Humanism, Economics and Social Progress: The Development of J.A. Hobson’s Thought

This thesis is a study of the economic, social, and political thought of John Atkinson Hobson. It traces the evolution of his theories from his early engagement with the economic concept of underconsumption through to his development of a system of humanistic economics. At the heart of Hobson’s programme throughout his life was the idea of wealth expressed in human terms, a notion largely derived from the work of John Ruskin. Attention is paid to Hobson’s contribution to the crafting of New Liberalism at the turn of the twentieth century as well as his subsequent move away from liberalism and towards a form of socialism. This thesis places particular emphasis on the years after 1914 so as to challenge the common notion that Hobson’s intellectual evolution was over by this point and it is found that he continued to be
theoretically innovative, revising and refining his ideas up to his death in 1940.