Editorial: Trump triumphs (2024)

Editorial from the December 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

So the ‘isolationist’ section of the ruling class has won control of political power in the United States. This was one of those rare elections under capitalism where the choice was not simply between two different management teams to implement the same basic policy. It was one, as over Brexit here, where there were real policy differences between two sections of the ruling class and where the issue was put to the mainly working class electorate to decide. As in Britain, the dominant section of the ruling class was outvoted.

‘Isolationism’ has been defined as ‘a political philosophy that advocates for a nation to avoid involvement in the affairs of other countries, especially in their wars, and only engaging in wars if attacked’. It has always been a trend in US history, explaining their late intervention in both the last century’s world wars. Since the end of the second of these, which resulted in the US becoming the dominant world power at the expense of Britain and France and their empires, ‘interventionism’ as the ‘world’s policeman’ has been the main feature of US foreign policy.

Will Trump end this? He has made it clear that he is not interested in continuing the war in Ukraine — a European war — but he still sees Iran and China as threats, to US commercial interests, respectively in the middle and far east. So, we can’t expect a complete retreat from the unashamed ‘American imperialism’ favoured by the Democratic Party and until recently by the Republicans too.

‘America First’ will have implications on relations between the capitalist states and trading blocs into which the world is divided. If Trump goes ahead with imposing tariffs on all imports, including from the EU, Japan and Britain, this would unleash a world trade war. If he puts US interests as a fossil-fuel producer ahead of the general world capitalist interest to try to do something about climate change this will hinder the already feeble international measures to deal with it.

What about the working class? Properly defined not just, as in American usage, those without a college degree but all those economically obliged to try to find an employer to get an income. They will remain in this same basic position and will still face the problems that the politicians on both sides promised to solve.

Why, then, did so many vote for him? It will have been, in the words of one of Bill Clinton’s advisers, ‘the economy, stupid’. Workers in the US, as elsewhere, have been experiencing the effects of more rapidly rising prices than in the past few decades and voted against the incumbent government which they mistakenly blamed for this (rather than capitalism). There will also have been the mistaken belief that Trump, as a perceived successful and tough businessman, was a good person to deal with it.

Mistaken they were, but they weren’t one reactionary mass voting for a supposed would-be dictator. They were voting for the price of groceries to come down. They will be disappointed in that Trump won’t be able to make them ‘prosperous again’. No government can make capitalism work for the benefit of the working class.

The Common Market & the Workers (1975)

Party News from the July 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

Speech in Trafalgar Square on 1st June

On one point both sides are agreed in the Referendum debate. They all prophesy Doom and Disaster. The “pros” if we come out — and the “antis” if we stay in. And they are both right!

The Government’s own statement confirms this. “In or out of the Common Market, it will be tough going for Britain over the next few years”, it says. They will not frighten us! The workers will increasingly realize that their fate under capitalism, British or European, is wage-slavery — and that they have nothing to lose but their chains, European or British.

The creation of the so-called European Common Market merely rubber-stamps Government approval on a fait-accompli, an established fact, which normal capitalist development makes inevitable. As soon as the European continent was covered with motorways and sprinkled with airports, the ancient fragmentation of city-states was on the way out. (Lichtenstein is now a tourist curiosity.)

Now an Unholy Alliance has been formed to counter the competition of the Soviets and the Yanks. “One capitalist kills many”, wrote Karl Marx in Capital. This is all the Common Market is about. “The capitalist class cannot exist without incessantly revolutionizing society. It invades every quarter of the globe . . . it deprives industry of its national foundation. The old local isolation is replaced by the interdependence of nations. It ends the fractionization of the means of production. Independents and provinces are consolidated into a single nation with one government, one legal code, one interest and one fiscal frontier.” (Communist Manifesto.)

By an elaborate system of subsidies, import bars and tariffs they are ganging up against the other two giants, although (as in the case of Italian wine in France and French eggs in Britain) they will ignore joint decisions when it suits them. For this they have stacked mountains of beef and butter, lakes of wine and vast stocks of eggs and bricks. It is the 1975 version of the old Free Trade-versus-Protection battle of a century ago, between those who wanted cheap food “for the workers” and those who wanted to keep up prices.

But cheap food means cheap labour. The pathetic TV discussion about the price of a tin of baked beans in various countries is an exposure of the real poverty of the working class in all of them. Still more absurd are the pitiful arguments about “sovereignty”. What “sovereignty” has a poor devil with a twenty-year mortgage round his neck? who can only go to bed by kind permission of a building society — there to lie beating his brains out about “control from Brussels”! Frederick Engels wrote ninety years ago that “the question of Free Trade or Protection moves entirely within the bounds of the present system, and has, therefore, no direct interest for us Socialists who want to abolish it”.

He was careful to add, however, that we are indirectly interested in anything which expands and develops the capitalist system as quickly as possible, hastening the day when its replacement by Socialism becomes inevitable. The Common Market will intensify all those factors which will destroy capitalism. Overproduction, glut, crises, depression — this is the normal course of capitalism, and the creation of a still smaller class of still wealthier capitalists, with the proletarianization of the remaining peasantry of Europe, will speed the growth of the Socialist movement.

For us Socialists the issue is not big capitalism or small, not British trade or European trade, not exploitation by British or European government, but the abolition of capitalism by the establishment of Socialist society. Not a European community which is nothing but a capitalist power-bloc, but the worldwide multi-racial commune of humanity — Socialism.

Horatio

Tit-bits from the Capitalist Stewpot (1941)

From the June 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard 

What Mr. Ford thinks.

“Making his annual visit to his plantation here (in Georgia), Mr. Henry Ford again gave expression to his peculiar view of the war, saying that the United States should supply both sides until they collapsed.

Voicing the ‘sincere hope’ that neither side would win, he declared that the suggestion that Germany might one day attack the United States was ‘pure nonsense—a hoax with the sole purpose of getting us into the war.’

‘There is no righteousness in either cause,’ said Mr. Ford. ‘Both are motivated by the same evil impulse, which is greed’.”—(Daily Telegraph, February 17th, 1941.)

Mr. Ford should know something about capitalist greed, for in times of depression he has been quite unscrupulous in discharging workers or putting them on half-time. And to supply both sides—at a profit—is that not also greed ?

* * *

Rowton Houses make a Dividend.

People who think of Rowton Houses as philanthropic institutions, providing cheap beds for extra-poor workers, may have had a shock on reading in The Times (April i7th, 1941) that for 1940 a net profit of £5,455 was made, permitting a dividend of 4 per cent. This compares unfavourably with the previous year, when a £14,621 profit enabled a 4 per cent, tax free dividend to be declared. Though Rowton Houses have evidently been hit by the war, it is clear that there are still plenty of people who are too poor to be able to afford more luxurious accommodation.

* * *

Business in the Far East.

Despite an all-embracing censorship, company reports are still worth reading, and that of the Hong-kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (The Times, March 26th, 1941) is of particular interest. We quote the following extracts: —

“In view of their bearing on exchange and trade balances, I should here mention the various credits and loans which China has received during the year from foreign sources. Detailed particulars have not been made public, but you must be aware that such loans were made chiefly for political reasons. The published announcement dealing with the most recent of the United States loans showed that the donors were desirous that ‘arrangements for purposes of monetary protection and management’ [the words actually used] should be completed. That is satisfactory so far as it goes, but that is all the information which is at present available.”

“As regards Japan, recent regulations issued there seem to be designed to restrict or to drive foreign banks out of business altogether in the same way as banks in Manchuria have already been restricted and, in some cases, driven out. The position awaits further clarification, but in the meantime we have notified our diplomatic authorities, as their intervention seems to be the only action now possible. I will, therefore, say no more about this, nor will I deal with trade in Japan, since it is now under very comprehensive Governmental control.”

* * *

The “Classical” Doctrine.

Writing from Berlin six months before the start of the war, the French Ambassador, M. Coulondre, is quoted as stating, in a despatch to M. Bonnet, the French Minister for Foreign Affairs: —

“In other words, will the Führer be tempted to return to the idea expressed by the author of ‘Mein Kampf’ which, be it said, is identical with the classic doctrine held by the German General Staff, according to which Germany cannot accomplish her high destiny in the East until France has been crushed and, as a consequence, Britain reduced to impotence on the Continent?—(French Yellow Book, Hutchinson, page 91.)

