Democracy After The War (Routledge Revivals)

J. Hobson

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780415659031
• eBook ISBN: 9781135118396
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Economics

First published in 1917, Democracy After the War considers the challenges faced in the development of liberal democracy. Hobson emphasises the power of reactionary forces and their ability to hold back progress, reiterating his view that the crux of the problem lies in the inequalities in income and wealth which led to imperialism. Through analysing the economic foundations of imperialist conflicts, Hobson comes to the conclusion that the success of democracy rests on the recognised importance of personal liberty.

PART I
THE ENEMIES OF DEMOCRACY

CHAPTER I
MILITARISM AND THE WILL TO POWER

THE antagonism between war and the exercise of those personal and political liberties comprised in democracy is indisputable. For though it may be true that in “a war for freedom” the fighting spirit of the nation may better be sustained by appeals to the voluntary efforts and sacrifices of its members, history has always shown that this faith cannot live in the atmosphere of war. The temper of war is arbitrary and absolute in its demands not only upon its fighting units but upon the civil populations, which it regards as mere instruments of military power. Modem warfare, in which nations contend with all their resources, industrial and financial as well as military, has gone far towards erasing the differences once recognized between combatants and non-combatants. The levée en masse, or commandeering of the entire adult population, is the formal register of the reaction of war on liberty. In war, not only does the State become absolute in its relations towards the individual, but militarism becomes absolute within the State. This truth is attested in Great Britain by the virtually unlimited powers over the citizen vested by the Defence of the Realm Act in “the competent military authority,” and by the novel powers exercised by Orders in Council for the application of that and other emergency Acts.

A brief recital of the various invasions upon ordinary liberties will suffice. This legislation, supplemented by arbitrary police administration and mob violence has made heavy inroads upon our ordinary liberties of speech, meeting and Press, of travel, trade, occupation and investment. The State restricts and regulates our use of food and drink, lets down our services of public health and education, remits the wholesome safeguards of our Factory Acts, and removes the constitutional guarantees of civil liberty. Military and civil authorities may, and do, arrest, deport and imprison men and women without formulating charges or bringing them to trial. The security of Habeas Corpus and of trial by jury in an open court, in accordance with the rules of law, has been abrogated for whole classes of alleged offenders, and in many instances the onus of proving innocence has been thrown on the arrested person. Domiciliary visits of the police, the opening of private correspondence, and the use of agents provocateurs have passed from Russia into Britain. The principle and practice of voluntary military service, hitherto distinguishing our free army from the forced armies of the Continent, have been abolished and the press-gang system fastened on all male citizens of military age. The limited powers of industrial compulsion contained within the Munitions and Military Service Acts are liable at any time to be extended into a full measure of industrial conscription. These and other invasions of personal liberty. have been made under Acts of Parliament or powers of the Executive, novel, ill-defined and arbitrary, and by methods of procedure contravening the established practices of English law and constitution. Under an agreed suspension of that party system by which consideration and discussion of important new proposals were secured in Parliament, these revolutionary Acts were imposed upon the House with no opportunity of serious debate and with no adequate communication to the people's representatives of the facts and reasons necessary to enable them to form and register a considered judgment. Not only the spirit but the very forms of popular self-government have suffered violation. For the House of Commons, refusing to take orders from the electorate when its legal time is up, has repeatedly extended its period of office and of pay by an arbitrary exercise of its own will. Indeed, as the war has proceeded, all pretence of government, either by Parliament or by the Coalition Cabinet, was dropped, and a self-appointed triumvirate, speaking through a novel instrument, a War Cabinet, has usurped all the real powers of Government Finally, this autocracy has secured itself by utilizing the Defence of the Realm Act and other special powers of police to stop free discussion of the merits of their acts of policy or constitutional endeavours to procure their repeal.

