John A. Hobson
| John A. Hobson | |
|---|---|
| Born | 6 July 1858 Derby, England |
| Died | 1 April 1940 (aged 81) Hampstead, London, England |
| Nationality | British |
| Field | Imperialism, poverty, unemployment |
| Alma mater | Lincoln College, Oxford |
| Contributions | Theory of underconsumption |
John Atkinson Hobson (commonly known as John A. Hobson or J. A. Hobson; 6 July 1858 – 1 April 1940), was an English economist, social scientist and critic of imperialism, widely popular as a lecturer and writer.
Hobson was born in Derby, the son of William Hobson, "a rather prosperous newspaper proprietor", and Josephine Atkinson. He was the brother of the mathematician Ernest William Hobson. He studied at Derby School and Lincoln College, Oxford, afterwards teaching classics and English literature at schools in Faversham and Exeter.
When Hobson relocated to London in 1887, England was in the midst of a major economic depression. While classical economics was at a loss to explain the vicious business cycles, London had many societies that proposed alternatives. While living in London, Hobson was exposed to the Social Democrats and Henry Mayers Hyndman, Christian Socialists, and Henry George's Single-tax system. He befriended several of the prominent Fabians who would found the London School of Economics, some of whom he had known at Oxford. However, none of these groups proved persuasive enough for Hobson; rather it was his collaboration with a friend, the famous businessman and mountain climber Albert F. Mummery, that would produce Hobson's contribution to economics: the theory of underconsumption. First described by Mummery and Hobson in the 1889 book Physiology of Industry, underconsumption was a scathing criticism of Say's law and classical economics' emphasis on thrift. The forwardness of the book's conclusions discredited Hobson among the professional economics community. Ultimately he was excluded from the academic community.
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