[ p. 97 ]
Every Man is born into the greatest of all dependencies— into the dependency of the family.
At the beginning of his life every child is totally helpless and he depends entirely upon the care of his mother. He would die on the first day of his existence were it not for the care given to him by his parents.
The role of the father in the family is the role of an absolute monarch.
Every child is the slave of his family. He gets from it his food, his shelter, his clothes and he has to do what his parents tell him without the right of questioning why.
But as soon as the child grows up, he is seized by a tremendous desire to become independent of family ties. Eyery man remembers that period of his life as a restive and most rebellious one, ending in the cutting of the family bonds.
Hardly does a man become “independent” of the family, when the whole outlook changes. Independence does not give the satisfaction one anticipates. It gives instead a feeling of aloneness, doubt, uncertainty, fear. And in a very [ p. 98 ] short time new drives begin to torment the soul of a young man, as a reaction to his independence: a drive for new commitments, a drive for creating a new family, a drive to be a member of society, of a trade union, of a party.
The new drive that overwhelms every individual as soon as he reaches maturity is the drive to become inter-dependent with his fellow citizens.
This evolution—dependence, independence, inter-dependence—is the natural process of life through which every individual has to pass.
And this very same process represents also the stages through which nations pass in their historic development. We are now at the stage when complete independence brought the greatest disillusions to most nations, when it collapsed as an ideal, and when the nations have some kind of feeling of the insufficiency and futility of this ideal.
The transition is a terrible crisis in the life of a nation, just as it is a tragic moment in the life of an individual. But it is of the utmost importance that we recognize the real nature of this crisis, in order to avoid its exploitation by unscrupulous movements secking to create new forms of enslavement of nations on the ground that national independence, as an ideal for man as it was interpreted during the past decades, had collapsed.
The total independence of nations as it was established after the First World War created the same feelings in the collectivity as total freedom creates in the life of a man— the feeling of doubt, the feeling of insecurity and the feeling of fear, which are the origin of armaments, militarism and conquests.
[ p. 99 ]
Only through a new integration and inter-dependent organization of the nations can these drives be overcome, and can national freedom and national independence find their true expression.
In the early stages of our society, the people understood that freedom can only be a practical institution among individuals if it is limited and regulated by law. But this evidence has not been recognized in the economic field.
Here, during the nineteenth century and the first part of
the twentieth century, we understood freedom as “absolute freedom,” and regarded for a long time thoughts and movements tending to limit and organize economic freedom as “anti-democratic.” The result of it was a growing economic anarchy, and, in spite of ever-increasing production, a growing feeling of individual economic insecurity, poverty and unemployment.
As a reaction to such absolute economic freedom which we wanted to maintain, there arose in the masses a drive for compulsion which is the origin of all the totalitarian movements. It is no explanation to call the Fascist and Nazi movements “criminal” or “insane.” They are the natural reaction to a false interpretation of the conception of independence. However difficult it may be for freedom-loving people to understand, longing for compulsion is just as natural a drive in human nature as longing for freedom and can only be checked by a correct interpretation of this ideal.
The total independence of nations, as we understood it until now, does not guarantee the freedom of nations for the simple reason that total independence of nations means not only that a nation can do whatever it wants, but that [ p. 100 ] other nations are also completely free to do whatever they like.
Such a situation, far from securing independence for the nations, is international anarchy in which each nation must always be prepared to be economically ruined or militarily invaded by any other nation at any time.
It is, therefore, obvious that a much higher degree of independence of the nations would be attained if certain phases of such total independence were limited, regulated and properly controlled for all of them, and if these limitations and regulations were enforced on all of them by institutions above all of them.
The optimum of national independence is relative and Tests on two factors:
First, to what degree a nation is independent itself.
Second, to what degree a nation is exposed to the interfering actions of other independent nations.
We have already seen that if a nation starts to rearm, all other nations have to do likewise. If a nation proceeds to a currency devaluation, all nations in their economic relationship must do the same. If a nation forces its laborers to work twelve hours a day at starvation wages, no social progress is possible in other countries. If a nation establishes a dictatorship, the freedom of all the other countries is directly menaced.
In the face of all these facts in recent years which prove the indisputable correctness of this thesis, it should no longer be possible for civilized people to stand idly by when a government is terrorizing its people, is persecuting millions of men, is violating the most elementary laws of Christian [ p. 101 ] morals, is spreading hatred, is rearming, and preparing for foreign military conquests, until the disease becomes incurable and a general breakdown occurs.
It should become more and more plain that the internal system of a country determines its “foreign policy,” and that the internal regime of each country has a direct effect on all the other countries.
Our foreign policies are still based on the dogma that the internal affairs of a country do not concern the other countries and that the international conduct of a government is what ct in the relationship among nations, and Not its internal os
This thought remnant of those good old days of diplomacy among gentlemen, when differences were merely formal and external. Indeed, constitutional monarchies and constitutional republics can live peacefully side by side and can follow the policy of non-intervention in each other’s internal affairs.
But nations with a democratic form of government and governments whose declared purpose is to destroy democratic principles everywhere; nations who respect treaties and signatures, and nations who despise such formalities; nations who abhor the use of force, and nations who worship force—such nations cannot live peacefully together, if all of them are independent and if their independence is not controlled or limited in any way. In such an international situation war is inevitable.
The differences that divide humanity today and that have caused the present war are much deeper and more fundamental [ p. 102 ] than those conflicts which were easily solved in the past with superficial diplomatic formulae.
The needless sufferings which mankind has to go through today will perhaps make it possible to organize international life on the basis of inter-dependence, which is the only form in which we can find a way out of the present convulsion. The opportunity is now, during this world-wide struggle, which involves every nation and when every snation realizes that its independence as it was interpreted until now did not give them national freedom and security.
We shall solve no problem by calling dre Germans, Japanese and Italians and their satellites, gangsters or Huns or apes. The problem is how and why those gangsters, Huns and apes were able to grow as all-powerful as they did before our very eyes. And how and why they were able to cause the conflagration of the entire planet.
In order to lay the foundation of a world order in which such destruction and such catastrophes would be impossible, the democratic nations must arrive at a “Declaration of Inter-dependence,” which must become the new Magna Carta of humanity.
In this Declaration of Inter-dependence we must clearly set forth certain elementary principles of social, political and economic life which each nation has to accept and adopt. We must clearly state that violation of any one of these rules and principles will bring immediate action by a collective body of other nations or any other collective international organization. Such a change in the international life, the regulation of national independence, had been clearly foreseen by the [ p. 103 ] signatories of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It says: “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends (Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness) it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
This most unsafe and unhappy period in history, this catastrophe in which we find ourselves makes it imperative that we listen to the advice of the Fathers of Independence and tackle the problem at its root.