* * *

A Baron’s Romance.

The Star (March 7th, 1941) reports the interesting case of a wealthy baron who induced a young woman to live with him on the understanding that if she did so, he would further her stage ambitions. She was about 18 at the time, and at first refused, so then the baron lived with a more complaisant lady. The young woman, however, subsequently changed her mind, and the union was a fruitful one. The really interesting point about his case, however, is that the newspaper report refers to it as a “romance.” If an affair on somewhat similar lines had occurred in a lower strata of society, we can imagine that it may well have been described in less rosy terms.

* * *

Paint white—Paint black.

For some reason known only to themselves, Graham and Gillies, the advertising agents, republished in The Times (March 1st, 1941) and other papers an advertisement issued by J. Hatchard, of Piccadilly, in 1805, when Bonaparte, not Hitler, was the enemy. The advertisement takes the form of a supposed dialogue between John Bull and Boney. Space forbids us to quote the advertisement in full, but after implying that John Bull wished to remain at peace and that Bonaparte was an enemy of the liberty of the Press and of religion, the dialogue continued : —

“John Bull: Why have you suffered your soldiers to burn so many towns, shed so much innocent blood, destroy cottages as well as palaces so indiscriminately, murder in cold blood thousands of poor men, and ravish thousands of poor women in Italy, in Egypt, in Syria, and lately in Hanover?

Bonaparte: Foolish again, John. I did not merely suffer it—I encouraged it. My object has always been to strike terror. I don’t mince matters. Witness the deliberate massacre of four thousand Turks at Jaffa, who were my prisoners; and my poisoning several hundred of my own soldiers, who were of no use to me.”

To say the least of this advertisement, it is surely a rather indelicate compliment to General de Gaulle and the “Free French Forces.”

R. M.

Sting in the Tail: Pious words, harsh reality (1996)

The Sting in the Tail column from the May 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

Pious words, harsh reality

The National Poverty Hearing, organised by the ecumenical Church Action On Poverty, was attended by MP’s, business representatives, charities, voluntary organisations and church leaders, including the Archbishop of Canterbury and Cardinal Basil Hume, Archbishop of Westminster.

They all agreed that "something must be done”. Of course, nothing will be done by such pious gatherings. The words of the Archbishop of Canterbury amply illustrates this:

  “I believe in the enterprise society and wealth creation. Without wealth creation you cannot create jobs and if you haven 't got jobs you've got poverty. I believe in a stakeholder society. We must all participate in it" (Herald, 20 March).

The “enterprise” and “stakeholder” society are just weasel words for the capitalist system of society. A system that condemns millions to live in poverty while the Archbishop lives in a palace and is driven to and from such gatherings in a chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce.

Is it any wonder that he “believes” in this system?

That American Dream fades

Pat Buchanan, defeated far-right runner in the race to be Republican candidate in the US presidential election, attracted support from angry American workers by attacking “big capitalism”.

He did this by pointing to such business giants as IBM, AT & T, Boeing, etc., who are drastically “downsizing” their workforces while awarding huge sums to executives for ruthlessly wielding the axe.

Of course, the sackings weren’t down to “corporate greed” as Buchanan made out. They are simply part of the cost cutting necessary' to increase profits in order to keep investors happy and finance the re-investment required to meet ever-increasing competition.

Most American workers have been brought up believing that capitalism would provide them with security and steadily rising incomes. Now, ever-growing numbers of them have seen their jobs vanish or their real incomes fall, and even harder times arc predicted.

The conditions for demagogues like Buchanan have never been more promising.

Engels and Gould

It has become popular in academic circles to dismiss the materialist view of history of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. It is refreshing therefore to read Ever Since Darwin by Stephen Jay Gould.

In discussing Engels’s The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man, Gould praises Engels for “his trenchant political analysis of why Western Science was so hung up on the a priori assertion of cerebral primacy.”

Engels showed how the class divisions in society—firstly in Ancient Greece based on slavery and latterly capitalism based on wage slavery—put the primacy of human progress on the idea rather than the action. To the ruling class would go the praise, to the wealth producers the scorn.

