Everything about Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse totally explained
Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse (
September 8,
1864 -
June 21,
1929) was a
British liberal politician, one of the theorists of
social liberalism. He worked as an academic and a journalist: he was the first professor of
sociology appointed in a British university. He was born in
St Ive, near
Liskeard in
Cornwall. His sister
Emily Hobhouse was a noted welfare campaigner.
Economic Policy
Hobhouse was important in underpinning the turn-of-the-century 'New Liberal' movement of the Liberal party under leaders like Asquith and Lloyd George. He distinguished between property held 'for use' and property held 'for power'. He also theorized that property was acquired not only by individual effort but by societal organization (meaning, those who had property owed some of their success and thus had some obligation to society), providing theoretical justification for a level of redistribution provided by the new state
pensions. It is important to note, however, that Hobhouse disliked Marxist socialism, describing his own position as "liberal socialism".
Hobhouse occupies a particularly important place in the intellectual history of the
Liberal Democrats because of this.
Civil Liberty
His work also presents a positive vision of liberalism in which the purpose of liberty is to enable individuals to develop, not solely that freedom is good in itself. Hobhouse, by contrast, said that coercion should be avoided not because we've no regard for other peoples' well-being, but because coercion is ineffective at improving their lot.
Hobhouse rejected
classical liberalism, noting the work of other liberals who had pointed out the various forms of coercion already existing in society apart from government. Therefore, he proposed that to promote liberty the government must control those factors already existing which worked against it.
Hobhouse held out hope that Liberals and what would now be called the
social democrat tendency in the nascent
Labour party could form a grand progressive coalition.
Foreign Policy
Hobhouse was often disappointed that fellow collectivists in Britain at the time also tended to be Imperialists. Hobhouse opposed the
Boer war and had reservations about the
First World War. He was an
Internationalist and disliked the pursuit of British national interests as practised by the governments of the day.
Further Information
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