International Order and Economic Integration

III THE INTERNATIONAL PROBLEM OF RAW MATERIALS AND COLONIES

INTERNATIONAL ‘SOCIAL JUSTICE’

It was once said, somewhat unpleasantly, of the English imperialism of the 19th century that it said ‘Christ’ and meant ‘cotton’. That is one of those unjust generalizations, which have so much contributed to the poisoning of the relationships between peoples and is especially ill-suited, when it is expressed with pharisaical self-righteousness. It refers to a period in which the great powers were scarcely in a position to reproach each other, and to a country, which unlike others can at least say for itself that it had shown itself to a high and exemplary degree, capable of self-criticism and reversal of policy.

The remark nevertheless contains some truth, in as much as political expansion has always worked with certain ‘covering lies’, in order to provide the real aims with a façade most suited to the changing spirit of the time, and to justify them on those grounds considered at the time as the most legitimate. There was for example undoubtedly a time in the 19th century when the argument of the dissemination of religion afforded great service, also in lulling the conquering power’s own conscience. It is only a later secularization of this argument, when expansion is justified by the idea that backward – the word today is ‘underdeveloped’ – peoples must be raised to the level of European civilization.

It would need a thorough investigation, one scarcely undertaken up to now, to determine the real character of such ‘covering lies’ and to avoid too crude a conception of them. At this point we must content ourselves with a hint that it would be wrong to talk here of mere ‘swindle’ and naked ‘hypocrisy’. Even though the facade does not correspond to reality, the deception caused by it is at least to a great extent also a self-deception. It is an interim world between appearance and reality, complicated and very interesting from the sociological and psychological point of view, and is best described by expressions like ‘cant’ and ‘ideology’.

Now it is certain, that the period in which the European colonist and conqueror found it expedient to justify his policy of expansion to himself and to others as a religious or civilizing missionary work, must today be considered at an end. The propagandist camouflaging of the conquest of Abysinnia as a campaign against cruel barbarians, to whom Roman civilization must be presented, seems today to be almost a piece from a romantic opera. In general the West has become since the First World War too unsure of itself and its civilization, to remain any longer insensitive to the ironical undertone, with which reference is made to ‘the burden of the white man’, on whom Providence has conferred the arduous duty of the ‘culture-bringer’. Instead a new cant has appeared; the economic one. ‘Christ’ is no longer spoken of in connection with naval gunners, but instead all the more is said about raw materials, markets, exchange-difficulties and room for surplus-population. If previously one virtuously sought to embellish a policy of expansion mainly with cultural aims, it seems today to be an economic disguise which can best give such a policy an appearance of justification. Today one says ‘cotton’ and means, if not ‘Christ’, then the political reality which hides behind the economic façade. Hunger for power, lust for prestige, increase of ‘national honour’, political or cultural missionary spirit, the urge to get things done and the hunt for a job and many other things, which are in no way of an economic nature, but which have in great measure determined European expansion. Were one to examine what great economic benefit the European colonies brought the Mother-Land, one would reach a sobering conclusion and in the case of Germany and Italy discover an almost absurd disparity between expenditure and profit.

Before we take a closer look at the situation today, it would be very useful to take a glance at the last 100 years of European colonial policy. We shall then be able to distinguish roughly five main phases 1).

In the first phase dominated by early liberalism the predominating feeling about a colonial policy was scepticism, which found its best-known expression in the famous words of the subsequent leader of English imperialism, Disraeli, who declared the English colonies were ‘mill-stones round the neck of the mother-country’. Most of the arguments used today against the claims of the ‘Have-nots’ – that it is not necessary to possess colonies in order to be supplied with raw materials, that colonies are only an expensive hobby, that the important thing is an international exchange of goods which is to be as far as possible undisturbed, and not an equal distribution of territories – were at that time familiar to every educated person. A great part of the colonial expansion of England in the 19th century was achieved in continual conflict with this liberal colonial theory, and it is well-known, that Bismarck himself at first rejected the acquisition of colonies.

