THE ULTIMATE CAUSE OF INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT

CHAPTER V THE ULTIMATE CAUSE OF I NT ERN A T ION A L CO NFL I C T I The Final Task WE have now some idea of the way in which different types of economic causes - in the sense of economic motives - can lead to international conflict; and we have attempted to establish some sense of proportion concerning their relative importance in different periods. So far as the modern period is concerned, we have found reason to believe that, with the growth of national restrictionism, there existed for the different nations, genuine defensive interests going far to justify the diplomatic struggle for power. We cannot rest here, however. Our analysis, so far, has been concerned principally with causes in the sense of motives. Before it can be regarded as in any sense com plete, it is necessary to consider caus.es in a wider sense. It is necessary to ask whether there do not exist conditions more general than any we have so far examined, which are conducive to the appearance of these motives. Do they arise only within certain patterns of economic institu tions? Are there modes of political organization which facilitate -their emergence? We have not left these things altogether out of account; but we must now deal with them specifically and in greater detail.

2 The Concomitants of 'Dollar Diplomacy' We may start with the type of cause which we have found to be less general than others, at any rate in recent 86 C A U SEO F INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT times: Lenin's case of the pressure of investors to defend or facilitate their foreign investments. We shall find that the type of conclusion which we reach here anticipates, as it were, in a minor key, the type of conclusion which will be the main theme of the cha pter . We shall find profound political factors complicating our economic analysis. The question we have to answer is whether, when the pressure of investment capital is found to be actively influential in producing diplomatic friction, there are accompanying conditions of a more general character which can be interpreted as having causal significance. In the case of the Boer War, for instance, is there a wider setting which may be regarded as in any sense typical?

The answer is fairly simple. In nearly all such cases it will be found that there is political weakness on the capital-importing side. 1 There is weakness in the sense that the government of the capital-exporting country is prepared to take risks on behalf of its investors, which it would be reluctant to take if its opponent were stronger. There, is weakness, too, in the sense that the types of commercial law in vogue in the capital-importing country and the standards of its administration are different from those obtaining in the areas of fully developed western civilization. This is a point which is often elided by the chivalrous critics of this kind of imperialism. But on an objective view there can be no doubt that, judged by western standards, the appeals of traders and investors for protection against arbitrary confiscation, discrimina ting justice and administrative corruption, have often had much justification. Trade between states with western standards' of justice and administration, be they weak or 1 This is a branch of the subject which Mr. Staley has made his own.

See his War and the Private Investor, especially chapters 13 and 14. 87 THE ECONOMIC CAUSES OF WAR strong, in the military sense, does not involve 'protection' to nationals. As Mr. Lippmann has well remarked, 'You do not have to wrap the flag round trade in regions where a fairly modern government exists'. 1 I myself think that the Boer War was a stain on our national record. But I do not see how any candid man can deny great provoca tion on the part of the Kruger government. Only those who hold that sovereign states have, not merely the power, but the right to do anything they like within their own borders, can regard such cases as involving only simple moral issues. For those who look upon state sovereignty as being, with all other human institutions, subject to the dictates of general social utility, the problem is much more difficult. But, be this as it may; we may regard it as established that a predisposing condition to the operation of this kind of economic cause is a certain disharmony of political arrangements.

3 The Causes ofEconomicNationalism As we have seen, however, this type of case is excep tional, at any rate in the 'most recent period of capitalism' . As we have seen, the main cause has been the fear of exclusion from economic opportunities in other territories. The raison d'etre .. of the struggle for national power, in so far as it is economic in origin, is fear of other nations' restriction. We have seen that the interest here defended can legitimately be regarded as an interest of the majority of the citizens. But we have not yet inquired concerning the nature of the interests underlying the restrictions against which national interests are defended or the nature of the institutions under which such interests emerge. To do this is the main task of this chapter. Now of course it would be an exaggeration to attribute 1 The Stakes of Diplomacy, p. 166. 88 CAUSE OF INTERNATIONAL CONFLI CT all restrictions on trade to the pressure of sinister interest.

Restrictions have sometimes been imposed for military reasons; a sacrifice of other real income has been thought worth while for the gain in security. There are sometimes sinister interests involved here. The groups of producers who gain may succeed in exaggerating the importance and necessity of their contribution to national safety; British sugar-beet growers have long battened on policies which have been the product of this sort of propaganda. But this need not be the case. Given the prospect of war, many measures, which otherwise would be wholly per nicious, may be claimed to be in the national interest. This is a case where Mr. Hawtrey's dictum that the chief cause of war is war itself receives interesting exemplifica tion. Apart from this, however, there are occasions when restrictions may appear to serve the national interest in the strictly economic sense. We need not waste time here examining the list of exceptional cases (worked out by the theorists of free trade) where it is conceivable that, in the long run, carefully devised restrictions might secure some gain '- the so-called 'terms. of trade' case, etc.

