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system, whose planning must be protected as of necessity from theimpact of external economies. These planned economies will all bebrought together into a great international planned economy themembers of which will be autarchial states. The problem will be tomaintain the isolated autarchial system in each constituent state andto unite all these autarchies in an international economy. This is notthe place to discuss the feasibility of this hybrid system. But I throwthe idea out here for the benefit of those who think they see a worldorder based, at least roughly, on the league of American states inthe United States of America. The union of the American states wasa union of free economies from which all possibility of autarchy wasbanished by the terms of the Constitution. If tomorrow these statesof ours, despite their long union, could be transformed into selfplannedautarchies, this union would not last half-a-dozen years.Yet it is an administration in Washington which from the beginninghas been struggling toward autarchy here, and which broke up theLondon Economic Conference in 1933 because it threatened ourown autarchial arrangements, which now calls itself a great internationalregime and actually smears its critics as "isolationists."And now of imperialism. This is, of course, nothing more, as Ihave said, than a form of bald and naked assertion of might. Itsorigin in the human mind is by no means clear. It does not find itsroots wholly in the greed of the merchant adventurers or in theambitions of military leaders or the dreams of dynasts for extensionof their glory. It has had an abundance of support at the hands ofgentlemen who hold themselves out as philosophers. Certainly it isunnecessary here to repeat the innumerable declarations made byBritish historians, philosophers, poets, and publicists in support ofBritain's divine right to seize land anywhere. There is not a statementthat has ever been made by a German imperialist that cannotbe matched from the pen of a highly respected and highly honoredBritish imperialist. You will find an acquisitive industrialist likeRhodes saying "We are the first race in the world, and the more ofthe world we inhabit the better it is for the human race." But youcan also find a liberal statesman like Earl Grey saying "In so far asan Englishman differs from a Swede or a Belgian he believes herepresents a more perfectly developed standard of general excellence215

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