Gould, Professor of Geology' and Zoology at Harvard University, concludes his essay with these words:

  "If we took Engels's message to heart and recognised our belief in the inherent superiority of pure research for what it is—namely social prejudice—then we might forge amongst scientists the union between theory and practice that a world teetering dangerously near the brink so desperately needs."

Good news for some

When the headlines proclaim that some company has sacked thousands of workers it appears that the news is received by universal gloom. Leader writers pontificate about “economic disaster”, opposition politicians claim “something must be done” and priests and ministers of all persuasions wring their hands in despair and preach about the “iniquities of an uncaring society”.

The news is not received in some circles in the same gloomy fashion. Some positively beam with pleasure at the prospect of more workers thrown on the scrap heap. For instance in the Business Section of the Observer (17 March) we read:

  "Downsizing has entered the corporate culture as well as the dictionary and a company’s financial virility is now measured by the Stock Market in terms of its most recent redundancy announcement.
    When Lloyd's Bank merged with TSB last October, analysts predicted up to 20,000 job losses. Its shares leapt almost 5 per cent. That reaction is typical. ”

Communist "liberators"

The buzz these days is that British capitalism must take as its model the dynamic, free-market Asian economies such as Hong Kong.

But how does all this dynamism affect the workers there? According to Lee Cheuk-yan, head of the colony’s Confederation of Trade Unionists:

"Hong Kong has become a prosperous country, but the benefits are not yet being shared with ordinary workers ” (Guardian, 8 March).

Workers have little or no protection against employers who can veto any government proposals which they think would lessen their stranglehold on the labour market.

Surely all this will change when “communist” China takes over in 1997? Lee Cheuk-yan’s view on this is very forthright:

   "Things will be much worse then. The Chinese Communist Party can't wait to get into bed with the big capitalists. "

Irish neutrality — a scrap of paper (1997)

From the May 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sometime this year or next year, the Irish people can expect a constitutional referendum on the issue of neutrality.

The need for a referendum has been sparked by the possibility of the Republic of Ireland either joining the "Partnership for Peace" or some form of common European defence network. The debate has only really commenced and as it can be expected to be rancorous the government is possibly relieved that it will be settled by a popular vote and not a government decision. It follows a recent pattern in Ireland whereby divisive social issues are dealt with by referenda, avoiding the need for politicians to openly commit themselves.

The issue of Europe producing a political controversy is unusual in Ireland where, unlike Britain, there has been no large-scale Euro-scepticism. However the possible dropping of neutrality is perceived to involve an irreversible change in Irish national sovereignty and hence evokes a visceral response from Irish nationalists. To the socialist, the whole question of neutrality exposes a great deal of the stale cant in capitalist politics and confusion within society about the true meaning of "national sovereignty" and the origin of war.

Isolationist Ireland
Irish neutrality has become to many of its supporters a key part of the distinct identity of the modern Republic of Ireland. In fact the successful Sinn Fein independence movement of 1921 was in large part fuelled by opposition to the threat of London extending conscription to Ireland in 1917. The avoidance of Irishmen being sent abroad to fight in foreign wars at the behest of the colonial power was claimed as one of the major advantages stemming from independence.

The identification of neutrality with Irish freedom was further strengthened by the government's policy during World War Two of remaining aloof from the conflict. The country’s non-belligerent status, while not unanimously approved of, was welcomed by a clear majority of the people, eager to avoid the waste of modern war. Memories of the struggle against Britain were too recent to allow Ireland to join the Allies, and apart from a fringe element within the IRA. there was no appetite for collaboration with Nazi Germany.

In World War Two neutrality conveniently coincided with pragmatic politics but a more opportunistic attitude to the principle itself was revealed in 1949. Ireland was approached to join NATO, expressed an interest but in return wanted Britain to end partition and arrange reunification with Northern Ireland. The proposed deal in effect fell through and Ireland passed through the Cold War era as a member of no military alliance. It is true to say that, whatever the original reasons, the passage of time has meant that neutrality is now regarded as an honourable principle of Irish foreign policy by many people. Thus, although not constitutionally enshrined, it is accepted that any significant changes to it would require a referendum.

