Cyrus Thomas - "Notes on Certain Maya and Mexican Manuscripts"

John Burroughs - "The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers"

William Lyon Phelps - "Robert Browning: How To Know Him"

Frank R. Stockton - "A Jolly Fellowship"

Editorial
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation

T >> Thorstein Veblen >> An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation



AN INQUIRY INTO

THE NATURE OF PEACE

AND

THE TERMS OF ITS PERPETUATION

BY

THORSTEIN VEBLEN


New York
B.W. HUEBSCH
1919

_All rights reserved_




COPYRIGHT, 1917.
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Published April, 1917:
Reprinted August, 1917.

New edition published by
B.W. HUEBSCH.
January, 1919.




PREFACE


It is now some 122 years since Kant wrote the essay, _Zum ewigen
Frieden_. Many things have happened since then, although the Peace to
which he looked forward with a doubtful hope has not been among them.
But many things have happened which the great critical philosopher, and
no less critical spectator of human events, would have seen with
interest. To Kant the quest of an enduring peace presented itself as an
intrinsic human duty, rather than as a promising enterprise. Yet through
all his analysis of its premises and of the terms on which it may be
realised there runs a tenacious persuasion that, in the end, the regime
of peace at large will be installed. Not as a deliberate achievement of
human wisdom, so much as a work of Nature the Designer of
things--_Natura daedala rerum_.

To any attentive reader of Kant's memorable essay it will be apparent
that the title of the following inquiry--On the nature of peace and the
terms of its perpetuation--is a descriptive translation of the caption
under which he wrote. That such should be the case will not, it is
hoped, be accounted either an unseemly presumption or an undue
inclination to work under a borrowed light. The aim and compass of any
disinterested inquiry in these premises is still the same as it was in
Kant's time; such, indeed, as he in great part made it,--viz., a
systematic knowledge of things as they are. Nor is the light of Kant's
leading to be dispensed with as touches the ways and means of
systematic knowledge, wherever the human realities are in question.

Meantime, many things have also changed since the date of Kant's essay.
Among other changes are those that affect the direction of inquiry and
the terms of systematic formulation. _Natura daedala rerum_ is no longer
allowed to go on her own recognizances, without divulging the ways and
means of her workmanship. And it is such a line of extension that is
here attempted, into a field of inquiry which in Kant's time still lay
over the horizon of the future.

The quest of perpetual peace at large is no less a paramount and
intrinsic human duty today than it was, nor is it at all certain that
its final accomplishment is nearer. But the question of its pursuit and
of the conditions to be met in seeking this goal lies in a different
shape today; and it is this question that concerns the inquiry which is
here undertaken,--What are the terms on which peace at large may
hopefully be installed and maintained? What, if anything, is there in
the present situation that visibly makes for a realisation of these
necessary terms within the calculable future? And what are the
consequences presumably due to follow in the nearer future from the
installation of such a peace at large? And the answer to these questions
is here sought not in terms of what ought dutifully to be done toward
the desired consummation, but rather in terms of those known factors of
human behaviour that can be shown by analysis of experience to control
the conduct of nations in conjunctures of this kind.

February 1917




CONTENTS


CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY: ON THE STATE AND ITS RELATION TO WAR
AND PEACE 1

The inquiry is not concerned with the intrinsic merits
of peace or war, 2.

--But with the nature, causes and consequences of the
preconceptions favoring peace or war, 3.

--A breach of the peace is an act of the government,
or State, 3.

--Patriotism is indispensable to furtherance of warlike
enterprise, 4.

--All the peoples of Christendom are sufficiently patriotic, 6.

--Peace established by the State, an armistice--the State
is an instrumentality for making peace, not for perpetuating it, 7.

--The governmental establishments and their powers in all
the Christian nations are derived from the feudal establishments
of the Middle Ages, 9.

--Still retain the right of coercively controlling the actions
of their citizens, 11.

--Contrast of Icelandic Commonwealth, 12.

--The statecraft of the past half century has been
one of competitive preparedness, 14.

--Prussianised Germany has forced the pace in this
competitive preparedness, 20.

--An avowedly predatory enterprise no longer meets
with approval, 21.

--When a warlike enterprise has been entered upon, it
will have the support of popular sentiment even if it
is an aggressive war, 22.

