The Fruits of Victory: A Sequel to The Great IllusionAngell, Norman
History
The Fruits of Victory: A Sequel to The Great Illusion
Angell, Norman
Economic history -- 1918-1945; World War, 1914-1918 -- Influence
Those who have dealt with the world's food resources point out that
there are great sources of food still undeveloped. But the difficulties
do not arise from a total shortage. They arise from a mal-distribution
of population, coupled with the fact that as between nations the Ten
Commandments--particularly the eighth--do not run. By the code of
nationalism we have no obligation towards starving foreigners. A nation
may seize territory which it does not need, and exclude from it those
who direly need its resources. While we insist that internationalism is
political atheism, and that the only doctrine fit for red-blooded people
is what Colonel Roosevelt called 'intense Nationalism,' intense
nationalism means, in economic practice, the attempt, even at some
cost, to render the political unit also the economic unit, and as far as
possible self-sufficing.
It serves little purpose, therefore, to point out that one or two States
in South America can produce food for half the world, if we also create
a political tradition which leads the patriotic South American to insist
upon having his own manufactures, even at cost to himself, so that he
will not need ours. He will achieve that result at the cost of
diminishing his production of food. Both he and the Englishman will be
poorer, but according to the standard of the intense nationalist, the
result should be a good one, though it may confront many of us with
starvation, just as the intense nationalism of the various nations of
Eastern and South-Eastern Europe actually results in famine on soil
fully capable, before the War, of supporting the population, and capable
of supporting still greater populations if natural resources are used to
the best advantage. It is political passions, anti-social doctrines, and
the muddle, confusion, and hostility that go therewith which are the
real cause of the scarcity.
And that may forecast the position of Europe as a whole to-morrow: we
may suffer starvation for the patriotic joy of seeing foreigners--Boche
or Bolshevist--suffer in still greater degree.
Given the nationalist conception of a world divided into completely
distinct groups of separate corporate bodies, entities so different that
the binding social ties between them (laws, in fact) are impossible of
maintenance, there must inevitably grow up pugnacities and rivalries,
creating a general sense of conflict that will render immeasurably
difficult the necessary co-operation between the peoples, the kind of
co-operation which the Treaty of Versailles has, in so large degree,
deliberately destroyed. Whether the hostility comes, in the first
instance, from the 'herd,' or tribal, instinct, and develops into a
sense of economic hostility, or whether the hostility arises from the
conviction that there exists a conflict of interest, the result is
pretty much the same. I happen to have put the case elsewhere in these
terms:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account