Internationality.
But an existence worthy of human beings cannot be the manner of living
of a single privileged nation, for, being isolated from all other
nations, it could neither establish nor maintain this condition.
Our entire development is the product of the combined action of
national and international forces and relations. Altho the national
ideal still dominates the minds to a great extent and is used as a
means for maintaining political and social rulership,--for this is
possible only within national bounds,--we are already deeply imbued
with internationalism.
Treaties of commerce, tariff and navigation, the world postal
union, international expositions, congresses on international law
and international measurements of degrees, other international
scientific congresses and associations, international expeditions of
exploration, commerce and trade, and especially the international
conventions of workingmen, who are the heralds of the new era, and to
whose influence it is due that, during the spring of 1890, upon an
invitation from the German Empire, the first international conference
on workingmen’s protective legislation was held in Berlin,--all this
proves the international character that the relations of civilized
nations have assumed, notwithstanding their national seclusion. Beside
speaking of national economy, we speak of ~international economy~,
and consider the latter more important, because the welfare of the
different nations depends upon it to a great extent. A great many of
our domestic products are exchanged for foreign products, that we
can no longer dispense with. As one branch of industry suffers when
another flags, so the entire national production of a given country
is very materially injured by a crisis in another country. The
relations of the different countries to one another are constantly
becoming more cordial, regardless of the passing disturbances, like
wars and the instigations of national hatred, because these relations
are dominated by material interests, the strongest of all. Every new
highway, every improvement in the means of transportation, every
invention or improvement in the process of production which leads
to a cheapening of commodities, strengthens these relations. The
ease with which personal relations are established between widely
separated countries and nations, is a new, important link in the
chain of connections. Emigration and colonization are other powerful
levers. Nations learn from one another and strive to excel each
other. Beside the exchange of all kinds of material products, an
exchange of intellectual products takes place, both in their original
forms of expression and in translations. To millions of people it
becomes a necessity to learn foreign languages, and beside material
advantages, nothing is more likely to remove prejudice and to arouse
sympathy, than an acquaintance with the language and intellectual
products of a foreign nation.
The effect of this process of approach on an international scale is
~an increasing resemblance in the social conditions of the various
nations~. With the most advanced civilized nations, that may therefore
be regarded as the standard, this resemblance is so great, that
whoever knows the economic structure of one nation, practically
knows it of all. It is as in nature, where animals belonging to the
same species have skeletons that are identical in organization and
structure, and if a scientist is given some parts of such skeleton
he can theoretically reconstruct the entire animal.
A further conclusion is that, wherever similar social conditions
exist, the results springing from them must be similar. Accumulation
of great wealth points to the opposite extreme of wage-slavery,
oppression of the masses by the system of production, rule of the
masses by the propertied minority, and all the resulting evils.
As a matter of fact, we see that the class antagonism and class
struggle, which is raging in Germany, is stirring all of Europe, the
United States of America and Australia. In Europe we meet with a
spirit of unrest and dissatisfaction from Russia to Portugal, from
the Balkans, Hungary and Italy to England and Ireland. Everywhere
we perceive the same symptoms of social fermentation, general
dissatisfaction and decomposition. Altho these movements differ
outwardly, according to the degree of development and the character of
the population, they all are identical in character. Profound social
antagonism is the underlying cause. With each year this antagonism
is growing more pronounced, the fermentation and dissatisfaction
pervades the body social more and more, until perhaps some slight
provocation will cause an outbreak that will spread with the rapidity
of lightning over the entire civilized world, and will everywhere
arouse men to side with one or the other party in the great conflict.
It will be the struggle of the new world against the old. Masses will
enter the arena, and the struggle will be conducted with an amount
of intelligence such as the world has never seen in any previous
struggle, such as it will never see again; ~for it will be the last
social struggle~. Standing at the beginning of the twentieth century,
we can see this struggle approaching its last stages in which the
new ideas will be victorious.
The new society will construct itself upon an international basis.
