Socialism and International Economic Order

The introduction of a socialist system of society engenders profound economic and political changes. What are the effects of these changes—to repeat the question we have already asked at the beginning of this inquiry—on international economic cooperation?

Chapters I through V have yielded two important results. In the first place, a future world will be constituted, at least for the foreseeable period of time, by sovereign political units having at least the same extension as they have under the present order of things. But a thorough modification will occur, secondly, in the internal structure of these states: the division between imperium and dominium, which characterized a liberal society, will give way to “collective,” that is, to political control of all human activities.

At this point we must remember the socialists’ refusal to admit analysis of their systems with “bourgeois” intellectual tools. Can this attitude be seriously upheld? Our answer is no. The claim for the uniqueness of a socialist state is rooted in the particular method of socialist reasoning which, as we have seen, explains social, economic, and political problems not with reference to human nature, but with reference to good and bad institutions, interpreted as living organisms. In the framework of this philosophy, the socialist state cannot be anything but the good institution; as for its shortcomings, they are blamed either on capitalism or on the inability of immature men to fulfill the corps social’s expectations. Characteristically, the group of power holders is alternately identified with, and dissociated from, the collective body, depending upon the requirements of “time and place.”

However, our review of socialist thought in this part has shown that the socialist state is subject to the same inherent laws that have governed all other past and present states. Human character being what it is, the single most important criterion for judging the international effects of a given state is its internal order, that is, the degree to which power is divided between the citizen and the government, on the one hand, and among the various government agencies on the other. Not surprisingly, the national socialist current of thought arrived at fundamentally the same results as did socialist philosophy. Both systems of poltical speculation justify the high degree of power concentration in the hands of a few by reference to a superhuman collective being with a will of its own, a will that is merely “translated” by the holders of power.

Socialism thus implies that it is the State and its representatives who will acquire command over all national productive resources. It is no longer the individual, guided by market prices and risking his own capital, who makes production decisions, but the central planning authority, disposing of the wealth of the entire nation. This involves a basic decision concerning the two main sectors of national production (investment versus consumption goods). Since every state wishes to develop its productive powers which constitute the foundation of its political power as rapidly as possible, governments will tend to give priority to the development of heavy industry. Yet, at the same time, they have promised to raise the standard of living of their working population.

A constant balance is therefore to be struck between Staatsräson on the one hand and “social justice” on the other; and the satisfaction of both goals depends on the variety and quantity of productive resources actually available within the politically dominated territory of the collectivist state. Thus, the size of the territory and its natural endowment are of utmost importance for the establishment of an ambitious national plan.

Each collectivist state is a watertight economic system. Its trade relations with other collectivist states are characterized by a situation of bilateral monopoly. Numerous authors reviewed in this part have pleaded for a complete self-sufficiency; others have advocated a close and “brotherly” cooperation among states.

Because no state can be found which has in its territory all the raw materials necessary for modern industrial development, the “access” to vital resources which “belong” to other countries will be determined by negotiations between partner states. What are the typical forms under which these negotiations are conducted? What principles determine their outcome? And what forces are at work, under this system of production and exchange, to establish the kind of international order which is the “final goal of history,” that is, world planning and the withering away of the state? These questions will form our main preoccupation in the next part of this investigation.