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Part 3 and the final
instalment introducing the ideas of Herman Gorter, the Dutch revolutionary and
socialist.
War
It is true that in the countries in need of capital, a great
deal of national capital is imported; but much of this national capital is
still national capital at war with other national capitals. And this
international or foreign capital is a vanishingly small minority compared to
national capital. And how is capital set in motion in all these countries? By
means of the nation, which exercises power, by means of the nation as a unity,
as a whole, as a power. The capital created by the wage workers is born and is
mushrooming in all the powerful capitalist countries of Europe and America;
and, impelled by the force of the nation, this capital flows to new
territories. In the countries of Asia and Africa, the weakest from the
capitalist point of view, those countries which are exploited by foreign
capital, capital formed in them escapes to enrich the distant nations which
rule them. But every country, with the exception of those which are too weak,
are either trying to become powerful or more powerful capitalist countries or
are trying to conquer the leading power position. And all nations have their
own, mutually opposed interests. he powerful capitalist and industrial nations,
every last one of them, want to export as much capital as possible. All of them
want to seize the raw-material and food-producing countries. This is why they
come into conflict; all of them want to seize the wealthiest countries. The
capital-importing nations want to free themselves from the capital-exporting
nations; they want to become capital exporters themselves. Therefore they come
into conflict with those nations. Countries want the same thing. Therefore they
come into conflict with one another. Nations still lacking a secure foundation want
to become free nations, they want to be independent of the powerful capitalist
nations. Therefore they come into conflict with those nations. And the subject ex-colonies
want to become free and powerful countries from capitalist point of view.
Therefore their interests conflict with those of their exploiters. Every nation
wants supreme power, or to become powerful and independent, by means of
capitalist development and the subjection of the workers to capital. Therefore
the interests of each nation are opposed to the interests of every other
nation. Such is the spectacle offered by the world: strong capitalist nations,
weak capitalist nations, dependent nations, subject nations, nations which have
yet to be founded. All, however, aspire to capitalist power. There are also
impotent nations, such as Africa, which cannot do anything yet and are only the
playthings and victims of looting by the powerful nations. The problems which
society, that is, mankind, poses for itself, can only be resolved by mankind itself.
The mind is the most powerful economic factor, even though it is not free, and
that in the final accounting, in continuously changing conditions, it is the
mind which forms and creates society. Capital’s expansion is proceeding at an
ever more rapid pace and is assuming ever greater importance; it is caused by
the ceaseless, massive growth of the productive forces. Therefore, the
interests involved are always greater, more powerful and more violent;
conflicts grow more numerous and become more serious. But how has capital
managed to develop until today? How has it spread throughout the earth? How has
it attained power on the national level? The answer is the one we have already
provided: by means of conflicts, torrents of blood, and murder. Capitalism,
which brings the earth science, technology, social consciousness, improved
methods of labor, greater wealth and can only attain its goals by these
methods: murder and war. To reach its goals, to realize its mission, to spread
itself over the earth and to become international, capital splits into adverse
parts which fight against each other, against the weak peoples, and against the
proletariat.
Capitalism murders, oppresses and enslaves the weak peoples,
it makes war against itself, it makes war break out among its
members—individuals as well as nations—it continuously frees itself of its
weakest members by means of destruction, war and murder, and, at the same time,
it murders the proletarians and uses them as murderers. It prospers in an
extraordinary. It wades through a sea of blood to reach its goals, and perpetual
war is proof of this. Never before have conflict and war formed the means of
capitalism’s development to such a degree as they do today. For the development
of capitalism, no other way and no other road besides those which have been
employed for centuries will be discovered today. Now that the accumulation of
capital has become so engorged in all countries, and is growing at a rapid and
even unprecedented rate; now that the will to expansion has grown enormously;
now that the internationalization of capital has begun to break through all
national borders, even though it is only in its nascent state; now that the
nations, the national governments, the armed nations are the principle supports
and driving forces possessed by the capitalists, or which they are trying to
possess, throughout the world, to serve as the basis of and for the increase of
their capital or to preserve their exclusive rule over the entire earth now
there can be no other way. Today, like yesterday, development takes place by
way of war. Wherever the struggle between interests has become most intense and
wherever expansion has become most necessary, war will never end. Capitalism
grows and spreads throughout the world by means of the force employed by
nations. Each nation and each national capital all have different interests.
The only way to settle this conflict of interests is an arms race and then war.
For the opposed capitalist interests of
the nations impels them towards war. Every nation buries itself under a
mountain of weaponry. The whole earth bristles with armaments. And this
stockpiling of weapons is accompanied by an extraordinary pacifist hypocrisy.
Every country’s parliament is besieged with demands for expenditures on weapons
more powerful than any previously produced. And all the members of the
bourgeois parties, whether friends or enemies of peace, will grant their
approval.