This scepticism about a colonial policy gives place towards the end of the 19th century to the second phase: the epoch of ‘imperialism’ and ‘world policy’. Carried by the public opinion of their countries, the great powers enter upon a vigorous race for the last colonial territories, protectorates and ‘spheres of influence’, – which poisoned international relations. That this new eagerness in the struggle for colonies rose out of no economic necessity and cannot be laid to the charge of ‘capitalism’, we have already made sufficiently clear. Particularly the German colonies – that is to say the colonies of that country, whose economic prosperity was specially striking at that time – were of no economic importance, whatever either as suppliers of raw materials or as markets or as areas for settlement; in view of the irrefutable statistics there can be no dispute about that.

After the First World War, we enter into the third phase of colonial ideas. A new scepticism gained ground, this time strongly supported by the feeling that the time of real colonial policy was past and that Europe’s old trustee-relationship towards overseas possessions could no longer be maintained. Everywhere national and racial consciousness was beginning to stir; European privileges, such as had existed in Turkey, in Egypt, in China and related countries, were crumbling; the measure of self-determination, which had to be granted to countries of more or less typical colonial character, grew perceptibly.

It was only in the thirties that the world suddenly entered into a fourth phase. It is characterized by the fact that the countries which have ‘come off badly’ (the ‘Have-nots’) discard all touches of colonial fatigue and persistently demand an even distribution of the colonial booty, and this in the name of international ‘social justice’. What does this imply?

These ‘hungry’ states were in the main Germany, Japan und Italy, i.e. those countries, whose ‘dynamic force’ finally led to the Second World War. Now from the very beginning one of the most effective methods of propaganda has been to transfer the idea of the class-struggle–which was specially familiar to an old socialist like Mussolini – together with its phraseology, to the relationship between nations, and in the name of ‘proletarian peoples’ or, according to the German variation, with the claim to ‘Lebensraum’ (room to live), to demand a fresh distribution of political domination in the world in favour of the have-nots. So the call for ‘social justice’, which was to eliminate the difference between rich and poor from individual to individual within a country, was partly complemented, even partly replaced by the shout for ‘international social justice’, between those nations which are ‘rich’ in square miles of political domination and their economic resources, and the others, which are ‘poor’ in them. This propaganda-campaign was carried on with great skill, with unusual intensity and with a success, which one must term gigantic, and we may say, that in this unparalleled success one of the main causes of the Second World War must be sought.

In fact: here was a slogan, which allowed the dynamite of internal social contrasts to be thrown outward among the nations, to convert the dissatisfaction of the lower and middle class into nationalism and an impulse to conquer, the attention of the people to be diverted from the internal causes of economic decay and from the responsibility of its own government and to be directed against foreign governments and peoples. That was all based on a few indisputable, although easily distorted facts and demanded in the name of a ‘justice’, which could here as well as in many other fields be successfully misused as a covering for other aims, because it contained a germ of truth. It was indisputable, that the distribution of the politically dominated square-miles among the nations was extraordinarily unequal and the sovereignty over the economic resources of these square miles even more unequal, and it was and remains an undisputed fact that, if one takes as a standard the number of the politically administered square-miles together with their resources, the nations of the world are graduated into millionaires, middle-classes and proletarians. This was common knowledge, and so those ‘dynamic’ governments could appeal with an equally decisive a success to the greed of their own nation as to the bad conscience of the others, drowning the few voices, which exposed all that as complete mental confusion, went to the bottom of the facts of the case and asked, by what rights and in what circumstances the terms ‘poor’ and ‘rich’ could be transferred to entire nations and with the number of politically dominated square miles as a standard.

How colossal the success of this intellectual campaign was can be judged by the influence it had on that world political and world economic post-war programme, which Great Britain and the United States announced in 1941 under the name ‘Atlantic Charta’. Along with ‘social justice’ in internal affairs there was at that time scarcely another programme point so undisputed and so accepted by all sides for the new order of the world as the demand, that a balance between the ‘owning’ and ‘non-owning’ peoples should be aimed at and that for all the same ‘access to the raw materials’ or their ‘just distribution’ should be ensured.