These are intellectual curiosa which can only be used for justifying the actual measures imposed in the rough and tumble of everyday politics, by the ignorant or the interested. 1 But, at times of trade depression when employment is slack, the imposition of restrictions may appear to have a more obvious advantage - the advan tage of reducing unemployment in particular lines of industry. It is clear that these advantages disappear in the long run. It is clear that, even in the short run, restrictive measures provoke retaliations and dislocations 1 For a more extensive treatment of these matters see my Economic Planning and International Order. 89 THE ECONOMIC CAUSES OF WAR which go far to wipe out even the transitory gains which such measures may appear to promise. It is clear that,· if new measures of this sort are imposed in every new depression, the 'cure' of unemployment thus achieved is likely to be much worse than the disease. But it is an important fact that the situation at the bottom of a trade depression produces an atmosphere peculiarly favourable to protec~ tionist propaganda; historically many upward changes in tariffs have come about at these times.

This, indeed, is the sediment of truth in the under consumptionist theories of imperialism. The theoretical analysis on which they have been based has usually been faulty. As we have seen, when they are phrased in terms which are free from analytical error, they do not prove their main contention. It is doubtful, too, whether even those forms which are freest from logical error correctly describe the majority of actual trade cycles. But 'it is a fact that the fear of recurrent depression and the accom panying shrinkage of spending does playa powerful part in predisposing the public at large to accept ,measures which otherwise it might more actively resent. If the trade cycle could be eliminated, the propagandist case for restriction would be very substantially weakened. In spite of this, it is to lose all sense of proportion to describe the trade cycle, whatever its origin, as the main cause of restrictionism. The main cause -of restrictionism is the pressure of sinister interest, a pressure which is active both in periods of good trade and of bad. It is no accident that, speaking broadly, over the last seventy years the extent of restrictionism in various countries has varied with the susceptibility of governments to the pressure of private interests. Where the susceptibility of governments to this kind of pressure has been great, there restrictionism has been rampant. Where public opinion go C A USE 0 FIN T ERN A T I 0 NA Leo NFL I C T has been better informed and where standards of politics and administration have been high, there restrictionism has been relatively mild. It is notorious that, in many parts of the world, public opinion has not been very well informed and governmental standards have not been high.

Here, at last then, we find a place in our main theory for the influence of sinister interests - interests, that is to say, which are not the interests of the national group as a whole. These interests do not usually produce conflict directly. It is the exception rather than the rule for governments to risk serious diplomatic friction in the interests of an economic group. The immediate cause of conflict is the desire of governments to maintain or extend their power - a national not a sinister interest. The ulterior purpose here is the safeguarding of the economic opportunities of the citizens - again a national not a sinister interest. But this aim would not arise were it not for the practices of restrictionism; and these practices must be ascribed in large part to the influence of pressure groups. Thus our theory leaves ample scope for the play of disinterested public spirit and genuine intellectual error.

It does not attribute to the pressure groups any conscious desire to cause diplomatic complications. It does not suggest that the executives of the manufacturers' associa tions or· trade unions who lobby for restrictionist legisla tion, ever dream that their actions will provide other governments with a justification for policies which may lead to war. But it argues that, nevertheless, through the indirect rnechanisms described, war may be the eventual outcome. Such an analysis is surely more in harmony witl;1 our everyday experience of human action, with its mixed motives, its shortsightedness, and its muddles, than the penny-dreadful type of explanation which sees 91 THE ECONOMIC CAUSES OF WAR ruthless and machiavellian economic interest behind every incident of diplomatic friction. At the same time it must be noticed that the sectional interests invoked by our theory are not usually the interests contemplated by the Marxians. The interests which we find to be active are not class interests in the Marxian sense, they are sectional interests having common prospects of monopoly gains in the market.

