America and the new world-state; a plea for American leadership in international organization

Front matter

Some Opinions of

The Great Illusion

By Norman Angell

Preface

This book is published in the hope that it may contribute, in however small measure, to forming on the part of the American people that “Will” (without which no “way” can be devised) to take the leadership in the civilization of Christendom, for which its situation and the happy circumstances of its history furnish so good an opportunity.

The leadership here contemplated is of a new kind: it is not military, it is not imposed upon unwilling peoples, but it would be leadership none the less; and if the American people can but achieve the inspiration and form this Will, it would mark a chapter in the history of human society as important as the invention of printing, the Reformation, or the discoveries of Columbus.

I trust that this earnest of what I am hoping for America may protect me from any possibility of the reader’s misunderstanding two chapters: “A Retrospect of American Patriotism,” and “Anglophobia and other Aberrations.” For if this mission of America is to be fulfilled, American patriotism must be purged of some of the qualities which have marked the militarist, medieval,

iii iv

Preface political, patriotism of the Old World. If the reader hopes to find in this book some familiar restatement of the plea that the inhabitants of this corner of the Western continent alone of all the men who have ever lived upon this planet have no need to watch their conduct and their temper, then he had better put the book down, as he will not find it. These two chapters, for instance, (reprinted the one from nearly twenty years back, and the other from some decade back,) recall certain of our political aberrations of the past. It is necessary so to recall them if in the mission that I hope lies before us we are to avoid certain dan¬ gers which might irretrievably wreck it. The sane and human, to say nothing of the wise and noble attitude, is the determination that in the fulfilment of the great task to which we may shortly set our hands, we shall avoid those errors into which we, in common with all peoples, have fallen in the past by realizing to the full in what they consist.

Throughout I have written as an American. At a very early age I acquired American citizen¬ ship and though by necessarily prolonged absences in Europe I have reverted to British citizenship, I always claim the right in dealing with American problems, to speak as an American, because in those cases I feel as one. It is as an American that I envisage the problems here dealt with : and so I write.

Norman Angell.

PARTI

THE NEW WORLD-STATE

CHAPTER

I. THE END OF THE ERA OF ISOLATION .

ii. America’s future — the alternatives .

III. AMERICA AS LEADER .

Part II The Doctrines That Make War

I. THE MORAL FOUNDATIONS OF PRUSSIAN- ISM ......

II. ANGLO-SAXON PRUSSIANISM

III. A RETROSPECT OF AMERICAN PATRIOTISM .

IV. ANGLOPHOBIA AND OTHER ABERRATIONS .

Part III Can Arms Alone Destroy Prussianism?

V

PAGE

VI

Part I The New World-sta Te Chapter I

The old axioms as to international relations — America supposed to be unaffected by European politics — The idea of nations as isolated and rival units — Necessity of exam¬ ining the truth of these assumptions — The fundamental fallacies which underlie them — The real nature of international trade —

The interdependence of civilised nations — Reaction of events in Europe on Amer¬ ica — Our losses through the war in Europe — How we pay part of the war indemnities — Military effects of the war on America — Effect of increased militarism in Europe on our social development — Intellectual and moral interdependence — Immense increase of interdependence in modern times — American civilisation reflects develop¬ ments in Europe — Necessity for America to face these facts in order to ensure her own security. .... 3-23

Chapter II

America’s future — the alternatives America an integral part of Western civilisation — Can she affect the course of events in Europe? A suggested line of action — The reasons for adopting it — The arguments against it considered — How isolation will lead to militarisation of America — The internationalisation of war — Can security be obtained by armaments? — War a matter of at least two parties — Absurdity of ignor¬ ing the other party except when the guns go off — Fallacies of security by armaments and of the Balance of Power — How societies are formed and the place of force therein — Common interests the basis of every com¬ munity — The future society of nations — America can lead it if she will — The sanctions of that society hinted at . . . 24-42

Chapter III

What are the most powerful forces and sanc¬ tions in modern life? — The non-military character of those sanctions — How the world admits their force without know¬ ing it — The opportunity for America to organise these forces — How she can ensure her own security — How she can do for Europe what Europe cannot do for her¬ self — America as the centre of the new world-state — Her mission as initiator and organiser of the new sanctions in international life — Will America show herself capable of real world leader¬ ship? . . . . . • . 43-64

