Hobson on White Parasitism and Its Solutions

• Published date: 01 February 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00905917231192002
• Author: Benjamin R. Y. Tan
• Date: 01 February 2024
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/00905917231192002

Political Theory

2024, Vol. 52(1) 120 –145

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DOI: 10.1177/00905917231192002

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Article

Hobson on White

Parasitism and

Its Solutions

Benjamin R. Y. Tan1

Abstract

Since the publication of J. A. Hobson’s (1858–1940) Imperialism: A Study in

1902, the text has been studied—even celebrated—as a liberal or proto-

Marxist critique of modern empires. This reputation stands in some tension

with the text itself, which defends various forms of imperial domination.

While scholars have addressed this tension, they remain divided over

how best to understand Hobson’s imperial commitments. Offering a new

response to this debate, I argue that a key dimension of Imperialism has

been overlooked—namely, Hobson’s conception of humanity as stratified

into a hierarchy of racial “souls.” This deeply committed view of human

difference undergirded Hobson’s arguments about the moral and practical

limits of Western imperial power. This article shows how Hobson

articulated imperialism as the “parasitic” rule of whites over the nonwhite

world—the solution to which was not the rejection of empire but the

reform of white imperial power in accordance with his normative vision

of global racial hierarchy. This recovery reveals the redemptive critique at

the core of Imperialism and enables us to more readily grasp the text as a

form of imperial apologetics. The article concludes with the suggestion that

Hobson is better understood not as a liberal- or socialist-imperialist but as

a proponent of racial capitalism on a global scale.

Keywords

white supremacy, new liberalism, imperialism, empire, racial capitalism

1Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

Corresponding Author:

Benjamin R. Y. Tan, Department of Politics and International Studies, The Alison Richard

Building, 7 West Road, Cambridge, CB3 9DP, UK.

Email: rybt2@cam.ac.uk

1192002PTXXXX10.1177/00905917231192002Political TheoryTan

research-article2023

Tan 121

Introduction

Even before John Atkinson Hobson’s death in 1940, his Imperialism: A Study

(Hobson 1902b) was regarded as a landmark text on empire.1 For some read-

ers, the text’s enduring contribution was its analysis of European imperial

expansion as driven by the dynamics of finance capitalism. In 1926, the

Columbia political scientist Parker T. Moon (1892–1936) described Hobson’s

book as “the classic indictment of imperialist doctrines and practices” (Moon

1926, 475n3). Writing in 1935, three years before Hobson would issue a third

edition of Imperialism, the Harvard historian William L. Langer (1896–1977)

declared the text as the “starting point for most later discussions [of imperial-

ism] and which has proved a perennial inspiration for writers of the most

diverse schools,” including “the so-called Neo-Marxians” Vladimir Lenin

(1870–1924) and Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919).2 It was, according to Langer

([1935] 1968, 97), “perhaps the best book yet written on the subject.”3

Yet, Hobson’s reputation as a leading critic of empire stands in some

tension with the text of Imperialism itself, which explicitly endorses forms of

imperial rule. Recent scholarship has sought to address this discrepancy,

recasting Hobson—journalist, new-liberal theorist, and economist—as among

the leading “progressive imperialists” of his day (Vitalis 2015, 176). But the

field remains divided over the precise nature of his commitments to empire.

Scholars disagree, for instance, on whether Hobson’s imperial apologetics

contradict or undermine his more famous critique of financial imperialism.4

Scholars also disagree on whether Hobson is best understood as a liberal

imperialist, bent on “civilising” the “lower races,” or a socialist imperialist

who, like his Fabian contemporaries, prescribed global imperial exploitation

by the West for the ailments of modern capitalism.5 Complicating matters are

the different imperial practices that he defended, including imperial federation

with the white settler colonies and an international mandates system.6

1. Unless otherwise stated, references to Hobson refer to J. A. Hobson, not J. M.

Hobson.

2. Langer (1935, 102). His formula of comparing Hobson, Lenin, and Joseph

Schumpeter was repeated in postwar scholarship, e.g., Kruger (1955).

3. Langer’s ([1935] 1968) book Diplomacy of Imperialism was a reevaluation of

Hobson’s Imperialism and would secure Langer’s appointment as the inaugural

Archibald Coolidge Professor of History at Harvard in 1936.

4. For earlier discussions, see Long (1996, 117–18); Cain (2002, especially 165–99,

233–40); Winch (2009, 329–30); Hobson (2011, 9–57).

5. For the former position, see Etherington (1984, 72–76); Cain (2002); Hobson

(2011, 28–34); and especially Long (2005). For the latter position, see Claeys

(2010, 260–69 and passim). Claeys extends some of the arguments found in

Porter (2008, 232ff.).

6. For Hobson’s views on imperial federation, see Bell (2016, 354–62).