Thus, if we take the influence of property owners, it is at once obvious that it is not property owners as a class who are active; it is particular groups of property owners, who hope that the value of their special kind of property will be enhanced by the limitation of markets. There is no reason at all to suppose that the whole class of property owners actually gains by the practices of trade restriction. Some groups of property owners gain, others lose; and, on balance, there is probably net loss. Nor is there any evidence that property owners as a class show any solidarity here. The pressure groups whose operation can actually be observed are not constituted on a 'horizontal' basis at all. Their constitution is essentially 'vertical'. It is particular industries and trades \vith obviously homo geneous market interests which are the breeding grpund of restrictionist pressure. Moreover, this kind of interest is not limited to groups of property owners. If the movement of labour between industrial groups were completely free, then, in the long run, the workers in any branch would have no particular interest in restriction; only the owners of more specific factors could ultimately hope to benefit. But in fact the movement of labour is not free; and to obtain the limita tion of markets is sometimes as much an interest of the workers as it is of the capitalists. We see this clearly enough when particular measures of protectionism are 92 CA USE 0 F I NT E R NAT ION ALe 0 NFL leT under debate in political assemblies. It is notorious that, in such countries as the United States of America and Australia, groups of trade unionists have been at least as zealous as groups of capitalists in promoting measures of trade restriction. In Great Britain, where the free trade tradition was strongly rooted on the left, this kind of thing was very infrequent until a short time ago. But now that free trade practice has gone by the board, we have already witnessed the alliance of particul~r groups of capital and labour to obtain sectional privilege; and, as time goes on, this kind of alignment is likely to become more frequent. To argue that interest in restrictions is confined essentially to property owners is out of harmony both with theory and with the facts. .

We can see this all the more clearly if we turn for a moment to the other relevant type of restriction, restric tions on immigration. As we have seen, at the present day such restrictions are among the chief causes .of international tension. But no one with any sense of reality could ascribe them to the influence of groups of property owners. The interests of property owners in general are indeed quite obviously opposed to restrictions on immigration; and it is notorious that, both in Australia and in the United States, it has been the influence of trade unions which has been predominant in securing their imposition. It is perhaps doubtful whether the long-run interests of the labouring classes as a '\Tholeare as opposed to immigration as is often supposed. The economics of migration in a milieu of declining population are highly complicated; and a good case could be made out for the view that, on balance, the majority of the working classes in many national areas would be gainers from such a movement.

But the interests of particular groups are obviously 93 THE ECONOMIC CAUSES OF WAR directly endangered and their influence accordingly has been all in favour of restriction. A more complete justifi cation for the desire to maintain and extend the area of national sovereignty is scarcely possible to imagine. But it certainly cannot be described as emanating from capitalist sources. The Marxians were right in suspecting that in the causation of major wars there was sinister interest operating somewhere. But they mistook the nature of the interest. It is not the interests of the capitalists as a class, but the interests of sectional groups (who may be groups of capitalists or groups of workers or temporary alliances of both) which give rise to the practices of restrictionism which are indirectly responsible for war. 4 The Wars of a National Socialist fVorld I t is possible that all this might be granted and that yet it might be argued that the very existence of sectional interest in this sense is only possible under capitalism.

Sweep away production for profit, it might be said, nationalize the means of production, and the dis harmonies which have been diagnosed under capitalism, will automatically disappear. This belief is general among socialists. Eager to build socialist institutions within the framework of the sovereign states within which they happen to be living, it seldom if ever occurs to them to ask whether the achievement of socialism within national units is compatible with the ultimate achievement of the international socialism to which most of them give lip service. 1 Yet the ownership and control of the means of production by the different 1 There are of course exceptions, from Trotsky to Bertrand Russell. But it is not unfair to add that, by the majority of a ctive socialist politicians such exceptions are regarded as cranks. 94 CAUSE OF INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT geographical groups which are the present sovereign states, is palpably not the same as the ownership of the means of production by the citizens of the world; and, in fact, there is strong reason to believe that national collectivism is likely to create international disharmonies at once more glaring and more dangerous than any which arise under capitalism. The bellicosity of the national socialism of Germany and Italy is certainly due to many factors other than economic. But it i~ not altogether an accident. There are inherent in the fundamental principles of national collectivism certain basic assumptions which make conflict with other national units almost inevitable.

Let us take for a moment a hypothetical example, free from the disagreeable and tendentious associations of European national politics. Let us suppose, what is not altogether improbable, that in the course of the next few years, the economic system of Australia or New Zealand becomes completely collectivist. The inhabitants of these areas are not Nazis. They inherit much of the easy-going and friendly traditions of British politics in general. It is most improbable, within any time about which it is worth while speculating, that they would be inspired by motives of external aggressiveness. Yet, unless they were desperately in need of man power for military purposes or unless they were threatened with extreme depopulation, it is not to be expected that they would be any more willing than they have been in the recent past to admit immigration on a large scale. On the contrary, there is every reason to suppose that the incen tive to oppose such a policy would be even stronger than before. Under capitalism, the incentive is concern with the level oflahour incomes only. Under national socialism it is concern with incomes per head from all sources.

