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_ CHAPTER VI - INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
THE main objects which should be served by international
relations may be taken to be two: First, the
avoidance of wars, and, second, the prevention of the
oppression of weak nations by strong ones. These
two objects do not by any means necessarily lead in
the same direction, since one of the easiest ways of
securing the world's peace would be by a combination
of the most powerful States for the exploitation and
oppression of the remainder. This method, however,
is not one which the lover of liberty can favor. We
must keep account of both aims and not be content
with either alone.
One of the commonplaces of both Socialism and
Anarchism is that all modern wars are due to capitalism,
and would cease if capitalism were abolished.
This view, to my mind, is only a half-truth; the half
that is true is important, but the half that is untrue
is perhaps equally important when a fundamental
reconstruction of society is being considered.
Socialist and Anarchist critics of existing society
point, with perfect truth, to certain capitalistic factors
which promote war. The first of these is the
desire of finance to find new fields of investment in
undeveloped countries. Mr. J. A. Hobson, an author
who is by no means extreme in his views, has well
stated this point in his book on "The Evolution of
Modern Capitalism."[55] He says:
[55] Walter Scott Publishing Company, 1906, p. 262.
The economic tap-root, the chief directing motive of
all the modern imperialistic expansion, is the pressure of
capitalist industries for markets, primarily markets for
investment, secondarily markets for surplus products of
home industry. Where the concentration of capital has
gone furthest, and where a rigorous protective system prevails,
this pressure is necessarily strongest. Not merely
do the trusts and other manufacturing trades that restrict
their output for the home market more urgently require
foreign markets, but they are also more anxious to secure
protected markets, and this can only be achieved by extending
the area of political rule. This is the essential
significance of the recent change in American foreign
policy as illustrated by the Spanish War, the Philippine
annexation, the Panama policy, and the new application
of the Monroe doctrine to the South American States.
South America is needed as a preferential market for
investment of trust "profits" and surplus trust products:
if in time these states can be brought within a Zollverein
under the suzerainty of the United States, the financial
area of operations receives a notable accession. China
as a field of railway enterprise and general industrial
development already begins to loom large in the eyes of
foresighted American business men; the growing trade
in American cotton and other goods in that country will
be a subordinate consideration to the expansion of the
area for American investments. Diplomatic pressure,
armed force, and, where desirable, seizure of territory for
political control, will be engineered by the financial magnates
who control the political destiny of America. The
strong and expensive American navy now beginning to
be built incidentally serves the purpose of affording
profitable contracts to the shipbuilding and metal industries:
its real meaning and use is to forward the aggressive
political policy imposed upon the nation by the economic
needs of the financial capitalists.
It should be clearly understood that this constant
pressure to extend the area of markets is not a necessary
implication of all forms of organized industry. If competition
was displaced by combinations of a genuinely
cooperative character in which the whole gain of improved
economies passed, either to the workers in wages,
or to large bodies of investors in dividends, the expansion
of demand in the home markets would be so great
as to give full employment to the productive powers of
concentrated capital, and there would be no self-accumulating
masses of profit expressing themselves in new
credit and demanding external employment. It is the
"monopoly" profits of trusts and combines, taken either
in construction, financial operation, or industrial working,
that form a gathering fund of self-accumulating credit
whose possession by the financial class implies a contracted
demand for commodities and a correspondingly
restricted employment for capital in American industries.
Within certain limits relief can be found by stimulation
of the export trade under cover of a high protective
tariff which forbids all interference with monopoly of
the home markets. But it is extremely difficult for
trusts adapted to the requirements of a profitable tied
market at home to adjust their methods of free competition
in the world markets upon a profitable basis of
steady trading. Moreover, such a mode of expansion is
only appropriate to certain manufacturing trusts: the
owners of railroad, financial and other trusts must look
always more to foreign investments for their surplus
profits. This ever-growing need for fresh fields of investment
for their profits is the great crux of the financial
system, and threatens to dominate the future economics
and the politics of the great Republic.
