e.h. carr, the twenty years crisis

jianyopu

the realist critique of internationalism

the realist critique of the harmony of interests

the concept of internationalism is a special form of the doctrine of the harmony of interests. it yields to the same analysis; and there are the same difficulties about regarding it as an absolute standard independent of the interests and policies of those who promulgate it. "cosmopolitanism," wrote sun yat-sen, "is the same thing as china's theory of world empire two thousand years ago.... china once wanted to be sovereign lord of the earth and to stand above every other nation, so she espoused cosmopolitanism." 62 in the egypt of the eighteenth dynasty, according to freud, "imperialism was reflected in religion as universality and monotheism."63 the doctrine of a single world-state, propagated by the roman empire and later by the catholic church, was the symbol of a claim to universal dominion. modern internationalism has its genesis in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century france,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], during which french hegemony in europe was at its height. this was the period which produced sully's grand dessin and the abbé saint-pierre's projet de paix perpetuelle (both plans to perpetuate an international status quo favorable to the french monarchy), which saw the birth of the humanitarian and cosmopolitan doctrines of the enlightenment, and which established french as the universal language of educated people. in the next century, the leadership passed to great britain,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], which became the home of internationalism. on the eve of the great exhibition of 1851 which, more than any other single event, established great britain's title to world supremacy, the prince consort spoke movingly of "that great end to which… all history points - the realization of the unity of mankind";64 and tennyson hymned "the parliament of man, the federation of the world." france chose the moment of her greatest supremacy in the nineteen-twenties to launch a plan of european union"; and japan shortly afterwards developed an ambition to proclaim herself the leader of a united asia. it was symptomatic of the growing international predominance of the united states when widespread popularity was enjoyed in the late nineteen-thirties by the book of an american journalist advocating a world union of democracies, in which the united states would play the predominant role.65
woodrow wilson was less naively egotistical, but more profoundly confident of the identity of american policy and universal justice. after the bombardment of vera cruz in 1914, he assured the world that "the united states bad gone down to mexico to serve mankind."49 during the first world war, he advised american naval cadets "not only always to think first of america, but always, also, to think, first of humanity" - a feat rendered slightly less difficult by his explanation that the united states had been "founded for the benefit of humanity."50 shortly before the entry of the united states into the war, in an address to the senate on war aims, he stated the identification still more categorically: "these are american principles american policies.... they are the principles of mankind and must prevail." 51

just as pleas for "national solidarity" in domestic politics always come from a dominant group which can use this solidarity to strengthen its own control over the nation as a whole, so pleas for international solidarity and world union come from those dominant nations which may hope to exercise control over a unified world. countries which are struggling to force their way into the dominant group naturally tend to invoke nationalism against the internationalism of the controlling powers. in the sixteenth century, england opposed her nascent nationalism to the internationalism of the papacy and the empire. in the past century and a half germany opposed her nascent nationalism to the internationalism first of france, then of great britain. this circumstance made her impervious to those universalist and humanitarian doctrines which were popular in eighteenth-century france and nineteenth-century britain; and her hostility to internationalism was further aggravated after 1919, when great britain and france endeavored to create a new "international order" as a bulwark of their own predominance. "by 'international'," wrote a german correspondent in the times, "we have come to understand a conception that places other nations at an advantage over our own."66 nevertheless, there was little doubt that germany, if she became supreme in europe, would adopt international slogans and establish some kind of international organization to bolster up her power. a british labor ex-minister at one moment advocated the suppression of article 16 of the covenant of the league of nations on the unexpected ground that the totalitarian states might some day capture the league and invoke that article to justify the use of force by themselves.67 it seemed more likely that they would seek to develop the anti-comintern pact into some form of international organization "the anti-comintern pact," said hitler in the reichstag on january 30, 1939, "will perhaps one day become the crystallization point of a group of powers whose ultimate aim is none other than to eliminate the menace to the peace and culture of the world instigated by a satanic apparition." "either europe must achieve solidarity," remarked an italian journal about the same time, "or the 'axis' will impose it." 68 "europe in its entirety," said goebbels, " is adopting a new order and a new orientation under the intellectual leadership of national socialist germany and fascist italy."69 these were symptoms not of a change of heart, but of the fact that germany and italy felt themselves to be approaching the time when they might become strong enough to espouse internationalism. "international order" and "international solidarity" will always be slogans of those who feel strong enough to impose them on others.

