Possible Profits From War
INTERVIEW WITH FRANKLIN H. GIDDINGS.
Dr. Giddings is Professor of Sociology and the History of Civilization at Columbia University; author of many works on sociology and political economy; President of Institut Internationale de Sociologie, 1913.
By Edward Marshall.
No man in the United States is better entitled to estimate the probable social and economic outcome of the present European debacle than Prof. Franklin H. Giddings of Columbia, one of the most distinguished sociologists and political economists in the United States.
"Today all Europe fights," he said to me, "but, also, today all Europe thinks."
That is an impressive sentence, with which he concluded our long talk, and with which I begin my record of it.
He believes that this thinking of the men who crouch low in the drenched trenches and of the women who tragically wait for news of them will fashion a new Europe.
He agrees with the remarkable opinions of President Butler, that that new Europe will be marked by the rise of democracy.
He sees the probability of broadened individual opportunity in it, accompanied by the breaking down of international suspicions; and he thinks that all these processes, which surely make for peace, will surely bring a lasting peace.
In the following interview, which Prof. Giddings has carefully reread, will be found one of the most interesting speculative utterances born of the war.
"The immediate economic cause of the war," said Prof. Giddings, "lay in the affairs of Servia and Austria. Servia had been shut in. She had been able to get practically nothing from, and sell practically nothing to, the outside world, save by Austria's permission, while Austria, with Germany professing fear of Slavic development, for years had been taking every care to prevent the Balkan peoples from having free access to the Adriatic.
"Some financial profit arose from this interning of the little States, but it is probable that the desire for this was all along entirely secondary to the fear of Balkan, especially Servian, political and economic development.
"In the larger economic question Germany felt especial interest.
"In a comparatively few years she had made the greatest progress ever made by any nation in an equal time, with the possible exception of that made by the United States in a similar period after our civil war, and it is probable that not even our own advance has equaled hers in rapidity or extent, if all could be tabbed up.
"She had worked out a great manufacturing scheme, she had developed an immense internal commerce by means of her railroads and her Rhine and other waterways, she had built up an enormous trade with Eastern Europe, Western Asia, South America, and the United States.
"She had highly specialized in and become somewhat dependent on the production of articles like dyestuffs and the commodities of the pharmacopoeia.
"Her shipping had advanced until it closely crowded England's; her finances, on the whole, were well handled and her credit was excellent, while her wonderful system of co-operation between the Government and manufacturing producers and commercial distributers of all kinds had become the admiration of all nations. The extent to which her Government facilitated foreign trade through obtaining and distributing costly information might well be taken as the world's model.
"Whatever claims be made or contested about her contributions to culture and theoretical science, there can be no argument about her material achievements."
German Achievements.
"Along every line her social organization of co-operation between the Government and the people successfully handled problems feared by all the outside world. While, as a result of the development of humane feeling, England and the United States have been saying that ignorance, vagabondage, and misery ought to be abolished, Germany has said, 'They shall be!' And, saying it, she had actually commenced to abolish them.
"She had cut down enormous wastes of human energy and, for the first time in the history of the world, had established an economic minimum below which men and families were not permitted to sink.
"The cost of this was large; for insurance, colonies for tramps and vagabonds, employment agencies, and the like; but Germany made it pay in the creation of a nation built of loyal and efficient people. Both their loyalty and their efficiency have been proved and reproved in the course of the present struggle. They had accomplished marvels, they were ready for amazing sacrifices.
"Now, one of the principal reasons why Germany was able to do these things, although, she probably ignored it and possibly would deny it, is to be found in the free-trade policy of England.
"At any time during the past twenty years England could have checked German progress effectively by the establishment of a protective tariff system designed to encourage her own colonies and other nations with whom she had long been on friendly and influential terms, to the utmost development of exclusive trade privileges designed to shut out Germany. Except for the long-established English policy of commercial freedom Germany could not have accomplished for herself what she has.
"Germany has been growing rapidly. Her birth rate has been high, but of late it has been falling, and when the war began there were indications that she soon would approach the low ratio of population increase already characteristic of France, of New England and the Middle West in the United States, and lately of England. But Germany's population was still a growing one and, in a sense, a restive one.
"The Malthusian theory has not worked out in the civilized world as Malthus supposed it would, for the application of science to manufacturing, agriculture, &c., has prevented increasing populations from pressing upon the means of subsistence; but in all parts of the Western World the standards of living have been raised, the ambitions of the average man and woman have expanded. They have lived better than their parents lived, and they have wished their children to live better still.
"However, we can place no limit upon the probable expansion of human desires, and it is true that a population unchecked by the intelligent action of the human will tends to increase at a rate more rapid than that at which it is possible to raise the actual plane of human living.
