The outlook therefore is very hopeful—provided the intelligent (if selfish) ruling classes of the great capitalistic nations (England, France, America) decide once and for all to place no hopes either on militarism or pacifism. These natural economic tendencies indeed would already have made war impossible if they had not been impeded by artificial obstacles, such as tariff walls, immigration restriction, financial concessions to favored nations, etc.
And the modernization of undemocratic countries.
Socialists relied upon natural economic forces to abolish competition, establish the trusts, bring about government ownership, and prepare the way for democratic ownership. They rely upon similar economic forces to bring the nations together; reciprocal lowering of tariffs, the common development of the backward countries by the leading nations, the neutralization of canals—and last but not least, the modernization of Russia, Japan, Prussia, and Austria, that is, the full establishment in these countries of industrial capitalism and the semi-democratic political institutions that accompany it—as we see them in Great Britain, France, and America.
William English Walling, “The Great Illusions,” The New Review, June 1, 1915.
THE HIGHER IMPERIALISM
Cause of all wars found in economic motives:—that is, in competition of nationalist capitalistic groups.
When the Socialists in the belligerent countries voted for the war budgets and took their seats in the war cabinets, their whole attitude towards war underwent a fundamental change. It is true that in Germany and elsewhere the Socialists berated the capitalists and militarists for bringing on the conflict, but having made this protest, they acted exactly as did every one else. They excused themselves on the ground that the war was defensive. But the Kaiser and the Czar and the President of the French Republic all made the same excuse. It was not that the Socialists did not have power to put obstacles in the way of their governments. They did not have the will. They were forced into a painful position, where their love of country struggled against their adherence to the proletariat of the world. Despite themselves they were moved by idealistic considerations, which according to their theory should have had no weight.
For according to socialist doctrine the great events of the world are determined by economic factors. The idealists may speak of national honor and national duty, of the inviolability of treaties and the sacred rights of small nations, but the cause of all wars is really to be traced to the clash of economic motives. If we are to establish peace, we must found it on the customary reactions of selfish men, who want things and are willing to fight for them. Peace must be a peace between men as they are. It will not come by preaching, nor by nations surrendering their ambitions. It will not come through non-resistance, through the submission of the meek to the overbearing. It will not come through the nations joyously disarming as the light of reason breaks through the clouds. Reason is not so simple nor so unrelated a thing, for the material things that each nation wants, and the means by which the nation gets them, seem to the nation preeminently just and reasonable. However pompous the superstructure of ethics and ideals, the solid foundation of war, as of other social developments, is economic. So long as nations, or at all events their ruling groups, have conflicting economic interests, war is inevitable.
According to the Socialist, therefore, war and capitalism were inseparable. War must continue so long as the wage-system continued. The argument was simple. The great owners of capital, earning more than they could consume or profitably invest in home industries, were compelled to send their surplus to colonies and dependencies, where a new profit could be made. With the rapid increase of capital, however, the competition between the industrial nations for the possession of these agricultural dependencies became keener. Such competition meant war. As capitalism approached its climax wars were bound to become more frequent, destructive, and violent.