ABSTRACT
The publication of this collection of essays is part of a recent process of rectifying that intellectual injustice, of reinstating that self-proclaimed heretic in his rightful place as a major originator of British welfare thought, a progressive thinker whose influence in a variety of fields has only been properly identified’ over the past twenty years.3 If it was ‘characteristic of Hobson that he did not know how great his own influence was’, 4 it has far too long been the case that others have shared in that ignorance. Not that Hobson remained unknown either during his life or after his death. His place in history was assured early on as a trenchant critic of imperialism, and historians of empire have kept his reputation alive ever since the publication of Imperialism: A Study in 1902.5 His role as economic theorist-in particular as a vigorous articulator of underconsumptionist notions-is more difficult to assess, since social thinkers and reformers were on the whole more impressed with his views than were professional economists, not the least Keynes, whose famous acknowledgement in The General Theory of Hobson’s trail-blazing was hedged with disclaimers about the latter’s insights and analytical accuracy, as Peter Clarke
shows in Chapter 6. Nevertheless, it was as an underconsumptionist and as a questioner of economic ends and methods that Hobson managed to maintain a minor reputation among connoisseurs of the history of economic ideas, and even a contemporary detractor could comment that ‘whether we agree with him or not…we must agree that no one can read his book without being impressed by the care with which he has collected and examined his material, and the patience, independence, and subtlety with which he has formed his conclusions’.6
