World War 1 and World War 2

[Nolan]

I've heard comrades say the world wars were caused by the capitalist system, but I don't understand this argument in detail, and certainly couldn't explain it to someone. Can anyone clear this up for me? What was the role of the market in both wars?

[Cohacq]

WW1 was caused by the spread of colonialism, but as there soon wasnt anything else to conquer, the industrialised nations of the west started attacking eachother.

WW2 was the result of the Versailles treaty signed after WW1, which put Germany in extreme poverty and bred revanschism.

[Jimmie Higgins]

WW1 was caused by the spread of colonialism, but as there soon wasnt anything else to conquer, the industrialised nations of the west started attacking eachother.

WW2 was the result of the Versailles treaty signed after WW1, which put Germany in extreme poverty and bred revanschism.

Yeah, just to add a little. Much like today, world capitalism was kind of reaching a point where it was hard to maintain profitability. Countries like Germany and Italy were newly unified while Germany and the US were becoming new industrial powers (Germany much more than the US). The British and the French wanted to maintain the world balance of power status-quo since (particularly the British) were the dominant power but were not quite able to match Germany's industrial power. This situation is kind of like the US today in realtion to China - one is a power in stagnation but with pleanty of control while the other is a new industrial powerhouse.

So while the US was able to expand by taking over Spain's decaying empire, Germany was kind of squeezed out of imperialism. So in short, imperial competition was heightened and this created a situation that when war broke out it really became about the major imperialist powers trying to reshuffle (in the case of Germany) the deck or (in the case of GB) keep the house of cards from crashing down.

WWII was essentially the result of the failure to actually solve the underlying economic pressures that led to WWI. The world economy lost profitability (the Depression) and so countries tried to make up for the loss of profits through protectionist measures and state-funded investing all of which again made the competition between powers red-hot.

Ultimately it took the destruction of a huge amount of the world's capitalist industrial infrastructure and a reorganizing of the balance of world power for profitability to be restored. The US ended up dominating western Europe as well as South America took over influence in the many of the former colonies of France and GB while the USSR gained control over eastern Europe.