While the debate is in its early days the opposing sides have started to take shape. Against any change in the current status of neutrality are the nationalist/traditional wing of the Fianna Fail party, an assortment of left wing groups and leftist elements within the Labour Party and Democratic Left, the Greens. Sinn Fein and what can be generally termed as Irish Irelanders holding to the founders’ original ideal of an independent isolationist Irish state. The assorted nature of this nascent coalition can be seen by noting that Fianna Fail, the largest party in Ireland, are currently in opposition while both the Labour Party and Democratic Left form part of the current coalition government. The constituents of such a widely disparate group have obviously differing motives for their position but in the final analysis they all believe in national sovereignty and have a gut suspicion of trans-national institutions. On the pro side of the debate are the modern Irish "establishment", in the loose sense of the word. Euro-enthusiasts and of course the army which anticipates that an expanded rôle for it will deliver more funding and prestige.

Disappointing debate
To date — from a socialist perspective — the debate has been quite disappointing in its content. Those against closer defence co-operation with Europe say weakening Ireland’s neutrality is in effect an inevitable pro-war strategy and they make valid, though in this context somewhat irrelevant points, about the pernicious effects of the European armaments industries in the developing world and the use of nuclear weapons. They also complain loudly about the future possibility of Irish people being conscripted into a European army, seemingly unaware or indifferent to the fact that at the moment Irish workers can be peremptorily conscripted into the Irish army. On the other side those in favour of joining some NATO-based system say maintaining neutrality will leave Ireland isolated and open to the charge of “free-loading" on western security arrangements. They make clearly erroneous counter-arguments that a united European defence network would have averted the protracted debacle in Yugoslavia and will in the future provide "stability" for the continent.

Socialists oppose both camps who promulgate empty and useless platitudes about being opposed to war while seeking futile measures to avoid its occurrence. Unlike these groups, we are able to draw on a long and principled history, backing up our claims of complete opposition to all conflicts between nation states; this is because we recognise that war is an inevitable feature of the market economy no matter how it is configured. Socialists eschew a nationalistic line as we are as much opposed to workers being conscripted into "their" own armies and fighting for "their” countries as being conscripted into and fighting for anybody else’s.

Neither do we have a legalistic or altruistic view of a policy of national neutrality. As shown with Belgium in 1914. Holland in 1940 or Cambodia in 1970,  protestations of neutrality are no protection if a large power decides that strategic military necessity means invasion of a neutral bystander. When the war needs of any power require intervention, which in a class-based society means the needs of the ruling élite, then they will do so.

Irrespective of the wishes of the majority of the world’s people, wars will, inevitably occur as long as our planet is divided into rival economic units and blocs. Debating the pros and cons of neutrality while passively accepting that the world will continue to be segregated into competitive class-based societies is in the long run a futile exercise. A more gainful approach is to recognise that if we can build and live in a world where the causes of armed conflict no longer exist then neutrality debates, along with war. will become part of our curious history.

Kevin Cronin

Material World: Trump – Not Happy with his Lot as World Policeman? (2019)

The Material World column from the February 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

America may have entered upon a new relationship with the rest of the world if we are to believe its president, Donald Trump.

In a speech to American troops in Iraq on Boxing Day he announced a military withdrawal from Syria and declared that the USA would no longer ‘…continue to be the policeman of the world,’ warning that he was committed to withdrawing troops from foreign wars. ‘We’re no longer the suckers, folks.’

Trump’s removal of American soldiers from Syria can be seen as belatedly rectifying the crime of Obama in placing them there in the first place.

The ‘policeman of the world’, a mantle taken over from the British Empire and other colonial powers, is a benign description of being able to deploy armed forces to any spot in the world to protect national interests wherever they are threatened. Trump is not the first president to advocate an isolationist foreign policy and we doubt he will be the last. But saying one thing does not necessarily mean it can be accomplished. Nevertheless, Trump has already cancelled agreements and broken international treaties which he has deemed to be against his ‘America First’ stance. Trump’s policies in the White House certainly show that he is not out of step with many other politicians supporting nationalist, isolationist and protectionist measures. Rarely has there been a US president so maverick, so egocentric and so unconcerned about the suffering and misery of other people as Trump has revealed himself to be.

