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Scientifictionist, issue 2, 1945
Page 7
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SCIENTIFICTION COMMENTARY WAR AND PROGRESS (And kindred Subjects) by Harold Bertram The present debate in the "Scientifictionist" on the role that war plays in the progress of humanity and science, and the "emotional stimulus" derived from that is deemed necessary by many people, seems to completely overlook one vital factor. The "why" of war. The basic reason, the motivating force behind past wars and present wars. I think I can safely assume that wars are not fought because a group of scientists get together and say, "OK boys, scientific progress is lagging. We gotta have a war"; or because the ecclesiastical powers of some nation decide the people of the world need a little emotional stimulus and the fear of God put into their souls. This latter may have been true of some religious wars in the past, but it hasn't occured during the past two hundred years. All wars up until the time of the industrial revolution were fought for one of three reasons: either conquest, expansion, or religion. Since the advent of the industrial revolution they have been conducted solely for the purpose of acquiring more raw materials and additional markets for world trade, or were a violent reaction against a technic that threatened to destroy existing values and upset the status quo. Technology was bringing about a change in the method of production and was beginning to eliminate the heretofore important factor of human labor and hand toil in the production of goods. A world economy that was based on the precept of scarcity was beginning to totter; abundance was just around the corner, or just around the block at any rate. The entrenched political and economic powers dimly realized that emancipation of the vast majority of lower classes would result in loss of prestige and power, and struggled against it, sometime feebly, sometimes violently in a blind rage, but always futilely. The Civil War was nothing more than the result of technology encroaching upon an economy based on human labor and hand toil. A feudalistic South could not hope to compete or even exist for long in competition with a highly industrialized North. Its only hope was to destroy the North and impose the same method of social control upon the beaten states. A static state vs. a progressive state. Naturally the North won. The South was licked before it even started because the North could outproduce it ten-to-one as far as the munitions of war were concerned. Two opposing technics came to blows and as usual technology won. It always does, in peace as well as war. The man with the hoe has no more chance against a tractor drawn combine than a savage has against a General Sherman tank. This conflict between an age-old method of operation and the new factor of technology and science produced a new crop of economics theories and philosophies; Marx, Veblen, and dozens of minor prophets broadcast wholesale their theories of what was happening, why it was, what to do about it and how. Despite the utterances of these learned gentlemen, the two opposing methods of operation drew farther and farther apart until in 1914 they rushed headlong at each other in a bloody but unsuccessful attempt to solve the problem. Unsuccessful, because at the end of the war England, United States and Germany actually had larger and better plant capacities than they had at the outbreak; and Russia, the first nation to succumb to the "world revolution" was laying the groundwork for the first and highly successful planned scientific and technological development of a geographical area; much to the disgust of her fellow industrial nations. Apparently satisfied with the peace, the democratic nations hunkered down on their laurels and indulged in a rather uneasy slumber; meanwhile the page 7
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SCIENTIFICTION COMMENTARY WAR AND PROGRESS (And kindred Subjects) by Harold Bertram The present debate in the "Scientifictionist" on the role that war plays in the progress of humanity and science, and the "emotional stimulus" derived from that is deemed necessary by many people, seems to completely overlook one vital factor. The "why" of war. The basic reason, the motivating force behind past wars and present wars. I think I can safely assume that wars are not fought because a group of scientists get together and say, "OK boys, scientific progress is lagging. We gotta have a war"; or because the ecclesiastical powers of some nation decide the people of the world need a little emotional stimulus and the fear of God put into their souls. This latter may have been true of some religious wars in the past, but it hasn't occured during the past two hundred years. All wars up until the time of the industrial revolution were fought for one of three reasons: either conquest, expansion, or religion. Since the advent of the industrial revolution they have been conducted solely for the purpose of acquiring more raw materials and additional markets for world trade, or were a violent reaction against a technic that threatened to destroy existing values and upset the status quo. Technology was bringing about a change in the method of production and was beginning to eliminate the heretofore important factor of human labor and hand toil in the production of goods. A world economy that was based on the precept of scarcity was beginning to totter; abundance was just around the corner, or just around the block at any rate. The entrenched political and economic powers dimly realized that emancipation of the vast majority of lower classes would result in loss of prestige and power, and struggled against it, sometime feebly, sometimes violently in a blind rage, but always futilely. The Civil War was nothing more than the result of technology encroaching upon an economy based on human labor and hand toil. A feudalistic South could not hope to compete or even exist for long in competition with a highly industrialized North. Its only hope was to destroy the North and impose the same method of social control upon the beaten states. A static state vs. a progressive state. Naturally the North won. The South was licked before it even started because the North could outproduce it ten-to-one as far as the munitions of war were concerned. Two opposing technics came to blows and as usual technology won. It always does, in peace as well as war. The man with the hoe has no more chance against a tractor drawn combine than a savage has against a General Sherman tank. This conflict between an age-old method of operation and the new factor of technology and science produced a new crop of economics theories and philosophies; Marx, Veblen, and dozens of minor prophets broadcast wholesale their theories of what was happening, why it was, what to do about it and how. Despite the utterances of these learned gentlemen, the two opposing methods of operation drew farther and farther apart until in 1914 they rushed headlong at each other in a bloody but unsuccessful attempt to solve the problem. Unsuccessful, because at the end of the war England, United States and Germany actually had larger and better plant capacities than they had at the outbreak; and Russia, the first nation to succumb to the "world revolution" was laying the groundwork for the first and highly successful planned scientific and technological development of a geographical area; much to the disgust of her fellow industrial nations. Apparently satisfied with the peace, the democratic nations hunkered down on their laurels and indulged in a rather uneasy slumber; meanwhile the page 7
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