The nations will fraternize, they will join hands, and will endeavor
to extend the new conditions to all nations of the world.[275] One
nation will no longer approach another as an enemy, to exploit and to
oppress it, or as the upholder of a foreign religion that it seeks
to force upon it, but as a friend, endeavoring to make civilized
beings of all men. The tasks of colonization and civilization of
the new society will differ as radically from those of the present
in their very nature, and in the means employed by them, as the two
social orders differ from one another. Neither powder and lead nor
“fire-water” and the Bible will employed. The mission of civilization
will be undertaken by peaceable means, that will make the civilizers
appear to barbarians and savages not as enemies, but as ~benefactors~.
Reasonable voyagers and explorers have long since experienced how
successful these methods are.
When the civilized nations are united in a mighty federation, then
the time will have come when the trumpets of war shall be silenced
forever. Eternal peace will then no longer be a dream, as uniformed
gentlemen would have the world believe. This time will arrive as
soon as the nations will have recognized their true interests. These
interests are not advanced by quarrels and conflicts, by warlike
preparations that destroy countries and nations, but by peaceable
agreements and common works of civilization. Moreover, the ruling
classes and their governments see to it,--as has been previously set
forth,--that armaments and wars come to an end by means of their own
enormity. So the last weapons, like so many that have preceded them,
will be gathered into old curiosity collections to prove to coming
generations how men, for thousands of years, often lacerated one
another like wild beasts of the jungle--until man finally triumphed
over the wild beast within him.
That national characteristics and differences lead to wars,--these
characteristics and differences being artificially stimulated by
the ruling classes, so that a great war may, in case of necessity,
counteract dangerous tendencies in the interior,--is confirmed by an
utterance of the late General Fieldmarshal ~Moltke~. In the first
volume of his posthumous work that deals with the German-French
War of 1870–71, he says, among other things, in the introductory
remarks: “~So long as nations lead a separate existence, there will
be differences that can only be settled by force of arms. But it is
to be hoped that the wars may become rare as they have become more
terrible.~”
This national separation, that is, this hostile exclusion of one
nation from another, is passing away in spite of all endeavors to
maintain it, and so coming generations will find it an easy matter
to carry out tasks, that gifted minds have long since planned and
have attempted to accomplish, but unsuccessfully. Condorcet already
conceived the idea of introducing a universal language. The late
ex-president of the United States, Ulysses S. Grant, said in an
address: “Since commerce, education, and the quick transportation
of thoughts and objects by telegraph and steam have transformed
everything, I believe that God is preparing the world to become
~one~ nation, to speak ~one~ language, and to attain a degree of
perfection ~in which armies and navies will be superfluous~.” With a
full-blooded Yankee, God must, of course, be the adjuster, instead of
recognizing that matters are being adjusted in consequence of historic
evolution. That is not to be wondered at. Ignorance or hypocrisy in
religious matters are nowhere greater than in the United States. The
less the power of the state guides the masses by its organization,
the more must it be done by religion, by the church. Therefore the
bourgeoisie appears most pious wherever the power of the state is
weakest. Beside the U. S., this is the case in England, Belgium and
Switzerland. Even the revolutionary Robespierre, who played with
the heads of aristocrats and priests as with bowling balls, was, as
is well known, exceedingly religious. Therefore he had the “supreme
being” solemnly reinstated after its recent dethronement by the
convention,--an action of equally bad taste. Since before the great
revolution the frivolous and dissolute aristocrats bragged about
their atheism, Robespierre regarded it as being aristocratic, and
thus denounced it before the convention in his speech on the “supreme
being:” “Atheism is aristocratic. The idea of a supreme being that
watches over the innocent oppressed and punishes triumphant crime,
has sprung from the midst of the people. If there were no God it
would be necessary to invent one.” Virtuous Robespierre divined that
his virtuous bourgeois republic could not remove social extremes.
Therefore he preached belief in a supreme being, avenging wrong and
equalizing what men could not yet equalize; therefore this belief
was a necessity to the first republic.
Times change. One progress leads to another. Mankind will set ever
new tasks for itself, and will lead them to a degree of development
in which national or religious hatred and wars will no longer be
known.
[275] “At present national interests and human interests are hostile
to each other. On a higher level of civilization both interests will
become identical.”--v. Thuenen.--The Isolated State.