In this a very remarkable change took place shortly after the Second World War. In seeking to characterize it, we describe at the same time the fifth phase in the development of the ideas, which determine the attitude of the West towards the ‘colonial’ world. This will be discussed later, when in a further chapter we deal with the modern programme of the ‘development of the underdeveloped countries’. The idea of a ‘class-distinction’ between the peoples continues to be effective, but has now taken on a new form. Nowadays little is said about the ‘privileges’, which single countries of the West hold over others, through the easier access to raw materials which they possess thanks to their colonies. The colonial period is in any case irrevocably approaching its end. What has taken the place of its characteristic tensions and endeavours is on the one hand the claim to an equalization of wealth, which the former ‘colonial’ world itself–the whole group of countries now described as ‘underdeveloped’ – makes on the whole group of the western countries. On the other hand, however, it is the desire of the latter, to meet this claim in a manner compatible with their interest in the expansion of world economy, in the satisfaction of their ever-increasing demand for raw materials, and in political and economic influence. It is the former colonial world itself, which now as a new group of ‘Have-nots’ emerges from its passiveness with stormy claims, but at the same time there can be no doubt that much of the expansionary, missionary and protective endeavours from the earlier colonial periods revives unquestionably in the role, which the western countries here take over, although in such a way, that it is not easy to recognize the old content in the new form. The only country, which openly continues a policy of imperialistic colonization is, as previously noted, Communist Russia, but the remarkable thing is, that it does it in the name of a struggle against a non-existent imperialistic colonialism – or one existent only in pitiable remains – on the part of the West and with this downright cynical mockery of the truth can still achieve success.

THE REAL PROBLEM

This latest phase of development in colonial ideas makes admittedly little difference to the fact that the question of international ‘social justice’, as it has occupied minds in the fourth phase, remains one of the most important and the most interesting.

What is the point at issue? We start from those two facts, which we have already acknowledged as indisputable. The one that the size of states which share the political domination of the globe, differ widely in size, with the giant empires of Russia and the United States at one end of the scale and small states like Switzerland at the other. To this must be added the second fact, that the natural riches of the world are not evenly distributed over the earth’s surface, but irregularly, so that the great and greatest empires often have an even greater share in the political dominium over natural resources, than would correspond to their size. In this way the inequality which already results from the unequal size of states is further accentuated by the relative size of the raw material areas under political domination.

Now the real importance of both these facts would not be understood, if we did not add a third. Such a striking inequality in political domination over raw material areas will certainly always have serious consequences, yet will not become a burning and vital national problem, as long as the level of economic development and transport technique sets narrow geographical limits to international economic relations. Up to the beginning of the last century the demand for a just international distribution of the world’s raw materials would have had no sense, since the share of foreign raw materials in the international trade was slight, and most of the nations had in any case to be content with the natural resources of their own territories. It is this very radical change, which has taken place since then which must be added as a third to the two facts already named, in order that we may fully understand the problem. More and more raw materials have entered world-trade and have gained a vital importance for all more or less developed nations, the world has gradually become an economic unit, in which the inequality in political domination over raw materials has become a highly acute problem. It is for all countries a problem of existence, that they should obtain regularly and on the same conditions as everyone else, rubber, petroleum, tin and the other organic or inorganic raw materials, but here they are faced with the fact, that a great part of these raw materials is found on the territory of a few large states.

These three facts, however – the inequality (both political and economic) and the dependence of all developed countries on the overall availability of the world’s raw materials, are still not sufficient to give rise to a problem of the ‘just distribution of raw materials’ or the equal access of all countries to the world’s raw materials. A fourth must be added, and just because so many ignore this, they become a prey to mistaken ideas and ambiguous slogans.

