CAPITALIST ASSOCIATIONS ON THE WAR (original) (raw)

Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik (Edgar Jaffé) (Vol. 41, No. 1), 1915, September.

N.B. Pp. 296-97—“Employer Organisations on
the War”.

“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”.

finds its most salient expression also in the
contrasting way the war is reflected in their
ideologies. But the contrast is of a manifold

nature. The socialists of the opportunist, revi-
sionist 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, followed con-
sistently, 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 imperial-

ist (at any rate, with reservations), negates
this development—it demands intensification
of the class struggle as a consequence of the
war and emphasis on the proletarian stand-

point, 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. They seek salvation
in the “civilisation meaning” of the war, an inter-
pretation that does not hold any class respon-

well
said!

sible for the war, and does not accuse any class

of especially benefiting from it. A grotesque
picture: while the governments everywhere
uphold the imperialist theory or, at least” (how

how
nice!
[gem!]

nice!!) “contend that for the other side the

economic interest is decisive, the chief repre-
sentatives 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 pres-
ent 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: