The Next Step: A Plan for Economic World FederationNearing, Scott
History
The Next Step: A Plan for Economic World Federation
Nearing, Scott
Economic history
War-menace constitutes another indication of the chaos existing in
modern economic society. The purpose of economic activity is to produce
wealth. The purpose of war is to destroy it. The two are therefore in
direct antagonism; yet the greatest war machines are maintained by the
greatest industrial nations. To reply that they have the big war
machines because they can afford to pay for them, is no conclusive
answer. The organizing of nations for war came into present-day society
with the present industrial system. Industrial leaders have engaged in a
great competitive struggle from which the final appeal was always the
appeal to arms. Furthermore, one of the most profitable businesses has
been that of making the munitions and supplies required for the
prosecution of war. Nor is there wanting evidence that modern wars have
been made for profits--that they have been "commercial wars," as
President Wilson put it.
There is no longer any question but that the forces behind the world war
were in the main economic. The war was fought by capitalist empires, for
the furtherance of capitalist enterprises. The publication of the secret
treaties entered into by the Allies in 1916 gives conclusive proof of
the land grabbing character of the Allies' intentions. There can
scarcely be any question of the existence of similar intentions on the
side of the Central Empires. The forces that constituted the war menace
in 1914 were the economic forces arising out of the competitive economic
regime that dominated the European world at that time.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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