The financial economy of American capitalism exhibits
in more dramatic shape a tendency common to the
finance of all developed industrial nations. The large,
easy flow of capital from Great Britain, Germany, Austria,
France, etc., into South African or Australian mines,
into Egyptian bonds, or the precarious securities of South
American republics, attests the same general pressure
which increases with every development of financial machinery
and the more profitable control of that machinery
by the class of professional financiers
The kind of way in which such conditions tend
toward war might have been illustrated, if Mr. Hobson
had been writing at a later date, by various more
recent cases. A higher rate of interest is obtainable
on enterprises in an undeveloped country than in a
developed one, provided the risks connected with an
unsettled government can be minimized. To minimize
these risks the financiers call in the assistance of the
military and naval forces of the country which they
are momentarily asserting to be theirs. In order to
have the support of public opinion in this demand
they have recourse to the power of the Press.
The Press is the second great factor to which
critics of capitalism point when they wish to prove
that capitalism is the source of modern war. Since
the running of a big newspaper requires a large capital,
the proprietors of important organs necessarily
belong to the capitalist class, and it will be a rare
and exceptional event if they do not sympathize with
their own class in opinion and outlook. They are
able to decide what news the great mass of newspaper
readers shall be allowed to have. They can
actually falsify the news, or, without going so far
as that, they can carefully select it, giving such items
as will stimulate the passions which they desire to
stimulate, and suppressing such items as would provide
the antidote. In this way the picture of the
world in the mind of the average newspaper reader
is made to be not a true picture, but in the main
that which suits the interests of capitalists. This is
true in many directions, but above all in what con-
cerns the relations between nations. The mass of the
population of a country can be led to love or hate
any other country at the will of the newspaper proprietors,
which is often, directly or indirectly, influenced
by the will of the great financiers. So long as
enmity between England and Russia was desired,
our newspapers were full of the cruel treatment meted
out to Russian political prisoners, the oppression of
Finland and Russian Poland, and other such topics.
As soon as our foreign policy changed, these items
disappeared from the more important newspapers,
and we heard instead of the misdeeds of Germany.
Most men are not sufficiently critical to be on their
guard against such influences, and until they are, the
power of the Press will remain.
Besides these two influences of capitalism in
promoting war, there is another, much less emphasized
by the critics of capitalism, but by no means less
important: I mean the pugnacity which tends to be
developed in men who have the habit of command.
So long as capitalist society persists, an undue measure
of power will be in the hands of those who have
acquired wealth and influence through a great position
in industry or finance. Such men are in the
habit, in private life, of finding their will seldom
questioned; they are surrounded by obsequious satellites
and are not infrequently engaged in conflicts
with Trade Unions. Among their friends and
acquaintances are included those who hold high positions
in government or administration, and these men
equally are liable to become autocratic through the
habit of giving orders. It used to be customary to
speak of the "governing classes," but nominal democracy
has caused this phrase to go out of fashion.
Nevertheless, it still retains much truth; there are
still in any capitalist community those who command
and those who as a rule obey. The outlook of these
two classes is very different, though in a modern
society there is a continuous gradation from the extreme
of the one to the extreme of the other. The
man who is accustomed to find submission to his will
becomes indignant on the occasions when he finds
opposition. Instinctively he is convinced that opposition
is wicked and must be crushed. He is therefore
much more willing than the average citizen to resort
to war against his rivals. Accordingly we find,
though, of course, with very notable exceptions,
that in the main those who have most power are
most warlike, and those who have least power are
least disposed to hatred of foreign nations. This is
one of the evils inseparable from the concentration
of power. It will only be cured by the abolition of
capitalism if the new system is one which allows very
much less power to single individuals. It will not be
cured by a system which substitutes the power of
Ministers or officials for the power of capitalists
This is one reason, additional to those mentioned in
the preceding chapter, for desiring to see a diminution
in the authority of the State.