It should not be thought that his fine rhetoric demonstrates a principled commitment. Trump has not expressed any intention of following up on any ‘peace’ dividend by cutting the military budget. Nor does he intend to stop the lucrative American arms trade. The exercise of might will always be part of his outlook. America, after all, is the caretaker of world capitalism. The concept of American isolationism is a myth and a deception.

A 2007 article in the Socialist Standard in May 2007 drew attention to the argument that an anti-war position was not only the preserve of the liberals and progressives but there was a strong current on the right who opposed foreign military ventures.

  ‘…The logic goes something like this: Free-market capitalism on its own would naturally lead to a world of personal freedom and economic prosperity, but this is thwarted by the power of the state, an organism that grows robustly at times of war. Hence, war must be opposed not only because of its own obvious evils, but as a way to drive back the power of the state which is standing in the way of a better life… The state and the wars it wages may seem a complete waste of taxpayer money to the individual capitalist…’

Against such isolationist views, the transnational corporations and international capitalists (now derided by populists as ‘globalists’) cannot allow narrow national fragmentation to succeed. The belief that isolationism is possible for the United States is an illusion, without any connection to political and economic reality.

Whether they call their wars humanitarian and defensive, waged for democracy and freedom, the true purpose is to control the resources of the world for various sections of the capitalist class. Trump will persist with his fake criticism of unprofitable wars but will maintain Uncle Sam’s military domination because he stands for the retention of capitalism. The thought that the United States can remain ‘isolated’ from any vital conflict is absurd, regardless of the president at its helm.

The Socialist Party attitude to war is that no matter what side prevails, a war still leaves the real problem – capitalism – unsolved and by creating more national hatred, it makes the socialist solution even more difficult than ever to achieve.

‘Isolationism’ in foreign affairs was once seen as a rare phenomenon yet now the ‘isolationist’ sentiment seems to be flourishing. Many working people think the tragedies in other parts of the world are none of their business. Their own problems and issues as workers leave them feeling indifferent, an attitude of ‘isolationism’ harmful to the very people who practise it. The workers of one nation have a common cause and a shared sympathy with the fellow-workers of every other country.

If you are neutral in such situations, ‘you have chosen the side of the oppressor’ as Archbishop Desmond Tutu once put it.

ALJO

The Anti-War Right (2007)

From the May 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

The US anarcho-capitalist Libertarians are wrong to think that capitalism could exist without a state or that its competitive struggle for profits does not lead to wars.

The anti-war movement in the United States may be underwhelming at the moment, but clearly anti-war sentiment today, four years after Bush declared the mission accomplished, is very strong. This does not mean that everyone in the US who opposes the war in Iraq (and/or Afghanistan) does so for the same reason, or that they share the same political outlook.

It is true that the bulk of anti-war activists view themselves as belonging to the "Left," as that hard-to-pin-down political place is known. And there is a tendency to view the Pro-war vs. Anti-war dynamic as closely reflecting the Right-Left divide. The leaders of the Democratic Party certainly benefited from this perception in the recent election, despite their history of issuing Bush one blank cheque after another to wage his wars.

It turns out, though, that a growing number of "rank-and-file" Republicans are taking an anti-war stance. Indeed, the recent electoral success of the Democrats reflects the growing disgust of that creature known as the "moderate Republican" with Bush's foreign policy. In many cases, these are people who thought invading Iraq was a swell idea back in early 2002. Their newfound opposition to the war is not based so much on the mountainous death toll or destruction of that country, as the obvious fact the war is unwinnable.

It would be a gross caricature, however, to imply that anti-war sentiment on the Right is limited to these unprincipled Republican "flip-floppers" who wisely turned their backs on the "dead-enders" sticking with Cheney and Co. There are more than a few on the Right who have opposed the war from the outset, for principled reasons.

Take the Libertarians, for example. Or I should say, some Libertarians, as they are split into pro- and anti-war camps. The former, sometimes called "pseudo-Libertarians" by the anti-war camp, essentially seem to be individuals who don't mind the world going up in flames as long as their taxes remain low.

