Chapter V: The Argument as an Attack on the State

There was not before the War, and there has not been since, any serious challenge to the economic argument of _The Great Illusion_. Criticism (which curiously enough does not seem to have included the point dealt with in the preceding Chapter) seems to have centred rather upon the irrelevance of economic considerations to the problem of war--the problem, that is, of creating an international society. The answer to that is, of course, both explicit and implicit in much of what precedes.

The most serious criticism has been directed to one specific point. It is made notably both by Professor Spenser Wilkinson[122] and Professor Lindsay,[123] and as it is relevant to the existing situation and to much of the argument of the present book, it is worth dealing with.

The criticism is based on the alleged disparagement of the State implied in the general attitude of the book. Professor Lindsay (whose article, by the way, although hostile and misapprehending the spirit of the book, is a model of fair, sincere, and useful criticism) describes the work under criticism largely as an attack on the conception of 'the State as a person.' He says in effect that the present author argues thus:--

'The only proper thing to consider is the interest or the happiness
of individuals. If a political action conduces to the interests of
individuals, it must be right; if it conflicts with these interests
it must be wrong.'

Professor Lindsay continues:--

'Now if pacifism really implied such a view of the relation of the
State and the individual, and of the part played by self-interest
in life, its appeal has little moral force behind it....

'Mr. Angell seems to hold that not only is the national State being
superseded, but that the supersession is to be welcomed. The
economic forces which are destroying the State will do all the
State has done to bind men together, and more.'

As a matter of fact Professor Lindsay has himself answered his own criticism. For he goes on:--

'The argument of _The Great Illusion_ is largely based on the
public part played by the organisation of credit. Mr Angell has
been the first to notice the great significance of its activity. It
has misled him, however, into thinking that it presaged a
supersession of political by economic control.... The facts are,
not that political forces are being superseded by economic, but
that the new industrial situation has called into being new
political organisations.... To co-ordinate their activities ...
will be impossible if the spirit of exclusive nationalism and
distrust of foreigners wins the day; it will be equally impossible
if the strength of our existing centres of patriotism and public
spirit are destroyed.'

Very well. We had here in the pre-war period two dangers, either of which in Professor Lindsay's view would make the preservation of civilisation impossible: one danger was that men would over-emphasise their narrower patriotism and surrender themselves to the pugnacities of exclusive nationalism and distrust of foreigners, forgetting that the spiritual life of densely packed societies can only be rendered possible by certain widespread economic co-operations, contracts; the other danger was that we should under-emphasise each our own nationalism and give too much importance to the wider international organisation of mankind.

Into which danger have we run as a matter of simple fact? Which tendency is it that is acting as the present disruptive force in Europe? Has opinion and statesmanship--as expressed in the Treaty, for instance--given too much or too little attention to the interdependence of the world, and the internationally economic foundations of our civilisation?

We have seen Europe smashed by neglecting the truths which _The Great Illusion_ stressed, perhaps over-stressed, and by surrendering to the exclusive nationalism which that book attacked. The book was based on the anticipation that Europe would be very much more likely to come to grief through over-stressing exclusive nationalism and neglecting its economic interdependence, than through the decay of the narrower patriotism.

If the book had been written _in vacuo_, without reference to impending events, the emphasis might have been different.[124]

But in criticising the emphasis that is thrown upon the welfare of the individual, Professor Lindsay would seem to be guilty of confusing the _test_ of good political conduct with the _motive_. Certainly _The Great Illusion_ did not disparage the need of loyalty to the social group--to the other members of the partnership. That need is the burden of most that has been written in the preceding pages when dealing with the facts of interdependence. An individual who can see only his own interest does not see even that; for such interest is dependent on others. (These arguments of egoism versus altruism are always circular.) But it insisted upon two facts which modern Europe seemed in very great danger of forgetting. The first was that the Nation-State was not the social group, not co-terminous with the whole of Society, only a very arbitrarily chosen part of it; and the second was that the _test_ of the 'good State' was the welfare of the citizens who composed it. How otherwise shall we settle the adjustment between national right and international obligation, answer the old and inevitable question, 'What is the _Good_ State?' The only intelligible answer is: the State which produces good men, subserves their welfare. A State which did not subserve the welfare of its citizens, that produced men morally, intellectually, physically poor and feeble, could not be a good State. A State is tested by the degree to which it serves individuals.

Now the fact of forgetting the first truth, that the Nation-State is not the whole of Society but only a part, and that we have obligations to the other part, led to a distortion of the second. The Hegelianism which denied any obligation above or beyond that of the Nation-State sets up a conflict of sovereignties, a competition of power, stimulating the instinct of domination, making indeed the power and position of the State with reference to rival States the main end of politics. The welfare of men is forgotten. The fact that the State is made for man, not man for the State, is obscured. It was certainly forgotten or distorted by the later political philosophers of Prussia. The oversight gave us Prussianism and Imperialism, the ideal of political power as an end in itself, against which _The Great Illusion_ was a protest. The Imperialism, not alone in Prussia, takes small account of the quality of individual life, under the flag. The one thing to be sought is that the flag should be triumphant, be flown over vast territories, inspire fear in foreigners, and be an emblem of 'glory.' There is a discernible distinction of aim and purpose between the Patriot, Jingo, Chauvinist, and the citizen of the type interested in such things as social reform. The military Patriot the world over does not attempt to hide his contempt for efforts at the social betterment of his countryman. That is 'parish pump.' Mr Maxse or Mr Kipling is keenly interested in England, but not in the betterment of Englishmen; indeed, both are in the habit of abusing Englishmen very heartily, unless they happen to be soldiers. In other words, the real end of politics is forgotten. It is not only that the means have become the end, but that one element of the means, power, has become the end.

