The World in Chains

冔
The World in Chains, by John Mavrogordato

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The World in Chains, by John Mavrogordato This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: The World in Chains Some Aspects of War and Trade
Author: John Mavrogordato
Release Date: January 24, 2007 [EBook #20435]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORLD IN CHAINS ***

Produced by Irma ?pehar, Janet Blenkinship and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)

THE WORLD IN CHAINS
* * * * *
But should we stay to speak, noontide would come, And thwart Silenus find his goats undrawn, And grudge to sing those wise and lovely songs Of Fate, and Chance, and God, and Chaos old, And Love, and the Chained Titan's woeful doom, And how he shall be loosed, and make the earth One brotherhood....
* * * * *
THE WORLD IN CHAINS
SOME ASPECTS OF WAR AND TRADE
BY JOHN MAVROGORDATO M.A.
LONDON: MARTIN SECKER NUMBER FIVE JOHN STREET ADELPHI

First Published 1917
* * * * *
IN MEMORIAM AMICORUM R. F. C. GELDERD SOMERVELL IVAR CAMPBELL: T. R. A. H. NOYES: J. W. BAILEY QVI ANTE DIEM PERIERVNT
* * * * *
Note
There may be some exaggeration in this book. I firmly believe that England and her Allies entered this War with the noblest intentions. If I have done less than justice to these, it is because my chief purpose in this essay has been to express my equally firm belief that all these fine emotions have been and are being exploited by the basest forms of Imperialism and Capitalism.
J. M.
January 1st, 1917.

Contents
CHAPTER I
THE MASSACRE OF COLLEAGUES, 3
THE WIDENING SPHERE OF MORALITY, 4
THE RECEDING GOD, 6
THE PHILOSOPHER LOOKS AT SOCIETY, 8
HOMO HOMINI LUPUS, 8
TRIBE AGAINST TRIBE, 10
THE CITY STATE, 12
THE NATIONS OF EUROPE "FERAE NATURAE," 14
THE CONVENIENCE OF DIPLOMACY, 15
A NOTE ON DEMOCRACY, 18
DIPLOMACY NOT BAD IN ITSELF, 19
MANNERS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR MORALS, 21
WAR A MORAL ANACHRONISM, 21
CHAPTER II
THE ARMAMENT RING, 27
EUGENICS? 29
PATRIOTISM, 31
THE MORAL TEST, 36
TRADE, 39
TRADE IN TIME OF PEACE, 42
DUTIES OF COMMERCE TO THE STATE, 44
RESTRICTED SPHERE OF GOVERNMENT CORRESPONDING TO RESTRICTED SPHERE OF MORALITY, 51
CHAPTER III
TRADE DURING THE WAR, 57
TRADE LIVES ON INCREASING DEMAND, 65
WAR A FORM OF DESTRUCTION, 66
WAR STANDS TO BENEFIT NEUTRAL AS WELL AS BELLIGERENT NATIONS BUT NOT TO THE SAME EXTENT, 69
THE GREATER THE CAPITAL, THE GREATER THE WAR PROFIT, 71
THE BLESSINGS OF INVASION, 72
THE LUXURY TRADES DON'T DO SO BADLY, 74
TRADE PROFITS IN WAR NOT SHARED BY THE NATION BUT CONFINED TO EMPLOYERS, 77
TRADE PROFIT AND NATIONAL LOSS, 82
APPENDIX: SOME TYPICAL WAR PROFITS, 125
CHAPTER IV
DIALECTICS ROUND THE DEATH-BED, 89
GERMAN RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE WAR, 90
THE VALUE OF GERMAN CULTURE, 95
THE MANUFACTURE OF HATRED, 102
IMPERIALISM THE ENEMY, 107
POSSIBLE OBJECTS OF WAR, 112
PHYSICAL FORCE IN A MORAL WORLD, 118
IMPERIALISM AND CAPITALISM THROUGH WAR AND TRADE THE ENEMIES: SOCIALISM TO THE RESCUE, 122
* * * * *
CHAPTER I
[Greek: m?ros de thnêt?n ostis ekporth?n poleis naous de tumbous th, iera t?n kekmêkt?n, erêmiadous autos ?leth usteron.]
Euripides: Tro. 95.

§1
The Massacre of Colleagues
The existence of war in the modern world is primarily a question for the moral philosopher. It may be of interest to the anthropologist to consider war as a gallant survival with an impressive ritual and a code of honour curiously detached from the social environment, like the Hindu suttee; or with a procedure euphemistically disguised, like some chthonic liturgy of ancient Athens. But it is a problem too broad for the anthropologist when we consider that we have reached a stage of civilisation which regards murder as the most detestable of crimes and deprives the murderer of all civil rights and often even of the natural right to live: while in the same community the organised massacre of our colleagues in civilisation is not only tolerated but assumed to be necessary by the principal expositors of law and religion, is the scientific occupation of the most honoured profession in the State, and constitutes the real sanction of all international intercourse.
§2
The Widening Sphere of Morality
The existence of war stimulates the astonished watcher in the tower of ivory to examine the development, if any, of human morality; and to formulate some law of the process whereby political man has been differentiated from the savage.
Morality being a relation between two or more contracting parties, he will notice that the history of mankind is marked by a consistent tendency to extend this relation, to include in the system of relationships more numerous and more distant objects, so that the moral agent is surrounded by a continually widening sphere of obligations.
This system of relationship, which may be called