--The moral indignation of both parties to the quarrel
is to be taken for granted, 23.

--The spiritual forces of any Christian nation may be
mobilised for war by either of two pleas: (1) The
preservation or furtherance of the community's material
interests, real or fancied, and (2) vindication of the
National Honour; as perhaps also perpetuation of the
national "Culture," 23.


CHAPTER II

ON THE NATURE AND USES OF PATRIOTISM 31

The nature of Patriotism, 31.

--Is a spirit of Emulation, 33.

--Must seem moral, if only to a biased populace, 33.

--The common man is sufficiently patriotic but is hampered
with a sense of right and honest dealing, 38.

--Patriotism is at cross purposes with modern life, 38.

--Is an hereditary trait? 41.

--Variety of racial stocks in Europe, 43.

--Patriotism a ubiquitous trait, 43.

--Patriotism disserviceable, yet men hold to it, 46.

--Cultural evolution of Europeans, 48.

--Growth of a sense of group solidarity, 49.

--Material interests of group falling into abeyance
as class divisions have grown up, until prestige
remains virtually the sole community interest, 51.

--Based upon warlike prowess, physical magnitude and
pecuniary traffic of country, 54.

--Interests of the master class are at cross purposes
with the fortunes of the common man, 57.

--Value of superiors is a "prestige value," 57.

--The material benefits which this ruling class contribute
are: defense against aggression, and promotion of the
community's material gain, 60.

--The common defense is a remedy for evils due to the
patriotic spirit, 61.

--The common defense the usual blind behind which events
are put in train for eventual hostilities, 62.

--All the nations of warring Europe convinced that they
are fighting a defensive war, 62.

--Which usually takes the form of a defense of the National
Honour, 63.

--Material welfare is of interest to the Dynastic statesman
only as it conduces to political success, 64.

--The policy of national economic self-sufficiency, 67.

--The chief material use of patriotism is its use to a
limited number of persons in their quest of private gain, 67.

--And has the effect of dividing the nations on lines of
rivalry, 76.


CHAPTER III

ON THE CONDITIONS OF A LASTING PEACE 77

The patriotic spirit of modern peoples is the abiding
source of contention among nations, 77.

--Hence any calculus of the Chances of Peace will be
a reckoning of forces which may be counted on to keep
a patriotic nation in an unstable equilibrium of peace, 78.

--The question of peace and war at large is a question of
peace and war among the Powers, which are of two contrasted
kinds: those which may safely be counted on spontaneously
to take the offensive and those which will fight on provocation, 79.

--War not a question of equity but of opportunity, 81.

--The Imperial designs of Germany and Japan as the prospective
cause of war, 82.

--Peace can be maintained in two ways: submission to
their dominion, or elimination of these two Powers;
No middle course open, 84.

--Frame of mind of states; men and popular sentiment in
a Dynastic State, 84.

--Information, persuasion and reflection will not subdue
national animosities and jealousies; Peoples of Europe
are racially homogeneous along lines of climatic latitude, 88.

--But loyalty is a matter of habituation, 89.

--Derivation and current state of German nationalism, 94.

--Contrasted with the animus of the citizens of a commonwealth,
103;--A neutral peace-compact may be practicable in the
absence of Germany and Japan, but it has no chance in
their presence, 106.

--The national life of Germany: the Intellectuals, 108.

--Summary of chapter, 116.


CHAPTER IV

PEACE WITHOUT HONOUR 118

Submission to the Imperial Power one of the conditions
precedent to a peaceful settlement, 118.

--Character of the projected tutelage, 118.

--Life under the _Pax Germanica_ contrasted with
the Ottoman and Russian rule, 124.

--China and biological and cultural success, 130.

--Difficulty of non-resistant subjection is of a psychological
order, 131.

--Patriotism of the bellicose kind is of the nature of
habit, 134.

--And men may divest themselves of it, 140.

--A decay of the bellicose national spirit must be of
the negative order, the disuse of the discipline out
of which it has arisen, 142.

--Submission to Imperial authorities necessitates
abeyance of national pride among the other peoples, 144.

--Pecuniary merits of the projected Imperial dominion, 145.

--Pecuniary class distinctions in the commonwealths and
the pecuniary burden on the common man, 150.

--Material conditions of life for the common man under
the modern rule of big business, 156.