the doctrine of the harmony of interests yields readily to analysis in terms of this principle. it is the natural assumption of a prosperous and privileged class, whose members have a dominant voice in the community and are therefore naturally prone to identify its interest with their own. in virtue of this identification, any assailant of the interests of the dominant group is made to incur the odium of assailing the alleged common interest of the whole community, and is told that in making this assault he is attacking his own higher interests. the doctrine of the harmony of interests thus serves as an ingenious moral device invoked, in perfect sincerity, by privileged groups in order to justify and maintain their dominant position. but a further point requires notice. the supremacy within the community of the privileged group may be, and often is, so overwhelming that there is, in fact, a sense in which its interests are those of the community, since its well-being necessarily carries with it some measure of well-being for other members of the community, and its collapse would entail the collapse of the community as a whole. in so far, therefore, as the alleged natural harmony of interests has any reality, it is created by the overwhelming power of the privileged group, and is an excellent illustration of the machiavellian maxim that morality is the product of power. a few examples will make this analysis of the doctrine of the harmony of interests clear.

the crisis of september 1938 demonstrated in a striking way the political implications of the assertion of a common interest in peace. when briand proclaimed that "peace comes before all," or mr. eden that "there is no dispute which cannot be settled by peaceful means,"59 the assumption underlying these platitudes was that, so long as peace was maintained, no changes distasteful to france or great britain could be made in the status quo. in 1938, france and great britain were trapped by the slogans which they themselves had used in the past to discredit the dissatisfied powers, and germany had become sufficiently dominant (as france and great britain had hitherto been) to turn the desire for peace to her own advantage. about this time, a significant change occurred in the attitude of the german and italian dictators. hitler eagerly depicted germany as a bulwark of peace menaced by warmongering democracies. the league of nations, he declared in his reichstag speech of april 28, 1939, is a "stirrer up of trouble," and collective security means "continuous danger of war." mussolini borrowed the british formula about the possibility of settling all international disputes by peaceful means, and declared that "there are not in europe at present problems so big and so active as to justify a war which from a european conflict would naturally become universal."60 such utterances were symptoms that germany and italy were already looking forward to the time when, as dominant powers, they would acquire the vested interest in peace recently enjoyed by great britain and france, and be able to get their way by pillorying the democratic countries as enemies of peace. these developments may have made it easier to appreciate halevy's subtle observation that "propaganda against war is itself a form of war propaganda."61
the same analysis may be applied in international relations. british nineteenth-century statesmen, having discovered that free trade promoted british prosperity, were sincerely convinced that, in doing so, it also promoted the prosperity of the world as a whole. british predominance in world trade was at that time so overwhelming that there was a certain undeniable harmony between british interests and the interests of the world. british prosperity flowed over into other countries, and a british economic collapse would have meant world-wide ruin. british free traders could and did argue that protectionist countries were not only egotistically damaging the prosperity of the world as a whole,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], but were stupidly damaging their own, so that their behavior was both immoral and muddle headed. in british eyes, it was irrefutably proved that international trade was a single whole, and flourished or slumped to ether. nevertheless, this alleged international harmony of interests seemed a mockery to those under-privileged nations whose inferior status and insignificant stake in international trade were consecrated by it. the revolt against it destroyed that overwhelming british preponderance which had provided: a plausible basis for the theory. economically, great britain in the nineteenth century was dominant enough to make a bold bid to impose on the world her own conception of international economic morality. when competition of all against all replaced the domination of the world market by a single power, conceptions of international economic morality necessarily became chaotic.
