Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse

Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse ( born September 8, 1864 in St Ive, Cornwall, England; † June 21, 1929 in Alençon, France) was a British Liberal politician and one of the theoreticians of modern liberalism. He worked as an academic and journalist, and was the first professor of sociology at a British university, the University of London. He was the founder of the oldest British sociological journal, The Sociological Review.

Hobhouse strengthened the " New Liberal " movement of the Liberal Party under the leadership of Asquith and Lloyd George to the turn of the century. He distinguished property for the use and ownership to power and provided the theoretical justification for a redistribution of state pensions. Therefore, it plays an important role in the intellectual history of the Liberal Democrats.

His work also presents a positive vision of liberalism, in which the purpose of freedom is to allow individuals to their development, and not of itself is good. He said that coercion should not therefore be avoided, because we have no eyes for the welfare of other people, but because forced their situation can not improve.

Hobhouse hoped that the Liberals could form with the social democratic tendency in the Labour Party a large, progressive coalition.

Works

• Labour Movement (1893 )
• Theory of Knowledge: A Contribution to Some Problems of Logic and Metaphysics (1896 )
• Mind in Evolution ( 1901)
• Democracy and Reaction (1905 )
• Morals in Evolution: A Study in Comparative Ethics ( 1906)
• Liberalism (1911 )
• Social Evolution and Political Theory (1911 )
• Development and Purpose (1913 )
• The Material Culture and Social Institutions of the Simpler Peoples (1915 )
• The Metaphysical Theory of the State: A Criticism (1918 )
• The Rational Good: A Study in the Logic of Practice ( 1921)
• The Elements of Social Justice (1922 )
• Social Development: Its Nature and Conditions (1924 )
• Sociology and Philosophy: A Centenary Collection of Essays and Articles ( 1966)