--The competitive regime, "what the traffic will bear,"
and the life and labor of the common man, 158.

--Industrial sabotage by businessmen, 165.

--Contrasted with the Imperial usufruct and its material
advantages to the common man, 174.


CHAPTER V

PEACE AND NEUTRALITY 178

Personal liberty, not creature comforts, the ulterior
springs of action of the common man of the democratic
nations, 178.

--No change of spiritual state to be looked for in the
life-time of the oncoming generation, 185.

--The Dynastic spirit among the peoples of the Empire
will, under the discipline of modern economic conditions,
fall into decay, 187.

--Contrast of class divisions in Germany and England, 192.

--National establishments are dependent for their
continuance upon preparation for hostilities, 196.

--The time required for the people of the Dynastic
States to unlearn their preconceptions will be longer
than the interval required for a new onset, 197.

--There can be no neutral course between peace by
unconditional surrender and submission or peace by
the elimination of Imperial Germany and Japan, 202.

--Peace by submission not practicable for the modern
nations, 203.

--Neutralisation of citizenship, 205.

--Spontaneous move in that direction not to be looked for, 213.

--Its chances of success, 219.

--The course of events in America, 221.


CHAPTER VI

ELIMINATION OF THE UNFIT 233

A league of neutrals, its outline, 233.

--Need of security from aggression of Imperial Germany, 234.

--Inclusion of the Imperial States in the league, 237.

--Necessity of elimination of Imperial military clique, 239.

--Necessity of intermeddling in internal affairs of Germany even
if not acceptable to the German people, 240.

--Probability of pacific nations taking measures to insure peace, 244-298.

--The British gentleman and his control of the English government, 244.

--The shifting of control out of the hands of the gentleman into
those of the underbred common man, 251.

--The war situation and its probable effect on popular habits
of thought in England, 252.

--The course of such events and their bearing on the chances
of a workable pacific league, 255.

--Conditions precedent to a successful pacific league
of neutrals, 258.

--Colonial possessions, 259.

--Neutralisation of trade relations, 263.

--Futility of economic boycott, 266.

--The terms of settlement, 269.

--The effect of the war and the chances of the British people
being able to meet the exigencies of peace, 273.

--Summary of the terms of settlement, 280.

--Constitutional monarchies and the British gentlemanly
government, 281.

--The American national establishment, a government
by businessmen, and its economic policy, 292.

--America and the league, 294.


CHAPTER VII

PEACE AND THE PRICE SYSTEM 299

The different conceptions of peace, 299.

--Psychological effects of the war, 303.

--The handicraft system and the machine industry,
and their psychological effect on political preconceptions, 306.

--The machine technology and the decay of patriotic loyalty, 310.

--Summary, 313.

--Ownership and the right of contract, 315.

--Standardised under handicraft system, 319.

--Ownership and the machine industry. 320.

--Business control and sabotage, 322.

--Governments of pacific nations controlled by privileged classes, 326.

--Effect of peace on the economic situation, 328.

--Economic aspects of a regime of peace, especially as related
to the development of classes, 330.

--The analogy of the Victorian Peace, 344.

--The case of the American Farmer, 348.

--The leisure class, 350.

--The rising standard of living, 354.

--Culture, 355.

--The eventual cleavage of classes, those who own and those
who do not, 360.

--Conditioned by peace at large, 366.

--Necessary conditions of a lasting peace, 367.


AN INQUIRY INTO THE NATURE OF PEACE AND THE TERMS OF ITS PERPETUATION




ON THE NATURE OF PEACE AND THE TERMS OF ITS PERPETUATION




CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY: ON THE STATE AND ITS RELATION TO WAR AND PEACE


To many thoughtful men ripe in worldly wisdom it is known of a verity
that war belongs indefeasibly in the Order of Nature. Contention, with
manslaughter, is indispensable in human intercourse, at the same time
that it conduces to the increase and diffusion of the manly virtues. So
likewise, the unspoiled youth of the race, in the period of adolescence
and aspiring manhood, also commonly share this gift of insight and back
it with a generous commendation of all the martial qualities; and women
of nubile age and no undue maturity gladly meet them half way.