politically, the alleged community of interest in the maintenance of peace, whose ambiguous character has already been discussed, is capitalized in the same way by a dominant nation or group of nations just as the ruling class in a community prays for domestic peace, which guarantees its own security and predominance, and denounces class-war, which might threaten them, so international peace becomes a special vested interest of predominant powers. in the past, roman and british imperialism were commended to the world in the guise of the pax romana and the pax britannica. today, when no single power is strong enough to dominate the world, and supremacy is vested in a group of nations, slogans like "collective security" and "resistance to aggression" serve the same purpose of proclaiming an identity of interest between the dominant group and the world as a whole in the maintenance of peace. moreover, as in the examples we have just considered, so long as the supremacy of the dominant group is sufficiently great, there is a sense in which this identity of interest exists. "england," wrote a german professor in the nineteen-twenties, "is the solitary power with a national program which, while egotistic through and through, at the same time promises to the world something which the world passionately desires: order, progress and eternal peace."53 when mr. churchill declared that " the fortunes of the british empire and its glory are inseparably interwoven with the fortunes of the world,"54 this statement had precisely the same foundation in fact as the statement that the prosperity of british manufacturers in the nineteenth century was inseparably interwoven with british prosperity as a whole. moreover, the purpose of the statements was precisely the same, namely to establish the principle that the defense of the british empire, or the prosperity of the british manufacturer, was a matter of common interest to the whole community, and that anyone who attacked it was therefore either immoral or muddleheaded. it is a familiar tactic of the privileged to throw moral discredit on the underprivileged by depicting them as disturbers of the peace; and this tactic is as readily applied internationally as within the national community. "international law and order," writes professor toynbee of a recent crisis, "were in the true interests of the whole of mankind... whereas the desire to perpetuate the region of violence in international affairs was an anti-social desire which was not even in the ultimate interests of the citizens of the handful of states that officially professed this benighted and anachronistic creed."55 this is precisely the argument, compounded of platitude and falsehood in about equal parts, which did duty in every strike in the early days of the british and american labor movements. it was common form for employers, supported by the whole capitalist press, to denounce the "anti-social" attitude of trade union leaders, to accuse them of attacking law and order and of introducing "the reign of violence," and to declare that "true" and "ultimate" interests of the workers lay in peaceful cooperation with the employers.56 in the field of social relations, the disingenuous character of this argument has long been recognized. but just as the threat of class-war by the proletarian is "a natural cynical reaction to the sentimental and dishonest efforts of the privileged classes to obscure the conflict of interest between classes by a constant emphasis on the minimum interests which they have in common,"57 so the war-mongering of the dissatisfied powers was the "natural, cynical reaction" to the sentimental and dishonest platitudinising of the satisfied powers on the common interest in peace. when hitler refused to believe "that god has permitted some nations first to acquire a world by force and then to defend this, robbery with moralizing theories,"58 he was merely echoing in another context the marxist denial of a community of interest between "haves" and "have-nots," the marxist exposure of the interested character of "bourgeois morality" and the marxist demand for the expropriation of the expropriators.
it seems unnecessary to accept either of these heroic attempts to cut the knot. the solution is a simple one. theories of social morality are always the product of a dominant group which identifies itself with the community as a whole, and which possesses facilities denied to subordinate groups or individuals for imposing its view of life on the community. theories of international morality are, for the same reason and in virtue of the same process, the product of dominant nations or groups of nations. for the past hundred years, and more especially since 1918, the english-speaking peoples have formed the dominant group in the world; and current theories of international morality have been designed to perpetuate their supremacy and expressed in the idiom peculiar to them. france, retaining something of her eighteenth-century tradition and restored to a position of dominance for a short period after 1918, has played a minor part in the creation of current international morality, mainly through her insistence on the role of law in the moral order. germany, never a dominant power and reduced to helplessness after 1918, has remained for these reasons outside the charmed circle of creators of international morality. both the view that the english-speaking peoples are monopolists of international morality and the view that 'they are consummate international hypocrites may be reduced to the plain fact that the current canons of international virtue have, by a natural and inevitable process, been mainly created by them.

