We would like to thank Dolega and Dewhurst for a thought-provoking and informed deconstruction of our article, which we take as applause from valued members of our audience. In brief, we fully concur with the theatre-free formulation offered by Dolega and Dewhurst and take the opportunity to explain why we used the Cartesian theatre metaphor. We do this by drawing an analogy between consciousness and evolution. This analogy is used to emphasize the circular causality inherent in the free energy principle. (...) We conclude with a comment on the special forms of active inference that may be associated with selfawareness and how they may be especially informed by dream states. (shrink)

First published in 1930, this book endeavours to trace and express the relations between economic and human values, between wealth and life. Hobson studies everything from the role of production processes and consumption in the determination of human welfare; to the changing attitudes of economic science towards ethical considerations; as well as the tendency of organised society to exercise a control of economic processes in the interests of equity, humanity, and social order. Part I of the book deals with (...) an attempt to provide an intelligible and consistent meaning for human value and welfare. Part II sketches the emergence of an economic science and its formal relations to ethics. Part III discusses the ethical significance of certain basic factors in the modern economic system, especially property and market processes. Part IV is addressed to the notion of industrial peace and progress in the light of modern humanism, with especial regard to the new problems emerging in a world becoming conscious of its widening unity. (shrink)

First published in 1914 and reissued with a new introduction in 1992, _Work and Wealth _is a seminal vision of Hobson's liberal utopian ideals, which desired to demonstrate how economic and social reform could transform existing society into one in which the majority of the population, as opposed to a small elite, could find fulfillment. Hobson attacked conventional economic wisdom which made a division between the cost of production and the utility derived from consumption. Far from being necesarily (...) arduous, Hobson argued that work had the potential to bring about immense utility and enrichment. The qualitative, humanist work argues in favour of a new form of capitalism to minimise cost and maximise utility. (shrink)

First published in 1931, this is an attempt by the great economist J. A. Hobson to analyse the relations between economics and religion. After considering the origins of the conflicts and compromises between God and Mammon in the life of primitive man, the author concerns himself primarily with medieval and modern Christianity and the business climate and ethos corresponding with these periods. In particular he focuses upon Catholicism and Protestantism, before considering the attitude of the church towards modern economic (...) movements. (shrink)

First published in 1913, this _Routledge Revivals_ title reissues J. A. Hobson’s seminal analysis of the causal link between the rise in gold prices and the increase in wages and consumer buying power in the early years of the Twentieth Century. Contrary to the assertions of some notable contemporary economists and businessmen, Hobson contended that the relationship between gold prices and wages was in fact much more complex than it initially appeared and that there were significantly more important (...) factors in the rise of contemporary wealth, such as the rapid enlargement of state enterprise and joint stock companies; a wide extension of banking and general financial apparatus; and the opening of profitable fields of investment for the development of underdeveloped countries, which helped raise the rate of interest and profits. (shrink)

First published in 1931, this _Routledge Revivals_ title reissues J.A Hobson’s analysis of financial distribution in the early years of Twentieth Century Britain. The book focuses on the moral questions that he considered to be important in regard to the economic reforms that were necessary to secure the utilisation of modern productivity for the welfare of mankind. In this work, Hobson considers the wasteful working of the economic system, with its over-production, under-consumption and unemployment and states that these (...) errors are due to the unfair way in which income is apportioned among the nations, classes and individuals that produce it. _Poverty in Plenty_ argues for a conscious economic government inspired by a sense of justice and humanity. It makes suggestions towards the establishment of such a government and presents business prosperity as a problem of morals. (shrink)

This Routledge Revival sees the reissue of a seminal work by British economist, sociologist and academic John A. Hobson, elucidating his views on a variety of topics across the social sciences. He makes particular reference to the struggle between the disinterested urge of the social scientist and the interests and other motive forces which tend to influence and mould his processes of inquiry. The work is split into three parts, focussing upon free-thinking, economics and political ethics respectively.