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L. T. Hobhouse and the Theory of “Social Liberalism”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

John W. Seaman
John W. Seaman
Affiliation:
McMaster University
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Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 11 , Issue 4 , December 1978 , pp. 777 - 802
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Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1978

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References

1 See Ginsberg, Morris, “The Growth of Social Responsibility,” in Ginsberg, Morris (ed.), Law and Opinion in England in the 20th Century (London: Steven & Sons, 1959), 14, 15, 19Google Scholar; Hobson, J. A., “L. T. Hobhouse: A Memoir,” in Ginsberg, J. A. Hobsonand Morris (eds.), L. T. Hobhouse: His Life and Work (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1931), 30Google Scholar; and Grimes, Alan P., “Introduction” to Liberalism, by Hobhouse, L. T. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1964), 6Google Scholar. Hobhouse directly encouraged the view that his politics was a variety of liberal socialism (in his Liberalism, 87).

2 Most of the recent assessments of Hobhouse have made little of his commitments to capitalism and classical liberal principles. See, for example, Collini, Stefan, “Hobhouse, Bosanquet and the State: Philosophical Idealism and Political Argument in England 1880–1918,” Past & Present 72 (1976), 86–111CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Freeden, Michael, “Biological and Evolutionary Roots of the New Liberalism in England,” Political Theory 4 (1976), 471–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Peter Weiler's analysis (“The New Liberalism of L. T. Hobhouse,” Victorian Studies 16 [1972], 141–61Google Scholar) is a welcome exception to this. But while Weiler recognizes that Hobhouse's ideal was a “reformed capitalism” (Ibid., 156), he examines neitherthe ethical roots of that ideal northe difficulties the ideal and its underlying ethics involve. The thesis that liberal-democratic theory contains two irreconcilable components of the sort I see in Hobhouse's political theory was first promoted by C. B. Macpherson (see, in particular, his “The Maximization of Democracy” and “Democratic Theory: Ontology and Technology,” in Macpherson, C. B., Democratic Theory: Essays in Retrieval [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973])Google Scholar.

3 Hobhouse, L. T., “Introduction” to Democracy and Reaction, by Hobhouse, L. T. (2nd ed. rev.; London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1909), xxxivGoogle Scholar.

4 See Hobhouse, L. T., Morals in Evolution: A Study in Comparative Ethics (3rd ed. rev.; London: Chapman & Hall, 1951), 334–35Google Scholar; L. T. Hobhouse, “The Historical Evolution of Property, in Fact and in Idea,” in Hobhouse, L. T., Sociology and Philosophy: A Centenary Collection of Essays and Articles, with a Preface by Caine, Sir Sydney and an Introduction by Ginsberg, Morris (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967), 96–99Google Scholar; and L. T. Hobhouse, “Industry and State,” in Hobhouse, Sociology and Philosophy, 209–12, 216.

5 Hobhouse, L. T., The Labour Movement, with a Preface by Haldane, R. B. (2nd ed.; London: T. Fisher Unwin, [1905]), 4, 69–70Google Scholar.

6 Ibid., 3–4, 93.

7 Cf. Macpherson. “The Maximization of Democracy,” 4, 5, 17–19.

8 Labour Movement (2nd ed.), 72.

9 Hobhouse, L. T., “Introduction” to Development and Purpose: An Essay Towards a Philosophy of Evolution, by Hobhouse, L. T. (2nd ed. rev.; London: Macmillan, 1927), xviii–xixGoogle Scholar.

10 Ibid., xxii. This counter-theory of evolution is developed by Hobhouse in his following works: Development and Purpose; Morals in Evolution; Mind in Evolution (3rd ed.; London: Macmillan, 1926)Google Scholar; Social Development: Its Nature and Conditions, with a Foreword by Ginsberg, Morris (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1966)Google Scholar; and Social Evolution and Political Theory (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1911Google Scholar; reprint ed., Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1968).

11 Hobhouse, Mind in Evolution, 391. Cf. 390, 407–11.

12 Hobhouse, Development and Purpose, 239. Also see his Social Evolution, 162–63, 165.

13 Hobhouse, L. T., “The Ethical Basis of Collectivism,” International Journal of Ethics 8 (1898), 144–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also his Democracy and Reaction, 114–16; Mind in Evolution, 427–29; and Social Evolution, 152–56.

14 Social Evolution, 165.

15 Hobhouse, L. T., The Rational Good: A Study in the Logic of Practice (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1921), 105–06Google Scholar.

16 Ibid., 104–05, 106; and Hobhouse, L. T., The Elements of Social Justice (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1965), 26Google Scholar.

17 Liberalism, 69.

18 Hobhouse, “The Ethical Basis of Collectivism,” 155. See also his Social Evolution, 185.

19 See Hobhouse, L.T., The Labour Movement (3rded. rev.; London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1912), 125Google Scholar.

20 Rational Good, 107–08.

21 Hobhouse, Social Evolution, 87 footnote.

22 Ibid., 199. See also his Democracy and Reaction, 225–29; Labour Movement (3rd ed.), 152–53; and Liberalism, 66–67, 70–71.

