Socialist Outlook : SO/01 - Autumn 2003

Theory and history

Capitalism means War

Dave Packer

David Packer explains the nature of war and the new imperialism at the beginning of the twenty-first century, its underlying imperatives, the horrors of ‘total war’ and the targeting of civilians and economic infrastructures.

This article looks at the specific nature of capitalism’s way of war, its origins and briefly compares it with other social systems. The invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq are just the beginning of a new aggressive, militarist phase of imperialism, which can only be halted by the mobilised resistance of the peoples of the world, in particular the working classes in the imperialist centres themselves.

The twentieth century was the bloodiest century in human history, easily exceeding the previous record, held by the nineteenth century, which began most notably with the Napoleonic wars. During these two centuries, the capitalist world was marked by the rise of competing imperialisms, at first in Europe but soon joined by the USA and Japan. Between 1876 and 1914 European powers annexed approximately eleven million square miles of territory, mainly in Asia and Africa. By the twentieth century, inter-imperialist competition for colonies and markets was to drag nearly the entire world into two devastating world wars, with over one hundred and sixty additional wars since the end of World War Two.

For the first time war was perceived as ‘total war’ - war by any means necessary. It would range across the whole world and included saturation bombings and mass murder of civilians. The First World War resulted in huge casualties in the trenches, far exceeding the Napoleonic Wars, with ordinary working class soldiers cynically used as cannon fodder. Ten million were killed with millions more wounded and maimed. However, with the bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War by the Nazis, a new chapter in the development of weapons of mass destruction was opened. This atrocity was followed by the blitz on London, and even more devastatingly, the appalling bombing and firestorm destruction of life and property in Hamburg, Berlin, Dresden and Tokyo. It was a strategy that culminated in the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki while Japan was attempting to surrender. These saturation bombings were not directed against military or even economic targets, but were calculated acts of terror aimed at the civilian populations. Of the tens of thousands killed during one night in Hamburg, the overwhelming majority of the dead were non-combatant women, children and the old. This, and other similar war crimes, was the action of British Bomber Command led by ‘Bomber’ Harris and endorsed by Churchill.

To these crimes can be added the greatest crime of the century, the mass genocide of the Jews by the Nazis. In all, fifty million people died as a result of the Second World War, while in the numerous wars since 1945, it is estimated that another twenty-five million people have been killed. It has also been estimated that civilians account for approximately 75% of all war deaths in this century. ‘Total war’ has exceeded the destruction levels and loss of life of all the previous wars in history taken together.

With the emergence of the United States as the victor and the overwhelmingly dominant world imperialist power, after the defeat of Nazi Germany and Japan, ‘total war’ continues to achieve similar levels of horror, if on a smaller scale (so far). In the Vietnam War, American imperialism did not hesitate to massacre civilians with cluster bombs and saturation bombings, or destroy the countryside and its agriculture with napalm and deadly chemicals defoliant such as Agent Orange. The devastating effects of which can still be seen in Vietnam today in both agriculture and in the continuing health problems of its people. Despite the old propaganda about defending the free world, first against Communism, and now against terrorists, while seeking out only military targets with smart bombs, the devastation in Iraq and Afghanistan tells another story.

The first Gulf War, also witnessed atrocities, 20,000 Iraqi solders retreating on the Basra Road – in disarray and unable to defend themselves - were massacred almost down to the last man with napalm bombs. Mile after mile of burnt out vehicles with the remains of incinerated human beings in contorted postures were found, the images too horrifying to be reported in the western media, but fortunately the evidence for this war crime was documented and independently published by some BBC camera crews. The murderous US pilots cynically called the Basra Road massacre a ‘turkey-shoot’.

Globalisation and Militarism

Behind ‘globalisation’ lies increased militarisation. Today during the Iraq war, the US military budget has reached 3.8% of GNP. In the year 2000, the USA already spent almost double the combined spending of the next five most heavily armed nations. There is no doubt a military as well as political/economic offensive is underway, designed to re-impose and strengthen American global hegemony.

As others have argued in more detail in this journal, the renewed imperialist offensive in the twenty-first century, has been vigorously promoted by the neo-conservatives at the centre of the Bush administration. They have succeeded in engineering a shift in American public opinion, with the help of the tragedy of 9/11, to accept (at least provisionally), the consequences of a new military drive to defend the ‘free world’ and ‘American values’. This neo-conservative cabal has links, like Bush himself, to big oil and the military industrial complex, and is in pursuit of traditional imperialist goals.