On the other hand, the mothers of the people are commonly unable to see
the use of it all. It seems a waste of dear-bought human life, with a
large sum of nothing to show for it. So also many men of an elderly
turn, prematurely or otherwise, are ready to lend their countenance to
the like disparaging appraisal; it may be that the spirit of prowess in
them runs at too low a tension, or they may have outlived the more vivid
appreciation of the spiritual values involved. There are many, also,
with a turn for exhortation, who find employment for their best
faculties in attesting the well-known atrocities and futility of war.

Indeed, not infrequently such advocates of peace will devote their
otherwise idle powers to this work of exhortation without stipend or
subsidy. And they uniformly make good their contention that the
currently accepted conception of the nature of war--General Sherman's
formula--is substantially correct. All the while it is to be admitted
that all this axiomatic exhortation has no visible effect on the course
of events or on the popular temper touching warlike enterprise. Indeed,
no equal volume of speech can be more incontrovertible or less
convincing than the utterances of the peace advocates, whether
subsidised or not. "War is Bloodier than Peace." This would doubtless be
conceded without argument, but also without prejudice. Hitherto the
pacifists' quest of a basis for enduring peace, it must be admitted, has
brought home nothing tangible--with the qualification, of course, that
the subsidised pacifists have come in for the subsidy. So that, after
searching the recesses of their imagination, able-bodied pacifists whose
loquacity has never been at fault hitherto have been brought to ask:
"What Shall We Say?"

* * * * *

Under these circumstances it will not be out of place to inquire into
the nature of this peace about which swings this wide orbit of opinion
and argument. At the most, such an inquiry can be no more gratuitous and
no more nugatory than the controversies that provoke it. The intrinsic
merits of peace at large, as against those of warlike enterprise, it
should be said, do not here come in question. That question lies in the
domain of preconceived opinion, so that for the purposes of this
inquiry it will have no significance except as a matter to be inquired
into; the main point of the inquiry being the nature, causes and
consequences of such a preconception favoring peace, and the
circumstances that make for a contrary preconception in favor of war.

By and large, any breach of the peace in modern times is an official act
and can be taken only on initiative of the governmental establishment,
the State. The national authorities may, of course, be driven to take
such a step by pressure of warlike popular sentiment. Such, e.g., is
presumed to have been the case in the United States' attack on Spain
during the McKinley administration; but the more that comes to light of
the intimate history of that episode, the more evident does it become
that the popular war sentiment to which the administration yielded had
been somewhat sedulously "mobilised" with a view to such yielding and
such a breach. So also in the case of the Boer war, the move was made
under sanction of a popular war spirit, which, again, did not come to a
head without shrewd surveillance and direction. And so again in the
current European war, in the case, e.g., of Germany, where the
initiative was taken, the State plainly had the full support of popular
sentiment, and may even be said to have precipitated the war in response
to this urgent popular aspiration; and here again it is a matter of
notoriety that the popular sentiment had long been sedulously nursed and
"mobilised" to that effect, so that the populace was assiduously kept in
spiritual readiness for such an event. The like is less evident as
regards the United Kingdom, and perhaps also as regards the other
Allies.

And such appears to have been the common run of the facts as regards all
the greater wars of the last one hundred years,--what may be called the
"public" wars of this modern era, as contrasted with the "private" or
administrative wars which have been carried on in a corner by one and
another of the Great Powers against hapless barbarians, from time to
time, in the course of administrative routine.

It is also evident from the run of the facts as exemplified in these
modern wars that while any breach of the peace takes place only on the
initiative and at the discretion of the government, or State,[1] it is
always requisite in furtherance of such warlike enterprise to cherish
and eventually to mobilise popular sentiment in support of any warlike
move. Due fomentation of a warlike animus is indispensable to the
procuring and maintenance of a suitable equipment with which eventually
to break the peace, as well as to ensure a diligent prosecution of such
enterprise when once it has been undertaken. Such a spirit of militant
patriotism as may serviceably be mobilised in support of warlike
enterprise has accordingly been a condition precedent to any people's
entry into the modern Concert of Nations. This Concert of Nations is a
Concert of Powers, and it is only as a Power that any nation plays its
part in the concert, all the while that "power" here means eventual
warlike force.

[Footnote 1: A modern nation constitutes a State only in respect of or
with ulterior bearing on the question of International peace or war.]