Not only does the concentration of power tend
to cause wars, but, equally, wars and the fear of them
bring about the necessity for the concentration of
power. So long as the community is exposed to
sudden dangers, the possibility of quick decision is
absolutely necessary to self-preservation. The cumbrous
machinery of deliberative decisions by the
people is impossible in a crisis, and therefore so long
as crises are likely to occur, it is impossible to abolish
the almost autocratic power of governments. In this
case, as in most others, each of two correlative evils
tends to perpetuate the other. The existence of men
with the habit of power increases the risk of war,
and the risk of war makes it impossible to establish
a system where no man possesses great power.
So far we have been considering what is true in
the contention that capitalism causes modern wars.
It is time now to look at the other side, and to ask
ourselves whether the abolition of capitalism would,
by itself, be sufficient to prevent war.
I do not myself believe that this is the case. The
outlook of both Socialists and Anarchists seems to
me, in this respect as in some others, to be unduly
divorced from the fundamental instincts of human
nature. There were wars before there was capital-
ism, and fighting is habitual among animals. The
power of the Press in promoting war is entirely due
to the fact that it is able to appeal to certain
instincts. Man is naturally competitive, acquisitive,
and, in a greater or less degree, pugnacious. When
the Press tells him that so-and-so is his enemy, a whole
set of instincts in him responds to the suggestion. It
is natural to most men to suppose that they have
enemies and to find a certain fulfillment of their nature
when they embark upon a contest. What a man
believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index
to his desires--desires of which he himself is often
unconscious. If a man is offered a fact which goes
against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and
unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to
believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something
which affords a reason for acting in accordance
with his instincts, he will accept it even on the slenderest
evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this
way, and much of what is currently believed in
international affairs is no better than myth. Although
capitalism affords in modern society the channel by
which the instinct of pugnacity finds its outlet, there
is reason to fear that, if this channel were closed,
some other would be found, unless education and
environment were so changed as enormously to diminish
the strength of the competitive instinct. If an
economic reorganization can effect this it may pro-
vide a real safeguard against war, but if not, it is
to be feared that the hopes of universal peace will
prove delusive.
The abolition of capitalism might, and very likely
would, greatly diminish the incentives to war which
are derived from the Press and from the desire of
finance to find new fields for investment in undeveloped
countries, but those which are derived from the
instinct of command and the impatience of opposition
might remain, though perhaps in a less virulent
form than at present. A democracy which has power
is almost always more bellicose than one which is
excluded from its due share in the government. The
internationalism of Marx is based upon the assumption
that the proletariat everywhere are oppressed by
the ruling classes. The last words of the Communist
Manifesto embody this idea--
Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic
revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but
their chains. They have a world to win. Working men
of all countries, unite!
So long as the proletarians have nothing to lose
but their chains, it is not likely that their enmity
will be directed against other proletarians. If the
world had developed as Marx expected, the kind of
internationalism which he foresaw might have inspired
a universal social revolution. Russia, which devel-
oped more nearly than any other country upon the
lines of his system, has had a revolution of the kind
which he expected. If the development in other countries
had been similar, it is highly probable that this
revolution would have spread throughout the civilized
world. The proletariat of all countries might have
united against the capitalists as their common
enemy, and in the bond of an identical hatred they
might for the moment have been free from hatred
toward each other. Even then, this ground of union
would have ceased with their victory, and on the morrow
of the social revolution the old national rivalries
might have revived. There is no alchemy by which
a universal harmony can be produced out of hatred.
Those who have been inspired to action by the doctrine
of the class war will have acquired the habit
of hatred, and will instinctively seek new enemies
when the old ones have been vanquished.
