(21) Is it said that wars always have been and always will be?
That wars always have been is an unproved proposition.[[214]]
That “wars always will be” depends upon the working class. The clouds of confusion are clearing from the mind of the working class. A revolution is ripening in the toilers’ thought on war.[[215]]
(22) Is it said by the leading citizens that wars are necessary in order to kill off the surplus population?
If wars are necessary for such purpose, why not have Mr. Leading Citizen and his friends classified as a part of the surplus population on the ground that they are criminally unsocial, and have them taken out to the battlefield and forced to shoot one another? The theory of having the surplus population killed off would thus quickly lose its popularity with the “upper classes.”
(23) It may be said that the Napoleonic wars removed more than 7,500,000 men from competition in the labor market;[[216]] and it might be argued by the working man that since war reduces the competition among the workers, the working class should on this account welcome war.
Let us see: If four men are competing for two jobs, should two of them be satisfied, and even glad, to have the competition for the jobs reduced by having the other two climb upon their backs and cease to bid for the jobs? It should be kept distinctly in mind that the workers who do not go to war support those who do go to war—always, everywhere, absolutely no exceptions.
(24) There is a somewhat popular, and simian, assumption that in war—even in beautiful Christian war—the results are “the survival of the fittest,” meaning, in the case of modern wars, the survival of “the more highly civilized,” also the biologically “best.”
Of course a “bullet carefully selects its victim.”
And do not statesmen tell us on the Fourth of July all about the “splendid intelligence” and the “noble spirit” and the “superiority” of the “brave boys who died in battle”?