Such a people as the Chinese, e.g., not pervaded with an adequate
patriotic spirit, comes into the Concert of Nations not as a Power but
as a bone of contention. Not that the Chinese fall short in any of the
qualities that conduce to efficiency and welfare in time of peace, but
they appear, in effect, to lack that certain "solidarity of prowess" by
virtue of which they should choose to be (collectively) formidable
rather than (individually) fortunate and upright; and the modern
civilised nations are not in a position, nor in a frame of mind, to
tolerate a neighbor whose only claim on their consideration falls under
the category of peace on earth and good-will among men. China appears
hitherto not to have been a serviceable people for warlike ends, except
in so far as the resources of that country have been taken over and
converted to warlike uses by some alien power working to its own ends.
Such have been the several alien dynasties that have seized upon that
country from time to time and have achieved dominion by usufruct of its
unwarlike forces. Such has been the nature of the Manchu empire of the
recent past, and such is the evident purpose of the prospective Japanese
usufruct of the same country and its populace. Meantime the Chinese
people appear to be incorrigibly peaceable, being scarcely willing to
fight in any concerted fashion even when driven into a corner by
unprovoked aggression, as in the present juncture. Such a people is very
exceptional. Among civilised nations there are, broadly speaking, none
of that temper, with the sole exception of the Chinese,--if the Chinese
are properly to be spoken of as a nation.

Modern warfare makes such large and direct use of the industrial arts,
and depends for its successful prosecution so largely on a voluminous
and unremitting supply of civilian services and wrought goods, that any
inoffensive and industrious people, such as the Chinese, could doubtless
now be turned to good account by any warlike power that might have the
disposal of their working forces. To make their industrial efficiency
count in this way toward warlike enterprise and imperial dominion, the
usufruct of any such inoffensive and unpatriotic populace would have to
fall into the hands of an alien governmental establishment. And no alien
government resting on the support of a home population trained in the
habits of democracy or given over to ideals of common honesty in
national concerns could hopefully undertake the enterprise. This work of
empire-building out of unwarlike materials could apparently be carried
out only by some alien power hampered by no reserve of scruple, and
backed by a servile populace of its own, imbued with an impeccable
loyalty to its masters and with a suitably bellicose temper, as, e.g.,
Imperial Japan or Imperial Germany.

However, for the commonplace national enterprise the common run will do
very well. Any populace imbued with a reasonable measure of patriotism
will serve as ways and means to warlike enterprise under competent
management, even if it is not habitually prone to a bellicose temper.
Rightly managed, ordinary patriotic sentiment may readily be mobilised
for warlike adventure by any reasonably adroit and single-minded body of
statesmen,--of which there is abundant illustration. All the peoples of
Christendom are possessed of a sufficiently alert sense of nationality,
and by tradition and current usage all the national governments of
Christendom are warlike establishments, at least in the defensive sense;
and the distinction between the defensive and the offensive in
international intrigue is a technical matter that offers no great
difficulty. None of these nations is of such an incorrigibly peaceable
temper that they can be counted on to keep the peace consistently in the
ordinary course of events.

Peace established by the State, or resting in the discretion of the
State, is necessarily of the nature of an armistice, in effect
terminable at will and on short notice. It is maintained only on
conditions, stipulated by express convention or established by custom,
and there is always the reservation, tacit or explicit, that recourse
will be had to arms in case the "national interests" or the punctilios
of international etiquette are traversed by the act or defection of any
rival government or its subjects. The more nationally-minded the
government or its subject populace, the readier the response to the call
of any such opportunity for an unfolding of prowess. The most peaceable
governmental policy of which Christendom has experience is a policy of
"watchful waiting," with a jealous eye to the emergence of any occasion
for national resentment; and the most irretrievably shameful dereliction
of duty on the part of any civilised government would be its eventual
insensibility to the appeal of a "just war." Under any governmental
auspices, as the modern world knows governments, the keeping of the
peace comes at its best under the precept, "Speak softly and carry a big
stick." But the case for peace is more precarious than the wording of
the aphorism would indicate, in as much as in practical fact the "big
stick" is an obstacle to soft speech. Evidently, in the light of recent
history, if the peace is to be kept it will have to come about
irrespective of governmental management,--in spite of the State rather
than by its good offices. At the best, the State, or the government, is
an instrumentality for making peace, not for perpetuating it.

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