But in actual fact the psychology of the working
man in any of the Western democracies is totally
unlike that which is assumed in the Communist
Manifesto. He does not by any means feel that he
has nothing to lose but his chains, nor indeed is this
true. The chains which bind Asia and Africa in
subjection to Europe are partly riveted by him. He is
himself part of a great system of tyranny and
exploitation. Universal freedom would remove, not only
his own chains, which are comparatively light, but
the far heavier chains which he has helped to fasten
upon the subject races of the world.
Not only do the working men of a country like
England have a share in the benefit accruing from the
exploitation of inferior races, but many among them
also have their part in the capitalist system. The
funds of Trade Unions and Friendly Societies are
invested in ordinary undertakings, such as railways;
many of the better-paid wage-earners have put their
savings into government securities; and almost all
who are politically active feel themselves part of the
forces that determine public policy, through the
power of the Labor Party and the greater unions.
Owing to these causes their outlook on life has become
to a considerable extent impregnated with capitalism
and as their sense of power has grown, their
nationalism has increased. This must continue to
be true of any internationalism which is based upon
hatred of the capitalist and adherence to the doctrine
of the class war. Something more positive
and constructive than this is needed if governing
democracies are not to inherit the vices of governing
classes in the past.
I do not wish to be thought to deny that capitalism
does very much to promote wars, or that wars
would probably be less frequent and less destructive
if private property were abolished. On the contrary,
I believe that the abolition of private ownership of
land and capital is a necessary step toward any
world in which the nations are to live at peace with
one another. I am only arguing that this step, necessary
as it is, will not alone suffice for this end, but that
among the causes of war there are others that go
deeper into the roots of human nature than any that
orthodox Socialists are wont to acknowledge.
Let us take an instance. In Australia and California
there is an intense dislike and fear toward the
yellow races. The causes of this are complex; the
chief among them are two, labor competition and
instinctive race-hatred. It is probable that, if race-
hatred did not exist, the difficulties of labor competition
could be overcome. European immigrants also
compete, but they are not excluded. In a sparsely
populated country, industrious cheap labor could,
with a little care, be so utilized as to enrich the existing
inhabitants; it might, for example, be confined to
certain kinds of work, by custom if not by law. But
race-hatred opens men's minds to the evils of
competition and closes them against the advantages of
co-operation; it makes them regard with horror the
somewhat unfamiliar vices of the aliens, while our
own vices are viewed with mild toleration. I cannot
but think that, if Australia were completely socialized,
there would still remain the same popular objection
as at present to any large influx of Chinese or
Japanese labor. Yet if Japan also were to become a
Socialist State, the Japanese might well continue to
feel the pressure of population and the desire for an
outlet. In such circumstances, all the passions and
interests required to produce a war would exist, in
spite of the establishment of Socialism in both countries.
Ants are as completely Socialistic as any community
can possibly be, yet they put to death any
ant which strays among them by mistake from a
neighboring ant-heap. Men do not differ much from
ants, as regards their instincts in this respect, where-
ever there is a great divergence of race, as between
white men and yellow men. Of course the instinct of
race-hostility can be overcome by suitable circumstances;
but in the absence of such circumstances it
remains a formidable menace to the world's peace.
If the peace of the world is ever to become secure,
I believe there will have to be, along with other
changes, a development of the idea which inspires the
project of a League of Nations. As time goes on, the
destructiveness of war grows greater and its profits
grow less: the rational argument against war acquires
more and more force as the increasing productivity
of labor makes it possible to devote a greater
and greater proportion of the population to the work
of mutual slaughter. In quiet times, or when a great
war has just ended, men's moods are amenable to
the rational grounds in favor of peace, and it is
possible to inaugurate schemes designed to make wars
less frequent. Probably no civilized nation would
embark upon an aggressive war if it were fairly
certain in advance that the aggressor must be defeated.
This could be achieved if most great nations
came to regard the peace of the world as of such
importance that they would side against an aggressor
even in a quarrel in which they had no direct interest.
It is on this hope that the League of Nations is based.