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have, despite the propaganda, resulted in large numbers of civilian casualties and the destruction of infrastructure (for example, the water and sewage systems), which inevitably leads to even higher death tolls, especially among children – already a hidden catastrophe due to the previous United Nations sanctions. Despite this, the priorities of the main occupying military powers, the USA and Great Britain are clear: pumping oil comes first over pumping water or sewage.

When General William Nash called the occupation of Iraq a quagmire, he was referring to the growing popular national resistance against the US and British occupation and control. This will ebb and flow, but the quagmire will not go away. We must call for the immediate withdrawal of imperialist troops and for the self-determination of Iraq.

Faced with the spectre of escalating war in the twenty-first century, many will ask, ‘How can peace be achieved in our world?’ Is it the case, as some pessimists may suggest, ‘war is inevitable in human society?’ Socialists will argue in reply that war is not inevitable, but is an intrinsic part of class society, and in particular capitalism and imperialism, so to end war we must change the nature of our society.

But why does capitalism mean war? Historically, during the rise of capitalism as an economic and social system, or mode of production, within the body of European feudalism, the new productive forces came up against constraints or fetters on its development. Emergent capitalism confronted a system based on personal and economic dependency, which bound men to their ‘natural superiors’, privilege based on blood ties, production monopolised by closed guilds, and local narrow mindedness. It was essential to break down these limitations. During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the late feudal states in Europe, threatened from within by the new economic and social forces were transformed into absolutist feudal states. These promoted many wars and hybrid mercantile empires, most notably, the empires of Spain and Portugal. But in Holland and England during the seventeenth century, where the most developed and modern form of capitalist social relations existed, the capitalist class found its own direct political expression, albeit at first taking the form of a religious ideology. Puritanism, overthrew absolutist states by revolutionary force, for example, in England, under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell, and established independent forms of bourgeois class rule. Capitalism in its early stages of development became the liberator not only of capital, commodities and markets, but also of peoples and nations. However, one should remember that British and Dutch capitalism were, from an early date, heavily involved in the slave trade, while Oliver Cromwell brutally oppressed the Irish.

Imperialism

With the doors open for the development of industrialisation and finance capital in the nineteenth century, we reach the imperialist stage of capitalist development, at least among the earliest and most developed capitalist states. Lenin described imperialism as the ‘highest stage of capitalist development’. Capitalism was now transformed: it had become the great oppressor and exploiter of nations. In order to survive, for it had outgrown the nation state, it now required secure colonies, neo-colonies and markets, while promoting monopolies, privilege, and all kinds of racial, gender and national oppressions.

The competition between capitals inherent within the capitalist system forced it to continually revolutionise and expand the means of production, which eventually led to a scramble across the world for colonies, markets and empires, like the British Empire, or its main competitor empires of France and latecomer Germany. Inter-imperialist competition eventually progressed beyond the numerous colonial wars of conquest, to armed conflict between the ‘great’ nations themselves. However, this now took the form of a struggle for world hegemony. Here lay the origins of the two World Wars of the twentieth century. Capitalism, at first by establishing direct colonial rule and later through economically dominated neo-colonies, was now transformed from a progressive to a reactionary imperialist force in the world. As Ernest Mandel writes in his book on the Second World War:

The imperialist conquest of the world is not only, or even mainly, a drive to occupy huge territories . . . The motor force of the Second World War was the need to dominate the economy of whole continents through capitalist investment, preferential trade agreements, currency regulations and political hegemony. The aim of the war was the subordination not only of the less developed world, but also of other industrial states, whether enemies or allies, to one hegemonic power’s priorities of capital accumulation. (1)

Capitalism means war because it is driven, in the last analysis, by economic forces, which require ever-expanding markets and opportunities for investments. It does this within the framework of competition between capitals which, after World War Two, resulted in the world hegemony of US imperialism. This hegemonic drive is in the nature of every imperialism: ‘There is not the slightest proof of any limitation on the war aims of Japan, Germany or the USA,’ writes Mandel of the Second World War. ‘Very early on the Tanaka memorandum established that for the Japanese army, the conquest of China was only a stepping stone to the conquest of world hegemony, which could be achieved after crushing US resistance.’ (2)

Again, pessimists might question this, arguing that it is not just the capitalist system that constantly generates war and militarism - war has always existed, for example, the Hundred Years War in medieval Europe, or ancient Rome’s numerous wars of conquest.