Under national socialism, the workers are interested, not 95 THE ECONOMIC CAUSES OF WAR only in the level of wages but also in the level of rents; and while more labour would raise the marginal pro ductivity of land, there would come a point at which additional claimants on the total of rents would mean less per head to go round. Now suppose that, simultaneously with these develop ments in richer areas, national socialism is also instituted in areas less well provided. The inhabitants of such areas would have no further hope of improving their position by appropriating the rents of internal property owners, for by hypothesis, these rents would already have been appropriated. They would have little hope of migrating to areas more richly endowed, for the inhabitants of such areas would cling te'naciously to their rents. In such circumstances would there not be solid justification for envy? Would there not be a standing justification for attempts to enlarge the national boundaries, for attempts to secure a Lebensraum more richly endowed with the material factors of production?

But, if this were so, then the struggle for power would be perpetuated. The inhabitants of the richer states would have to be prepared to defend attacks on their possessions. They would have to maintain military and naval forces and to safeguard their position by suitable alliances. Attempts might be made to secure 'international under standing' . Leagues of nations might be proposed and, in intervals between times of tension, might flourish for a while. But, while the inequality of possessions persisted and while the inhabitants of the richer areas, maintaining national independence, refused to share their higher incomes with the inhabitants of the poorer areas, it would all be a fool's paradise. Underneath, the basic disharmony would persist; and only power and accident \vould keep the peace. 96 CAUSE OF INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT Our example is, of course, conjectural; and always in conjectural examples there is the possibility that some element which may have an important modifying influence has been overlooked. But our picture is not so unlike contemporary reality as to warrant much hope that the model is very misleading. We do not find, in the poorer areas of national collectivism, any strong disposi tion to be content with a position of inferiority. Nor do we find in the richer areas, any disposition to forgo either the gains of monopoly or the advantages of restrictions on migration. Before the invasion of Poland it used to be said that the policy of Soviet Russia was consistently non aggressive. But this was merely a particularly significant example of the incapacity of English intellectuals to see straight where Russia is concerned. Revolutionary Russia showed no scruple in invading Georgia; and the socialization of the apparatus of production of Russian urban industry did not prevent the invasion of the rural areas and the appropriation of kulak rents. Rosa Luxem burg's book is full of complaints of the destruction of J peasant economy by capitalist exploiters. But it is doubtful whether there is any example in history of the destruction of a peasant economy more"ruthless or more complete than the destruction of the Russian peasantry under Stalin's first five year plan.

The fact is that, once states take over, on an extensive scale, the ownership of the material factors ,of production within their borders,l the distinction between territorial jurisdiction and property disappears and, for that very reason, the fact of geographical ineq uali ty becomes a permanent cause of disharmony. Under liberalism there 1 It is not denied that governments must necessarily own certain types of productive factors, such as roads, which are characterized in one way or another by extensive indivisibility. But this is quite different from general ownership of mines, land and the apparatus of manufacture. 97 THE ECONOMIC CAUSES OF WAR is inevitably some inequality of private property; and this, as we know, is apt to breed envy and disunity. But the inequality of atomistic private property is something much less permanent, much less intractable than the inequality of state possessions. The one is something which is continually changing with th~ passing of succes sive generations, and which is susceptible of profound modification by taxation and changes in the law of inheritance. The other is something which is as perma nent as the states themselves, and which is only capable of modification by force or the threat offorce. A world of national socialist states is analytically on all fours with the world of primitive times when the rival hordes owned and had 'sovereignty' over the lands over which they roved, and when the existence of rich soils, good hunting grounds and accumulated treasure, side by side with poor soils, lean hunting grounds and inferior accumulations, was a standing cause of brutal and total war. l International liberals and international socialists can surely be at one in this conclusion, that national ownership of the means of production is not conducive either to international union or to international peace. There is no reason to suppose that the con1ing of national socialism all round would diminish the economic causes of war.