The reformists are all for world peace, for disarmament and
for arms control agreements. Those who aspire to peace, to disarmament and to
arms control, and who propagandize for these goals, must prove that these
objectives can be realized. Anyone who preaches peace and disarmament will have
to show proof that peace and disarmament are possible and that the interests of
nations and national capitals are all identical. If they cannot prove this,
then it will be certain that disarmament and peace are still impossible. And
they cannot prove it. They have not been able to prove it even once, not even
approximately. This is our conclusion. What we have just said should be enough.
And this proof must be undertaken not with vain phrases, with desires and hopes
or vague slogans, but with precision, with examples and facts; these people
must show us what means of development other than conflict exists under
capitalism and what principle besides power. The peoples of the earth are very
diverse, all of them live in different conditions and have very different
powers as well; all of them ardently desire power and all of them have
divergent interests, they are in a permanent state of disequilibrium both
within their own borders and in respect to other peoples. The supporters of
peace, disarmament and arms control must show us how these peoples can coexist
harmoniously and without conflict. They must tell us precisely and with
documentation derived from political and economic practice, how they imagine
the organization of the world and the distribution of wealth. Which parts of
the world should Britain, Germany, Russia, France, America and China have? Which
parts to exploit, how much power and which sphere of influence? According to
what principles should the world be divided? And who will be the judge, and who
will be the referee? How can trust be established between the two great powers
and all the others, in such a way that it will not be necessary to resort to
ever more powerful weaponry? All of this is revealed to be impossible as soon
as one concretely faces the issues. Until today no one has been able to even
point towards the road which could lead to disarmament, to conflict-free
development, to the division of the world which could please every State and to
harmonious equilibrium. Until today, under capitalist rule, power is the sole
principle allowing the division of the earth and the development of capitalism.
Under capitalism, in its contemporary form, there is no means other than brute
force for the purpose of expansion, growth and globalization. Might makes
right. It is violence and force which decide. They speak of free trade. But how
is trade born in primitive countries like those of Africa? By means of
violence, murder and war. Only murder compels the weak populations to produce
rubber and other similar commodities. But trade is far from being the most
important goal. One of the most important goals is the export of capital in
order to create new capital. Another is the construction of ports and
factories. How are the foundations created for capitalist production, the rule
of capital and the enslavement of indigenous populations? By means of violence
and expropriation.
Whoever thinks that capitalism can change proves how little
they know about the soul and psyche of capitalism. It is the nature of
capitalism to form surplus value in such a way that it constantly increases.
Surplus value which, in a constantly increasing fashion, forms more surplus
value again. Therefore: expansion, extension. This is the nature of our
society. All that is capitalist must therefore obey this tendency. Capital only
exists thanks to private ownership of the means of production. And since they
are possessed by only a few, capital bears within itself, necessarily,
conflict. Conflict between individuals and between the groups in which
individuals are united: nations. Therefore, he who obeys the nature of capital,
must also obey the principle of private property, and must implement it. The
direction of capital’s economy and politics is in the hands of magnates of
industry and high finance. They are not afraid of war but use it for their own
ends: the exploitation of the world and the enslavement of the earth’s
inhabitants in order to turn them into proletarians. War allows them, over the
long term, to carry out this exploitation. It is their best and most forceful
instrument, which never fails. It puts the earth and the workers in their
power. And that is why these magnates of high finance and industry represent
the power which allows capitalism to attain its goals and which makes capital
always fertile and everywhere in conformance with its nature. They are the
managers and producers of capital’s power of expansion, and all the other
capitalists, as well as all the other classes which live off of this capitalism
and its surplus value, can do nothing but follow and obey them. These oligarchs
and plutocrats of high finance and the big corporations, do not govern the
world by virtue of their political and economic power, but because they fully
and perfectly represent the nature of capitalism. Capital’s power of expansion,
concentrated and organised, resides in the gigantic masses of capital of these
invisible forces. They themselves obey this power of expansion and the nature
of their capital. And all the men who live off of surplus value obey them.
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War once again proves that all individuals, those of the
capitalist classes and those who obey them, pushed forward by the instinct for
self-preservation and by the social instincts which tend to preserve the
society in which they live and with which they form a single whole, will not
refuse to sacrifice their blood and their money if what is at stake is the
further extension of capitalism, the sole basis of their existence, through
conflict. Even if the capitalists wanted disarmament, peace and arms control,
they would not be able to realize their desire. Capitalism has its own laws which
are consequences of its very nature. Its principle laws are conflict and
expansion. If capital could, without war, share out among its various units the
colonies, spheres of influence and States like China, it would not need any
expenditures on armies and navies and would be able to devote all its forces to
the looting and exploitation of these countries. Only then would capital be
able to grow on a stupendous scale. The impossible goal of the pacifist
movement is, behind all their fine words, the enslavement of the working class,
and the subjection and exploitation of the weak peoples. Just as social
legislation and a growing interest in the plight of the workers are the other
side of the coin of an ever more violent exploitation, of ever more intensive
labor and an ever more embittered class struggle, the pacifist movement and the
movement for disarmament are the other side of the coin of war-mongering.
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