ofits from foreign, as from domestic investments, may be drawn upon
at will for national purposes.

The importance of this development in its effect upon nationalism and
imperialism has been largely overlooked. {143} We have heard much of
the German doctrine of the State as Power, but have failed to realise
how Germany, like certain other European nations, has used its powers
of taxation and governmental expenditure to create for the masses an
ever larger stake in the national income. A policy, which increasingly
taxes the rich for the benefit of the poor, establishes a certain unity
in the commonwealth. Even the Socialist parties alter their
allegiance. The early Socialists were aggressively anti-patriotic,
opposing to all conceptions of nationalism the solidarity of the
working classes of the world. Karl Marx for example, declared that the
workingman had no fatherland, "for in none is he a son." He was a
nomad of society, doomed to a life hardly more secure, though far more
burdensome, than that of the tramp or gipsy. Long before the war,
however, many Socialists had accepted a more nationalistic view. Not
only did wage-earners realise that they already participated to some
extent in the social surplus, but they also saw that their increasing
political power would enable them to influence the future distribution
of the national income, however that income were obtained.[2] Once
this interest in the national dividend was assured, it became
desirable, even to Socialists, to make that dividend as large as
possible. The belief spread that all groups within a nation have
common interests opposed to the interest of other nations. Thus the
Austrian Socialist Dr. Otto Bauer in his "Imperialisms und die
Nationalitaetsfrage" denies that the immediate interests of the
wage-earners are the same in all countries and asserts that the workers
may {144} find good reason to side with the employers of their own
nation against wage-earners and employers in another country. "We do
not say that there are no conflicts of interests between the nations,
but we say, on the contrary, that as long as exploitation and
oppression continue, there will be conflicts of interests between
nations."[3] From which follows the conclusion that until capitalism
is destroyed, and that may take many decades, it is essential for the
workman to develop the welfare of the wage-earners of his own country,
rather than of the world in general.[4]

T