CHAPTER XIV

NATIONALISM, AS IT RESULTS FROM THE MAINTENANCE OF THE AMERICAN STANDARD OF LIVING

In evolutionary development, every group is instinctively an opponent of the other. Little advance in civilization among races living from day to day. Our national development shows a succession of race displacements during the last century. Legislators are occupied in passing nationalistic measures relating to trade to maintain the American standard of living, while the international labor association is organizing for the purpose of directing the weekly 48-hour law to be applied to the laborers of the world- and these ideals conflict. Headlong speed of Japan to a foremost position in modern politics is cause for astonishment.

PRESENT ECONOMIC MALADJUSTMENTS

Measures tending toward the restriction of free and friendly intercourse between peoples, whether it be through migration or commerce, are always, to a lesser or greater degree, causes of international distrust and suspicion. In almost all sociological relations, causes and effects are reciprocal, and which is the cause and which the effect is hard to determine for, as in evolutionary development, every group is a potential adversary of the other and groups of human beings look at each other with suspicion just as do the animals.

International maladjustment brings with it, in extreme cases, war, but it is not the alarmist's viewpoint that is here being stressed. Rather is it the desirable economic results that may be obtained through an intelligent adjustment in this period of an abnormal and unproductive aftermath crop of war conditions.

As the author of this treatise is a student of political economics, it is the purpose, herein, to approach the problem as, in these days of reconstruction and retrenchment, it should be considered; the object is to discover the benefits which may result through befitting readjustments in international intercourse.

This adjustment must be accomplished, in part, through the wisely and intelligently directed regulation of two direct factors in world relations—immigration and trade—which, in turn, are indirectly influenced by the varying standards of living in different countries, as has been indicated in previous chapters.

The maintenance of the American standard of living is a phase of the policy of the United States, it typifies the principle of holding ourselves aloof. Conceding that, it is nationalistic in spirit and intent.

Since the World War similar nationalistic policies have been adopted by other nations, and the self-sufficiency protective program of the United States is thus duplicated among other political groups.

Under this nationalistic policy there is developed the concomitant practice of attempting to acquire for one's own nationals what one forces from an unwilling neighbor, forgetting that by developing one's neighbor's resources one is oneself economically and socially benefitted.

THE SURVIVAL VALUE OF CONSCIOUSNESS

In the process of evolution, all human ethics are determined by an aggressive and assertive philosophy on the one hand and cooperation and co-ordination of effort on the other, or, in popular terms, the "taking and holding" creed, as over against the "giving and taking."

Consciousness, a faculty inherent in the human brain, is the evolutionary factor in the human race that has survival value. Consciousness, the faculty to see, feel, and think for himself, resides in the individual and not in the group, for the instinct of self-preservation leads him to determine for himself what is for his own welfare.

As opposed to individual consciousness there is co-operation, whenever two or more individuals think as a unit.

This group thinking is able to overpower the individual's thinking and operating wholly for himself, as is evidenced in earliest times by a family or clan, a tribe or a group of any size. Therefore, individuals, by subordinating their own individuality, are directly assisted and protected by the others.

Trace the modern thought in this truth of primitive days and

discover that the group which is coherent will survive and will transmit as right activities to its descendants those which lead to consolidation, and, as wrong, those which lead to the destruction of that unity.

Nevertheless consciousness still remains in the individual, never in the group, although he himself is exterminated unless he concurs and co-operates with the body of which he is a unit. In this the conflict inheres, the choice is with him.

Failure to develop a workable plan of co-ordination and cooperation, among nations, as among individuals, leads to the incessant re-alignment of conflicting issues, with the inevitable annihilation of those which worship international rivalry and competition as the most sanctified of world creeds.

DEVELOPMENT OF THE THEORY THAT DIFFERENCES IN STANDARDS OF LIVING AMONG NATIONS AFFECT THEIR INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

The standard of living of a people greatly affects its characteristics; there is such continual action and reaction between the two that it is difficult to tell which is the cause and which the effect. The greater differences there are, then, between the standards of living of various peoples, the greater difference there will also be between their national characteristics. Yet, it is these very differences in national characteristics which make for a lack of understanding among the nations, for nations are like individuals in that mutual understanding makes for elimination of friction. The obvious conclusion is, then, that the greater differences there are in national standards of living the greater likelihood there is of maladjustment among them; or, stated conversely, the more nearly uniform the standards of living among peoples are, the better chance there is of a partnership in their international relations.