5 The Root Cause of InternationalConflict If this is true, there follows a conclusion, the importance of which for the correct understanding of the ultimate 1 In his book on the national problem, Otto Bauer, the well-known leader of the Austrian Socialists, actually points out that national socialism involves the national state as rent receiver and the limitation of migration: Di"e Nationalitaten Frage und der Sozialdemokratie, p. 515. But, inexplicably, he then assumes that such disharmonies would be peaceably adjusted and that the society of the future would be 'ein bunter Bild von nationalen personen Verbanden'. There seems no reason whatever to suppose that such would in fact be the case. 98 CAUSE OF INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT causes oEwar it is almost impossible to exaggerate. The ultimate condition giving rise to those clashes of national economic interest which lead to international war is the existence of independent national sovereignties. Not capitalism, but the anarchic political organization of the world is the root disease of our civilization.

Against this, however, it might be argued that such conflicts are not necessary. If the different sovereign states would abstain from the practices of restrictionism, if their citizens would banish from their hearts the desire for sectional advantage, these things need not happen. Rightly interpreted, the long-run interests of the inhabi tants of the different national areas are not in disharmony. Whatever the prospects of momentary advantage from restrictionist manipulation and aggression, in the modern world at least, the long-run interests of all who are not sadistic maniacs lie above all in the preservation of peace. Such was the belief of the Cobdenite liberals, in spite of the jeers of the uneducated, probably the most disinterested body of men who ever influenced the policy of a great nation. But, in spite of its nobility, it was grounded in error. It is true that, rightly interpreted, the long-run interests of the majority of the human race are not in conflict. It is true that, for humane men, the disaster of war is an evil of the first order of magnitude. But it is not true that, in the absence of the rule of law, there is any security against its occurrence. The Cobdenite liberals would have never dreamt of urging that, within national areas, the long-run interests of the majority in peaceful co-operation could be regarded as secured without a framework of law and coercion. Such a view would have been the view, not ofliberals ,but ofphilosophical anarchists.

What justification had they, therefore, for assuming that, in the relations between the inhabitants of different 99 THE ECONOMIC CAUSES OF WAR national areas, a superior harmony might be expected? If they did not expect the mere demonstration of long run interest, unsupported by law, to secure an absence of anti-social behaviour within the nation, why should they have expected that it would do so between nations, where the play of irrational prejudice and the lack of under standing and sympathy were so much more likely to be prevalent?! Surely the truth is that, if the different national governments are free to do anything, there is a strong probability that, with the best will in the world on the part of the majority, from time to time, error or sinister interest will result in policies leading to dis harmony. We can see this very plainly ifwe turn for a moment from the relations of geographical groups to the relations of groups of producers. It is possible to argue that, rightly interpreted, the interests of different groups of producers are not in long-period disharmony. If one group alone restricts output, it is quite possible that it may gain; but if all groups play the same game, then most at least will be the poorer. Nevertheless, knowledge of such long-period ! I cannot help thinking that my friend, Mr. E. L. Woodward, makes just the wrong point against Cobden ism when (in his interesting essay on War and Peace in Europe 1815-187°) he asks would such thinkers have been willing to 'apply, as between state and state, forms of co-operation and mutual aid which they rejected in a sphere more directly under their control'? (p.7I). So far as the sphere directly under the control of the national states was concerned, no Cobdenite ever thought of rejecting the co-ordinating aid of the framework of law and order. If they had been willing to see established, between state and state, the form of organiza tion which they supported within states, the international anarchy would have disappeared. Support of a policy of permitting, within a co-ordinat ing framework of law, the free movement of capital and labour, is not support of a policy permitting sovereign individuals to do exactly as they please; and there would have been no inconsistency in demanding an apparatus of international co-ordination and coercion, while holding that, within such a framework, the common interest might best be served by a system of decentralized initiative resting on private property and the market.

100 CAUSE OF INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT harmonies does not justify us in believing that, if groups of producers are given by statute a position of uncontrolled monopolistic privilege, the prospect of short-period gain will not tempt them very often to abuse it. It is true that governments have sometilnes acted on this assumption and that the 'experts' they have consulted have done nothing to warn them of its dangers. But experience shows that it is unwarranted. If groups of producers are given positions of monopolistic privilege, a state of affairs is created in which the emergence of policies tending to disharmony can be regarded as almost inevitable. In exactly the same way, if geographical groups have uncontrolled powers of restriction and exclusion, if there is no framework of law limiting the actions of independent sovereign states, then a state of affairs exists in which the abuse of these powers is probable. There exists a state of affairs in which the delusions of restrictionism and the sinister influence of the pressure groups have maximum scope and effectiveness - a state of affairs in which the deep-seated non-rational impulses of nationalism have the maximum opportunity to become entangled in the support of economic policies which ultimately lead to war. How ever true it may be that, in the long run, such policies can be shown to lead to impoverishment and international conflict, there is no reason to suppose that, in the absence of the restraints ofa rule of law, the majority of the citizens will be sufficiently alert or sufficiently long sighted to prevent their emergence. A world organization which depends upon the continual dominance in every sovereign state of the principles of Cobdenite liberalism, is an organ ization which is bound not infrequently to be disorganized.