The point I desired to emphasise was that unless we keep before ourselves the welfare of the individual as the _test_ of politics (not necessarily the motive of each individual for himself) we constantly forget the purpose and aim of politics, and patriotism becomes not the love of one's fellow countrymen and their welfare, but the love of power expressed by that larger 'ego' which is one's group. 'Mystic Nationalism' comes to mean something entirely divorced from any attribute of individual life. The 'Nation' becomes an abstraction apart from the life of the individual.

There is a further consideration. The fact that the Nation-State is not co-terminous with Society is shown by its vital need of others; it cannot live by itself; it must co-operate with others; consequently it has obligations to those others. The demonstration of that fact involves an appeal to 'interest,' to welfare. The most visible and vital co-operation outside the limits of the Nation-State is the economic; it gives rise to the most definite, as to the most fundamental obligation--the obligation to accord to others the right to existence. It is out of the common economic need that the actual structure of some mutual arrangement, some social code, will arise, has indeed arisen. This makes the beginning of the first visible structure of a world society. And from these homely beginnings will come, if at all, a more vivid sense of the wider society. And the 'economic' interest, as distinct from the temperamental interest of domination, has at least this social advantage. Welfare is a thing that in society may well grow the more it is divided: the better my countrymen the richer is my life likely to become. Domination has not this quality: it is mutually exclusive. We cannot all be masters. If any country is to dominate, somebody or some one else's country must be dominated; if the one is to be the Superior Race, some other must be inferior. And the inferior sooner or later objects, and from that resistance comes the disintegration that now menaces us.

It is perfectly true that we cannot create the kind of State which will best subserve the interests of its citizens unless each is ready to give allegiance to it, irrespective of his immediate personal 'interest.' (The word is put in inverted commas because in most men not compelled by bad economic circumstances to fight fiercely for daily bread, sheer physical sustenance, the satisfaction of a social and creative instinct is a very real 'interest,' and would, in a well-organised society, be as spontaneous as interest in sport or social ostentation.) The State must be an idea, an abstraction, capable of inspiring loyalty, embodying the sense of interdependence. But the circumstances of the independent modern national State, in frequent and unavoidable contact with other similar States, are such as to stimulate not mainly the motives of social cohesion, but those instincts of domination which become anti-social and disruptive. The nationalist stands condemned not because he asks allegiance or loyalty to the social group, but first, because he asks absolute allegiance to something which is not the social group but only part of it, and secondly, because that exclusive loyalty gives rise to disruptive pugnacities, injurious to all.

In pointing out the inadequacy of the unitary political Nation-State as the embodiment of final sovereignty, an inadequacy due to precisely the development of such organisations as Labour, the present writer merely anticipated the drift of much political writing of the last ten years on the problem of State sovereignty; as also the main drift of events.[125]

If Mr Lindsay finds the very mild suggestions in _The Great Illusion_ touching the necessary qualification of the sovereignty of the Nation-State subversive, one wonders what his feelings are on reading, say, Mr Cole, who in a recent book (_Social Theory_) leaves the Political State so attenuated that one questions whether what is left is not just ghost. At the best the State is just one collateral association among others.

The sheer mechanical necessities of administration of an industrial society, so immeasurably more complex than the simple agricultural society which gave us the unitary political State, seem to be pushing us towards a divided or manifold sovereignty. If we are to carry over from the National State into the new form of the State--as we seem now in danger of doing--the attitude of mind which demands domination for 'our' group, the pugnacities, suspicions, and hostilities characteristic of nationalist temper, we may find the more complex society beyond our social capacity. I agree that we want a common political loyalty, that mere obedience to the momentary interest of our group will not give it; but neither will the temper of patriotism as we have seen it manifested in the European national State. The loyalty to some common code will probably only come through a sense of its social need. (It is on the ground of its social need that Mr Lindsay defends the political State.) At present we have little sense of that need, because we have (as Versailles proved) a belief in the effectiveness of our own power to exact the services we may require. The rival social or industrial groups have a like belief. Only a real sense of interdependence can undermine that belief; and it must be a visible, economic interdependence.

A social sense may be described as an instinctive feeling for 'what will work.' We are only yet at the beginning of the study of human motive. So much is subconscious that we are certainly apt to ascribe to one motive conduct which in fact is due to another. And among the neglected motives of conduct is perhaps a certain sense of art--a sense, in this connection, of the difficult 'art of living together.' It is probably true that what some, at least, find so revolting in some of the manifestations of nationalism, chauvinism, is that they violently challenge the whole sense of what will work, to say nothing of the rights of others. 'If every one took that line, nobody could live.' In a social sense this is gross and offensive. It has an effect on one like the manners of a cad. It is that sort of motive, perhaps, more than any calculation of 'interest,' which may one day cause a revulsion against Balkanisation. But to that motive some informed sense of interdependence is indispensable.