Part II The Doctrines That Make War Chapter I

THE MORAL FOUNDATIONS OF PRUSSIANISM

The need for Americans to understand the

Vlll

European conflict — The importance of “theories” — This war by universal con¬ sent due to false theories — The German nation transformed by them — What is the theory that has caused the war? —

How the ideals of a people may be changed — What do the Germans hope to achieve by their victory? — Why Americans should understand these questions — For what purpose are States maintained? — What is the ultimate test of good politics? — What does military and political power achieve for the ultimate realities of human life? —

“The Great Illusion” — The moral, intel¬ lectual, and economic foundations of Prussianism — Materialistic roots of mili¬ tarism — No refuge save in the improvement of human understanding — America’s part in bringing about that improvement 67-1 1 3

CHAPTER II

The danger of self-deception in advocacy of disarmament and universal peace — The influence of America will play an import¬ ant part in the settlement which will follow the war — What that influence will be de¬ pends upon our attitude to these things — The influence of militarist writers in shaping the Allies’ attitude, and our own — A few examples of Anglo-Saxon Prussianism — The

IX need for knowing the nature of the Prussian doctrine and of fighting it — The special importance of clear thinking by Americans

CHAPTER III

A RETROSPECT OF AMERICAN PATRIOTISM

The necessity for national stock-taking — Anglophobia as the expression of American Patriotism — War with England “in the interests of human freedom” — The Vene¬ zuelan Crisis — Sudden disappearance of the British peril — The war with Spain — “Free and independent” Cuba — The Philippines — Adoption of Spanish methods — The Water Cure — The doctrine of Military Necessity — American opinion of the Filipinos before and after the war — Colonies and Imperialism — The new doc¬ trine as to annexation . . . 148-185

Chapter IV Anglophobia And Other Aberrations

American Patriotism in 1896 — The necessity for fighting England — Some expressions of American sentiment — The wickedness of the Pacifist — What should we have gained by fighting England? — Patriotism and farming — The Monroe Doctrine and its meaning — Our ‘ ‘ fellow-republicans ’ ’ in

Venezuela — Twelve months later — Spain the real villain in the drama — The noble Cuban — England our friend — Annexing

X

Cuba simply “because we want it” — The doctrine of “the strenuous life ” — The law of social progress — American jingoism imported from Europe — Why we escaped war with England — The “finest country on God’s earth” — The real conditions of American life — Can we afford the luxury of militarism? — Patriotism and the Tariff

186-248

Part III Can Arms Alone Destroy Prussianism?

“A War against War” — What does the anni¬ hilation of Germany mean? — Can sixty-five millions be killed off? — The partition of Germany — How it would Prussianise Europe — How Germany became Prussian¬ ised— The reaction of a Prussianised Europe upon America — The military in¬ destructibility of modern peoples — The mutability of alliances — What should fol¬ low the defeat of Germany ? — How Prussianism can be destroyed — The real basis of the society of nations — The r61e of America in organising that society . 251-295

297-305

PART I THE NEW WORLD-STATE i

The three chapters forming Part I of this book originally appeared in the form of articles in the New York Times, and are reprinted by courtesy of the proprietors of that paper.

Chapter I

The old axioms as to international relations — America supposed to be unaffected by European politics — The idea of nations as isolated and rival units — Necessity of examining the truth of these assumptions — The fundamental fallacies which underlie them — The real nature of international trade — The interdependence of civilized nations — Reaction of events in Europe on America — Our losses through the war in Europe — How we pay part of the war indemnities — Military effects of the war on America — Effect of increased militari m in Europe on our social development — Intellec¬ tual and moral interdependence — Immense increase of inter¬ dependence in modern times — American civilization reflects developments in Europe — Necessity for America to face these facts in order to ensure her own security.

In the discussion of America’s relation to the rest of the world we have always assumed almost as an axiom that America has nothing to do with Europe, is only in the faintest degree concerned with its politics and developments, that by happy circumstance of geography and history we are isolated and self-sufficing, able to look with calm detachment upon the antics of the distant Euro¬ peans. When a European landed on these shores we were pretty certain that he left Europe behind

The three chapters forming Part I of this book originally appeared in the form of articles in the New York Times , and are reprinted by courtesy of the proprietors of that paper.

CHAPTER I

The old axioms as to international relations — America supposed to be unaffected by European politics — The idea of nations as isolated and rival units — Necessity of examining the truth of these assumptions — The fundamental fallacies which underlie them — The real nature of international trade — The interdependence of civilized nations — Reaction of events in Europe on America — Our losses through the war in Europe — How we pay part of the war indemnities — Military effects of the war on America — Effect of increased militari m in Europe on our social development — Intellec¬ tual and moral interdependence — Immense increase of inter¬ dependence in modern times — American civilization reflects developments in Europe — Necessity for America to face these facts in order to ensure her own security.