In all questions of international economic relations, the analysis of which we find at first difficult, we do well to proceed from the relationships between the various districts of a single country, and this clarifying method proves its value here too. It is indisputable, that even the individual cantons in Switzerland are not only very unequal in size and natural resources, but must ensure that these natural resources, which are so unevenly distributed over the political and economic subdivisions, are treated as a whole and are equally accessible to all. Here too all three facts previously mentioned are found together. But why does no one talk of ‘poor’ and ‘rich’ cantons in the sense that the first are small like the canton Zug and the second large like Graubünden or rich in coal like the Valais? Why is there here no problem of ‘just distribution of raw materials’ and no popular movement in Switzerland, for this canton to get its shares in the coal-deposits of the Valais? The answer is obvious: in this case no one falls into the ever-recurring fallacy of misplaced concreteness, which would in our example cause us to put the number of square-miles dominated by a nation, on a par with individual wealth, i.e. to confuse sovereignty with property, public with private right, empire with dominium. In this example of Switzerland all are guarded against this error, because the canton governments themselves separate these very different matters and do not misuse political domination over raw materials areas to make of them a privilege for the citizens of the canton and to establish conditions for the acquisition of raw materials by a cantonal economic policy, which are more unfavourable for strangers to the canton than they are for the natives.

THE LIBERAL SOLUTION

It is to be recommended that this unreal example should be thought out from all sides and possibilities in order to return then with greater clarity to the international raw materials problem. We repeat: that triple fact confronts mankind with a great difficulty. All countries need the raw materials of all areas, but the political map of the earth shows the greatest inequality in the size of states. Did not the only solution consist in transferring conditions within a country to the entire world and in building a world-state? And does not the impossibility of this way-out mean that one must allow international ‘injustice’ to poison the relations of peoples?

By no means. It was just the much abused liberal epoch of the 19th century which found a solution to the problem, that was so natural, that one was first aware of it when it had been given up and sacrificed to the new spirit of collectivism. We know the solution already2). If no world-state could be created, the next-best thing was to lessen the economic importance of unequal domination of the world’s resources to the greatest possible extent, by separating where possible the spheres of politics and economics and creating what we call world-economy.

By this free-market solution it was made possible for international economic transactions to be so carried out, as if there were a world-state, and the individual countries stood in the same relationship to one another as the Swiss cantons or the provinces of some other country. No one spoke of a ‘raw materials problem’ of the ‘have-not peoples’, no one of the necessity of ‘the equal access of all peoples to the world’s raw materials’, and if anyone would have done so, he would not have been at all understood. The struggle for colonies stood, as we saw, in absurd contrast to their economic necessity; a country like Germany experienced at that time an unheard-of economic prosperity, although the share of the colonies in German foreign trade was ridiculously slight, and little countries like Switzerland were leading in their prosperity and economic progress without having even in their own country appreciable raw materials at their disposal, to say nothing of possessing colonies. Raw materials were bought on the world-market, like stamps at the post-office counter, so to speak, without any difficulty about the necessary legal tender, for the multilateral character of the world-economy–which amounts finally to the much-reviled basic law of buying in the cheapest market in the world and selling in the dearest – made all countries into one big market. Neither were they bought on conditions graduated according to state-boundaries, apart from the monopolies already existing at that time, many of which sold more cheaply to foreign countries than at home (dumping), whilst the German Potassium Syndicate offered the example, rare at that time, of inverse price-differentiation (in favour of the home-market).

There was even a joke at that time, that it was almost a misfortune for a country to possess raw materials, since, thanks to the price-policy of the monopolies, it would then have to pay only more dearly for them. For a few important goods like iron and steel, coal and sugar, that was literally true. The largest state, the British Empire, followed, both in the Mother-country and in the crown-colonies, the principle of practically complete free-trade, whereas the Dominions maintained a system of protective tariffs, but were bound neither to each other nor to the Mother-country by a comprehensive preference-system.

THE RAW MATERIALS PROBLEM AS A RESULT OF THE DECAY OF THE LIBERAL WORLD-ECONOMY

In this way it was proved, that no so-called raw materials problem need arise out of our three-fold set of facts in the world any more than it would in the relationship of the Swiss cantons to one another. In this liberal world-economy national boundaries were without any appreciable economic importance, and the world-market was practically a unit with basically equal economic conditions for everyone, without consideration for citizenship or for the size of the state. The secret of the solution was the separation of the political and economic spheres, and in this liberal world the demand for political domination over raw material resources, to secure the supply of raw materials must have appeared as a parodox or as an attempt to obscure purely political or strategic aims. Nowhere could hate for the British Empire be successfully raked up, because it ‘monopolizes’ so great a part of the riches of the world.

