J. A. Hobson - Imperialism

J.A. Hobson published Imperialism in 1902. In his view, the late nineteenth century phenomenon of Imperialism was caused by many factors, such as special interest groups, the class and power structures of Western society, a deficit of democracy and so on.
It was a classic book over a hundred years ago and is well worth a read now.
Here are some quotes;

'War and commercial tariffs are the crudest and  most wasteful forms of national struggle, testing the lowest forms of national fitness. Let international government put down wars and establish Free Trade, the truly vital struggles of national expression will begin. As in the case of individuals, so now of nations, the competition will be keener upon the higher levels; nations having ceased to compete with guns and tariffs will compete with feelings and ideas.'

With reference to cultural and scientific nationalism, Hobson says;
'Outside conquests of personal genius, the broad streams of national influence and achievement which might have fertilized the wide plains of the intellectual world have been confined within their narrow national channels. Nationalism, as a restrictive and exclusive force, fostering political and industrial enmities and keeping down the competition of nationalities and races to the low level of military strife, has everywhere checked the free intercourse requisite for the higher kinds of competition, the struggle of languages, literatures, scientific theories, religious, political and social institutions, and all the arts and crafts which are the highest and most important expressions of national as of individual life.'

As for China:
'The only important fact upon which there is universal agreement is that the Chinese are of all the 'lower races' most adaptable for the purposes of industrial exploitation, yielding the largest surplus product of labour in proportion  to their cost of keep...... (China) seems so enormous and so expansible  as to open up the possibility of raising the whole white populations of the West to the position of 'independent gentlemen,' living, as do the small white settlements in India or South Africa, upon the manual toil of laborious inferiors......Such an experiment may revolutionize the methods of Imperialism; the pressure of working-class movements in politics and industry in the West can be met by a flood of Chinese goods, so as to keep down wages and compel industry, or, where the power of the imperialist oligarchy is well set, by menaces of yellow workmen or yellow mercenary troops......... all the main arterial industries would have disappeared, the staple foods and manufactures flowing in as tribute from Asia and Africa.......subordinating all movements of domestic reform to the need of maintaining the Empire, and checkmating the forces of democracy by a skilful use of a highly centralised bureaucracy and army.'