But the League of Nations, like the abolition of
private property, will be by no means sufficient if it
is not accompanied or quickly followed by other
reforms. It is clear that such reforms, if they are
to be effective, must be international; the world must
move as a whole in these matters, if it is to move at
all. One of the most obvious necessities, if peace is to
be secure, is a measure of disarmament. So long as
the present vast armies and navies exist, no system
can prevent the risk of war. But disarmament, if it
is to serve its purpose, must be simultaneous and by
mutual agreement among all the Great Powers. And
it is not likely to be successful so long as hatred and
suspicion rule between nations, for each nation will
suspect its neighbor of not carrying out the bargain
fairly. A different mental and moral atmosphere
from that to which we are accustomed in international
affairs will be necessary if agreements between nations
are to succeed in averting catastrophes. If once such
an atmosphere existed it might be perpetuated and
strengthened by wise institutions; but it cannot be
CREATED by institutions alone. International co-operation
requires mutual good will, and good will, however
it has arisen, is only to be PRESERVED by co-operation.
The international future depends upon the possibility
of the initial creation of good will between nations.
It is in this sort of matter that revolutions are
most useful. If the Russian Revolution had been
accompanied by a revolution in Germany, the dramatic
suddenness of the change might have shaken
Europe, for the moment, out of its habits of thought:
the idea of fraternity might have seemed, in the
twinkling of an eye, to have entered the world of
practical politics; and no idea is so practical as the
idea of the brotherhood of man, if only people can be
startled into believing in it. If once the idea of
fraternity between nations were inaugurated with the
faith and vigor belonging to a new revolution, all the
difficulties surrounding it would melt away, for all
of them are due to suspicion and the tyranny of
ancient prejudice. Those who (as is common in the
English-speaking world) reject revolution as a
method, and praise the gradual piecemeal development
which (we are told) constitutes solid progress,
overlook the effect of dramatic events in changing
the mood and the beliefs of whole populations. A
simultaneous revolution in Germany and Russia
would no doubt have had such an effect, and would
have made the creation of a new world possible here
and now.
Dis aliter visum: the millennium is not for our
time. The great moment has passed, and for ourselves
it is again the distant hope that must inspire
us, not the immediate breathless looking for the
deliverance.[56] But we have seen what might have been,
and we know that great possibilities do arise in times
of crisis. In some such sense as this, it may well
be true that the Socialist revolution is the road to
universal peace, and that when it has been traversed
all the other conditions for the cessation of
wars will grow of themselves out of the changed
mental and moral atmosphere.
[56] This was written in March, 1918, almost the darkest
moment of the war.
There is a certain class of difficulties which surrounds
the sober idealist in all speculations about the
not too distant future. These are the cases where
the solution believed by most idealists to be universally
applicable is for some reason impossible, and is,
at the same time, objected to for base or interested
motives by all upholders of existing inequalities. The
case of Tropical Africa will illustrate what I mean.
It would be difficult seriously to advocate the immediate
introduction of parliamentary government for
the natives of this part of the world, even if it were
accompanied by women's suffrage and proportional
representation. So far as I know, no one supposes
the populations of these regions capable of self-
determination, except Mr. Lloyd George. There can
be no doubt that, whatever regime may be introduced
in Europe, African negroes will for a long time to
come be governed and exploited by Europeans. If
the European States became Socialistic, and refused,
under a Quixotic impulse, to enrich themselves at the
expense of the defenseless inhabitants of Africa,
those inhabitants would not thereby gain; on the
contrary, they would lose, for they would be handed
over to the tender mercies of individual traders,
operating with armies of reprobate bravos, and committing
every atrocity to which the civilized barbarian
is prone. The European governments cannot divest
themselves of responsibility in regard to Africa.
