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THORSTEIN VEBLEN AND HENRY GEORGE ON WAR, CONFLICT, AND THE MILITARY: AN
INSTITUTIONALIST CONNECTION
War is continuation of political commercial policy by other means - Karl
von Clausewitz, 1832
Unlike most of their contemporaries, Henry George and Thorstein Veblen
perceived the nature of war to be central to the study of economics. The
two heterodox thinkers investigated the warlike animus almost a half
century before the Cold War and the subsequent arms buildup that
characterizes the post-World War II era.
Their ability to distinguish between the latent and manifest functions
of war remains as penetrating today as it was at the end of the
nineteenth century (when George was writing) and in the early part of
the twentieth century (when Veblen published most of his work).
The analysis of war remains only a minor part of mainstream economics
despite the permanent institutional framework known as the
military-industrial complex. Ergo, the dichotomies of George and Veblen
provide valuable insights as they examine the latent uses of patriotism
and religion as tools to perpetrate war and violence. Their evolutionary
approach exposes the nexus among the military effort, religion, and
nation to reveal the coercive power of the military, which serves as a
tool for domestic control as well as external control. The Veblenian
dichotomy highlights the "predatory" nature of war, and the Georgist
dichotomy focuses on the "negation" of progress by conflict and violence.
The Dichotomy: From George to Veblen
Decades before Veblen's first work appeared, George formulated a
dichotomy that differentiated between progressive and non-progressive
forces. Progressive forces stem from the gratification of biological
wants, fulfillment of intellectual curiosity, sympathy for others, and
the desire to know how to do things.
The parallel notion in the Veblenian dichotomy is termed "technological
behavior." Technological behavior, if not inhibited, can add "serviceability"
to the community and has the potential to enhance the quality of life.
Non-progressive forces capture and direct mental powers toward conflict
and the maintenance of the status quo. Conflict is more than just
warfare and the preparation for warfare; it includes all expenditures in
"seeking the gratification of desire at the expense of others."
Maintenance requires not only support of the status quo, but also the "keeping
up of the social condition" that perpetuates inequality and injustice [George
1879, 507]. Veblen's notion of the "ceremonial function" is analogous to
George's non-progressive forces. The ceremonial function is more than
mere ritual behavior that retards progress; it is most frequently an
expression that represents a reinforcement of invidious uses of power.
Social arrangements and adjustments can either retard or advance
progress. George contends that the rate of progress depends on the
outcome of the basic struggle between two opposing drives. The first
drive (not unlike Veblen's "instinct of workmanship") prompts
individuals to improve the human condition. Such improvements can arise
from advances in science and technology as well as through the
enrichment of "social intelligence." A second drive (a corollary to
Veblen's predatory instincts) counteracts the first drive and maintains
inequality through "powers of habit" and promotes moral degradation
through "ostentation, luxury, and warfare". Advances in science and
technological innovations that improve the human condition are checked
by "habits, customs, laws, and methods, which have lost their original
usefulness" [George 1879, 514-519; see also Horner 1993].
Two essentials of progress come together in what George calls the "free
association" of humans.
Reformative mental power is the first essential of progress as it
extends knowledge, improves methods of production, and results in the
betterment of social conditions. Progress requires liberation of mental
power from the necessity of warfare and a redirection of efforts toward
the promotion of civilization.
Equality, the second essential of progress, unleashes mental power for
social improvement, justice, and freedom. Diversions of mental power
toward conflict and violence retard progress. George [1879] states,
"Just as conflict is provoked, or association develops inequality of
condition and power, the tendency to progression is lessened, checked,
and finally reversed." Warfare shatters free (progressive) association,
nullifies improvement in the human condition [George 1879, 511], and
throws civil liberties into abeyance [Veblen 1904, 299, 391-393].
Warfare: Latent and Manifest Functions
An understanding of the difference between latent and manifest functions
is of paramount importance.[1] The former is hidden and achieves results
that go beyond the overt goals of the latter. The idea of the latent
function explains why seemingly irrational behavior can be positively
functional for a given group.
Warlike preparations to promote defensive and offensive objectives are
actually means for social control as they divert attention toward
contrived external enemies and away from social problems. Latent
offensive preparations for war are masked as manifest defensive
preparations and are really means for "breaking the peace".[Veblen 1917,
19-201]
George regards defense as a legitimate (manifest) function of
government, but he recognizes the hidden (latent) function of military
spending. The United States was so militarily strong at the turn of the
twentieth century that George [1879] claimed there was little more need
for a large navy than a "peaceful giant" would have for a "stuffed club"
or a "tin sword." Lavish military spending was promoted only for the
sake of officers and those who would profit from the death and
destruction of war.
The military maintains a social order between officers and enlisted
soldiers that George thinks is a throwback to times when the "nobility
who supplied the officers" was considered a superior race to the "serfs
and peasants" who filled the ranks of the enlisted soldier. Or as Veblen
[1904, 396] would say, "troops and ships are officered by the younger
sons of the conservative leisure class and the buccaneering scions of
the class of professional politicians," while the soldiers who often
come from the community at large share little material interest with the
elite class.
