Page:Diplomacy and the War (Andrassy 1921).djvu/90

 agree, by virtue of what I have said above, with the assertion of social democracy that the World War was a natural and inevitable consequence of the capitalist system, and that therefore anyone who wanted to preserve peace must help to bring about the supremacy of social democracy.

I believe the answer is in the negative. At the same time it must be admitted that the seeds of the World War grew upon the soil of Imperialism, and upon the soil of that Imperialism which competes in the interests of enormous industrial production for colonies. The nature of this Imperialism was to guard its territories by protective tariffs, whose competition was carried on during a time of complete international anarchy. There can be no question that only modern industrialism and capitalism rendered the war technically possible, and that the insane competition of imperialism weakened the feeling of human solidarity and raised the sentiment of nationality above the clouds. The foregoing, however, does not prove that the World War was a necessary consequence of capitalism and bourgeois society. The wars of to-day are as detrimental to capitalism and bourgeois society as to humanity in general. The colossal cost of war, the loss of human material, and the political excitement which goes hand in hand with war, are of the utmost danger to production and internal order. They involve, moreover, such a collapse of civilization thnt the war is as little in the interests of the capitalistic world as the world of labour. The wars which we had known