Embed or link this publication
Popular Pages
p. 1
the economic causes of war by lionel robbins professor of economics in the university of london new york howard fertig 1968[close]
p. 2
copyright © 1968 by lionel robbins first published in 1939 by jonathan cape limited howard fertig inc edition 1968 published by arrangement with the author all rights reserved library of congress catalog card number 67-24595 printed in the united states of america by noble offset printers inc.[close]
p. 3
a naly tic alta,b leo f cont··ents preface introduction 7 the menace of modern war 2 the object of the essay 3 the plan of inquiry i 15 15 16 18 19 19 21 22 ii the marxian theory of imperialism 1 the economic interpretation of war 2 general characteristics of the niarxian theory 3 the underconsumption theory 4 the logical significance of the u nderconsumption theory 5 the leninist theory of imperialism iii the marxian theory tested 28 30 40 40 criteria of verification 2 examples of capitalist imperialism 3 some alleged cases further examined 4 finance and diplomacy in the modern period 5 the inadequacy of the leninist theory i 42 46 54 57 60 60 65 67 iv the economic causes of war national power and economic factors 2 non-economic motives and war 3 sectional interests and war 4 national interests and war 5 historical observations england and germany i 70 80[close]
p. 4
contents v the ultimate cause of international conflict i 2 3 4 5 6 appendix i the final task the concomitants of dollar diplomacy the causes of economic nationalism the wars of a national socialist world the root cause of international conflict the united states of europe the meaning of economic causation 86 86 86 88 94 98 104 iii i i i 2 3 4 5 6 introduction the notion of an historical cause 110tives as causes the nature of an economic cause the rules of historical explanation social structures as causes ii i 114 115 i 19 122[close]
p. 7
preface to the 1968 edition i g reatly welcome the proposal for a reprint of this essay published in the early months of the second world war the first edition was soon exhausted and in these conditions the original publisher showing no disposition to reprint it passed out of view and so far as i am aware has been noticed very little ever since yet of all my writings of the inter-war period it is one of the few with which i now feel any considerable sense of identity re-reading it after twenty-five years although i have found some things which today i would put a little differently i have found little that i would wish to retract and much which i still believe needs to be said there are however two matters on which some additional comment seems to be called for the first relates to possible causes of war in the age in which we now live it is i think clear that we have moved a long way from the period when as described in these pages the fear of possible exclusion from economic opportunities played a considerable part in diplomatic tension japanese aggression was perhaps a classic case of this type of causation but as already noted in my text the motives inspiring hitler and the nazis were of a different order and so infused with purely psychopathological material as largely to escape any classification as economic and the shadows under which ve live today the tensions between east and west are certainly ideological rather than economic in origin when mr krushchev caused to be placed on cuba installations for the discharge of nuclear weapons he was not thinking of a possible gain or loss of markets the deterfil.in~qn 5[close]
p. 8
preface to ti-ie 1968 edition of the government of the united states to prevent the extension of communism is not based on fear of impoverishment nevertheless i venture to submit that the type of analysis here presented has still a place in the rational discussion of the possible causes of war it fits very well the period of history in regard to which the marxian theories here discussed were originally elaborated and although conditions today make these theories even less plausible than they were then yet they are still believed by many millions of people in the soviet union and elsewhere in communist countries believe that the major wars of the modern age have been the result of the machinations of profit-seeking capitalists the quotation from mr e m forster in the first chapter of this essay is still characteristic of the attitude of many sensitive and intelligent persons in western countries who have not made an independent examination of the evidence moreover although the danger of war in the present age springs chiefly from causes which are not to be described as economic it is still true or so it seems to me that the powers of independent sovereign states to pursue economic and financial policies inimical to the prosperity of others are an important factor tending to international disunity and hence to situations which may be exploited by power politics actuated by non-economic motives this brings me to the second point on which i have to comment which relates to conceptions of political reorganisations designed to minimize such frictions the essay here reproduced ends with a section written in the first weeks of war pleading passionately for the creation of a united states of europe within which german creativeness and energy might serve the common weal rather than periodically disrupting it it also contains a 6[close]
p. 9
preface to the 1968 edition footnote referring to plans for a wider atlantic union put forward by mr clarence streit and others in which i express cordial appreciation of the idea but considerable scepticism concerning its practicability at that time i did not conceive the possibility of an isolationist united states allowing itself once more to be involved in the internecine quarrels of europe a great deal has happened since then japanese and nazi aggression destroyed isolationism during the war and since then fortunately for the rest of us the hostility of the soviet union and later of china whether based on fear or on expansionist ambition we need not enquire has prevented any serious recrudescence thereof with its massive armaments and its incomparable economic power the united states is today the active leader and defender of the civilisation of the west such gigantic changes of circumstance could not but affect the perspective of thought regarding the possibilities of the future in the years immediately following the end of the war despairing of the stability and political reliability of some of the states of western europe and revolted by the anti-americanism current among influential continental politicians and thinkers whose very existence had been saved by american intervention i abandoned my earlier position and argued against british entry into a purely european union setting iny hopes on a larger structure developing gradually froin the north atlantic alliance in this i now think i was wrong not in my conviction of the fundamental necessity of preserving the link with the united states and canada but in iny failure to realise the potentialities both of the creation in these circumstances of a united western europe and of the part which could be played in it by great britain i underestimated the inability of 7[close]
p. 10
