John A. Hobson - The Evolution of Modern Capitalism (1894)

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Industrial progress would undoubtedly be slower under state-control, because the very object of such control is to divert a larger proportion of human genius and effort from these occupations in order to apply them in producing higher forms of wealth. It is not, however, right to assume that progress in the industrial arts would cease under state-industry; such progress would be slower, and would itself partake of a routine character—a slow, continuous adjustment of the mechanism of production and distribution to the slowly-changing needs of the community.

John A. Hobson
The substitution of industrialism for warfare is not... understood to imply a diminution of individual enterprise, but an alteration in its application.

John A. Hobson
Much individual enterprise in industry does not make for industrial progress. A larger and larger proportion of the energy given out in trade competition is consumed in violent warfare between trade rivals and is not represented either in advancement of industrial arts or in increase of material wealth.

John A. Hobson
Higher progress can only be purchased by an economy of the work of lower progress, the free, conscious expression of higher individuality by the routine subordination of lower individuality.

John A. Hobson
This is, in fact, the philosophical defence of progressive socialism, that human progress requires that one after another the lower material animal functions shall be reduced to routine, in order that a larger amount of individual effort may be devoted to the exercise of higher functions and the cultivation by strife of higher qualities.

John A. Hobson
All progress, from primitive savagedom to modern civilisation, will... appear as consisting in the progressive socialisation of the lower functions, the stoppage of lower forms of competition and of the education of the more brutal qualities, in order that a larger and larger proportion of individual activity may be engaged in the exercise of higher functions, the practice of competition upon higher planes, and the education of higher forms of fitness.

John A. Hobson
Under socialized industry progress in the industrial arts would be slower and would absorb a smaller proportion of individual interest, in order that progress in the finer intellectual and moral arts might be faster, and might engage a larger share of life.

John A. Hobson
This new and enlarged edition of The Evolution of Modern Capitalism contains additions and alterations so great as to constitute it in effect a new book.

John A. Hobson
Industrial history shows that in modern competitive industry the motive of personal gain is most wastefully applied. On the one hand, the great mass of intelligent workers have no opportunity of securing an adequate reward for any special application of intelligence in mechanical invention or other improvement of industrial arts. Few great modern inventors have made money out of their inventions. On the other hand, the entrepreneur, with just enough business cunning to recognise the market value of an improvement, reaps a material reward which is often enormously in excess of what is economically required to induce him to apply his "business" qualities to the undertaking.

John A. Hobson
We now stand face to face with the main objection so often raised against all endeavours to remedy industrial and social diseases by the expansion of public control.... The strife, danger, and waste of industrial competition are necessary conditions to industrial vitality.

John A. Hobson
History does not show greed of gain as the motive of the great steps in industrial progress. The love of science, the pure delight of mechanical invention, the attainment of some slight personal convenience in labour, and mere chance, play the largest part in the history of industrial improvements. These motives would be as equally operative under state-control as under private enterprise.

John A. Hobson