Some of the most informed and spirited anti-war Libertarians can be found at the website antiwar.com, including its leading light, Justin Raimondo. The website was created back in 1995, and at the time may have seemed a Republican effort to score points on the Clinton administration (because Libertarians have burrowed deep inside that Party like Trots cuddling up inside the Labour Party). Pro-war liberals in particular labelled this anti-war viewpoint "isolationism" to suggest a fascistic or anti-Semitic quality, as this was the term applied to the "old Right" that opposed entry into World War II. The preferred term among the Libertarians themselves is "non-interventionist," and they largely supported Bush in the 2000 election based on his pledge to not get involved in "nation-building." When Bush soon showed his true colours, and the bulk of the "anti-war" Republican flocked to his crusade, these Libertarians, to their credit, stuck to their principles.

Capitalism: antithesis of war?
So what are the principles of the Libertarians that allowed them to hold their ground in the face of the war-hysteria on the Right at the time?

Setting aside the strong sense of moral outrage that they share with any sensible person witnessing the atrocities in Iraq, Libertarians have opposed the war there and elsewhere because of a general opposition to expanded state power, which they view war as facilitating. The mission statement on antiwar.com notes that the Libertarian "opposition to war is rooted in Randolph Bourne's concept that War is the health of the State," and emphasizes that, "With every war, America has made a 'great leap' into statism."

The opposition to the state might sound pretty good to your average anarchist or socialist, but the Libertarian anti-state position is based on a blind faith in the free market. They argue that the benevolent forces of the market economy are curbed by the centralised power of the state, which results in a curtailment of individual liberty.

The logic goes something like this: Free-market capitalism on its own would naturally lead to a world of personal freedom and economic prosperity, but this is thwarted by the power of the state, an organism that grows robustly at times of war. Hence, war must be opposed not only because of its own obvious evils, but as a way to drive back the power of the state which is standing in the way of a better life.

For Libertarians, moreover, capitalism is an inherently peaceful system. They ridicule the idea that there is a connection between the nature of capitalism and the wars that constantly break out under it. Raimondo, for instance, goes so far as assert that, "capitalism—free markets—is the antithesis of war" (28 October 2002 column). The Libertarian economist Walter Block, for his part, describes the essentially peaceful Libertarian (free-market) principles that should govern capitalism:

"The non-aggression axiom is the lynchpin of the philosophy of Libertarianism. It states, simply, that it shall be legal for anyone to do anything he wants, provided only that he not initiate (or threaten) violence against the person or legitimately owned property of another. That is, in the free society, one has the right to manufacture, buy or sell any good or service at any mutually agreeable terms. Thus, there would be no victimless crime prohibitions, price controls, government regulation of the economy, etc." ("The Non-Aggression Axiom of Libertarianism")

This Libertarian view of the benevolent nature of a market economy (= capitalism) is a selective one, to say the least. Their focus is on exchange, as a mutually beneficial act. This is a real "win-win" situation, where I give you my widget and get your gadget in return. What is left out, however, are some of the strikingly war-like aspects of a capitalist economy, starting first and foremost with the cut-throat competition that goes on in the pursuit of profit. Nor do they dwell on the class divisions inherent to such a system and the conflict that that results.

In the Libertarian's mind, capitalism is—or should be—a world made up of enterprising capitalists, minding their own business(es) and interacting peacefully, without any need for the state to intervene in these affairs or for wars to be waged overseas. Here we are basically dealing with the viewpoint of the individual capitalist, particularly the small-scale one, who experiences the state as an unpleasant institution that appropriates his hard-earned wealth through taxation, sometimes to pay for wars that bring him no direct benefit. Remove this alien force, he reasons, and life would immediately be much rosier.

The "liberty" that Libertarians wax so philosophical about is the freedom of this economic actor to chase after his profit in peace; never minding the fact that his own profits are squeezed out of workers, thus depriving them of their own personal liberty!

The wider view
The state and the wars it wages may seem a complete waste of taxpayer money to the individual capitalist (and to the Libertarian who translates his myopic viewpoint into a grand philosophy), but things look a bit different if we consider the capitalist class as a whole.