In the discussion of America’s relation to the rest of the world we have always assumed almost as an axiom that America has nothing to do with Europe, is only in the faintest degree concerned with its politics and developments, that by happy circumstance of geography and history we are isolated and self-sufficing, able to look with calm detachment upon the antics of the distant Euro¬ peans. When a European landed on these shores we were pretty certain that he left Europe behind him; only quite recently indeed have we realized that we were affected by what he brought with him in the way of morals and traditions, and only now are we beginning dimly to realize that what goes on on the other side of the world can be any affair of ours. The famous query of a certain American statesman: "What has America to do with abroad?” probably represented at bottom the feelings of most of us.

In so far as we established commercial relations with Europe at all, we felt and still feel, probably, that they were relations of hostility, that we were one commercial unit, Europe another, and that the two were in competition. In thinking thus, of course, we merely accepted the view of inter¬ national politics common in Europe itself, the view, namely, that nations are necessarily trade rivals — the commercial rivalry of Britain and Germany is presumed to be one of the factors explaining the outbreak of the present war. The idea that nations do thus compete together for the world’s trade is one of the axioms of all discussion in the field of international politics.

Well, both these assumptions, in the form in which we make them, involve very grave fallacies, the realization of which will shortly become essen¬ tial to the wise direction of this country’s policy. If our policy, in other words, is to be shrewd and enlightened, we must realize just how both the views of international relationship that I have indicated are wrong.

I will take first the more special one — that of the assumed necessary rivalry of nations in trade — as its clearer understanding will help in what is for us the larger problem of the general relation¬ ship of this country to other civilized Powers. I will therefore try and establish first this proposi¬ tion: that nations are not and cannot be trade rivals in the sense usually accepted; that, in other words, there is a fundamental misconception in the prevailing picture of nations as trading units — one might as well talk of red-haired people being the trade rivals of black-haired people. And I will then try and establish a second proposition, namely, that we are intimately concerned with the condition of Europe and are daily becoming more so, owing to processes which have become an integral part of our fight against Nature, of the feeding and clothing of the world ; that we cannot much longer ignore the effects of those tendencies which bind us to our neighbours ; that the elemen¬ tary consideration of self-protection will sooner or later compel us to accept the facts and recognize our part and lot in the struggles of Christendom; and that if we are wise, we shall not take our part therein reluctantly, dragged at the heels of forces we cannot resist, but will do so consciously, anticipating events. In other words, we shall take advantage of such measure of detachment as we do possess, to take the lead in a saner organiza¬ tion of Western civilization ; we shall become the pivot and centre of a new world-state.

There is not the faintest hope of America taking this lead unless a push or impetus is given to her action by a widespread public feeling, based on the recognition of the fallacy of the two assump¬ tions with which I began this article. For if America really is independent of the rest of the world, little concerned with what goes on therein, if she is in a position to build a sort of Chinese wall about herself and, secure in her own strength, to develop a civilization and future of her own, still more if the weakness and disintegration of foreign nations, however unfortunate for them, is for America an opportunity of expanding trade and opportunities, why then of course it would be the height of folly for the United States to incur all the risks and uncertainties of an adventure into the sea of foreign politics.

What as a matter of simple fact is the real nature of trade between nations? If we are to have any clear notion at all as to just what truth there is in the notion of the necessary commercial rivalry of states, we must have some fairly clear notion of how the commercial relationship of na¬ tions works. And that can best be illustrated by a supposititious example. At the present time we are talking, for instance, of “capturing” German or British or French trade.