Recognizing the latent function of diplomacy, George and Veblen are no
more complimentary of the diplomatic corps than they are of the
military. George contends that the diplomatic system is designed after
the "usages of kings" who plotted against the freedom of the people and
its only purpose is to reward the unscrupulous and to "occasionally
demoralize a poet".
Veblen views the diplomatic function as having very little impact on
non-invidious human interests. The manifest aim of diplomacy may appear
to promote security and defense, but most activity of this type has
"much of a pecuniary color." The diplomatist metier speaks of war in
parables of peace. The reality is that diplomacy requires conspicuous
military power and a will to use it [Veblen 1917, 300].
Warfare is directed by a coterie of dynastic statesmen, bellicose
diplomats, and a "junta of commercial adventurers and imperialistic
politicians.[2] The common person bears the burden of violence while the
wealthy neighbor" harvests the benefits [George 1886, 20]. Veblen
sarcastically notes that "a return to the ancient virtues of allegiance,
piety, servility, graded dignity, class prerogative, and prescriptive
authority greatly conduce to popular content and to the facile
management of affairs". The latent function of warlike business policy
engenders a conservative animus on the part of the public as they are
induced to think in warlike terms of rank, authority, and blind
obedience, and this latent function therefore serves as remedy for
social unrest.
Patriotism and religion can provide the rationale for war and
preparations for war as they "direct the popular interest to other,
nobler, institutionally less hazardous matters than the unequal
distribution of wealth" [Veblen 1904, 3931.
The Perversion of Sentiments: Patriotism and Religion
In an era of primitive technology, patriotism is functional as it
promotes group solidarity in the real (material) interests of the group.
The machine process greatly reduces the serviceability of patriotism and
religion, creating the need for newer and more devious modes of
persuasion that appeal to metaphysical concepts such as national
prestige. Clever and subtle forms of sophistry replace the instinct of
group solidarity as the perpetuating force in continuity of the war
process. "Material grievances" become transformed into "spiritual
capital." The Christian nation is mobilized through furtherance of the
community's material interest and/or through a desire to protect
national honor [Veblen 1917, 27-29].
Veblen argues that patriotism breeds predatory behavior through
invidious distinctions and develops a superior and an inferior class.
Even a peaceful society that is "not habitually prone to a bellicose
temper" leaps into the arena of "warlike enterprise" when called to
action by the seductive sirens of patriotism. Violence and injury to
others take precedence over material needs and divert attention from
social problems on the domestic front.
Institutions (habits of thought) change with changing social
circumstances, and the development of these institutions is "the
development of society".
Institutions of the past shape current institutions, and current
institutions shape future institutions through a "selective and coercive
process" [Veblen 1899, 190]. Unfortunately, individuals are not always
aware of the powers of habit. In a system characterized by inequality
and injustice, even the reasonable person can perceive the most absurd
states of inequality as part of natural order [George 1886, 35] and come
to accept the absurdity of massive armaments that serves vested
interests as a matter of course [Veblen 1904, 298]. Education, religion,
and government pass into the hands of "special classes," which control
thought in order to "magnify their function" and "increase their power"
[George 1898, 134-135; 1879, 516-517].
The negation and destruction of the fundamental ideas of an intelligent
Creator deeply disturbed George [1879, 542-543]. War and warlike
preparations pervert religious teachings such that acts of murder and
rape are blessed in the name of Christ and thanks are given to Him for
"victories that pile the earth with mangled corpses and hearthstones
desolate" [George 1883, 166-167]. Religion is transformed from an act of
exaltation to one of oppression.
Although both Veblen and George acknowledged the latent function of
patriotism, George considers patriotism to be a natural sentiment as it
is synonymous with sympathy, benevolent feelings for others, and
enthusiasm for humanity. True patriotism eschews hatred and bigotry and
appeals to a higher love than a chauvinistic regard for a single nation,
people, or locality [George 1881, 62]. In an unjust system, patriotism
is distorted and turned into a non-progressive force that promotes a
warlike mentality:
The passions aroused by war, the national hatreds, the worship of
military glory, the thirst for victory or revenge, dull public
conscience; pervert the best social instincts into that low unreasoning
extension of selfishness miscalled patriotism; deaden the love of
liberty; lead men to submit to tyranny and usurpation from the savage
thirst for cutting the throats of other people, or for the fear of
having their own throats cut [George 1883, 166-167; emphasis added].
"Loyal and loving" patriots with "bonds in their pockets" do not charge
to the front during armed conflict. Rather, those with "pocket
sensitive" ethics pledge their loyalty to those who capture the
machinery of government, distort social institutions, and ensure that an
elite class will be able to "continue to cash their coupons" [George
1883, 167]. George [1886, 220] also questions whether the elite class
would find patriotism a sufficient incentive to support a war in which
they would pay a burden that is equal to that of the working class.