The dominance in one important state or group of states of different principles is liable to endanger the whole system. A system of sovereign geographical groups is no 101 THE ECONOMIC CAUSES OF WAR less likely to be provocative of clashes of interest than a system of 'sovereign' groups of producers. All this· becomes very clear if we take a hypothetical example, which, but for the foresight of a small group of men and the courage and consistency of their successors, might easily have become an example in actual history. Under the constitution of the United States of America, the governments of the different states are prohibited from imposing protective tariffs on imports or exports. They are prohibited from limiting migration or the movement of capital. All these matters are the prerogative of the federal government. Let us suppose that things had been different. Suppose that the Constitutional Congress had broken down and there had eventually arisen, in that great area, instead of one federation, forty-eight independent sovereign states.

Does any man of experience doubt for a moment that there would have arisen also, in America as in Europe, a network of restriction on interstate economic relations? Trade would have been limited. The interests in various states would have protested against the 'flood of cheap imports'; even under the present constitution there are formidable barriers in the shape of spurious veterinary regulations and suchlike measures not guarded against by the founders of the constitution. 1 Migration would have been hampered. If prosperity in one part was greater than in another, there would have been protests against the 'flood of\ immigrant labour' ;in the recent depression, un constitutional limitations of this sort have actually been attempted by various states. Relations of debtors and creditors would have been endangered. If the states of the middle west were depressed, not only would there be 1 For a good account of these see RAYMOND BUELL, Death by Tariff, Chicago University Press.

102 CAUSE OF INTERNATIONi\L CONFLICT isolated failures to keep faith with eastern creditors, there would also be imposed the paralysing apparatus of ex change control and partial repudiation with which European practice has made us familiar. And the result of all this would be interstate conflict. The different governments would feel it incumbent on them to maintain national power by alliances and manreuvres. The in habitants of the poorer states would covet the privileges of th, richer states. There would be talk of the necessity for Lebensraum. Where debt was repudiated, the cause of the investors might become a matter of diplomatic friction; it is easy to imagine an expeditionary force from New York invading, let us say, Kansas to protect the interests of the bond-holders. In short, we should be confronted with the whole dreary spectacle of power politics with its manreuvres, its devotions, its mass sentiment, and its background of sinister interest, with which the history of unhappy Europe has made us so depressingly familiar. And the pacifists would say that it was due to lack of virtue. The biologists would say it was an aspect of the inevitable struggle for existence. The psychologists would say it was.a manifesta tion of the death instinct which it would take a thousand years research to learn to sublimate.! The Marxians would say it was all due to the capitalist system. And certain among the historians would hint that it was the result of dark subtle forces of which only they understood the mystery.

But in fact, it would be due to the existence of indepen dent sovereign states. No doubt it would be possible to 1 See e.g. Dr. E. R. GLOVER'S War, Pacifism and Sadism - a good example of the way in which one of the profoundest discoveries of our age can be made ridiculous by superficial application. It is interesting to compare Dr. Glover's wearying tpatism with the restraint and insight pf Freud. See especially Civilization, War and Death passim. 1°3 THE ECONOMIC CAUSES OF WAR investigate further the catastrophe which had brought it about that this, rather than federation, had been the line of evolution. If Hamilton had not lived or if Lincoln had faltered .... or if the economic interests of dissenting states had succeeded in securing the rejection of the proposals of the Constitutional Congress - any of these things might have caused the path of history to be differ ent. But in the sense in which cause may be said to be a condition in the absence of which subsequent events could not have happened, the existence of independent sovereign states ought be justly regarded as the fundamental cause of conflict. And since we know that it was deliberately to avoid such a state of chaos that Hamilton and his friends devised the existing constitution, we may ,,yellregard their motives as the cause of its freedom from this kind of embar rassment. In the sense which is significant for political action, it is the chaos of independent sovereignties which is the ultimate condition of international conflict. It is not only because the independent states have the power to declare war, that war is sometimes declared, it is also be cause they have the power to adopt policies involving clashes of national interest of vvhich war seems the only solution.

