War No More: Eliminating Conflict in the Nuclear Age by Robert Hinde and Joseph Rotblat: Pluto Press £10.99.
World military expenditure for the year was estimated in 1999 at $850 billion, the kind of figure that just boggles the mind. Hardly anyone will disagree with what this book says about the evils and waste of war and the need to get rid of it. Unfortunately, while the authors' hearts are in the right place, not much of their thinking is.
Any movement to do away with war must begin by examining the causes of war, so Hinde and Rotblat ask what makes wars happen. It is not human nature, they say: people are not naturally aggressive, and rather than aggressiveness causing war, it is warfare that makes people behave aggressively. Instead, they argue, there is no single cause of war, for wars occur when multiple factors come together. They accept that competition over resources is one possible contributing factor, and they discuss oil and other raw materials. Water, in particular, is likely to be an increasing cause of contention, e.g. in Southern Africa, though there has been no 'Water War' as yet.
It is argued that capitalism does not need war, but the emphasis on multiple causes of war is really a cop-out. This is because it downplays the ways that capitalist states need—not war itself exactly—but control over resources and the denial of such control to their rivals, and will be prepared to go to war if other avenues to achieve their aims fail. The part played by capitalist rivalry in causing war is not given sufficient attention. Instead it is suggested that “the maintenance of stability over the whole world is in the interests of businesses everywhere”. This is at best a half-truth, though, as the stability found in the status quo may be very much against the interests of some groups of capitalists.
Hinde and Rotblat then look at how to eliminate war, proposing a number of ideas. For instance, nationalist ideas (i.e. denigrating other countries and cultures) should not be tolerated, while patriotism (pride in one's own culture) is fine. More interestingly, they advocate “a loyalty to humanity”, but have little beyond pious notions to offer as to how it can be brought about. They conclude by emphasising the need for “an equitable global community, to which we all belong as world citizens”. This might not be a bad way of describing Socialism, but that clearly isn't what they have in mind. What they want instead is a nicer kind of capitalism, with the worst poverty removed, the role of the United Nations enhanced, and no national military forces, which is just a utopian vision. As a way of eliminating conflict, this is a non-starter.
The Ideas of Karl Marx: A beginner's guide. By Aindrias O'Cathasaigh. Irish Socialist Network. €2.
This is the text of a talk given by the author to a meeting of an Irish reformist organisation who has published it as a short pamphlet. Naturally, in 16 pages Marx's views can only be expressed in very succinct form. The parts concerning history and economics are basically OK,.
But it is the part on Marx's political position that is confused. Marx argued that, to free themselves from capitalist exploitation, workers needed to win control of political power and that to do this they needed to organise into a political party; and that what socialists should be doing is everything they could to encourage the emergence of such a class political party.
In an understandable reaction against vanguardism—not that Marx had a vanguardist conception of the socialist party (he saw it rather as a mass democratic political movement)—O'Cathasaigh and the Irish Socialist Network recoil from the idea of a “party” and even from advocating socialism directly. This they see as socialists trying to impose their views on the working class; they favour going along with the day-to-day struggles of non-socialist-minded workers in the hope that these will somehow spontaneously evolve into a struggle for socialism.
Marx, who never hid his socialist light under a bushel, would have been appalled. Such timidity and drifting with the current will not advance the cause of socialism. It leads straight into the bog of reformism.
Oxford University Press have just republished in their “World Classics” series a new edition of Morris's News from Nowhere, with an introduction and notes by David Leopold (both of which are accurate and useful). Selling at £6.99, it is the cheapest edition currently available of this socialist classic. The ISBN is 0-19-280177-5.