To that extent, however, to which the governments of the world permitted the decay of this liberal world-economy, all this was bound to undergo a profound change and the problems of ‘a just distribution of raw materials’ was bound to develop out of a figment of the imagination or an empty propaganda-phrase into a real and more and more serious question. The raw materials problem and the problem of the economic ‘living space’ of the peoples simply appear now as part of a greater problem; growing out of an economic policy which is turning more and more towards collectivism and does exactly what a liberal economic policy had carefully avoided doing, namely, subjecting the economy at home and abroad to political direction, with the result that the economic importance of national boundaries and the size of the politically dominated area tend to increase more and more.

If it is a fact, that the parts of the earth’s surface under the political domination of various nations differ widely in size, and if on top of it they are fenced in by economic boundaries, then this must in face of the highly differentiated character of our modern economy and in face of the uneven pressure of population in the individual countries lead to an untenable situation which imperatively demands a solution. There is no longer any point in answering the handicapped countries with arguments only suited to a liberal world-economy: that the acquisition of raw materials is, just as in a home market, merely a question of money, that political sovereignty has nothing to do with private possession, and so on and so on. different things, – but only in a liberal world. In millennia of absolution and feudalism they were coupled together, and if modern collectivism should triumph, we shall return to this archaic state. Then however it will no longer be possible to divert the world’s attention from the fact, that the colossal structures of the great empires mean at the same time economic privilege, in contrast with the past liberal world-economy. Then it will be difficult for example to invaliditate the assertion that, since the British Empire was fenced in against the outside world by the Ottawa Treaties (1932) and the other giants, such as Russia, the French Colonial Empire and the United States have also shut themselves off more and more, the exchange of raw materials for manufactured goods within these empires is easier than between them and the rest of the world. Then the small countries, poor in raw materials, have most to fear for their economic future.

The unrest of countries standing outside these empires can only be stilled, if the great empires give palpable proof that they have understood the responsibility towards all mankind (the earth today having become an economic whole) which their colossal scope places upon them. Men are detecting that just as the conception of property according to civil law includes more and more a social responsibility, so political ‘property’ must today also acquire a trustee-character, if it wants to appear justified, and only when the agglomeration of politically-dominated square miles is given this character, will human beings in the long-run put up with it.

To anyone who has read these remarks attentively and with understanding, it need not be said that the trustee-character is to be sought not in any division of sovereignty, but in the liberal division of sovereignty and economy, the exact opposite of what the propaganda of national-socialism and fascism had demanded. That is true however not only for the relationship between the ‘Haves’ and ‘Have-nots’, but also for that between the Haves themselves, since the raw material resources of the world are so distributed geographically, that even the empires are not in a position to obtain all the raw materials on their own territories and are for some of the most important – e.g. rubber or tin – dependent upon a reciprocal exchange. If we are not successful in creating a world-order, which makes the national resources of the earth accessible to every country on the same conditions, a dangerous seed will be sown among all peoples – between the great and the small just as among the great ones themselves. We have seen how much of it has already borne fruit, and we are very likely to see more of it.

A special problem, which should not be confused with this general problem of division or combination of imperium and dominium, is presented by the great international raw-material monopolies, especially when they are dominated by a few countries as in the case of potassium, rubber, copper or tin. Even when they pursue no dumping-policy similar to the former iron and steel monopolies they often represent an element of arbitrariness, differentiation, exploitation and uncertainty. As it is largely a question of raw materials of great strategic importance, they can easily let loose a diplomatic struggle among the great powers for a secure supply of raw materials, for which petroleum offers a particularly well-known example. The propagation of ‘equal access to raw materials’ actually simplifies the specific demand, that the privileged position of the international raw material monopolies should be broken. Now this highly-justified demand is already to a large extent being taken into account by the fact that in many cases sooner or later a competitive production arises, if stimulated by the price policy of the monopolies. The breaking of the Chilean monopoly in saltpetre by synthetic nitrogen-production, the opening-up of potassium-deposits throughout the world and the development of rubber production in new areas of the earth are well-known examples. We are dealing here with a serious problem in the international combating of monopoly, which would best be solved if governments were to review their pro-monopolist policies and to restore to the best of their ability the free play of competition.

