Imperial Germany & the Industrial Revolution. Thorstein Veblen
may also be turned about; if the animus embodied in the new cult is effectually borne up by the discipline of current workday experience at large, persons strongly imbued with the bias of the cult are likely to be thrown up by popular acclaim into responsible offices of discretion, and so come to combine the promptings of their own interest with their pious convictions in its support and bring it to the mature phase of a self-evident and intolerant infallibility.
In the engendering and growth of habitual ideals and convictions touching matters of use and wont at large, or in any given connection, the run of events is not of a character essentially different from the circumstances that surround the inception and spread of these religious verities. The changes that alter the face of national life have small beginnings; the traceable initial process having commonly set in with some overt act on the part of a small and distinctive group of persons, who will then presently be credited with insight and initiative in case the move proves itself by success. Should the movement fail of acceptance and consequent effect, these spokesmen of its propaganda would then prove to have been fanciful project-makers, perhaps of unsound mind.
To describe the course of such a matter by analogy, the symptoms of the new frame of mind will first come in evidence in the attitude of some one individual, who, by congenital proclivity and through an exceptional degree of exposure, is peculiarly liable to its infection. In so far as the like susceptibility is prevalent among the rest of the population, and so far as circumstances of habituation favor the new conceit, it will then presently find lodgment in the habits of thought of an increasing number of persons, - particularly among those whom the excursive play of a hybrid heredity has thrown up as temperamental variants peculiarly apt for its reception, or whom the discipline of life bends with exceptional rigor in the direction of its bias.
Should the new idea also come to have the countenance of those in authority or in a position to claim popular deference, its vogue will be greatly helped out by imitation, and perhaps by compulsory observance, and so it may in a relatively short time become a matter of course and of common sense. But the reservation always stands over, that in such a hybrid population the same prevalent variability of temperament that so favors the infiltration and establishment of new ideas will at the same time render their tenure correspondingly precarious.
The point may be illustrated by the rise and decline of warlike ideals from time to time among modern nations; though it is the rise and rule of these ideals, rather than their decline, that will best illustrate the point. The decline of such ideals, and of the patriotic animosity in which they find outward expression, would appear to be a matter of reversion through neglect rather than of aggressive indoctrination through propaganda and suitable discipline. The cause of peace and amity appears not to be served by polemical propaganda, any more than by a strenuous warlike preparation for “keeping the peace.”
There is always an appreciable warlike animus present in these modern nations; necessarily so, since their governmental establishments are necessarily of a coercive character and their ruling classes are animated with dynastic ambitions. In this matter the republican states uncritically imitate the dynastic ones so effectually as to make no grave exception from the rule. The historical tradition and precedents run that way. So that the ferment is always at hand. But in the absence of special provocation the commonplace body of the population, being occupied with other interests and having no natural bent for fighting in order to fight, will by easy neglect drift into peaceable habits of thought, and so come habitually to think of human relations, even of international relations, in terms of peace, if not of amity.
Temperamentally erratic individuals, however, and such as are schooled by special class traditions or predisposed by special class interest, will readily see the merits of warlike enterprise and keep alive the tradition of national animosity. Patriotism, piracy and prerogative converge to a common issue. Where it happens that an individual gifted with an extravagant congenital bias of this character is at the same time exposed to circumstances favoring the development of a truculent megalomania and is placed in such a position of irresponsible authority and authentic prerogative as will lend countenance to his idiosyncrasies, his bent may easily gather vogue, become fashionable, and with due persistence and shrewd management come so ubiquitously into habitual acceptance as in effect to throw the population at large into an enthusiastically bellicose frame of mind. Such is particularly apt to be the consequence in case of a people whose historical traditions run in terms of dynastic strategy and whose workday scheme of institutions is drawn on lines of coercion, prerogative and loyalty.
It is only with the new departure of 1870 that Germany has come to take its place in the general apprehension as a singularly striking, not to say unique, instance of exuberant growth. The history of its unfolding power, of course, is not contained in this brief interval that lies within the memory of men still living; but the new departure by force of which the life-history of the German nation has come to diverge so notably from the commonplace run of events in modern Europe can after all not be pushed back far beyond that epoch. Anyone who seeks a precise period from which to date this epoch of German history will have difficulty in deciding on any given point earlier than the year named. And what had taken place in the way of an unfolding of national forces before that date is of great significance only for its bearing on what has taken place since then.
The visible achievements of the German people during this historical period, so far as they are amenable to statistical statement, are a gain in population, in industrial efficiency, and in military force. Other gains are claimed, perhaps even of greater moment in the apprehension of the spokesmen, and there is no inclination here to discount or minimise their achievements outside of this material domain; but the magnitude of the advance in these other lines is in some degree a matter of estimate and opinion, which may in that degree be influenced by sentiments of self-complacency or of depreciation, whereas the gains in the material respect spoken for above are beyond cavil. But judged by these physically measurable marks of excellence, the historical period within which this modern onset of the German people runs will have to be dated somewhat back of the French-Prussian war. In each of the three respects named the advance was well under way before that date. It is, however, safe to say that this beginning of the current era falls within the second quarter of the nineteenth century.16 It is also safe to say that the prime mover among these factors of the nation’s unfolding power has been its increased industrial efficiency, rather than either of the other two. While their increasing efficiency has doubtless been conditioned by the growth in population, the initiative, as between these two, has doubtless vested in the former rather than in the latter. In the correlation between industrial advance and population the primacy belongs to the former. The like is true, of course, as regards the growth in military strength.
Also, doubtless, a large place among the causes of growth and efficiency is believed to be due to a wise governmental policy and a shrewd administration, but opinion counts for much in the appraisal of this governmental policy, and opinion on such a matter is liable to partiality, for or against. The unfolding of warlike power has unequivocally been a work of governmental policy, and the same policy has unquestionably sought to further the industrial advance; the question that presents itself in the latter connection is not as to the faithful intentions and endeavor of the government - or “State,” to use the German concept - but only as to the probable degree of efficacy of these good intentions and endeavor; and on this head opinions will not coincide, and the proposition will therefore best be left out of the premises.
As is well known, the practical movement for German union, which came to a successful issue in the eventual formation of the Empire, owed its beginnings and its earlier success to the economic needs of the German countries, - or it may be said to have been provoked by the grievous burden of artificial evils created by the governments of the small states among which the country was divided. So, as a practical measure, it begins with the formation of a Tariff Union, designed to remove certain of the obstacles which the particularist policies of these states had erected. And this union and uniformity of economic policy within the Empire is still one of the chief assets of its strength, particularly the absence of internal tariff restrictions.
The place and relation of Germany to the industrial development of modern Europe, therefore, will necessarily be the point of departure for any inquiry into the fortunes and achievements of the German people in this modern era. On this head, then, its