How far these invasions of civil and political liberty were necessary or useful for the fighting of the war, and how far they were met by the willing surrender of the people, are questions to which no satisfactory answers are available. A fairly general acquiescence in these losses of liberty “for the duration of the war” may, however, be assumed. This easy acquiescence alike of the people, their parliamentary representatives and the public Press in measures of such grave import imposed upon them by governmental authority without the opportunity of forming or expressing a reasonable judgment, is, indeed, an important factor in the inquiry which lies before us. That inquiry takes its first shape in a scrutiny of the hypnotizing phrase “for the duration of the war.” Many supporters of “a war for freedom” assume that when the war is over, the steel trap will automatically open, and the caged peoples will emerge with all their ancient liberties intact and with new powers and aspirations towards democracy. Is this assumption warranted? Those who make it commit the grave error of detaching the war from its antecedents. The trap which closed so tightly round the European nations in 1914, and which since has caught the one great pacific Power of the modern world, America, was not war. It was militarism. War is a great dramatic episode in the career of militarism. In a sense, no doubt, militarism leads up to, produces, and finds its meaning or full expression in war. But in another sense, equally true, war generates militarism, and finds its deeper meaning in that act. It is the reciprocal relation that exists between plant and flower. Regarded from the common aesthetic standpoint, the plant lives and grows to produce the flower. But regarded from the more disinterested standpoint of the naturalist, the flower exists to supply the seeds for the continuity of the plant life. War is the red flowering of militarism, and it leaves behind it the seeds of more militarism. This is the natural law of human history, of which the theory of “a war to end war” appears to be a wild defiance.

I do not, however, seek to press a metaphor so far as to deny the possibility of breaking a natural chain of causation. It is the business of reason and of human will, themselves parts of nature, to break such chains. But it is right to begin our consideration of the chances of this higher intervention by a plain recognition of the difficulties, which are not merely “metaphorical,” but deeply embedded in that course of human events to which a war belongs. Whether a war ends in a complete victory, followed by a “dictated” peace, or in some less complete decision followed by a negotiated peace, either method is likely to leave seeds of future strife, because the terms it embodies are not in themselves conformable to the sense of justice or the reasonable will of the parties concerned, but are a mere register of the preponderance of power when the conflict is brought to a close. Even if the terms of settlement were in substance equitable, a supposition in itself unreasonable, the knowledge that they were a register of force and not of reasonable assent would leave a dangerous legacy of discontent with each disagreeable item of the generally equitable compromise. Thus, in any case the presupposition remains that war maintains and nourishes militarism. Only the effectual substitution of a mode of settling grievances conformably with reason and justice can break the vicious chain of mutual causation by which war and militarism support one another.

The consideration of the possibility of such a substitution is properly deferred until the nature of the task which it essays has been fully explored. For this purpose I have thrust into the forefront of the inquiry the first plain historic fact, that war normally leaves behind it an invigorated militarism It is with this militarism of peace-time that the people of this country, as of every other, will have to reckon when the war is over. In every nation a militarist bureaucracy will be in actual possession of the seats of government. The constitutional rights of self-government will be in suspense; emergency legislation, conferring despotic power upon non-elected and uncontrolled Ministers and permanent officials, will still remain upon the Statute Book; the ordinary usages of justice will be overridden; the State will be in control of a large proportion of the chief industries and will have inured the public to habits of submission and obedience to its absolute authority. Though much of this war regulation may be remitted, the lengthy and perilous processes of demobilization and of re-adaptation of disturbed industries to peace conditions, complicated by the insecurity of the continental situation, will probably enable our Government to defend successfully the retention of large emergency powers for a considerable period after the war is over. Many of the regulations and restraints imposed during the war will afterwards be retained in the cause of national defence or, more broadly, of public welfare. The passage from war to peace will be a passage from a more intense to a less intense militarism. But the definitely military character of the State will remain stamped upon all the leading functions of Government, as the country emerges from war. Industry, commerce, finance, agriculture, education and most other normal activities will remain “militarized” in the sense that they will be under the conscious and organized direction of “national defence.” Nor is there any reason to suppose that, after some brief period of settlement has passed, during which such of the fighting forces as can be disbanded have been safely redistributed in industry and civil life, this military bureaucratic rule will simply pass away, and all the pre-war liberties of person, travel, trade, justice and self-government will be restored. No thoughtful person can think this likely. For this war has been to every seeing eye in every country a revelation of the forces of reaction which cannot be ignored. For the first time defenders of democracy are compelled to recognize the formidable nature of their task. For they catch a glimpse of the confederacy of anti-democratic forces of which militarism is the physical instrument.