6 The United States of Europe If this-is so, then the remedy is plain. Independent sovereignty must be limited. As citizens of the various national states, we may hope to diminish the danger of conflict by opposing policies which tend to evoke it. But this is not enough. The apparatus of modern war is so formidable, the cost of its maintenance so onerous, the dangers of actual conflict are so great, that we cannot afford to rely on spontaneous goodwill as our only safe guard against catastrophe. There must be an international 104 CAUSE OF INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT framework of law and order, supported by solid sanctions which prevent the emergence of those policies which are eventually responsible for conflict. We do not need a unitary world state; such an organization would be neither practicable nor desirable. But we do need a federal organization; not a mere confederation of sovereign states as was the League of Nations, but a genuine feder ation which takes over from the states of which it is com posed, those powers which engender conflict. The founders of the League of Nations were right in that they recognized the need of a supernational authority; their error was that they did not go far enough. They did not realize that the effective functioning of a supernational authority is in compatible with independent national sovereignty. But to-day we know this. The history of the League of Nations is one long demonstration of the truth of the proposition long ago set forth by Hamilton and Madison, that there is no safety in confederations. We know to-day that unless we destroy the sovereign state, the sovereign state will destroy us.l Now, of course, it is quite Utopian to hope for the formation in our time of a federation of world dimensions.

There is not sufficient feeling of a common citizenship. There is as yet no sufficiently generalized culture. In present conditions, even the electoral problems of such a body would present insurmountable difficulties. The formation of a world system, the political consummation of the unity of the human race, may well be regarded as the divine event towards which all that is good in the heritage of the diverse civilizations of the world, invites us to strive. But, whatever we may hope for in the distant 1 For a fuller elaboration of these arguments see my Economic Planning and International Order, chaps. ix, x and xi. The general argument of ~IR. CLARENCE STREIT'S Union Now should also be cons·ulted. 1°5 THE ECONOMIC CAUSES OF WAR future of the planet, it must be clear that, at the present stage of human development, any attempt at so compre hensive an organization would be necessarily doomed to disaster.

But it is not Utopian to hope for the construction of more limited federations - for the merging of independent sovereignties in areas where there exists the consciousness of a common civilization and a need for greater unity. In particular it is not Utopian to hope for the formation of a structure of this kind in that part of the world now most menaced by the contradictions of its present political organization - among the warring sovereignties ofEurope. 1 So far is it from being Utopian that, for those with eyes to see, it is the most urgent practical necessity of the age. For it is surely plain that the present political organiza tion of Europe has completely outlived its usefulness and is now nothing but a menace to the very existence of the civilization it has helped to bring forth. When the sovereign states of modern Europe emerged from the feudalism of 1 Perhaps a word is necessary here concerning the relation of the suggestion here put forward and that put forward by Mr. C. K. Streit.

Mr. Streit's scheme, it will be remembered, is for a union of the Atlantic democracies including the United States and the British Empire. I have no objection to this. If Mr. Streit could induce his fellow-countrymen to come forward with the proposal, I should be delighted to see our govern ment accept it; the larger the federation, the smaller the area of future wars. But I think it very unlikely that this will happen. It does not seen1 probable that, in our generation at least, the citizens of the United States will feel that compelling urge to union with other peoples which would alone make it possible. On the other hand, the disunity of Europe is so great and the evils likely to result from its persistence are so frightful, that it seems possible that, out of the extremity of our danger, a move ment for unity might arise. After all there is a common European consciousness; and it is surely in the logic of history that sooner or later this should be enshrined in common political institutions. I see no in surmountable difficulty in the relation \of the British Dominions to a federal Europe. Either they could enter the federation as full members; or they could retain via the British Crown the same loose relation as exists at present. I see much greater' difficulty in the inclusion of Russia. For Russia is not European in spirit; and totalitarian dictator ship is incompatible with the federation of free peoples.

