Capitalist Associations on the war
N.B.
Archiv f\"ur Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik (Edgar
Jaffé) (Vol. 41, No. 1), 1915, September. Pp. 296–97—“Employer
Organisations on the War”.
...“Consequently [employer organisations] are thinking in terms of the
rise and development of a special German type; that is what the war is
about. That view, in fact,
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fully coincides with the employers’ interests. They are aware of a certain
danger to themselves if it were to be said after the war: vestra res agitur (the matter concerns
you), your skin and your interests are at stake! The war
is being waged to decide who shall hold sway on the world
market!” (Deutsche Arbeitgeberzeitung, February 7, 1915).
In that event, obviously, all socio-political tendencies, all efforts to
cover war expenditure out of employer profits would find ready
acceptance. If,
however, the war is being waged in the interests of civilisation,
to defend a type of civilisation and not profit interests, then it falls to
Society as a whole to bear the burdens of war, and it will not be possible
to single out a class whose interests are pro-eminently promoted by the
war.
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The employers regard the effects of the war, insofar as they
extend to the internal political situation, as predominantly favourable.
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This applies especially to its effect on the Socialist Party,
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and in this respect they praise “fate as educator”. For the war has led
to unity of the nation and has cut the ground from under the most
attractive socialist theories. (Ibid., August 2, 1915.) In this war the
nation has for the first time really become a nation (to borrow
Treitschke’s expression)—and this is in itself justification for the
war.... For centuries to come, war will still be the sole form of settling
disputes between states,
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and it is a form to be welcomed, for the war has halted the trend towards
democracy: “We have reached the limit of feebleness, the brink of
degeneration and debility. From the final extreme, however, from sinking
into the abyss, we have been saved by fate, which evidently has set our
German people a special goal.” (Ibid., August 16, 1914.)
“The meaning of the war in general is thus consistently being sought in a transformation of the soul; its serious economic and political implications are belittled; its serious political and economic consequences are rejected”.
“The German Government’s further measures, it is correctly pointed
out, were likewise directed at regulating consumption, whereas the
aim of socialism is socialisation of the means of
production. (Ibid., February 28, 1915.) All these measures will
therefore be discontinued with the coming of peace. These views are, on the
whole, in the interests of the employers. And the antagonism between the
class interests of the employers and the workers probably
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finds its most salient expression also in the contrasting way the war is
reflected in their ideologies.
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But the contrast is of a manifold nature. The socialists of the
opportunist, revisionist trend see the war as an economic
war. They take the view that the war is imperialist and even
defend the right of every nation to imperialism. From that they deduce a
community of interests between employers and workers within the nation, and
that line,
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followed consistently, leads to their becoming a radical bourgeois reform
party. On the other hand, the radical trend in the socialist workers’
movement, while regarding the war as imperialist (at any rate, with
reservations),
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negates this development—it demands intensification of the class struggle
as a consequence of the war and emphasis on the proletarian standpoint,
even during the war. The employers, however, as we have seen, deny that the
war is an imperialist one. They do not want to be told: Tua res agitur (it is your concern). They
reject both the positive, affirmative imperialist view of the revisionist
socialists and the critical attitude of radical socialism.
||| well said!
They seek salvation in the
“civilisation meaning” of the war, an interpretation that does not hold
any class responsible for the war, and does not accuse any class of
especially benefiting from it.
||| how nice!
A grotesque picture: while the governments everywhere uphold the
imperialist theory or, at least” (how nice!!)
[[DITTO: ||| ]] [[BOX: gem! ]]
“contend that for the other side the economic interest is decisive, the
chief representatives of economic interests retire behind the general
civilisation meaning of the war. As a result, they come into contact with
views to be found also in the camp of radical socialism; they regard the
war as economically only an interim phase; all war-time phenomena, all
measures taken by the state, stem from the present situation and will
disappear together with
the war. The employers’ views on the war, too, however much they may appear
to have a central idea, should therefore be regarded exclusively
as (class) ideology” (pp. 295–97). (End of article.)
Note, pp. 293–94:
N.B. ||
“A theoretical article in Deutsche Arbeitgeberzeitung (August 15,
1915) in which tendencies towards a new (democratic) orientation in home
policy are most emphatically rejected, is highly indicative....
...“First of all, Social-Democracy has still more to
‘re-learn’:
N.B.! |
it will ‘above all have to show, after the war as well, whether the
process of transformation to which it refers has really become
part of its flesh and blood. Only if this has been decisively
demonstrated for a fairly lengthy period will one he able to say, with due
caution, whether some of these changes in Germany’s home policy are
possible’.” ...“In any case, so far there are no prerequisites for a
future
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home policy (as urged by the Left parties). ...On the contrary, ‘the harsh
school of war provides us with the strongest possible arguments against
further democratisation of our state system’” ...(p. 294).
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