"The speed of the working of the two rules is different, perhaps, but both are dynamic, and the population of Germany tended to grow more rapidly than betterment of conditions could be provided, even under the nation's splendid governmental and commercial efficiency.
"The natural yearning of the nation, therefore, was toward colonial expansion, and, although note that I make no charges against either the German Government or German people, the nation probably has wished sovereignty over Western Europe, through Belgium and Holland to the sea. Its narrow outlet through Hamburg and Bremen was insufficient for its needs.
"Of course, its trade and economic advance has sometimes conflicted with that of other nations. It is natural for Germany to suppose that England tried to block it. However, I think that all the evidence which Germany has brought forward in proof of this is weak and improbable, because England's great source of revenue has been her foreign trade, and, above all, her carrying trade, and I am not partisan but stating the obvious when I say that England prospers when the rest of the world prospers, and that she has profited mightily through Germany's commercial advance.
"These facts point to the conclusion that Germany really had everything to gain by avoiding war and continuing her prosperous expansion along commercial lines, increasing the strength of her grip in foreign countries, as, for example, in South America."
Germany's Prosperous Commerce.
"In South America we Americans were not really competing with her. She had studied the market and adopted the methods necessary to its satisfaction; we had not. England was relatively losing her hold there. In another twenty years Germany surely would have been one of the greatest commercial and manufacturing nations which the world has ever known. So it was not economic necessity, nor pressure approaching economic necessity, which precipitated this war.
"I think the German people, as they professed to do, did become greatly alarmed over a possibility, magnified into a probability, that Russia, taking up the cause of the Balkan peoples, would obtain Constantinople, that Servia would make her way to the Adriatic, and that all possibility of the expansion of Germany to the southeast would be blocked, and Germany probably became alarmed over England's intentions—there were many indications of something close to panic in Germany after it was generally understood that King Edward figured in the pact with France.
"I, for one, do not believe that the German fears of England were well grounded; I do not believe that in the excitement the German mind worked discriminatingly or that it is working with discrimination today. I think that Germany has presented an extraordinary example of nation-wide mobmindedness in a situation which offered nothing but ruin through war and boundless advantages if she sat tight and waited for some one else to strike the first blow, which, then, probably never would have been struck.
"So, although I have outlined what I think may fairly be regarded as some of the economic conditions contributing to the war, I do not think that it is entirely to be explained by economic causes.
"They fail to account for the actual precipitation of the conflict. I think that there is no explanation of that, short of recognition of an abnormal reaction of the German mind to a situation the nature of which was mistaken, or, at least, exaggerated.
"And, of course, there were other factors concerning which we shall not know the truth for years, such as the personal influence of individual minds in the German and other Governments. It will be long before the complete history of the acts and negligence of diplomats and other responsible Ministers will be written."
I asked Prof. Giddings if, in his opinion, the struggle is likely to result in any wide and profound change in the economic life of the world.
"Yes," he replied, "I think it is sure to. In the first place, for at least half a generation, and perhaps longer, the producing capital of the world will be much smaller than it was before the war.
"But in this speculation we must be cautious, because, so far, the costly war material which has been consumed, such as fortresses destroyed, guns worn out, ammunition consumed, soldiers' clothing, and in general food, were principally accumulated and paid for long ago. They have come out of the world's past production, and their cost already has been written off.
"The real loss, the new waste, over and above the devastation of Belgium and other lands, has been of labor, productive activity which would have been carried on during the period of the war had the struggle been avoided, the destruction of the lives of men in their economic prime, the maiming of others to the depletion of their future usefulness and the loss to European fatherhood.
"But if the war lasts a long time, necessitating the general renewal of ships, fortresses, weapons, and stores, the waste will be enormous, for the actual money expenditure will then come out of funds newly accumulated or charged against the future, and not out of those set aside in the past for war purposes."
One Great Change Occurring.
"Thus one great economic change already is occurring—the devastation wrought, the destruction of hoarded funds and supplies and of useful human life.
"There are others which are probable, but also problematical, although I think we fairly may take them into account.
"Will the European nations, in settlement of their differences through final terms of peace, simply endeavor to restore the old order, drawing their lines of demarkation very strictly, enacting, for example, higher tariffs, thinking that along that line will lie the easiest way of re-establishing national finances?
"If so, the old contentions will be perpetuated. It will be the old order of things over again.
"We shall again have the spirit of exclusiveness fostered and the old suspicions bred. The old intense competition of nation with nation for trade to the exclusion of other nations from the markets of the world will return with its attendant inefficiency.
"But, on the other hand, the world will be an immense gainer through the war if it is followed by a broad and rational review of the whole situation and an adjustment of the map of Europe with due regard to the ambitions and legitimate economic opportunities and capabilities of the various peoples.