the exposure of the real basis of the professedly abstract principles commonly invoked in international politics is the most damning and most convincing part of the realist indictment of utopianism. the nature of the charge is frequently misunderstood by those who seek to refute it. the charge is not that human beings fail to live up to their principles. it matters little that wilson, who thought that the right was more precious than peace, and briand, who thought that peace came even before justice, and mr. eden, who believed in collective security, failed themselves, or failed to induce their countrymen, to apply these principles consistently. what matters is that these supposedly absolute and universal principles were not principles at all, but the unconscious reflections of national policy based on a particular interpretation of national interest at a particular time. there is a sense in which peace and cooperation between nations or classes or individuals is a common and universal end irrespective of conflicting interests and politics. there is a sense in which a common interest exists in the maintenance of order, whether it be international order or "law and order" within the nation. but as soon as the attempt is made to apply these supposedly abstract principles to a concrete political situation, they are revealed as the transparent disguises of selfish vested interests. the bankruptcy of utopianism resides not in its failure to live up to its principles, but in the exposure of its inability to provide any absolute and disinterested standard for the conduct of international affairs. the utopian, faced by the collapse of standards whose interested character he has failed to penetrate, takes refuge in condemnation of a reality which refuses to conform to these standards. a passage penned by the german historian meinecke after the first world war is the best judgment by anticipation of the role of utopianism in the international politics of the period :

in the nineteenth century, the british manufacturer or merchant, having discovered that laissez-faire promoted his own prosperity, was sincerely convinced that it also promoted british prosperity as a whole. nor was this alleged harmony of interests between himself and the community entirely fictitious. the predominance of the manufacturer and the merchant was so overwhelming that there was a sense in which an identity between their prosperity and british prosperity as a whole could be correctly asserted. from this it was only a short step to argue that a worker on strike, in damaging the prosperity of the british manufacturer, was damaging british prosperity as a whole, and thereby damaging his own, so that he could be plausibly denounced by the predecessors of professor toynbee as immoral and by the predecessors of professor zimmern as muddle-headed. moreover, there was a sense in which this argument was perfectly correct. nevertheless, the doctrine of the harmony of interests and of solidarity between the classes must have seemed a bitter mockery to the under-privileged worker, whose inferior status and insignificant stake in "british prosperity" were consecrated by it; and presently he was strong enough to force the abandonment of laissez-faire and the substitution for it of the "social service state," which implicitly denies the natural harmony of interests and sets out to create a new harmony by artificial means.

it will be observed that utterances of this character proceed almost exclusively from anglo-saxon statesmen and writers. it is true that when a prominent national socialist asserted that "anything that benefits the german people is right, anything that harms the german people is wrong,"52 he was merely propounding the same identification of national interest with universal right which had already been established for english-speaking countries by wilson, professor toynbee, lord cecil and many others. but when the claim is translated into a foreign language, the note seems forced, and the identification unconvincing, even to the peoples concerned. two explanations are commonly given of this curious discrepancy. the first explanation, which is popular in english-speaking countries, is that the policies of the english-speaking nations are in fact more virtuous and disinterested than those of continental states, so that wilson and professor toynbee and lord cecil are, broadly speaking, right when they identify the american and british national interests with the interest of mankind. the second explanation, which is popular in continental countries, is that the english-speaking peoples are past masters in the art of concealing their selfish national interests in the guise of the general good, and that this kind of hypocrisy is a special and characteristic peculiarity of the anglo-saxon mind.

相关的主题文章：

[link widoczny dla zalogowanych]

[link widoczny dla zalogowanych]

[link widoczny dla zalogowanych]