If democracy is to have any real chance of survival, it must comprehend, not only the strength of this confederacy, but the subtle and various bonds of interest which sustain it. We had best begin this inquiry with militarism itself, as an operative institution. Militarism is the organization of physical force by the State, so as to be able to compel the members of another State, or some members of the military State itself, to act against their will. This provisional definition covers the two uses of “the military,” against a foreign country and for “police work” at home. Militarism is not, indeed, normally engaged in either of these processes, but in preparations for performing them in case of need. It thus stands as the surviving incarnation of pure physical force in a civilization the value and progress of which consist in the supersession of physical by intellectual and moral direction. The fact that it has harnessed to its chariot some of the finest activities of the human intellect and will cannot hide the truth that it stands for barbarism. It is not the business of militarism to regard the rights or wrongs of the cause in which it may be employed. Neither in its career of preparation nor in its actual operation is it concerned “to reason why.” Though, like other living instruments, it may come, as we shall see, to develop some sort of will of its own, it ordinarily takes and executes the orders of others. Who these others are, and what the orders that they give, we shall consider presently. But at the outset we see in militarism a simple manifestation of the State as physical power. The question “Power to do what?” does not yet arise. The candid admission of this fact in the conventional political use of the term Power is significant. Peoples and their Governments in their relations with one another rank as “Powers.” If they make a treaty they are “Signatory Powers.” If they join to impose their will upon some weaker State they are “a concert of the Powers.” Their collective attitude may be generalized as “a balance of power.” When, as recently Japan, they exhibit a sufficient amount of military and naval strength, they become “Great Powers.” The fact that peoples are related to one another in the world not as groups of human beings, with the common quality and interests of humanity, but as Powers, is the stark negation of all morality in international relations. Germany has chiefly theorized and glorified this attitude: but every State has lived by it.

States, thus valuing themselves and one another in terms of physical power, become the victims of the “will to power.” The possession and exercise of power for its own sake have often been charged as the besetting sin of statesmen. Derived from the actual relation of States to other States, it strikes back into the vitals of domestic statecraft. Hence a similar lust of power for its own sake comes to characterize the bureaucrat, who wins a separate satisfaction by the conscious forcing of his will to prevail over the wills of civilians. A half recognition of the fact that his official power ultimately rests upon the power of physical coercion through the police or soldiery weaves a subtle bond of sympathy between militarism and bureaucracy. Military force is always half realized by the operative statesman and official as standing behind him at his service. Though reason, justice, influence and the arts of persuasion may be the ordinary staple of statecraft, the consciousness of a power to make his will prevail is always present as a base alloy.

This does not mean that soldiers, or statesmen, or bureaucrats are in their nature worse than other men, but that their position exposes them more to the supreme temptation. The supreme temptation is varicusly described as self-assertion, ambition, egoism, or individualism, which means the desire to enjoy the pleasure of seeing your will dominate by sheer force the wills of other people. The autocrat, the tyrant, the bully are the simplest personal examples of this last. But our inquiry finds it inspiring whole classes or social institutions, often disguised for those whom it affects by subtle blends and subterfuges. The civil servant, in his province of administrator, finds something congenial in the arbitrary temper of the military officer. India and other parts of our unfree Empire educate strong types of dominant self-will, rooted in conditions which ultimately stand on force of arms. But outside the sphere of government are to be found in the authoritative status of the professional man and the industrial or financial magnate distinct traces of the same arbitrary disposition. The authority of the Church, the Law, and the teaching profession, as the experience of war testifies, easily discovers a kinship with military discipline, and is zealous for the forcible suppression of spiritual and intellectual unorthodoxy. Unorganized as well as organized violence appeals to the patriotism of some active members of the Press as the proper way of dealing with unpopular opinions. The master spirit in the business world secretly or openly welcomes the presence in the State of force, which he recognizes he may need so as to curb the power of labour in an economic conflict.

The closer interplay of these repressive and coercive forces in modern society will form the subject of fuller analysis in a later chapter. At present it is only necessary to note their emergence in the glare of war-time as natural allies of militarism, by virtue of some sympathy with the naked “will to power” which it represents.

