Icarus : $b or, The future of scienceRussell, Bertrand
Philosophy
Icarus : $b or, The future of science
Russell, Bertrand
Civilization; Science; Science and state
First, industrialism, still has great parts of the earth’s surface to
conquer. Russia and India are very imperfectly industrialized; China
hardly at all. In South America there is room for immense development.
One of the effects of industrialism is to make the world an economic
unit: its ultimate consequences will be very largely due to this
fact. But before the world can be effectively organized as a unit, it
will probably be necessary to develop industrially all the regions
capable of development that are at present backward. The effects of
industrialism change as it becomes more wide-spread; this must be
remembered in any attempt to argue from its past to its future.
The second point about industrialism is that it increases the
productivity of labour, and thus makes more luxuries possible. At
first, in England, the chief luxury achieved was a larger population
with an actual lowering of the standard of life. Then came a golden age
when wages increased, hours of labour diminished, and simultaneously
the middle-class grew more prosperous. That was while Great Britain
was still supreme. With the growth of foreign industrialism, a new
epoch began. Industrial organizations have seldom succeeded in becoming
world-wide, and have consequently become national. Competition,
formerly between individual firms, is now mainly between nations,
and is therefore conducted by methods quite different from those
contemplated by the classical economists.
Modern industrialism is a struggle between nations for two things,
markets and raw materials, as well as for the sheer pleasure of
dominion. The labour which is set free from providing the necessaries
of life tends to be more and more absorbed by national rivalry.
There are first the armed forces of the State; then those who
provide munitions of war, from the raw minerals up to the finished
product; then the diplomatic and consular services; then the teachers
of patriotism in schools; then the Press. All of these perform
other functions as well, but the chief purpose is to minister to
international competition. As another class whose labours are devoted
to the same end, we must add a considerable proportion of the men
of science. These men invent continually more elaborate methods of
attack and defence. The net result of their labours is to diminish the
proportion of the population that can be put into the fighting line,
since more are required for munitions. This might seem a boon, but in
fact war is now-a-days primarily against the civilian population, and
in a defeated country they are liable to suffer just as much as the
soldiers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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