Book Review:  Imperialism: A Study ... is the iconoclastic 1902 work from British economist J.A. Hobson. Today it is more generally known for having inspired Vladimir Lenin to write his 1916 treatise, Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism. Secondarily, Hobson advanced his theory that the British investor class had "oversaved," with domestic production outstripping domestic consumption, in consequence thereof leading the investors to seek investment opportunities overseas: first in Europe and from 1870 onward in Africa and Asia - the "tropics". A Socialist, Hobson argued that the funds should have been directed homeward by increasing the income placed at the disposition and advantage of the working classes, thereby increasing domestic consumption to match production.

An exhaustive (and exhausting) reading of the text reveals a persistent shadowed motivation: British investment overseas will empower the "black" and "yellow" races, literally imperilling "white civilization." While Hobson is rightfully criticized for anti-Semitism in his earlier book on the Boer War (UK vs ethnic Dutch settlers in South Africa, 1899-1901), blaming the war on "Jewish financiers," such blatant anti-Semitism is missing from "Imperialism." It is beyond curious that modern reviewers of Imperialism so blithely skate past the racism that persists throughout the text.

Hobson supports "colonisation" as opposed to imperialism, which he sees as white families settling in temperate climes - without regard for extant aborginal society and culture.

Hobson's analysis of British imperialism - that is to say, abusive exploitation - of Africa is extensive, cogent and well-supported by citations. (Part II, Chapter IV - "Imperialism and the Lower Races.") Not so the following Chapter on "Imperialism in Asia," which is painted on a phantasmagorical background of an innately corrupt India and a peaceful, wise and complacent China robbed of its innocence and riches by European buccaneers.

Hobson has both an eye and a pen for a good turn of phrase.

Pithy metaphor:

"A coma accompanied by fits." Miss Mary Kingsley on British policy in the West African colonies. p. 128

Insouciant nationalism:

"Probably every one would agree that an Englishman would be right in considering his way of looking at the world and at life better than that of the Maori or Hottentot, and no one will object in the abstract to England doing her best to impose her better and higher view on those savages." (Goes on to accord Belgians, Germans, Nordics the same lack of disrespect, if at a higher step.) Earl Grey on Hubert Harvey of the British South African Chartered Company, p. 167

Outrageous sanctimony:

"Our only programme is that of the moral and material regeneration of the country." King Leopold II of Belgium, referencing the Congo. p. 209

{I cannot praise too highly King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild in refutation of this hypocrisy.}

Damnation of Populism:

They are no longer seriously frightened by the power of the people as implied by a popular franchise, nor are they prepared to conciliate it by further taxes on property; .... 'Panem et circenses' interpreted into English means cheap booze and Mafficking (Mafeking, Siege of: ed.). Popular education, instead of serving as a defence, is an incitement towards Imperialism; it has opened up a panorama of vulgar pride and crude sensationalism to a great inert mass who see current history and the tangled maze of world movements with dim, bewildered eyes, and are the inevitable dupes of the able organised interests who can lure, or scare, or drive them into any convenient course. p. 107

Fake News:

Imperialism is based upon a persistent misrepresentation of facts and forces chiefly through a most refined process of selection, exaggeration, and attenuation, directed by interested cliques and persons so as to distort the face of history. The gravest peril of Imperialism lies in the state of mind of a nation which has become habituated to this deception and which has rendered itself incapable of self-criticism. p. 223

Prophesy:

"[China] may turn upon her civiliser [.] .... [T]here is no consideration, theoretic or practical, to prevent British capital from transferring itself to China, provided it can find there a cheaper or more efficient supply of labour, or even to prevent Chinese capital with Chinese labour from ousting Britsh produce [.] ....

China might so turn the tables upon the Western industrial nations, and, either by adopting their capital and organisers or, as is more probable, by substituting her own, might flood their markets with her cheaper manufacturers, and refusing their imports in exchange might take her payments in liens upon their capital, reversing the earlier process of investment until she gradually obtained financial control over her quondam patrons and civilisers. This is no idle speculation." pp 329-330

And Condemnation of the "Upper" Class:

" ... vulgar ostentation, domineering demeanour and corrupting largesse to dazzle and degrade the life of our people." p. 158