'Economic causes of the First World War'

[whichfinder]

Date: Tuesday, 17th June at 8.00pm

Venue: Chiswick Town Hall, Heathfield Terrace, London W4 4JN

Directions: About seven minutes walk south from Chiswick Park tube on the District line

Apologists for capitalism and the First World War blame the innate aggressiveness of human nature; the acts of 'wicked' men such as the Kaiser; economic causes other than capitalist ones; the strength of nationalist or religious feeling; and the conflicts of ideologies. The Socialist contention is that the root of modern war is in capitalism, war is not an accidental interruption of the peaceful operations of capitalism but is inherent in the structure of the system itself. Before 1914 the capitalists of Europe quarrelled over the questions of the control of trade routes, the world's markets, and raw material sources. The First World War did not start overnight through an assassin's bullets in Sarajevo but was the outcome of years of conflicting capitalist interests.

A talk by Steve Clayton

Free admission

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/event/economic-causes-first-world-war-west-london-800pm

[Red Economist]

Been meaning to share this, but there was a major financial crisis in the run-up to the first world war which makes a plausible historical argument for the relationship between economics and warfare.

blog.oup.com/2013/11/unknown-financial-crisis-1914/

[Alexios]

My problem with these types of analyses is that they try to whittle everything down into purely economic factors, often forgetting the many other causes behind WW1 or any war. It's one thing to recognize the economic factors at play in inter-capitalist warfare, it's another to make an analysis of a historical event based solely on monetary factors. This is vulgar Marxism.

[whichfinder]

It's one thing to recognize the economic factors at play in inter-capitalist warfare, it's another to make an analysis of a historical event based solely on monetary factors. This is vulgar Marxism.

Nobody is making an analysis based solely on monetary factors as this article in the current edition of the Socialist Standard makes clear:

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2010s/2014/no-1318-june-2014/bacon-and-steam-trains-serbian-pork-war-and-berlin-b

[Noa Rodman]

Stagnation in world gold production returns
The return of stagnation to gold production was noted by Karl Kautsky on the eve of World War I: “So we may confidently enter upon the conflict which the new era of capitalism has for us, in which no rapid addition to gold production can longer interfere with the sharpening of class antagonisms, in which capital extends its domain only at the expense of the growing misery of the mass of the population, and the latter is more and more compelled to cause the overthrow of the capitalist system on pain of its own destruction.” (“The High Cost of Living,” by Karl Kautsky, 1913)
The fact that Kautsky proved personally unequal to the challenges of the approaching revolutionary era does not detract from his amazing prediction of a revolutionary era based on the stagnation in world gold production.
In fact, in light of the growing stagnation in gold production, if World War I had not shortly intervened the rise in prices in terms of gold that had been going on since 1896 would not have been sustainable much longer. Instead, either prices would have fallen in terms of currency, or a major devaluation of the world capitalist currencies would have occurred ending the international gold standard.
...

When all-out war begins, industrial production frequently rises sharply. This is especially true if, as is often the case, the economy is in state of recession when the war erupts. In fact, beginning in 1913 a worldwide recession had developed affecting both the United States and Europe. This recession was in full swing when war erupted in Europe in August 1914. [With world gold production beginning to stagnate, there was the prospect that if the war had not intervened this recession might have been a particularly stubborn one.]


From a very interesting series of articles on the blog of Sam Williams.
http://critiqueofcrisistheory.wordpress.com/does-capitalist-production-have-a-long-cycle/does-capitalist-production-have-a-long-cycle-pt-5/


A variant of the gold standard that existed in the pre-1914 years was the gold-exchange standard. Some countries, especially colonized countries such as India—used pound-denominated British government securities alongside gold to back up their currencies. Owners of the Indian currency could demand British pounds instead of gold itself when they wanted to redeem Indian currency.
Even some of the European imperialists used British government securities alongside gold, though as World War I approached the European imperialists began to shift all their reserves back into gold itself. This hoarding of gold among the European countries as they prepared for the approaching war may have played a role in the 1913-14 world recession—which followed the crisis of 1907 by only six years, considerably less than normal for the industrial cycle—which immediately preceded World War I


http://critiqueofcrisistheory.wordpress.com/does-capitalist-production-have-a-long-cycle/does-capitalist-production-have-a-long-cycle-pt-9/