Beyond Hobson’s imperialism. an experimental approach to scientific labeling

The main hypothesis of this paper is that, thanks to the currently available advanced technologies, one could come in a short time, and in an objective and efficient way, to a more complete picture, if not quite different, about the legacy of a scholar in the History of Economic Thought. The cognitive question of the investigation is: What lies beyond the “common label” – “Scholar of Imperialism” – in the scientific legacy of John Atkinson Hobson? The answer is sought through semi-automatic textual analysis techniques employing NVivo software. I call this approach, without hiding a certain sarcasm and the presence of some formal limits, a “scientific label approach”. Thus, this research can be placed within the disciplinary field of Economic Thought elaborated from a sociological point of view, i.e. the application of a sociological approach to the Historical Method in Economics. In my view, this “scientific labeling” approach has several potentialities, such as its extreme efficiency, versatility and impartiality (it limits the intrinsic subjectivity of traditional reading). This approach could be used for both general and specific inquiries, virtually becoming a valuable methodological tool for the future advancement of research in Economic Thought.