Now when we talk thus of “German” trade in the international field, what do we mean? Here is the ironmaster in Essen making locomotives for a light railway in an Argentine province (the capital for which has been subscribed in Paris) — which has become necessary because of the export of wool to Bradford, where the trade has developed owing to sales in the United States, due to high prices produced by the destruction of sheep runs, owing to the agricultural development of the West. But for the money found in Paris (due, perhaps, to good crops in wine and olives, sold mainly in London and New York), and the wool needed by the Bradford manufacturer (who has found a market for blankets among miners in Montana, who are smelting copper for a cable to China, which is needed because the encouragement given to education by the Chinese Republic has caused Chinese newspapers to print cable news from Europe) — but for such factors as these, and a whole chain of equally interdependent ones throughout the world, the ironmaster in Essen would not have been able to sell his locomotives. How, therefore, can you describe it as part of the trade of “Germany” which is in competition with the trade of “Britain ” or “ France ” or “America” ? But for the British, French, and American trade, it could not have existed at all. You may say that if the Essen ironmaster could have been pre¬ vented from selling his locomotives the order would have gone to an American one. But, this community of German workmen, called into existence by the Argentine trade, maintains by its consumption of coffee a plantation in Brazil, which buys its machinery in Chicago. The destruction, therefore, of the Essen trade, while it might have given business to the American loco¬ motive maker, would have taken it from, say, an American agricultural implement maker. The economic interests involved sort themselves, irrespective of the national groupings. I have summarized the whole process as follows, and the need for getting some of these simple things straight is my excuse for quoting myself :

Co-operation between nations has become essential for the very life of their peoples. But that co-opera¬ tion does not take place as between States at all. A trading corporation, “Britain,” does not buy cotton from another corporation, “America.” A manu¬ facturer in Manchester strikes a bargain with a merchant in Louisiana in order to keep a bargain with a dyer in Germany, and three or a much larger number of parties enter into virtual, or perhaps actual, contract, and form a mutually dependent economic community (numbering, it may be, with the work people in the group of industries involved, some mil¬ lions of individuals) — an economic entity so far as one can exist which does not include all organized society. The special interests of such a community may become hostile to those of another community, but it will almost certainly not be a “national” one, but one of a like nature, say a shipping ring or groups of international bankers or Stock Exchange specula¬ tors. The frontiers of such communities do not coincide with the areas in which operate the functions of the State. How could a State, say Britain, act on behalf of an economic entity such as that just indicated? By pressure against America or Germany? But the community against which the British manu¬ facturer in this case wants pressure exercised is not “America” or “Germany” — both Americans and Germans are his partners in the matter. He wants it exercised against the shipping ring or the speculators or the bankers who are in part British. . . .

This establishes two things, therefore: the fact that the political and economic units do not coincide, and the fact which follows as a consequence: that action by political authorities designed to control economic activities which take no account of the limits of political jurisdiction is necessarily irrelevant and ineffective. 1

The fallacy of the idea that the groups we call nations must be in conflict because they struggle together for bread and the means of sustenance is demonstrated immediately when we recall the simple facts of historical development. When, in the British Islands, the men of Wessex were fight¬ ing with the men of Sussex, far more frequently and bitterly than to-day the men of Germany fight with those of France, or either with those of Russia, the separate states which formed the island were struggling with one another for sus¬ tenance, just as the tribes which inhabited the North American continent at the time of our ar¬ rival there were struggling with one another for the

1 Arms and Industry. A Study of the Foundations of Interna¬ tional Polity, p. xviii. Putnams, New York.

game and hunting grounds. It was in both cases ultimately a “struggle for bread.” At that time, when Britain was composed of several separate states that struggled thus with one another for land and food, it supported with great difficulty anything between one and two million inhabitants, just as the vast spaces now occupied by the United States supported about a hundred thousand, often subject to famine, frequently suffering great short¬ age of food, able to secure just the barest existence of the simplest kind. To-day, although Britain supports anything from twenty to forty times, and North America something like a thousand times, as large a population in much greater comfort, with no period of famine, with the whole population living much more largely and deriving much more from the soil than did the men of the Heptarchy or the Red Indians, the “struggle for bread” does not now take the form of struggle between groups of the population. The more they fought, the less efficiently did they support them¬ selves; the less they fought one another, the more efficiently did they all support themselves.

This simple illustration is at least proof of this, that the struggle for material things did not involve any necessary struggle between the sepa¬ rate groups or states; for those material things are given in infinitely greater abundance when the states cease to struggle. Whatever, therefore, was the origin of those conflicts, that origin was not any inevitable conflict in the exploitation of

The End of the Era of Isolation n the earth. If those conflicts were concerned with material things at all, they arose from a mistake about the best means of obtaining them, exploiting the earth, and ceased when those concerned realized the mistake.

Just as Britain supported its population better when Englishmen gave up fighting themselves, so the world as a whole could support its population better if it gave up fighting.

Moreover we have passed out of the stage when we could massacre a conquered population to make room for us. When we conquer an inferior people like the Filipinos we don’t exterminate them; we give them an added chance of life. The weakest don’t go to the wall.