They must govern there, and the best that can be
hoped is that they should govern with a minimum
of cruelty and rapacity. From the point of view of
preserving the peace of the world, the problem is to
parcel out the advantages which white men derive
from their position in Africa in such a way that no
nation shall feel a sense of injustice. This problem
is comparatively simple, and might no doubt be solved
on the lines of the war aims of the Inter-Allied Socialists.
But it is not this problem which I wish to discuss.
What I wish to consider is, how could a Socialist
or an Anarchist community govern and administer
an African region, full of natural wealth, but
inhabited by a quite uncivilized population? Unless
great precautions were taken the white community,
under the circumstances, would acquire the
position and the instincts of a slave-owner. It
would tend to keep the negroes down to the bare level
of subsistence, while using the produce of their
country to increase the comfort and splendor of the
Communist community. It would do this with that
careful unconsciousness which now characterizes all
the worst acts of nations. Administrators would be
appointed and would be expected to keep silence as
to their methods. Busybodies who reported horrors
would be disbelieved, and would be said to be actuated
by hatred toward the existing regime and by a perverse
love for every country but their own. No doubt,
in the first generous enthusiasm accompanying the
establishment of the new regime at home, there would
be every intention of making the natives happy, but
gradually they would be forgotten, and only the
tribute coming from their country would be
remembered. I do not say that all these evils are
unavoidable; I say only that they will not be avoided
unless they are foreseen and a deliberate conscious
effort is made to prevent their realization. If the
white communities should ever reach the point of
wishing to carry out as far as possible the principles
underlying the revolt against capitalism, they will
have to find a way of establishing an absolute
disinterestedness in their dealings with subject races. It
will be necessary to avoid the faintest suggestion of
capitalistic profit in the government of Africa, and
to spend in the countries themselves whatever they
would be able to spend if they were self-governing.
Moreover, it must always be remembered that backwardness
in civilization is not necessarily incurable,
and that with time even the populations of Central
Africa may become capable of democratic self-government,
provided Europeans bend their energies to
this purpose.
The problem of Africa is, of course, a part of the
wider problems of Imperialism, but it is that part in
which the application of Socialist principles is most
difficult. In regard to Asia, and more particularly
in regard to India and Persia, the application of
principles is clear in theory though difficult in political
practice. The obstacles to self-government which
exist in Africa do not exist in the same measure in
Asia. What stands in the way of freedom of Asiatic
populations is not their lack of intelligence, but only
their lack of military prowess, which makes them an
easy prey to our lust for dominion. This lust would
probably be in temporary abeyance on the morrow of
a Socialist revolution, and at such a moment a new
departure in Asiatic policy might be taken with
permanently beneficial results. I do not mean, of
course, that we should force upon India that form
of democratic government which we have developed
for our own needs. I mean rather that we should
leave India to choose its own form of government, its
own manner of education and its own type of civilization.
India has an ancient tradition, very different
from that of Western Europe, a tradition highly
valued by educated Hindoos, but not loved by our
schools and colleges. The Hindoo Nationalist feels
that his country has a type of culture containing elements
of value that are absent, or much less marked,
in the West; he wishes to be free to preserve this,
and desires political freedom for such reasons rather
than for those that would most naturally appeal to
an Englishman in the same subject position. The
belief of the European in his own Kultur tends to be
fanatical and ruthless, and for this reason, as much as
for any other, the independence of extra-European
civilization is of real importance to the world, for it is
not by a dead uniformity that the world as a whole is
most enriched.
I have set forth strongly all the major difficulties
in the way of the preservation of the world's peace,
not because I believe these difficulties to be insuperable,
but, on the contrary, because I believe that they
can be overcome if they are recognized. A correct
diagnosis is necessarily the first step toward a cure.
The existing evils in international relations spring,
at bottom, from psychological causes, from motives
forming part of human nature as it is at present.
Among these the chief are competitiveness, love of
power, and envy, using envy in that broad sense in
which it includes the instinctive dislike of any gain
to others not accompanied by an at least equal gain
to ourselves. The evils arising from these three
causes can be removed by a better education and a
better economic and political system.
