Thorstein Veblen
Review author of: 'Imperialism: A Study'. By J. A. HOBSON. New York: James 
Pott & Co., 1902. 8vo, pp. vii + 400.
The Journal of Political Economy, vol. 11, No. 2 (Mar., 1903), pp. 311-314.
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Those readers who hold that a well-balanced judgment consists in always 
finding as much in favor at any political course as against it will be 
discon-[312]tented with the treatment here given. For the study is 
distinctively one of social pathology, and no endeavor is made to disguise 
the malignity of the disease. (Preface, p. vi.)
Although the new imperialism has been bad business for the nation, it has 
been good business for certain classes and certain trades within the 
nation. The vast expenditure on armaments, the costly wars, the grave risks 
and embarrassments of foreign policy, the stoppage of political and social 
reforms within Great Britain, though fraught with great injury to the 
nation, have served well the present business interests of certain 
industries and professions. (Pp. 51, 52.)
These influences, primarily economic, though not unmixed with other 
sentimental motives, are particularly operative in military, clerical, 
academic, and civil-service circles, and furnish an interested bias toward 
imperialism throughout the educated classes. [But] by far the most 
important economic factor in imperialism is the influence relating to 
investments. (P. 56.)
It is not too much to say that the modern foreign policy of Great Britain 
is primarily a struggle for profitable markets of investment. ... This is, 
perhaps, the most important fact in modern politics, and the obscurity in 
which it is wrapped constitutes the gravest danger to our state. (P. 60.)
If, contemplating the enormous expenditure on armaments the ruinous wars, 
the diplomatic audacity of knavery by which modern governments seek to 
extend their territorial power, we put the plain, practical question. Cui 
bono! the first and most obvious answer is, The investor. (P. 62.)
The investor needs new fields of investments because the home domain does 
not afford a field for investment equally profitable with the investments 
already made. This state of the case, which furnishes the most substantial 
ground of imperialist expansion, is due to two circumstances: (1) because 
of a very unequal distribution of income, which leaves the greater part of 
the population unable to satisfy their reasonable needs, the output of 
industry exceeds what there is a demand for at remunerative prices; (2) 
because the incomes from the larger holdings of invested wealth exceed the 
consumptive powers of the holders, there results an automatic accumulation 
of wealth in the hands of the large holders, and this increment can not 
find investment at profitable rates within the community and so seeks 
opportunity elsewhere under the protection of the flag. This is the 
"economic tap-root of imperialism." In this connection Mr. Hobson restates, 
in cogent terms, his well-known theory of over-production, or under-
consumption; but the criticism of this theory does not belong here. He 
points out that the incentive to the employment of the governmental 
machinery and the public funds for private gain in this way is very direct 
and strong, since the burden falls on the nation, while the gain goes to 
[313] certain influential business interests which, under the current 
system of taxation and administration, are never called on to pay in 
proportion to the gains which they get; and he argues, with apparent 
conclusiveness, that the cost, to the nation, of its exploits of expansion 
exceeds by several hundred per cent. the aggregate gains that come to any 
class of the community from this expansion. The ever-recurring contention, 
apparently indisputable, is that at an exorbitant cost to the nation at 
large certain business interests derive a profit from imperialist 
achievements, and that this peculiar profit is, on the whole, of no 
advantage to the community at whose cost it is secured. The reason why a 
nation, such as Great Britain or the United States, goes on in this way of 
extravagant, feeble-minded trade policy is to be sought in a prevalent 
stupid sentimentality that allows itself to be cajoled with spectacular 
returns of national glory and the catchwords of demagogue politics.
What the home community gets in return for its investment in armaments, 
dependencies, and administrative machinery in demoralization of its home 
politics and degradation of its people. Popular government and popular 
ideals necessarily suffer.
Imperialism and popular government have nothing in common: they differ in 
spirit, in policy, in method. (P. 158.)
The political effects, actual and necessary, of the new imperialism, as 
illustrated in the case of the greatest of imperialist powers, may be thus 
summarized. It is a constant menace to peace, by furnishing continual 
temptations to further aggression upon lands occupied by lower races, and 
by embroiling our nation with other nations of rival imperial ambitions; to 
the sharp peril of war it adds the chronic danger and degradation of 
militarism, which not merely wastes the current physical and moral 
resources of the nations, but checks the very course of civilization. .... 
Absorbing the public money, time, interest, and energy on costly and 
unprofitable work of territorial aggrandizement, it thus wastes those 
energies of public life in the governing classes and the nations which are 
needed for internal reforms and for the cultivation of the arts of material 
and intellectual progress at home. Finally, the spirit, the policy, and the 
methods of imperialism are hostile to the institutions of popular self-
government, favoring forms of political tyranny and social authority which 
are the deadly enemies of effective liberty and equality. (Pp. 160, 161.)
The chapter (Part II, chap. i) on "The Scientific Defence of Imperialism" 
is devoted to the veiled jingoism of such writers as Professors Pearson and 
Giddings, who argue that imperialism is good because it is a method of 
"natural selection" between races and [314] nationalities. The Darwinian-
jingo argument may be summed up in the two propositions that: The best 
fighters are the best men, and the best fighters survive and multiply under 
Imperialist rule. Both of these propositions, together with their various 
corollaries, Mr. Hobson argues, are baseless in logic and unsupported by 
facts. The argument on "Imperialism and the Lower Races" runs to the effect 
that, while imperialism damages and deteriorates the conquering nation, it 
is probably even more disastrous to the lower races brought under 
imperialist rule. In support of this thesis there is offered a wide-ranging 
and impressive array of facts.
"The book is addressed to the intelligence of the minority .... who desire 
to understand political forces." The argument might have a wider effect and 
might even serve to mitigate the imperialist shove if imperialism rested on 
rational grounds. But since, as Mr. Hobson fully recognizes, the motive 
force of imperialism is a militant sentimentality guided by the business 
interests of a small class, no such appeal to the common-sense of the 
community can seriously affect the outcome or even gain a wide hearing.
V.