But at this point parenthetically I want to enter a warning. You may say, if this notion of the rivalry of nations is false, how do you account for the fact of its playing so large a part in the present war?

Well, that is easily explained: men are not guided necessarily by their interest even in their soberest moments but by what they believe to be their interest. Men do not judge from the facts but from what they believe to be the facts. War is the “failure of human understanding.” The religious wars were due to the belief that two religions could not exist side by side. It was not true, but the false belief provoked the wars. Our notions as to the relation of political power to a nation’s prosperity are just as false, and this fallacy, like the older one, plays its part in the causation of war.

Now let us for a moment apply the very general rule thus revealed to the particular case of the United States at this present juncture.

American merchants may in certain cases, if they are shrewd and able, do a very considerably increased trade, though it is just as certain that other merchants will be losing trade, and I think there is pretty general agreement that as a matter of simple fact the losses of the war so far have for America very considerably and very obviously over-balanced the gains. The loss has been felt so tangibly by the United States Government, for instance, that a special loan had to be voted in order to stop some of the gaps. Whole States, whose interests are bound up with staples like cotton, were for a considerable time threatened with something resembling commercial paralysis. While we may admit advances and gains in certain isolated directions, the extra burden is felt in all directions of commerce and industry. And that extra burden is visible through finance — the in¬ creased cost of money, the scarcity of capital, the lower negotiability of securities, the greater un¬ certainty concerning the future. It is by means of the financial reaction that America as a whole has felt the adverse effects of this war. There is not a considerable village, much less a considerable city, not a merchant, nor a captain of industry in the United States that has not so felt it. It is plainly evident that by the progressive dearness of money, the lower standard of living that will result in Europe, the effect on immigration, and other processes which I will touch upon at greater length later, any temporary stimulus which a trade here and there may receive will be more than offset by the difficulties due to financial as apart from industrial or commercial reactions.

This war will come near to depriving America for a decade or two of its normal share of the accumulated capital of the older peoples, whether that capital be used in paying war-indemnities, or in paying off the cost of the war or in repairing its ravages. In all cases it will make capital much dearer, and many enterprises which with more abundant capital might have been born and might have stimulated American industry will not be bom. For the best part of a generation, perhaps, the available capital of Europe will be used to repair the ravages of war there, to pay off the debts created by war, and to start life normally once more. We shall suffer in two ways.

In a recent report issued by the Agricultural Department at Washington is a paragraph to the effect that one of the main factors which have operated against the development of the American farm is the difficulty that the farmer has found in securing abundant capital and the high price that he has to pay for it when he can secure it. It will in the future be of still higher price and still less abundant because, of course, the capital of the world is a common reservoir; if it is dearer in one part, it is dearer to some extent in all parts. So that if for many years the American farmhouse is not so well built as it might be, the farm not so well worked, rural life in America not so attractive as it might be, the farmer’s wife burdened with a little more labour than she might otherwise have, and if she grows old earlier than she might otherwise, it will be in part because we are paying our share of the war indemnities and the war costs. But this scarcity of capital operates in another way. One of the most promising fields for American enterprise is, of course, in the un¬ developed lands to the south of us, but in the development of those lands we have looked and must look for the co-operation of European capital. Millions of French and British money have poured into South America, building docks and railroads and opening up the country, and that development of South America has been to our advantage, because quite frequently these enterprises were under the actual management of Americans, using to the common advantage the savings of the thrifty Frenchman and the capital of the wealthy English¬ man. For, of course, as between the older and the newer worlds there has gone on this very beneficient division of labour; the Old World, having developed its soil, built its cities, made its roads, has more capital available for outside employment than has the population of newer countries that have so much of this work before them. And now this possibility of fruitful co-operation is, for the time being and it may be for many years, suspended. I say nothing of the loss of markets in the older countries which will be occasioned by sheer loss of population and the lower standard of living. That is one of the more obvious but not perhaps the most important of the ways in which the war affects us commercially.

Speaking purely in terms of commercial advan¬ tage — and these, I know, do not tell the whole story; I am not for a moment pretending they do — the losses that we shall suffer through this war are probably very much more considerable than those we should suffer by the loss of the Philippines in the event, say, of their being seized by some hostile Power; and we suffer these losses although not a single foreign soldier lands upon our soil. It is literally and precisely true to say that there is not one person from Hudson’s Bay to Cape Horn that will not be affected in some degree by what is now going on in Europe. And it is at least conceivable that our children and child¬ ren’s children will feel its effects more deeply still.