17. Rationalism and Humanism, pp. 20–1; Democracy and a Changing Civilisation (London, 1934), pp. 17–18.
18. The Recording Angel: A Report from Earth (London, 1932), p. 75.
19. M. Howard, War and the Liberal Conscience (1978; Oxford, 1981).
20. Free Thought in the Social Sciences, p. 257.
21. On international law limiting sovereignty, see The Case for Arbitration (London, 1911), p. 7; Towards International Government (London, 1915), pp. 33, 124–5.
22. Democracy and a Changing Civilisation, pp. 134—5; Towards International Government, p. 180.
23. Towards International Government, pp. 81, 86–7, 178.
24. See Alan James, Sovereign Statehood: The Basis of International Society (London, 1986).
25. Democracy and a Changing Civilisation, p. 139.
26. Notes on Law and Order (London, 1926), pp. 24—5; The Case for Arbitration, p. 7; on functional cooperation, see A League of Nations (London, 1915), p. 2; Towards International Government, p. 177; Imperialism, p. 167.
27. Democracy and a Changing Civilisation, p. 139, 145; The Case for Arbitration, p. 4.
28. Established during World War I, this was a group of intellectuals and politicians that criticized the foreign policy of the Great Powers that it claimed had led to the war. See Marvin Swartz, The Union of Democratic Control in British Politics During the First World War (Oxford, 1971).
29. Towards International Government, pp. 65, 67–8, and see also p. 7, 70, 169; A League of Nations, p. 15, 20.
30. Free Thought in the Social Sciences, p. 217; Richard Cobden: The International Man (London, 1918), p. 10, 408; Democracy After the War (London, 1919 [1917]), p. 210; The Case for Arbitration, p. 1; The German Panic (London, 1913), p. 23.
31. Towards International Government, pp. 67–8.
32. Richard Cobden, p. 388; Democracy After the War, p. 210; The German Panic, p. 27; A League of Nations, pp. 15–6; Towards International Government, pp. 66–8, 70.
33. Free Thought in the Social Sciences, p. 259; The Crisis of Liberalism (London, 1909), p. 9; Towards International Government, p. 184–6, 203–6, 211; Confessions of an Economic Heretic, p. 104.
34. A League of Nations, p. 20. See also Towards International Government, pp. 200–1, 209.
35. Confessions of an Economic Heretic, pp. 104—5.
36. For an example, see K. J. Holsti, International Politics: A Framework for Analysis (1967; Englewood Cliffs, 1977), ch. 7.
37. Towards International Government, p. 182.
38. Towards International Government, p. 181.
39. Hobson denied that there would be equilibrium, see Towards International Government, p. 182.
40. Incentives in the New Industrial Order, pp. 147–8; see also Democracy After the War, pp. 175–6.
41. Incentives in the New Industrial Order, p. 147–8.
42. Michael Freeden, New Liberalism: An Ideology of Social Reform (Oxford, 1978). See also John Allett, New Liberalism: The Political Economy of J. A. Hobson (Toronto, 1981).
43. See Richard Cobden, p. 406.
44. Banks, The Inter-paradigm Debate, p. 15.
45. Banks, 'The Inter-paradigm Debate', p. 15.
46. Democracy and a Changing Civilisation, p. 145; Confessions of an Economic Heretic, p. 112–3; Notes on Law and Order, p. 24; The Case for Arbitration, p. 8; A League of Nations, p. 14; Towards International Government, p. 21, 77. On an international police force, see ‘Force Necessary to Government’, Hibbert Journal 33 (1935), pp. 338–42.
47. A League of Nations, p. 18; Towards International Government, pp. 3–6, 86–7.
48. With regard to anarchy in international relations being based in national sovereignty, see Confessions of an Economic Heretic, p. 111; Free Thought in the Social Sciences, p. 257. For the inadequacy of noninterventionism in the face of the international anarchy, see Confessions of an Economic Heretic, p. 112; Towards International Government, p. 6, 86. For Hobson's preference of an international government over a return to anarchy, see Democracy and a Changing Civilisation, pp. 150–1; Towards International Government, pp. 86–7.
49. Notes on Law and Order, p. 25; Towards International Government, pp. 84—88.
50. Towards International Government, pp. 210–1.
51. See R. J. Vincent, Nonintervention and International Order (Princeton, 1974), pp. 45–54.
52. An example of this argument appears in F. A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom (1944; London, 1986), ch. 15.
53. See F. H. Hinsley, Power and the Pursuit of Peace (Cambridge, 1967), ch. 5.
54. Democracy and a Changing Civilisation, pp. 22–3; Wealth and Life (London, 1929), p. 187; The Morals of Economic Internationalism, p. 29; The New Protectionism (London, 1916), p. 116; Economic Interpretation of Investment (London, 1911), pp. 110–12, 117; The German Panic, p. 26; Towards International Government, pp. 134—137.
