Marxism with a Difference
Tnn thesis of this book is very simple. The world consists of Haves and Have-Nots. The Haves are in favour of Peace and the Have-Nots are in favour of Justice. Their demand for Justice is engendering fear among the Haves and insecurity everywhere. The only way to get rid of this insecurity is for the Haves to pay the " price of peace," which involves large sacrifices on their part.
The reader might conclude that this then is a book on the Workers' Revolution, to be brought about by the over- throw of the existing social order. But it is not. It is a book on international politics. Its Rich and Poor are not individuals and classes but States and Peoples. It is thoroughly Marxian in temper—in its close and penetrating analysis, in its mastery of detail, in its rigid abstention from moral judgements, above all in its cold fatalism. But it is Marxism with a difference. Its capitalists, before whom looms Revolution, are the satisfied Powers, the British Empire, France, Soviet Russia and the United States : its proletarians are Germany, Italy and Japan. Its Revolution, if it is to be, will not come by means of barricades but through a second world-war, which, unlike the first, " would be fought for clear and precise objectives," in the shape of control over the essential raw materials and minerals of industry.
This argument is driven home in a series of charts and diagrams, from the accomplished hand of Mr. Brooks Emeny, which add greatly to the value and interest of the book. Thus two most striking pages present the contrast between the condition of the United States and of Japan in respect of the seven " Great Essentials " (Food, Iron, Machinery, Chemicals, Coal, Iron Ore, Petroleum) and the nineteen " Critical Raw Materials " (Copper, Lead, Nitrates, Sulphur, Cotton, Aluminium, Zinc, Rubber, Manganese, Nickel, Chromite, Tungsten, Wool, Potash, Phosphates, Antimony, Tin, Mercury, Mica). They bring out very clearly to what an extent Japan is a Have-Not : but what is not so clear is how, with such resources as she has, this Spartacus among the Powers can hope to win a victory in the Slave-War.
But, leaving such speculations aside, what are we to say about the argument of the book as a whole ? Much the same surely as, in retrospect, we can now say about Marx. It, is powerful and well-directed pamphleteering ; but, as a contribution to the solution of the international problem as a whole, it does not stand examination. It is an excellent thing that American readers should be told that " Italian Fascism, German National Socialism, and Japanese Im- perialism . . . have done no more to make future wars inevitable than has the American Democracy by means • of the Hawley-Smart Tariff, the war debt policy and its performance at the London Economic Conference." It would do British readers good if an equally well docu- mented critic on this side of the water would bring out the inconsistency (to use no stronger word) between our loudly heralded attachment to the League of Nations in one department of our affairs and the unblushing selfishness and even brutality of our proceedings in certain other depart- ments, such as finance, commerce and agriculture. But, pamphleteering apart, the real answer to the argument of the book is to be found by questioning the assumption on which it is based. That assumption is that riches and poverty, well-being and hardship, are experiences .not of individual human .beings, but _of States. For Mr. Simond, unlike Marx, Justice as between States is the objective. It will be attained when an equilibrium has been established between the Possessing States and the Hungry States. But what shall we have then, in terms of Mr. Simonds' philosophy ? An equilib- rium, or Balance of Powec, between Stales. Will, that ensure peace ? In the light of history this seems very 'doubtful. Why then should the richer peoples make the sacrifice ?
The fact is that so long as the problems of international politics are thought of in terms of Power-politics---whether the power be in the shape of guns or ships or aeroplanes or Great Essentials and Critical Raw Materials—they are in- soluble. You can only come within reach of a solution by dis- carding this whole conception and beginning from the other end, by considering what is best, not for States, but for men,
women and children.. Once you look at the international scene in that light you realize that the very real problems to which this book calls attention cannot be solved by any pro- gramme which regards States as ends in themselves.
What Mr. Simonds therefore should have asked himself is whether the States which he enumerates are regarded by their rulers as ends in themselves or as instruments of well-being. Between Power-States (as we may call them) there can be no true co-operation, but at best an uneasy truce. Conflict, not co-operation, is the law of their being. But between States of the more human type co-operation is possible, co-operation leading to a sharing of power or even, as has been attained in the domestic politics of such States, peaceful transfers of power. In other words, wholesale transfers of power from the richer to the poorer members of the Society of States, such as Mr. Simonds pleads for, will only become practical politics when the States concerned have reached a higher level of political morality—the level, let us say, of Sweden.
This puts the solution of the problem a long way back. But Mr. Simonds, who prides himself on being a realist, should not boggle at this : for, of course, he must know perfectly well that his own proposed solution is, in present circumstances, quite impracticable, as impracticable as the pacifist solutions he is so fond of deriding. Nevertheless his book remains a first-rate pamphlet, full of valuable material for statesmen in their ungrateful task of trying to- do the best they sari for justice in a world which is still largely dominated by false ideas as to the real object of politics.
ALFRED ZEIBIERN.-
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