AN IMPOSSIBLE SOLUTION

Let us return once more to the general problem; it is clear that something effective must be done. We are however once more faced with the great danger that under the influence of a collectivist ideology, which interprets the experience of the liberal past in a manner which is fundamentally wrong impossible solutions are attempted and the obvious is overlooked. The formulae of ‘just distribution of raw material resources’ or ‘equal access’ to them are highly ambiguous. Is it intended to take such a ‘distribution’ literally and to give each state a just share in the political rule over the area with the valuable resources. What is the idea, i.e. how should the division be carried out? According to what standard should the claims be determined and according to what formula satisfied? According to the size of the population? That would be a very approximate and unsatisfactory procedure. How are the different raw materials to be reduced to a common-denominator? How is the fact to be taken into account that the bases of distribution are continually changed by the discovery of new sources of raw materials, new kinds of raw materials and new methods of use and by the economic development of all countries? Is the world to be politically ‘re-shuffled’ again and again, and whose fantasy is sufficient to imagine however vaguely this procedure with its worldcongresses and quarrels? Or should all raw materials of the world be harded over to a world planning-committee and in this way make a suggestion which is always made when no practical proposal can be found, but which, even if it were practicable, would only eternally prolong the evil of the political direction of international economy?

It is clear that all such suggestions turn out to be impossible fake solutions, even more than that: as an extremely dangerous acknowledgement of a principle, which needs to be sanctioned only once in order to throw open the doors to eternal conflicts and agitations of all kinds. So the world can do nothing but return to the only solution which exists, as long as we possess no worldstate and the individual national economies are not fused into a single world-embracing one: the liberal solution of a genuine world economy with its multilateral character and all its further essential features.

THE RETURN TO THE LIBERAL SOLUTION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

We have in fact reached a point in history, where the earth (at any rate economically) has become a unit. As, however, the world, as before, is divided into a series of states of the most varying sizes, there arises an extremely serious contradiction between the political and the economic and physical world-map, a situation of political and economic overlapping similar to the distribution of the denominations all over Switzerland. Just as the solution of this denominational mixture cannot be found in the principle of the Diet of Augsburg ‘cuius regio, eius religio’, but only in the removing of the political character from religion and in mutual tolerance, so also does the problem of world-economic – and world-political overlapping admit only of one solution: the removal of any political character from the economy, i.e. the liberal solution in contrast to the collectivistic system.

Only in this way is a ‘just’ distribution of raw materials and an ‘equal access for all nations’ to them possible. No turning and twisting and no suggestions of whatever nature will alter the fact that we are faced with an immensely serious choice: either we must be prepared for a never-ending struggle for political domination over the earth’s surface fought out among the nations with the downright prehistoric embitterment of the ancient struggle for pasturage and sources of salt – or the barriers erected out of short-sighted group-egoism must be torn down again. The one or the other: a never-ending scuffle for the greatest possible extension of commercial enclosures or a return to the scorned principles of a liberal world-economy with tolerable tariffs, most-favoured-nation treatment, the policy of the open door, an international monetary-system and no ‘economic blocks’. Anyone who thinks this return Utopian, will have to explain to us clearly how he intends to evade the uncomfortable alternative.

The problem of a just distribution of raw materials is therefore no political problem of a new territorial order or an international organization, but an economic problem of the new world-economic order, and in fact a problem of one such as is alone worthy of this name, i.e. the liberal one. The demand for a re-establishment of the world-economy is accordingly, and necessarily one of the most forceful, as it becomes a demand in the name of international justice and peace. It should be put with special urgency to the great empires, for they carry a double responsibility; as political dominators of a large part of the world’s resources of raw materials and as dominating economic powers, on whose policy it depends in the first instance whether a return to a world-economy is Utopian or not. A change of mind is also requested in circles fully appreciate which the alternative here developed and realize the inescapable necessity of returning to a liberal solution of the international economic problem, while persisting in their failure to recognize the fundamental contradiction between such a return to reason and a collectivist and monopolistic course of the internal economic and social policy.

