whole, it
indirectly attacks the rights of every individual. Let us be frank. Let
us, when we defend war, dare to admit and to proclaim that we are
defending slavery.

There is no question of denying that both war and slavery may have been
useful, and indeed indispensable, during a certain phase of human
evolution. Primitive man, like the lower animals, had all his energies
monopolised by the attaining of nutriment. When spiritual needs began to
demand their rights, it was necessary that the masses should work to
excess in order that a small minority might pass lives of learned
leisure. The marvellous civilisations of antiquity could not have
existed without slavery. But the time has now arrived when a new
organisation has rendered slavery superfluous. In a modern national
society a community voluntarily renounces part of its earnings (and will
have to renounce an increasingly large part of its earnings) for social
purposes. Machines produce about ten times as much as unaided human
labour. Were they intelligently used, the social problem would be
greatly simplified. A sophism of the political economists assures us
that national wellbeing increases proportionally with the increase in
the consumption of commodities. The principle is unsound. Its outcome is
that it inoculates people with artificial needs. But it is this
artificially excited greed which, in the last resort, continues to
bolster up slavery in the shape of exploitation and war. Property
created war, and property maintains war. For the weak only, is property
a source of virtue, since the weak will not make efforts without the
stimulus afforded by the desire for possession. Throughout history, war
has been for property. Nicolai does not believe that there has ever been
a war for a purely ideal object, and without any thought of material
domination. People may perhaps fight for the pure ideal of country, in
the endeavour to express to the full the genius of their own nation. But
the guns will not really help the ideal forward. Such material arguments
as guns and bayonets will seem valuable only when the abstract idea has
become intertwined with the lusts for power and property. Thus, war,
property, and slavery, are close associates. Goethe wrote:

Krieg, Handel und Piraterie
Dreieinig sind sie, nicht zu trennen.[52]

* * * * *

Nicolai then proceeds to criticise the pseudo-scientific notions from
which our modern inte