55. Hobson's major works in economics are The Evolution of Modern Capitalism (London, 1894), The Economics of Distribution (New York, 1900), The Industrial System (London, 1909), Work and Wealth (London, 1914), and Wealth and Life.
56. Richard Cobden, pp. 9–10, 34–6, 74, 388–9; Democracy After the War, p. 85–6; Imperialism, p. 356, 360; The German Panic, p. 26. On the distinction of inclusive and exclusive nationalism, see Imperialism, p. 10–12. For Hobson's future perplexity on this issue of economic internationalism and rising political nationalism, see Democracy and a Changing Civilisation, p. 22.
57. See, e.g. Peter Clarke, Liberals and Social Democrats (Cambridge, 1978), p. 178.
58. Towards International Government, p. 127–8, 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 P. J. Cain, ‘J. A. Hobson, Cobdenism, and the Radical Theory of Imperialism, 1898–1914’, Economic History Review, 31 (1978), pp. 565–84.
59. This position is similar to that of McKinlay and Little's 'compensatory liberalism' and Suganami's 'welfare internationalism'. See R. D. McKinlay and R. Little, Global Problems and World Order (London, 1986), ch. 2; and H. Suganami, Domestic Analogy and World Order Proposals (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 101–11.
60. Another area where the idealism of new liberal internationalism is betrayed is in Hobson's paternalist suggestions for international development of ‘backward 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, 145; The Modern State, p. 36; Poverty in Plenty (London, 1931), p. 81; Wealth and Life, p. 403–4.
61. From Capitalism to Socialism (London, 1932) p. 49. See also Free Thought in the Social Sciences, p. 260.
62. A League of Nations, p. 4; see also Imperialism, p. 7; The Case for Arbitration, p. 2.
63. See The Modern State, p. 31; A League of Nations, p. 12.
64. Democracy and a Changing Civilisation, pp. 134–135.
65. Richard Cobden, p. 406. See also p. 408.
66. Wealth and Life, p. 404.
67. The New Protectionism, pp. 121–122.
68. The Recording Angel, pp. 111–2. See also Democracy and a Changing Civilisation, p. 23.
69. Wealth and Life, pp. 405–6; Work and Wealth, pp. 280–1. See also Wealth and Life, p. 399; Towards International Government, p. 196.
70. See, for example, P. F. Clarke, Liberals and Social Democrats, p. 177; and also J. Townshend, ‘Introduction’ to the 1988 paperback edition of Imperialism, pp. 20–22.
71. For the critique of imperialism as a spirited foreign policy, see 'Free Trade and Foreign Policy'. On the internationalisation of capital, see Economic Interpretation of Investment.
72. This applies in particular Richard Cobden and The Morals of Economic Internationalism, that might superficially appear to be straightforward tributes to Cobden.
73. See the extensive bibliography of Hobson's work provided in A. J. F. Lee, 'The Social and Economic Thought of J. A. Hobson', unpublished PhD thesis, University of London, 1970.
74. See Confessions of an Economic Heretic, ch. 16.
75. See Michael Freeden, New Liberalism; P. F. Clarke, Liberals and Social Democrats; and Peter Weiler, The New Liberalism (New York, 1982).
76. This transition is explored at length in my 'J. A. Hobson on International Economic Relations: Surplus Value, Free Trade and International Government', in D. Long and P. Wilson (eds.), Thinkers of the Twenty Years' Crisis (forthcoming).
77. This is spelled out most clearly in 'The Morality of Nations', in The Crisis of Liberalism and The Morals of Economic Internationalism.
78. These are now among the classics of the discipline: E. H. Carr, The Twenty Years' Crisis; H. Morgenthau, Scientific man vs. Power Politics; J. Herz, Political Realism and Political Idealism (1951; Chicago, 1959). 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.
79. William C. Olson, ‘The Growth of a Discipline’, in B. Porter (ed.), The Aberystwyth Papers, p. 23.
80. A similar conclusion can be drawn from R. Niebuhr, ‘Introduction’, Moral Man and Immoral Society (New York, 1932). See, particularly, the way in which Morgenthau's critique of rationalism becomes a set of rigid rules in H. Morgenthau, Power Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, 3rd edn (New York, 1965).
81. 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).
82. For examples of the conflation, see Inis Claude, Power in International Relations (New York, 1962) and J. Herz, Political Realism and Political Idealism.
83. For example, see Mitrany's critique of Clarence Streit's proposals in A Working Peace System, p. 13–16.
84. Carr, The Twenty Years’ Crisis, ch. 14. 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 H. Suganami, Domestic Analogy and World Order Proposals, pp. 101–105. 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.