preface to the 1968 edition those responsible for british policy to see where their true interest lay in a vigorous developrnent of something like atlantic union and i failed to foresee the colossal folly of the suez episode which deprived us of our standing as a first-class power with freedom to take influential initiatives at the present time therefore i once more support an approach to the more limited union with western europe so i am back in a frame of mind in which the peroration of this essay is not something which i wish to repudiate but after all that has happened and having regard to the perilous equilibrium of the world i must emphasize that i continue to regard the more limited association as a pis aller a preliminary perhaps an inescapable preliminary to a more perfect and larger union later on and i remain intensely apprehensive of the powerful currents of opinion on this side of the water which depict united europe not as a stage in the evolution of something wider but as the creation of an independent third force upholding values which on this view the descendants of benjamin franklin and abraham lincoln are unable to understand this is a conception which i find intellectually unacceptable and morally antipathetic an ignoble ideology of the second rate coffeehouse without vision or common sense an apt index of the spiritual myopia of those who preach it or are taken in by it robbins the l6ndoh school of economics october 1967 8[close]
p. 11
preface following essay is based upon five lectures which i was privileged to deliver in the spring of this year at the institut universitaire de hautes etudes internationales ofgeneva i have completely rewritten my manuscript and considerably extended the treatment of certain aspects of my subject but the substance and with .one exception noted below the general scheme of arrangement remain the same i should like to take this opportunity of once more thanking m rappard and his colleagues for their invitation and for the indulgence with which they listened to my story how much of all that was most stimulating and inspiring in the period between two wars is typified in their lovely college by the lake long may it flourish an oasis of sanity in a mad world to preserve and advance the great principles of international citizenship for which it so conspicuously stands in deciding to publish at this stage i have had many hesitations i do not think that even the most hostile critic can mistake the pretentions of my slender essay for those of a full-blown treatise but there are sections where i am conscious that even on this plane further elaboration would have been desirable and there are certain features which i contemplated in my original plan which do not appear at all notably appendices on the detailed history of the controversies concerning the marxian theory of imperialism and on the rise of neo-mercantilism in germany but circumstances have not been favourable ever since i commenced to work in this field i have never sat down to work without wondering ifwar would come before my projects were completed and now confronted with the 9[close]
p. 12
preface the alternatives of publishing something less than i had intended or of postponing publication perhaps indefinitely i have had reluctantly to choose the former i will not conceal my belief that my conclusions which of course are not exclusively my own but rather the development of a great number of converging lines of investigation 1 are of considerable relevance to the solution of the problems which we now face and i would rather present a target to academic critics than leave unsaid the least thing which might conceivably be helpful the main body of the essay is an attempt to get into proper perspective the part played by economic motives and economic institutions in the causation ofmodern war i hope that this will be useful in itself for it deals with a subject about which there has recently been much confusion but from my point of view at least much more important is the demonstration for which all the earlier argument is a preparation of the fundamental inappropriateness to modern conditions of the present political organization of the world and the necessity of replacing the independent sovereign states by larger federal unions i first developed this view some four years ago in a course of lectures also delivered at geneva,which were subsequently incorporated in my economic planning and international order and the publication since then of vorks by mr lionel curtis and mr clarence streit which approaching the general problem of international relations from starting-points very different from mine reach substantially the same solution encourages me to believe that the conclusions i then put forward were substantially on the right lines i have not repeated in this essay the 1 i would like to pay special tribute to the historical researches of professor jacob viner and his school especially mr staley without which much of chap iii could never have been written 10[close]
p. 13
preface systematic arguments of the earlier book where i tried to show that starting as it were with a blank sheet and trying to reason out from general principl~s the requirements of a sensible world order one arrived necessarily at the idea of federation but i believe that an examination of the causes which have actually led to war in the past and which will certainly do so agairt and again in the future if action is not taken leads irresistibly to the same conclusion and i hope that the analysis and the historical examples here provided will do something to drive it home in the last section i have ventured to speculate a little concerning possible developments in europe i hope that at this point the relevance of the whole argument to our present situation will be readily apparent the ordeals through which we are passing are surely one tremendous object lesson of the truth of the theme that we must federate or perish i do not know anything for which men would fight more willingly than the idea of a europe from which the danger of recurrent civil war was banished and i know no way by which this can be achieved save by some form of federation in the course of lectures upon which this essay has been based following long established academic tradition the first section was devoted to questions of definition and procedure i do not think that it inflicted undue pain upon my hearers nor do i think that it is likely in itself to present any special difficulties to laymen but the plane of discussion is much more abstract than that of the rest and for this reason in preparing a version which aspires to be not merely intelligible but even interesting to the general reader i have placed it at the end as an appendix i hope that this will not prevent professional economists at least from glancing through it the investigation of the meani i[close]
p. 14
preface ing of an economic cause which is its main content does something i think to round off the discussions of the nature of the economic in which some of us have participated recently i have to express my gratitude to various friends who have helped me at different stages in particular i should mention professor hayek who is responsible for a great improvement of arrangement and mr l g robinson who advised me on certain matters of diplomatic history mr robinson must be exonerated from all blame for my amateurish blunderings but he has at least this general responsibility in that it was at his lectures many years ago that i first came to love puzzling about this intricate subject and the fascinating problems it involves lionel robbins the london school of economics september 16th 1939 12[close]
Tags
Comments
no comments yet