Competitiveness is by no means wholly an evil.
When it takes the form of emulation in the service
of the public, or in discovery or the production of
works of art, it may become a very useful stimulus,
urging men to profitable effort beyond what they
would otherwise make. It is only harmful when it
aims at the acquisition of goods which are limited
in amount, so that what one man possesses he holds at
the expense of another. When competitiveness takes
this form it is necessarily attended by fear, and out
of fear cruelty is almost inevitably developed. But a
social system providing for a more just distribution
of material goods might close to the instinct of
competitiveness those channels in which it is harmful,
and cause it to flow instead in channels in which it
would become a benefit to mankind. This is one great
reason why the communal ownership of land and capital
would be likely to have a beneficial effect upon
human nature, for human nature, as it exists in adult
men and women, is by no means a fixed datum, but
a product of circumstances, education and opportunity
operating upon a highly malleable native
disposition.
What is true of competitiveness is equally true
of love of power. Power, in the form in which it is
now usually sought, is power of command, power of
imposing one's will upon others by force, open or
concealed. This form of power consists, in essence, in
thwarting others, for it is only displayed when others
are compelled to do what they do not wish to do.
Such power, we hope, the social system which is to
supersede capitalist will reduce to a minimum by the
methods which we outlined in the preceding chapter.
These methods can be applied in international no
less than in national affairs. In international affairs
the same formula of federalism will apply: self-
determination for every group in regard to matters which
concern it much more vitally than they concern
others, and government by a neutral authority embracing
rival groups in all matters in which conflicting
interests of groups come into play; lout always
with the fixed principle that the functions of government
are to be reduced to the bare minimum compatible
with justice and the prevention of private
violence. In such a world the present harmful outlets
for the love of power would be closed. But the
power which consists in persuasion, in teaching, in
leading men to a new wisdom or the realization of
new possibilities of happiness--this kind of power,
which may be wholly beneficial, would remain untouched,
and many vigorous men, who in the actual
world devote their energies to domination, would in
such a world find their energies directed to the creation
of new goods rather than the perpetuation of
ancient evils.
Envy, the third of the psychological causes to
which we attributed what is bad in the actual world,
depends in most natures upon that kind of fundamental
discontent which springs from a lack of
free development, from thwarted instinct, and
from the impossibility of realizing an imagined
happiness. Envy cannot be cured by preaching;
preaching, at the best, will only alter its manifestations
and lead it to adopt more subtle forms of concealment.
Except in those rare natures in which
generosity dominates in spite of circumstances, the
only cure for envy is freedom and the joy of life.
From populations largely deprived of the simple
instinctive pleasures of leisure and love, sunshine and
green fields, generosity of outlook and kindliness
of dispositions are hardly to be expected. In such
populations these qualities are not likely to be found,
even among the fortunate few, for these few are
aware, however dimly, that they are profiting by an
injustice, and that they can only continue to enjoy
their good fortune by deliberately ignoring those
with whom it is not shared. If generosity and kindliness
are to be common, there must be more care
than there is at present for the elementary wants of
human nature, and more realization that the diffusion
of happiness among all who are not the victims of
some peculiar misfortune is both possible and imperative.
A world full of happiness would not wish to
plunge into war, and would not be filled with that
grudging hostility which our cramped and narrow
existence forces upon average human nature. A world
full of happiness is not beyond human power to
create; the obstacles imposed by inanimate nature
are not insuperable. The real obstacles lie in the
heart of man, and the cure for these is a firm hope,
informed and fortified by thought.
____
Content PART II - PROBLEMS OF THE FUTURE CHAPTER VI - INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS [Bertrand Russell's book: Proposed Roads To Freedom] _
Read next: PART II - PROBLEMS OF THE FUTURE: CHAPTER VII - SCIENCE AND ART UNDER SOCIALISM
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