Once again however and in the most terrifying fashion does the ‘Great Error’ of our confused era disclose itself at the close of these considerations: the claim of collectivism of all types and grades, to deliver us from evil in the name of freedom, justice and peace and to promise us a new and better world-wide-order. In fact the surest and most direct way, to take us still further away from these ideals is collectivism, which itself belongs to that world, from which it wants to liberate us. It will not be necessary to explain again all about the compatibility or otherwise of collectivism and freedom. All the more urgent seemed to us the need, to make it clear once more, that collectivism is not only the fatal enemy of freedom, but also that of international justice and peace. That many collectivists are far from intending this, makes the case only more tragic and confirms the words of Thomas à Kempis, that all men indeed desire peace, but only very few the things which lead to it.

 

NOTES

3. (p. 116) Phases of colonial policy and colonial ideology:

Cf.: R. MICHELS, Die Theorien des Kolonialismus, Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft, Bd. 67, 1932; RENÉ MAUNIER, Sociologie coloniale, 2 Vol., Paris 1932-36; W. K. HANCOCK, The Wealth of Colonies, Cambridge 1950.

4. (p. 122) The liberal solution:

Further reading: L. ROBBINS, The Economic Basis of Class Conflict and other Essays in Political Economy, London 1939, S. 81 ff.; NORMAN ANGELL, Raw Materials, Population Pressure, and War, Boston 1936; GROVER CLARK, The Balance Sheets of Imperialism, New York 1936; Raw Materials and Colonies, Royal Institute of International Affairs, London 1936 (valuable statistical compilations); H. D. HENDERSON, Colonies and Raw Materials, Oxford 1939.

• 1. (p. 25) The Sociology of War:
• 2. (p. 27) War of Conflict and War of Aggression:
• 3That the various factors are interwoven with extraordinary intricacy becomes particularly evident in the dramatic catastrophe of international interrelations which we call war). One of the moral perversities with which our age is afflicted was to deny at times the supremely catastrophic character of war, until two world wars brought disillusionment – let us hope for ever. For centuries the time-honoured belief existed that war was, as a rule, one of the incomprehensible evils of the world system, which – like the other Horsemen of the Apocalypse – Pestilence, Hunger and Death – had to be borne with resignation. Pacifism, in the sense of a mass movement directed towards the abolition of war, only became possible after the beginning of the modern age, when war, like all other things alleged to be the Will of God, came to be regarded in the light of critical and ameliorative reason, and, together with other social institutions, as a work of man which it would be quite possible to alter. Thus instead of being a subject of theology, war became a subject of sociology. Has it in this way become entirely comprehensible? To be honest we must admit that we are still very far from understanding it. Although men have at all times pondered over the phenomenon of war, and although recent generations especially have amassed a gigantic literature on the sociology of war, all that progress adds up to is that we possess a fairly complete list of the possible causes of war and that we realize the extraordinary intricacy which links these causes and which excludes any monistic theory of war sociology. Only a separate and comprehensive volume could do justice to the epistemology which results.
• 4In order to understand in detail what an international peace based on justice must accomplish, the various categories of war must be distinguished. Above all a difference must be made between two types of war, the importance of which is not lessened by the fact that they have often been combined with each other in the course of history and that there are borderline cases in which it is not easy to say whether the one or the other type predominates. A war may arise either through a conflict over concrete claims, which may be compared with a case under civil law (war of conflict), or through an act of violence which corresponds to a breach of the peace under criminal law (war of aggression) ). Whereas individual legal disputes arising from contentions of personal honour or material claims are finally settled by judicial decision, international conflicts of this kind may easily lead to war, as long as a decision by force of arms, which corresponds to the ordeal of the Middle Ages, is not abolished through obligatory international legal procedure, and before this is the case we shall continue to regard war rather as a tragic chain of events than as a vicious action. From their very nature such wars of conflict make it difficult to clarify the question of guilt, provided one of the warring parties – as is however often enough the case – does not misuse the conflict as an excuse for a war of aggression, or does not oppose the readiness of the antagonist to come to an understanding with inexcusable intransigence. This last applies on the whole to the case of the first world war, whereas we should not hesitate to characterize the second in its origin and in all its phases purely as a war of aggression, after it had already been preceded by the wars of aggression in China and Abyssinia.