The Fruits of Victory. Norman Angell
religious fanaticism when that passion threatened to shatter European society.
Herein lies the importance of demonstrating the economic futility of military power. While it may be true that conscious economic motives enter very little into the struggle of nations, and are a very small part of the passions of patriotism and nationalism, it is by a realisation of the economic truth regarding the indispensable condition of adequate life, that those passions will be checked, or redirected and civilised.
This does not mean that economic considerations should dominate life, but rather the contrary—that those considerations will dominate it if the economic truth is neglected. A people that starves is a people thinking only of material things—food. The way to dispose of economic pre-occupations is to solve the economic problem.
The bearing of this argument is that developed by the present writer in a previous book, The Great Illusion, and the extent to which it has been vindicated by events, is shown in the Addendum.
SYNOPSIS
CHAPTER I (pp. 3–60)
OUR DAILY BREAD
AN examination of the present conditions in Europe shows that much of its dense population (particularly that of these islands) cannot live at a standard necessary for civilisation (leisure, social peace, individual freedom) except by certain co-operative processes which must be carried on largely across frontiers. (The prosperity of Britain depends on the production by foreigners of a surplus of food and raw material above their own needs.) The present distress is not mainly the result of the physical destruction of war (famine or shortage is worst, as in the Austrian and German and Russian areas, where there has been no destruction). The Continent as a whole has the same soil and natural resources and technical knowledge as when it fed its populations. The causes of its present failure at self-support are moral: economic paralysis following political disintegration, ‘Balkanisation’; that, in its turn, due to certain passions and prepossessions.
A corresponding phenomenon is revealed within each national society: a decline of production due to certain moral disorders, mainly in the political field; to ‘unrest,’ a greater cleavage between groups, rendering the indispensable co-operation less effective.
The necessary co-operation, whether as between nations or groups within each nation, cannot be compelled by physical coercion, though disruptive forces inseparable from the use of coercion can paralyse co-operation. Allied preponderance of power over Germany does not suffice to obtain indemnities, or even coal in the quantities demanded by the Treaty. The output of the workers in Great Britain would not necessarily be improved by adding to the army or police force. As interdependence increases, the limits of coercion are narrowed. Enemies that are to pay large indemnities must be permitted actively to develop their economic life and power; they are then so potentially strong that enforcement of the demands becomes correspondingly expensive and uncertain. Knowledge and organisation acquired by workers for the purposes of their labour can be used to resist oppression. Railwaymen or miners driven to work by force would still find means of resistance. A proletarian dictatorship cannot coerce the production of food by an unwilling peasantry. The processes by which wealth is produced have, by increasing complexity, become of a kind which can only be maintained if there be present a large measure of voluntary acquiescence, which means, in its turn, confidence. The need for that is only made the more imperative by the conditions which have followed the virtual suspension of the gold standard in all the belligerent States of Europe, the collapse of the exchanges and other manifestations of instability of the currencies.
European statesmanship, as revealed in the Treaty of Versailles, and in the conduct of international affairs since the Armistice, has recognised neither the fact of interdependence—the need for the economic unity of Europe—nor the futility of attempted coercion. Certain political ideas and passions give us an unworkable Europe. What is their nature? How have they arisen? How can they be corrected? These questions are part of the problem of sustenance; which is the first indispensable of civilisation.
CHAPTER II (pp. 61–80)
THE OLD ECONOMY AND THE POST-WAR STATE
THE trans-national processes which enabled Europe to support itself before the War were based mainly on private exchanges prompted by the expectation of individual advantage. They were not dependent upon political power. (The fifteen millions for whom German soil could not provide lived by trade with countries over which Germany had no political control, as a similar number of British live by similar non-political means.)
The old individualist economy has been largely destroyed by the State Socialism introduced for war purposes: the nation, taking over individual enterprise, became trader and manufacturer in increasing degree. The economic clauses of the Treaty, if enforced, must prolong this tendency, rendering a large measure of such Socialism permanent.
The change may be desirable. But if co-operation must in future be less as between individuals for private advantage, and much more as between nations, governments acting in an economic capacity, the political emotions of nationalisation will play a much larger role in the economic processes of Europe. If to Nationalist hostilities as we have known them in the past is to be added the commercial rivalry of nations now converted into traders and capitalists, we are likely to have not a less but a more quarrelsome world, unless the fact of interdependence is much more vividly realised than in the past.
CHAPTER III (pp. 81–111)
NATIONALITY, ECONOMICS, AND THE ASSERTION OF RIGHT
THE change noted in the preceding chapter raises a profound question of Right—Have we the right to use our power to deny to others the means of life? By our political power we can create a Europe which, while not assuring advantage to the victor, deprives the vanquished of means of existence. The loss of both ore and coal by the Central Powers might well make it impossible for their future populations to find food. What are they to do? Starve? To disclaim responsibility is to claim that we are entitled to use our power to deny them life.
This ‘right’ to starve foreigners can only be invoked by invoking the conception of nationalism—‘Our nation first.’ But the policy of placing life itself upon a foundation of preponderant force, instead of mutually advantageous co-operation, compels statesmen perpetually to betray the principle of nationality; not only directly, (as in the case of the annexation of territory, economically necessary, but containing peoples of alien nationality,) but indirectly; for the resistance which our policy (of denying means of subsistence to others) provokes, makes preponderance of power the condition of survival. All else must give way to that need.
Might cannot be pledged to Right in these conditions. If our power is pledged to Allies for the purpose of the Balance (which means, in fact, preponderance), it cannot be used against them to enforce respect for (say) nationality. To turn against Allies would break the Balance. To maintain the Balance of Power we are compelled to disregard the moral merits of an Ally’s policy (as in the case of the promise to the Czar’s government not to demand the independence of Poland). The maintenance of a Balance (i.e. preponderance) is incompatible with the maintenance of Right. There is a conflict of obligation.
CHAPTER IV (pp. 112–141)
MILITARY PREDOMINANCE—AND INSECURITY