1. THE CAUSES OF WAR.
- Author
-
Ginsberg, Morris
- Subjects
WAR ,IMPERIALISM ,ECONOMIC development ,CAPITALISM ,AGGRESSION (Psychology) - Abstract
This article discusses theories of the nature and causes of war. The socialist view of war regards war as the outcome generally of economic factors and interprets modern wars as a necessary element in a particular stage of economic development, namely, imperialism. Another view, which is held mainly be liberal and free-trade economists, denies that there is any necessary connection between capitalism and war and asserts, on the contrary, that whatever may have been the case in the past, they are now incompatible. One this view, war is an ativism, a survival of tendencies rooted in earlier social conditions and of dynastic conceptions of the state impregnated with the ideas of power and glory. The third view is most clearly represented in psycho-analytic writings. According to this, the fundamental, as distinguished from the precipitating causes of war are to be found in the inherent aggressiveness of human nature and the failure of the repressive mechanisms whereby these aggressive tendencies are normally checked or held in balance. This being so, no changes in political, educational, or economic institutions will go to the root of the trouble, until efforts are made to eliminate the unconscious tensions and to dry up the sources of anxiety and hate.
- Published
- 1939
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