The Merchants of Death - Ludwig von Mises Institute

THE OUTLOOK 271
war and armaments makes effective international control
difficult, yet something might be achieved if the governments
themselves were not so reluctant to submit to any supervision
in this matter.
There remains then but one real way out, disarmament.
The various futile conferences on disarmament have not
been in vain if they have opened the eyes of the peace forces
to the real problem which confronts them. Disarmament has
not been achieved because of the international political
situation. International politics in turn are determined by
our whole civilization. Our civilization has permitted and
even fostered war-making forces, such as nationalism and
chauvinism, economic rivalry and competitive capitalism,
imperialism and colonialism, political and territorial disputes,
race hatred and pressure of population. The traditional
way of establishing an equilibrium between these rival
forces has been and is violence, armed warfare.
Disarmament is thus a problem of our civilization. It will
never be achieved unless these war-making forces are
crushed or eliminated. The problem of disarmament is therefore
the problem of building a new civilization. All attempts
at dealing with disarmament by itself, without consideration
of the deeper issues involved, are doomed to failure. Minor
agreements may be reached, limited to a short period of
time, but the world will never cease being an armed camp
until the basic elements of our present civilization have been
changed.
The same holds true of the armament industry. A world
which recognizes and expects war cannot get along without
an enterprising, progressive, and up-to-date arms industry.
All attempts to attack the problem of the arms makers in
isolation—by nationalization or by international control—