John Atkinson Hobson: Heretic, Forerunner and Forgotten

Abstract

John A. Hobson is known for his path breaking study of imperialism. Nevertheless, Hobson’s corpus, which was formed with his important contributions to the discipline of economics, was left to oblivion. There have been many reasons behind this. Most importantly was the excommunication of the social reformist economic view of Hobson by neoclassical orthodoxy. This excommunication resulted in the fact that so many important theses of Hobson went unnoticed. These theses, intitionally, were the precursors for the later Keynes-Kalecki line. On the other hand, even his study about imperialism, which made him renowned, has not been deeply investigated. Particularly, the second part of the book, in which the politics of imperialism are analyzed, has been nearly unknown. The basic aim of this paper is both to unfold the originality and novelty of Hobson’s economic thinking and to evaluate his theory on imperialism in detail.

Keywords

• J. A. Hobson
• social reformism
• imperialism
• the development of economic thought
• Keynes

John Atkinson Hobson: Sapkın, Haberci ve Unutulmuş

Abstract

John A. Hobson’u bilindik kılan katkısı emperyalizmle ilgili çığır açıcı eseridir. Ancak çoğunlukla İktisat disiplinine yönelik önemli eserlerden oluşan Hobson’un külliyatı genel olarak bir unutulmuşluğa terk edilmiştir. Bu unutulmuşluğun pek çok nedeni vardır. En önemlisi ise Hobson’un sosyal reformist iktisadi kurgusunun neoklasik ortodoksi tarafından aforoz edilmesidir. Bu aforoz Hobson’un pek çok önemli tezinin dikkatlerden kaçması sonucuna yol açmıştır. Bu tezler, sezgisel düzeyde, daha sonraki Keynes-Kalecki çizgisini haber verir niteliktedir. Diğer taraftan, Hobson’u ünlü kılan emperyalizm çalışması bile fazlaca etüt edilen bir çalışma değildir. Özellikle emperyalizmin politik mahiyetinin anlatıldığı bölüm neredeyse hiç bilinmemektedir. Bu çalışmanın temel amacı hem Hobson’un iktisadi anlayışının özgüllükleri ve yeniliklerini ele almak hem de emperyalizm kuramının detaylarını incelemektir.

Keywords

• J.A. Hobson
• sosyal reformizm
• emperyalizm
• iktisadi düşüncenin gelişimi
• Keynes

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