For the truth of this conclusion there is, first, a classic illustration. For one hundred years there have been three thousand miles of unguarded frontier between the United States and Canada, and, for that same time, their standards of living have been practically the same. This mutual confidence between these neighboring nations would have been impossible had the standard of living of Canada been that of India.

The conclusion that the mutual respect and continued friendly

relations between the United States and Canada has been largely due to the great similarity in their standard of living is strengthened by an examination of the relations existing between the United States and her neighbor in the south, Mexico. Here, where there has been so great a divergence in the standards of living between the two countries, there has been an equally great maladjustment, amounting to continual friction, and to occasional violent rupture. Historic differences, however, have occasionally engendered hostility between neighboring nations with practically the same standards of living, as may be exemplified in the case of Germany and France. The tradition of the Holy Roman Empire has probably infected and inspired the German, while the return of Lorraine, a part of Charlemagne's territory, has become an obsession on the part of the Frenchman.

SUCCESSIVE ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE TRUTH OF THE THEORY FROM EARLIEST TIMES

Turning from these immediate and obvious illustrations let us examine one which dates back to the early period of man's development, when the "Asiatic Cradle," so far as one can determine, became the center of human evolution.

The continuous shiftings and movements of the races of Central Asia may be interpreted by much the same theory. The race in possession of the desirable pastoral stretch of land, developing, with the security afforded by its possession, higher standards of living, offered little resistance to its hardened neighbor of a lower standard, which therefore, was able to wrest the desired lands from the softer tribe, pushing it gradually to the outposts of the civilization of that age.

CIVILIZATION TAKES FEW STRIDES WITHOUT Leisure in whICH TO DEVELOP PHILOSOPHY, THE Arts and the SCIENCES The theory is accepted that before there can be much advance in civilization there should be leisure, since a race living from hand to mouth has little opportunity for the cultivation of philosophy, the arts and the sciences.

In order that any people may have this leisure there must of necessity be a surplus product or a surplus value in working people to accomplish all the labor essential to subsistence.

To obtain surplus products, there must be fertile soil and a warm climate. On the other hand, a warm climate is enervating to the human race and one realizes through this fact that progress has been developed by a sort of wave length.

When this leisure is secured some of the endowed groups use it constructively to make advances in the higher fields of learning; others utilize it disadvantageously to themselves and to the civilization of that age.

INABILITY OF THE ATHENIAN AND ROMAN Culture and Standard OF LIVING TO COPE WITH THAT OF ITS HARDY OPPONENTS There is an additional illustration of the truth that differing standards of living between tribal units directly affect their relations in the encouragement to a poor but war-like race to levy war for the sake of plunder upon a richer but more peaceful neighbor.

Athens at the height of its culture failed to withstand the continuous struggle of the rival city-states, ending in the supremacy of Sparta, with its differences in standards of living.

Again, during the days of its power, the gradual disintegration of the Roman Empire, when the Gothic races with their hardier standards of living permeated the Roman culture, is a striking illustration of the same theory.

Nevertheless, there was there a two-fold struggle going forward, for even while the restless swarms of barbarian races and tribes of the North, with their different standards of living, were continuously reaching down from those regions during the centuries and overcoming the Romans, yet the refinement of life and the standards of Romans were, in their turn, softening these more rugged groups. In this, as in the many illustrations that one could muster, one realizes that both the conquered and vanquished have contributed to the common welfare, although differing standards of living were a most important factor in the delaying of the process. DEVELOPMENT of AmericaN CITIZENSHIP BY GRADUAL DISPLACEMENTS OF DIFFERENT RACES

Under the present organization of nations, these group reactions are manifested under different conditions in the permeation of one race by another or the super-imposition of the culture of one race upon that of another.