106 CAUSE OF INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT l the middle ages, their functions were liberalizing and creative. They eliminated the mass of local restrictions which were strangling economic development. They pacified the warring barons and princes and established uniformity of law over areas given over to particularism. But, at the present time, it is,·not their unifying, but their separatist tendencies which have become dominant. They restrict the activities of an economic life which, in its spon taneous development, spreads far beyond their borders. They are uneconomic units for the administration of what positive functions they discharge; and the burden of main taining the apparatus of defence which is necessary to secure their independence, threatens more and more to absorb all the energies of their inhabitants. The existence of restrictions to trade and movement between the differ ent states of Europe to-day is as absurd as the existence of similar restrictions between different provinces at earlier periods. To an intelligent outsider unacquainted with the background of our history, the maintenance of vast armies by the states of Europe for defence against each other must be hardly less ridiculous than would be the mainten ance of armies for the separate defence of the towns or departments within these states. The system has reached breaking point; and, with the development of modern military techniques, it has no longer survival value. As gunpowder rendered obsolete the feudal system, so the aeroplane renders obsolete the system of the independent sovereignties of Europe. A more comprehensive type of organization is inevitable. Will it come by mutual agree ment or by caesarian conquest? That is the unsolved question. For either there must be empire or federation; on a long view, there is no alternative.

But to create such a federation will not be easy. We have a common culture. But we have no common language. 1°7 THE ECONOMIC CAUSES OF WAR. We have a common history. But it is riven by fratricidal quarrels. No one who has realized the nature of the interests involved in the perpetuation of the present powers of the independent sovereign states can be blind to the strength of the opposition to any attempt to eliminate our disunity. The federation of the thirteen secession states of the new world was almost wrecked by local particular ism, even though they were united by a common tongue, common habits and the memory of recent action against a common enemy. How much harder must it be for the warring states of Europe, with none of these aids, to establish a basis of unity. It will not be easy to make the new Europe. Nevertheless, of all the tasks which present themselves to our generation, it is that which is most worth while at tempting. The age in which we live is an age in which men have worshipped many idols and followed many false visions. It has seen nationalism run mad and collectivism turn oppressor. The ideals of the romantic rebellion have proved dead sea fruit in our hands. But the great ideals of liberty, justice and mutual tolerance and the heritage of art and learning which is their spiritual outcome, have not been found wanting. The more they have become en dangered, the more important we have discovered them to be. But it is just these things which are in peril from the disunity of Europe. The political structure amid which they have developed has developed stresses and strains which threaten to overwhelm them; if they are to be preserved, a constructive effort is necessary. Not merely because war is terrible, not merely because it impoverishes, but because it threatens all that is most valuable in the cultural heritage of Europe, we must devise institutions which banish it from our midst. It is because the civiliza tion of Socrates and Spinoza, of Shakespeare and Beet108 CAUSE OF INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT hoven, of Michelangelo and Rembrandt, of Newton and Pascal, is at stake that we must build a new Europe.

And now that the war has come and our hopes ofpeaceful developments lie shattered, this necessity is all the greater if the end is not to be chaos. We are fighting Germans. If European civilization is not to perish, we must destroy the tyranny which rules over them. Noone with any sense of history and art will deny the existence of a real German problem in Europe - the incapacity for self-government, the tendency to brutality and sadism, the fascination with the death motive, the moral clumsiness, the deep sense of spiritual insecurity, which again and again, since the rise of Prussia, have been a menace to the peace and liberties of Europe. But for all that, Germans are Europeans. They are part of our civilization; and Europe can never be completely healthy till Germany is healthy too. Somehow or other we must create a framework in which the German Geistcan give its best, not its worst, to Europe. A draconian peace will do nothing. The Nazis must be extirpated; but we have neither the strength nor the will to keep Germans in subjection for ever. What more appropriate outcome of our present agonies, therefore, what more fitting consecration of the blood which is being shed, than a peace in which this great people, purged of its devils, shall be coerced into free and equal citizenship of the United States of Europe?

109 APPENDIX THE MEANING OF ECONOMIC CAUSATION I Introduction THE purpose of this appendix is to make precise some of the notions used in the foregoing chapters, in particular the concept of economic causation. When we say that a certain war was due to economic causes what exactly do we mean? What must be the nature of any general theory of the economic causes of war? The inquiry may seem to be unnecessarily abstract. But in view of the extraordinary ambiguity of everyday language in this connection a short clarification of our ideas is perhaps not without its uses. 2 The Notion ofan lrJistoricalCause Before doing this, however, there are certain points con cerning historical explanations of any kind to which it is desirable to draw attention. To say that one event is due tp another is always a very hazardous procedure. For, strictly speaking, it is possible to argue that anything that happens anywhere at any moment is a resultant of what has happened everywhere at every preceding moment. To explain exhaustively the history. of anything involves retailing exhaustively the history of everything. There is no such thing as isolated causation.