Like any ruling class throughout history, the minority capitalist class needs the state, as an apparatus of coercion, to maintain its grip on power. And in addition to this age-old function of the state, a capitalist state is also necessary as a means of coordinating the diverse interests of individual capitalists in order to represent their collective interests as capitalists. The example of Enron alone shows how deregulation may benefit a tiny stratum of capitalists at the expense of their bourgeois brethren who have to purchase exorbitant or shoddy products. (This does not mean, however, that state intervention and regulation can turn capitalism into socialism, as Libertarians fear and leftists hope.) Given this twin-necessity for the state - as policeman and mediating judge - the more far-sighted or financially comfortable capitalists view the taxes directed to the state apparatus as money well spent.

Libertarians, in short, loathe the state without understanding why it must exist and play certain roles under their cherished capitalist system. And the same shallowness characterizes their view of war, which is fervently opposed without an understanding of its root causes.

Capitalism, as already noted, generates its own war-like behaviour at home, where capitalists will go to any lengths to vanquish the enemy (= competitors). We may find this selfish behaviour deplorable from the standpoint of human decency, but it does have its own necessity. And there is a similar capitalist logic at play when nation-states jostle and throttle each other for access to markets and resources, despite such behaviour being the height of idiocy from the perspective of humanity as a whole.

That does not mean, of course, that every war goes as planned, achieving the greedy goals intended. Just as the best-laid plans of a company to win out in competition may fail, military adventures have been known to backfire perfectly (just look at Iraq!). Still, regardless of whether or not goals are met, the ultimate impetus for conflict between nations can be found in the unceasing competition over raw materials, access to markets, and the like, which itself is the direct outgrowth of that insatiable thirst for profit among the capitalists within a given nation. Even if a conflict is directly triggered (or at times averted) for this or that specific reason, war itself is inevitable under the capitalist system of production for profit, as the experience of the past decades alone amply demonstrates.

A world without war
An anti-war Libertarian reading this criticism might say: "Our free-market principles are really beside the point; the important thing is to end the war now!" Libertarians at antiwar.com and elsewhere are calling for a political realignment through a Left-Right "united front" to end the war. They are more than willing to join hands with leftists (who they mistake for socialists) over the single issue of ending the war immediately. And there is every chance that such an alliance can succeed, because bringing the disastrous war in Iraq to an end has become an urgent necessity for the capitalist class itself - although it still dreams of salvaging some benefit from the fiasco.

Meanwhile, the "Far-left" is happy to hide its own "socialist" principles from view in order to build a broad anti-war coalition (which is just as well considering the state-capitalist content of those principles). Looking at the political landscape, it is hard not to have a sense of deja vu, as it resembles the situation in the late sixties and early seventies when those who pointed out the need to do more than just end a single war - and who called for "Socialism now!" - were branded "sectarians" and given a moral browbeating for distracting attention from the immediate task at hand.

But recall what happened after the Vietnam War. The US was gun-shy for a couple of years, sure, but less than a decade later Reagan was revving up the war machine again. Since then we have seen conflicts on an ever-escalating scale, culminating (so far) with the horrifying carnage in the Middle East. The reason is not simply the malevolence of US leaders or an insufficiently powerful anti-war movement, but that the competitive economic system that triggers the war-impulse remains firmly in place. This system was not overcome in the Vietnam War era, when socialists were written off as unrealistic dreamers, and today the people of the Middle East are paying a heavy price.

End war in Iraq? Yes, right away! But let's not - once again - forget about the victims of future wars. They can only be saved by all of us deciding to rip out the weed of capitalism (which Libertarians mistake for a precious flower yet to bloom) by the roots. The hard truth of the matter, but also a source of hope, is that we will be stuck with the tragedy of war until we manage to move beyond capitalism, to a society where things are produced to meet human needs, not as a means to the profit-making end. In such a society, which is cooperative rather than competitive, there is no longer any basis for war, as the divisions and conflict between classes and nations will have dissolved along with the very existence of those categories.

If Libertarians are serious about liberty, and truly want to live under a state-less system where peace (not just the temporary absence of war) reigns, then they need to consider ending their silly love affair with capitalism, whose invisible hand has been slapping all of us around and pushing us to slap and to slay each other.

Michael Schauerte