Marxists, however, would argue that,

War . . . is a social and historical phenomenon which arises, develops, changes its forms and must eventually disappear. For this reason alone we cannot have eternal laws. . . in all wars, during all times and among all peoples there have obtained certain common, relatively stable (but by no means absolute) traits. Based on these traits there has developed historically a military art. Its methods and usages undergo change together with the social conditions which determine it (technology, class structure, forms of state power). (3)

In other words the specific form taken by war is socially and historically determined. For example, the causes of war in ancient Greek and Roman society, although their objectives changed over time, were quite different to the modern drive to war. The Marxist ancient historian G.D.M. de Ste. Croix rejected commercial causes for war in early Greece: ‘Quarrels about ownership of land, especially border land between two states, were the principal causes of war between Greek states and were universally recognised as such.’ (4)

The Roman Empire has been described as a system of robbery with violence. Wealth and economic advantage was clearly an objective – as it is in any highly differentiated class society - they occupied and stole land, booty, moveable wealth, like precious metals and slaves (‘ready made labour’- according to Marx, a form of fixed capital). However, war was not driven by economic imperatives as it is under capitalism. For the Roman ruling classes, war primarily brought fame, prestige and honour. The acquisition of wealth in land was an important aspect of war, but money was mostly required for patronage (and bribery) and conspicuous consumption, both of which added to the big man’s prestige. It had little to do with obtaining secure markets, or possibilities for productive investment. Rather it was about their ability to compete successfully with other ruling class families. It is significant that the Greek term from which our word ‘economics’ is derived, meant only household management – they had no conception of modern political economy. In so far as economic interests were a factor in war they were different from capitalism, for example, the need for more land because wealth was mainly measured by land-holdings, but also because of demographic pressures.

The capitalist mode of production in contrast has little to do with family prestige, honour, or patronage. This is often considered elitist or corrupt; while conspicuous consumption, particularly during the rise of capitalism, was considered profligate, degenerate and aristocratic. This is not to say that these do not exist, particularly in the decayed late capitalism under which we live, but they are not a major driving force of the system, which is a competitive drive for profits, or surplus value and the accumulation of capital. Wealth is not primarily measured in land and rent, but in industrial and commercial capital, while money wealth is sensibly managed and productively invested. This activity constantly revolutionises the forces and means of production, distribution and exchange, producing an inner logic, which ultimately drives capitalist states to war politics (and economics) by other means. Even in ‘peacetime’ they wage brutal surrogate wars, training foreign military forces, both regular and irregular, supplying money, arms, munitions and CIA operatives. These efforts are mainly directed against ‘rogue’ (uncooperative) countries, or workers and poor peasants who refuse to accept the dictates of imperialism or its cronies whom they keep in power.

‘In the final analysis’ Mandel argues, ‘imperialist expansion (and therefore war) expresses an insatiable thirst for surplus value, its production and realisation – the snowball dynamic of capital accumulation.’ Further we can make a judgement on modern imperialism, ‘as a specific form of capitalism generated by the fundamental contradiction between the internationalisation and socialisation of the productive process, on the one hand, and its continued organisation by private and national interests, on the other.’ (5)

New Imperialism

The emergence of modern capitalism shows that the forces of production have outgrown both private property and the nation state. Both are now reactionary and artificially maintained by the exploitation of neo-colonies and the development of an imperialist globalisation at the heart of which is the US hegemony.

Humanity must either strike out towards socialism, or for years ahead, witness escalating armed conflict and atrocities. The USA in various guises has embarked on wars in the Balkans, the Gulf War, and recently the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Political and economic conflicts are increasingly military conflicts – war is politics and economics by other means. This is matched by big increases in arms expenditure.

In the twenty-first century, the new imperialism will not stop at war with Iraq. Already Syria, Iran and North Korea are in US imperialism’s vision, if not in the short term, while Pentagon strategists ponder the threats posed to US global hegemony from the demographic, economic and eventually, military challenge of China, set to overtake the USA in every field, long before the century is out. It is doubtful if the USA will allow its dominance to be challenged. More wars will follow, along with the inevitable war crimes, including the possible use of ‘tactical’ nuclear weapons, if the working class and its allies among the middle classes and small farmers, allow it to happen. This is why we must build powerful anti-war movements, especially in the main imperialist heartlands. It is also the best support we can give to those fighting against imperialist oppression and for national liberation.

NOTES

1 Ernest Mandel,1986, The Meaning of the Second World War, Verso, p.15.

2 Mandel, 1986, p 15

3 Leon Trotsky,1969, Military Writings, Merit Publishers, New York, p. 38.

4 G.D.M. de Sainte-Croix,1981, The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World, Duckworth, pp. 219-220.

5 Mandel, 1986, p.20.

Dave Packer is a longstanding member of the Trotskyist movement in Britain. Packer has held a number of leadership roles in the International Socialist Group and the Fourth International. Dave is a former editor of Socialist Outlook.

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