"This war may be the greatest good the world has ever known if it leaves Europe in a mental state disposed to Broaden opportunity, to break down suspicions, to eliminate barriers, and make commerce much freer than it has been.
"Then Europe's economic recovery will be rapid, animosities will die quickly away, and every nation which is now involved will progress with a new speed, seeing that opportunity is created only through superiority in fair competition.
"The next possibility, one far more nearly a probability, I think, than the somewhat Utopian speculation in which I have just indulged, is that after the war the world will have been deeply impressed by the tremendous activity of Germany, whether she be victor or vanquished.
"What is the secret of her efficiency as manifested in the mobilization of her vast army, in her use of science in new military devices, in her holding of the elements of her national life together during the struggle, in her keeping her industries going in the face of unprecedented difficulties—all to a degree never before dreamed of? will be a general query.
"Other nations will study the German plan, asking whether it is true, as has been taught in America, that that Government is best which governs least.
"It may be that this war will result, entirely apart from the urgency of the labor problem which it will magnify, and wholly on the grounds of general efficiency, in a general inquiry as to whether or not the time has come for quasi-socialistic national developments.
"I think it unlikely that the war will give impetus to that proletarian socialism which is founded on class consciousness and class struggle; but it may urge forward a socialistic movement based upon the large and fruitful idea that the best hope for the future is offered by the most complete and highly organized co-operation of all elements, all interests, all agencies which in their combination make up national structures.
"As a matter of fact, I am an optimist, and I believe that this is about what will come after this war ends.
"To put my theory in slightly different terms, I believe that the conflict will greatly further the development of what perhaps may be called 'public socialism,' and I mean by that the highest attainable organization of whole peoples for the production of commodities, the furtherance of enterprise, and the promotion of the general well-being.
"I think that when the world sobers up it will ask: 'How did Germany do it?'
"Whether she wins or loses that must be the universal query, for whether she wins or loses her achievement has been in many ways unprecedented.
"There can be but one answer to this query: She did it by an organization which brought together in efficient co-operation the individual, the quasi-private corporation, the public corporation, and the Government upon a scale never before seen.
"The world is bound to take notice of this."
Will Fear Loss of Liberty.
I asked Prof. Giddings to go beyond economics and to consider the war's probable results in their broader sociological aspects.
"If what I have predicted happens," he replied, "the democratic elements of society in all nations will become apprehensive of the loss of liberty.
"They will fear that in the interests of efficiency the perfected social order will impose minute and unwelcome regulations upon individual life and effort, and that a degree of coercive control will be established which will end by making individuals mere cogs in the machine, diminishing their importance, curtailing their usefulness and initiative far more than is done by the great industrial corporations against which the working classes already are protesting so loudly.
"And not only the working people but a large proportion of all other classes will develop these fears, especially in those nations which, during the last century, have built up popular sovereignty and democratic freedom, as the terms are understood in England and America.
"We shall hear the argument that the loss of individual initiative and personal self-reliance is too great a price to pay even for supreme efficiency and the maximum production of material comforts.
"The problem which such a conflict of interests and opinions will present may be speculatively defined as that of trying to find a way to reconcile a maximum of efficiency organization with a maximum of individual freedom.
"So stating it, we have to recognize that this has been the biggest problem, in fact the comprehensive problem, that man, has faced throughout human history, and the one which, really, he has been trying to solve by the trial and error method in all his social experiments.
"It is the sociological as distinguished from the merely economic problem.
"Human society exists because early in his career man discovered that mutual aid, or team work, is, on the whole, in the struggle for existence and the pursuit of happiness, a more effective factor than physical strength or individual cleverness.
"Natural selection has acted not only upon individuals, but, in the large sense, upon groups and aggregates of groups. The restrictions upon individual life have developed in the interests of groups, or collective efficiency.
"On the other hand, collective efficiency has no meaning, it serves no purpose apart from the amelioration of individual life and the development of individual personality.
"So long as groups fear one another and fight with one another the restrictions upon individual liberty must be extreme in the interests of the collective fighting efficiency of each group as a whole.
"All the possibilities of personal development, of individual freedom, are involved in the larger possibilities of friendly relations between nation and nation.
"Already the co-operative instinct has so grown that if war and the fear of war could be eliminated, mankind would have relatively little difficulty in working out ways and means of combining Governmental action with individual initiative for purposes of economic production, education, the promotion of the public health, and the administration of justice.
"All those principles and rules which we call Morality are, in fact, mere rules of the game of life. We play the game or do not play it; we are fair or unfair.
