Download - LSE Theses Online - London School of Economics and ...

2.2.1 Early conceptions2.2 A Periodised History of InternationalismLiberal internationalism was characterised, from the eighteenth centuryonward, by optimistic ideas based on the belief that “independent societies andautonomous individuals can through greater interaction and cooperation evolvetowards common purposes, chief among these being peace and prosperity”. 91 Thiswas a persistent strain of internationalism, evident in the ideas of Adam Smith andhis peers during the Scottish Enlightenment; again in the nineteenth century and itsbelief in free trade; and, once more in the twentieth century in the plans for theLeague of Nations, and its successor, the United Nations.This was an internationalism that as often as not eschewed world government andencouraged the emergence of sovereign nation-states, but which saw thesatisfaction of national demands as a precondition for the emergence of a morecooperative international order. 92Hence, this was neither (yet) a cosmopolitan internationalism, nor one that lookedforward to a world government, but one that retained the value of independentnation-states and an apparent grip on the ‘realities’ of international power politics.The socialist internationalism of Marx was decidedly outside the bounds of therepressive and brutal state of the time (the autocratic monarchies of the mid-19 thcentury). It was an international solidarity with an interest in socialist revolutionsand independence movements. The internationalism Marx envisaged would havebeen required to repel any attempts by reactionary states to quell democratic andsocialist movements. 93 Hence this was an internationalism of the internationalworking class qua class, both universalist and radical in its intent. It was not yet astate project, and was, in fact, competing with the state.During and after World War I, internationalism was seen as the basis for thinkingabout the prospects for international government, in terms of a moral emphasis on‘the need for a new international consciousness’. 94 Embodied in this internationalconsciousness was the idea of progress and the conviction that a positive91 Halliday, “Three concepts of internationalism”, 192.92 Ibid.,93 Alan Gilbert, “Marx on Internationalism and War”, Philosophy and Public Affairs, 7,No.4, (Summer, 1978): 355.94 Casper Sylvest, “Continuity and change in British liberal internationalism, c. 1900-1930”, Review of International Studies,31, No.2 (2005): 266.60