It is this desire to realize one's personal importance, or the importance of one's group or country, by overbearing the will and dominating the lives of other people, that is the inner bond of union among the reactionary forces of which militarism is the principal external instrument. Power is not evil in itself, nor is the desire to exercise power. The desire to realize one's personality by exercising power over one's environment is a normal, wholesome impulse. The “values” of life are only got by such an exercise of personal power. The parent, the poet, the artist, the scientist, the inventor, the teacher, the philanthropist, the artisan, the tiller of the soil, the trader, all realize themselves by the conscious exercise of power. But their activities and the will that actuates them are essentially creative in the sense that they increase the quantity or raise the quality of life both for themselves and for others. The parent, the simplest example of creativeness, enriches his experience of life by giving life to others. The poet, the scientist, the artist, similarly achieve truth and beauty for themselves by communicating it to others, and so adding to the general stock. The same is true of the normal economic activities of man. So far as they are free exercises of his power, they are creative of wealth in which he and those with whom he is in intercourse alike are sharers. Such self-realization through creative power, when exercised upon the material environment, the intellectual environment, or directly on the minds of other persons, as in the case of the teacher, is good. It is only bad when it ceases to be purely creative and becomes dominating. This is the case when the parent comes to treat his family as “subjects” for the exercise of his despotic will, who are to do things “because I tell you,” or as instruments for his display of his wealth, as in the case of the women of the leisure classes ; or as means for adding to the family income, as with many children of the working classes. The same perversion is found in the artist, poet, scientist, teacher, inventor, when they subordinate their true creative function to the passion for imposing ideas or tastes on others, or of pandering to popular notions or valuations which they despise in order to get tame or money

Still more insidious is the distortion of motives sometimes seen in the philanthropic reformer, when the legitimate interest of participating in a socially serviceable work evokes a will of tyrannous obstruction to the good enterprises of others.

So we see how in the essentially wholesome activities creative power may become disastrously obstructive or even destructive.

The fields in which such perversion of the will power are most widely prevalent and most injurious (outside the family) are politics and business. For in them is found the greatest scope for the play of the naked lust for dominion over the wills and lives of others. It is not that these arts are repugnant to the exercise of true creative faculties. Far from it. No man has a greater opportunity for exercising power in a creative way for the enlargement of human values than the statesman or the industrial chief. Their will and judgment may strengthen the foundation of security and material prosperity, and furnish the means and stimuli of progress for whole provinces and peoples. For in the existing order it rests with them, more than with any other men, to determine the social and economic conditions of the common life. This very pivotal position of the statesman and the lord of industry, however, carries temptations that are their undoing. For this there are two reasons. The first is best indicated in Bacon's famous aphorism, applicable alike to politics and business, that “There is no rising to high place but by crooked stairs.” This is the result of reflection on the nature of the competition in these fields and of the combination of aggressive self-assertion and pliability involved in success. While the true creative function of the statesman, the welfare of his people, is of the highest order, all the accessories of his career contribute to select, nourish and furnish opportunities for the lower satisfaction of the lust of domination. The great scope for this use of power, in which the immediate satisfaction of his personality is found in the wielding of the collective power of the State, thus brings it to pass that ambition and the love for power for its own sake are always recognized as the besetting sin of a statesman.

But while History assigns through countless ages the first rôle in the drama of power to the ruler or the military conqueror, a re-assessment of modern values compels a revision of this judgment.

Wealth has always been an important means for the satisfaction of the lust for power. But in its early forms it served chiefly as an index and testimony to personal prowess, family prestige, caste superiority, or ruling strength. It came either as spoils of battle, forced product of servile labour, tolls, tribute or taxes extorted forcibly from weaker persons, and was used either for immoderate gratification of physical desires, for ostentation, or for the support of the human instruments of such robbery and extortion. This wealth was mainly the by-product of militarism and political rule combined in the han...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Introduction
• Preface
• Contents
• PART I THE ENEMIES OF DEMOCRACY
• I. MILITARISM AND THE WILL TO POWER
• II. MILITARISM AND CAPITALISM
• III. THE DEFENCE OF IMPROPERTY
• IV. PROTECTIONISM AND IMPERIALISM
• V. POLITICAL AND INTELLECTUAL REACTIONISTS
• VI. SPIRITUAL AND SOCIAL REACTIONISTS
• PART II THE DEFENCE OF DEMOCRACY
• I. HOW TO BREAK THE VICIOUS CIRCLE
• II. THE NEW ECONOMIC SITUATION
• III. TWO PROBLEMS FOR LABOUR
• IV. THE CONQUEST OF THE STATE
• V. THE CLOSE STATE VERSUS INTERNATIONALISM
• Index