Conclusion
The current state of military development would not have come as a
surprise to either George or Veblen.
Their fears of the dangers that a large standing military posed for a
democratic society have been borne out by the presence of a permanent
war economy [Melman 1985]. The end of the Cold War, the collapse of the
Soviet empire, and the warming of relations between the United States
and its two former enemies (China and Russia) did not bring about a
decrease in military spending commensurate with the reduction in
potential threat to national security. American military spending is
still twice that of the combined expenditures of those eight countries
that, with only a great leap of the imagination, could pose a potential
military threat to the United States.[3]
The latent functions of American warlike efforts have become more subtle
and sophisticated. The diplomacy of a "new world order" eschews peace in
search of contrived enemies. American foreign policy supports conflict
in the Middle East under the guise of energy self-sufficiency. Domestic
policy assumes a warlike animus through a war on drugs that perpetrates
violence and oppression within and beyond national borders.
The President and Congress support NAFTA and GATT but do not want
America's "free trade" to extend to Cuba or to those who trade with
Cuba. The advocates of a balanced budget blame deficits on social
programs while ignoring the role of Ronald Reagan's massive arms
build-up, which led to the subsequent tripling of the national debt
during the 1980s.
A common theme at the turn of the century is reflected in William
James's [1911,300-301] proclamation that "our ancestors have bred
pugnacity into our bone and marrow." Neither Veblen nor George believed
that war was the inevitable outcome of an unchanging human nature. Far
from being a universal law of nature, war for them was associated with
social phenomena such as the amassing of wealth and property. Veblen and
George at least left open the possibility that social institutions can
be altered to make war more difficult to wage.[4] R. J. Rummel [1994,
xxi] expresses a guarded optimism for this when he remarks:
I have not found it easy to read time and time again about the horrors
people have been forced to suffer.
What has kept me at this was the belief, as preliminary research seemed
to suggest, that there was a positive solution to all this killing and a
clear course of political action and policy to end it. And the results
verify this. The problem is power. The solution is democracy. The course
of action is to foster freedom.
Notes
[1] See Robert K. Merton [1968] for a more detailed treatment of the
concepts of latent and manifest functions.
[2] An Inquiry into the Nature of Peace and the Terms of Its
Perpetuation contains Veblen's most systematic treatment of the war
effort. Although George never developed a complete theory of war, he did
possess a full understanding of its latent functions.
[3] The eight countries posing a potential threat to the United States
(those with a history of "hostility" toward American foreign policy) are
Russia, Iraq, China, North Korea, Libya, Iran, Syria, and Cuba [see
International Institute for Strategic Studies 1994].
[4] George proposed a single tax on land to eliminate the major source
of inequality and injustice engendered by an elite class of absentee
owners. He also advocated the payment of a "citizen's dividend,"
universal access to the basic social goods, public education to liberate
minds from the shackles of an unjust system, a reduction of
protectionist measures, and the cessation of debt financing for war.
Veblen's understanding of the inhibitory role of institutions make him
less enthusiastic than George about proposing rapid or sweeping social
changes.
References
Clausewitz, Karl yon. On War. Trans. by J. J. Graham. 1832. Reprint. New
York: Barnes and Noble, 1956.
George, Henry. Progress and Poverty. 1879. Reprint. New York: Robert
Schalkenbach Foundation, 1987.
-----. Social Problems. 1883. Reprint. New York: Robert Schalkenbach
Foundation, 1981.
-----. The Land Question. 1881. Reprint. New York: Robert Schalkenbach
Foundation, 1982.
-----. Protection or Free Trade. 1886. Reprint. New York: Robert
Schalkenbach Foundation, 1991.
-----. The Science of Political Economy. 1898. Reprint. New York: Robert
Schalkenbach Foundation, 1992.
Horner, James H. "Seeking Institutionalist Signposts in the Work of
Henry George: Relevance Often Overlooked." American Journal of Economics
and Sociology 52 (April 1993): 247-255.
International Institute for Strategic Studies. The Military Balance:
1993-1994. New York: International Institute for Strategic Studies,
1994.
James, William. Memories and Studies. New York: Longmans and Green
Press, 1911.
Melman, Seymour. The Permanent War Economy. New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1985.
Merton, Robert. Social Theory and Social Structure. New York: Free
Press, 1968.
Rummel, R. J. Death by Government. London: Transaction Publishers, 1994.
Veblen, Thorstein. The Theory of the Leisure Class. 1899. Reprint. New
York: Modern Library, 1931.
-----. The Theory of Business Enterprise. New York: Charles Scribner and
Sons, 1904.
-----. The Nature of Peace. New York: Macmillan Company, 1917.
Èñòî÷íèê: Journal of Economic Issues, Jun97, Vol. 31 Issue 2, p633, 7p.
Horner, Jim & Martinez, John. |