23 Hobhouse, Elements, 67–68; and his Liberalism, 66.

24 Hobhouse, Elements, 186. Cf. his Liberalism, 50.

25 See Ibid., 50–51, 74–78.

26 Ibid., 54. See also his Social Development, 34–35, 280.

27 See John Locke's statement of this principle in The Second Treatise of Government, in Locke, John, Two Treatises of Government, ed. by Laslett, Peter (New York: New . American Library, 1965)Google Scholar, sec. 27. It is Hobbes who provided the classic formulation of the other market principle, that is, that a just claim is established by the marketability of a man's performance: “The Value, or WORTH of a man, is as of all other things, his Price; that is to say, so much as would be given for the use of his Power…” (Leviathan, ed. by Macpherson, C. B. [Middlesex, England: Penguin, 1975], 151)Google Scholar.

28 Elements, 132.

29 Ibid.

30 Ibid.

31 Ibid., 109, 119–20.

32 Ibid., 133.

33 Ibid.

34 Ibid., 134.

35 Ibid., 139–43.

36 Ibid., 142.

37 Ibid., 142–43.

38 For J. S. Mill's “equitable principle,” see his Principles of Political Economy, ed. by Robson, J. M., in Collected Works of John Stuart Mill (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1968), Vol. 2, 208Google Scholar.

39 See Hobhouse's assertion that “we find in Locke the basis of a view which is at once a justification of property, and a criticism of industrial organization. Man has a right, it would seem, first to the opportunity of labour; secondly, to the fruits of his labour; thirdly, to what he can use of these fruits, and nothing more…. The conception is individualistic, but it may be given a more social turn if we bear in mind … that in a society where men produce for exchange, labour is a social function, and the price of labour its reward. Locke's doctrine would then amount to this, that the social right of each man is to a place in the economic order, in which he both has opportunity for exercising his faculties in the social service, and can reap thereby a reward proportionate to the value of the service rendered to society” (“The Historical Evolution of Property,” 102–03).

40 Elements, 131.

41 Ibid., 133 and footnote. See also Labour Movement (3rd ed.), 67–68; and Liberalism, 92–97.

42 Hobhouse, Elements, 133.

43 Ibid., 138–39.

44 See Ibid.. 134–35.

45 Liberalism, 106.

46 Labour Movement (3rd ed.), 110–11.

47 Ibid., 31–33, 111; and Liberalism, 85–86.

48 See Labour Movement (3rd ed.), 45.

49 Hobhouse, Liberalism, 92.

50 Labour Movement (3rd ed.), 44–47, 54–55.

51 Ibid., 44–45.

52 Ibid., 118–20; Liberalism, 53, 100; and Elements, 162–63.

53 Elements, 163.

54 Labour Movement (3rd ed.), 124; and Liberalism, 100.

55 Labour Movement (3rd ed.), 123.

56 See Elements, 169–71.

57 Hobhouse, Labour Movement (3rd ed.), 98–102.

58 Ibid., 113.

59 Elements, 170.

60 Labour Movement (3rd ed.), 99. See also 98.

61 Elements, 166.

62 Labour Movement (3rd ed.), 121–23.

63 See Liberalism, 104 footnote. Cf. Elements, 143 footnote, 146.

64 Labour Movement (3rd ed.), 122–23.

65 Elements, 145.

66 It might be objected that this assessment unduly emphasizes the role of private enterprise in Hobhouse's just economy. It is true that Hobhouse does allow for the presence of various types of nonprivate enterprises in his model and even goes so far as to describe it as a, more or less neutral balance of municipal and state industries, cooperative associations, and private enterprises (Ibid., 184). Yet the fact remains that he allows little scope for nonprivate enterprises to operate. He wanted municipal ownership to extend no further than to industries supplying routine services and goods, for example, the production and distribution of milk, coal, bread, and the like (Ibid., 178; and Labour Movement [3rd ed.], 67ff.); and while he accepted state-owned management for a few basic service industries—postal services and transport—he was very hesitant about any further nationalization (see Labour Movement [3rd ed.], 87–90; and Elements, 178–79). Hobhouse was quite favourably impressed by “consumers' co-operatives.” But he recognized that without the active assistance of the state, cooperatives would be inevitably confined to a relatively inconsequential sector of the economy, that is, to the retail and wholesale trade, and the only state assistance he appears willing to permit is in the case of those industries which are having serious difficulties continuing as private enterprises—for example, the coal industry (see Elements, 180–81). This “balanced” economy, then, speaks with a predominantly private voice.

67 Cf. C. B. Macpherson's concept of the “net transfer of powers” in his “the Maximization of Democracy,” 9–12; “Problems of a Non-Market Theory of Democracy,” in Macpherson, Democratic Theory, 40–45, 63–65; and The Real World of Democracy (Toronto: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 1965), 40–44Google Scholar.

68 “The Historical Evolution of Property,” 88–89”, 97–99, 103–04.

69 Ibid., 106.

70 See his Elements, 182–84.

71 See Macpherson, “The Maximization of Democracy,” 14.