"On the whole, most of us try to be fair because it has been found that playing the game with a sense of fairness is the only way in which we can succeed in working together for common ends without the necessity of imposing upon ourselves coercive rules to hold our organization together for possible mass attack upon the end in view.
"Social life, in this sense of playing the game fairly, has made man the superior of the brutes he sprang from. There is nothing mysterious or recondite about it.
"In order to work together men must understand one another. Therefore, natural selection has picked out the intelligent for survival in the social world; and in order to work together intelligent men must depend on one another, abiding by their covenants.
"Therefore, again, natural selection has picked out what we call Morality for survival in the social world. The whole further progress of mankind would seem to hang upon the possibility that we can find a way to limit and, if possible, to terminate wars between nations, for only in that contingency can we hope to develop a social system in which a supreme efficiency with a maximum of individual liberty can be combined upon a working basis."
Application of the Facts.
"These are incontrovertible facts, and they find their application to the existing European situation in various ways, the most important of which will appear in the discovery that, valuable as conventions and covenants of nation with nation may be, and intolerable as any violation of them surely is, we cannot hope for general and unfailing observance of them until the feeling of mankind and the whole attitude of the world in respect to international as well as private conduct shall be that the covenants and conventions shall become, in a degree, unnecessary.
"Already it is apparent that the entire world, including the peoples of the nations at war as well as the peoples of the nations remaining happily at peace, have, begun to think these thoughts and reflect upon their momentous importance.
"Shocked and stunned as never before by a calamity for which we find no measure in past human experience, mankind is bound to take at this moment a more sober view, a broader and more rational view, of the problems of responsibility and collective conduct than it hitherto has been able even to attempt.
"The world is sure to ask what things make for sobriety of judgment and integrity of purpose. It is sure in future more carefully to weigh relative values, and will be disposed to count as unimportant many things for which hitherto the armed men of nations have rushed into war.
"In a word, this war has made the whole world think as no one thing ever has made it think before, and, after all, it is upon the habit of thought that we must depend for all rational progress.
"Other wars and other great events have fostered sentiment, much of which has been hopeful and useful; they have accomplished far-reaching economic changes, many of them necessary.
"But the reactions of this war will surely go beyond all previous experience. They already are and must be, in a far greater measure, profoundly intellectual, and one of the consequences of this fact inevitably will be the broadening and deepening of the democratic current.
"When peace returns it will be seen that democracy has received a hitherto unimagined impetus. Then it will be understood that democracy, in one of its most important aspects, is popular thinking, that it is the widest possible extension of the sense of responsibility.
"A democratic world will be, all in all, a peace-loving world.
"We may confidently expect far-reaching changes in the internal political organization of the nations now involved. In every nation of Europe the people are asking: What, after all, is this conflict all about?
"They will ask this many times, and however they may answer it they will, by consequence, follow the question with another: Shall we go on fighting wars about the necessity, expedience, and righteousness of which we have not been consulted?
"And to this query they will find only one answer—an emphatic negative.
"Sooner or later there will be a comprehensive political reorganization of Europe, and when its day comes the rearrangement will be along the lines of a republic rather than along the lines of any monarchy, however liberal.
"Then international agreements will be unnecessary and there will be no treaties to be broken—no 'scraps of paper' to be disregarded.
"Apparently Germany has been as successful in training her people to think accurately along economic lines as she has been in training them to work efficiently along such lines; and that accurate thought undoubtedly is bearing startling fruit among the men today crouched in the trenches on the firing lines."
Era of Individual Thought.
"England, on the other hand, and France have encouraged the free and spontaneous life of democratic peoples. France and England, like the United States, have been training their peoples to think efficiently of and to appreciate and use liberty and initiative. And the men of these two nations are, in turn, exercising that ability as they crouch in their trenches.
"In other words, this war has precipitated an era of sober individual thought about the individual's rights and responsibilities. It will everywhere bring about a wider political organization of mankind, a greater freedom of trade and opportunity, a more serious and thorough education, a more earnest attention and devotion to the higher interests of life, giving such thought preference above that overemphasis of material comforts which has been so marked a feature of recent human history.
"All these things will make for peace; and another and potent influence will be the exhaustion of the weakened nations which will follow the conflict. Because of that very weakness Europe will turn its unanimous attention to the things of peace rather than to the things of war.
"The new Europe is being fashioned by those questioning men who now are lying in the trenches.
"They are searching in the universe for answers to such inquiries as they never dreamed about before, and the women, worrying at home—they, too, are busy with a search for answers to hitherto undreamed-of questions.
"They all are pondering great things for the first time. Their pondering will be fruitful.
"Today all Europe fights, but, also, today all Europe thinks. And, thinking, perhaps it may devise a better order, so that it may not ever fight again."
