World Without War, by J.D. Bernal

[p034] World Without War, by J. D. Bernal (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 25s.)' THE major industrial countries of the world are spending on an average 10 per cent. of their respective national incomes for military purposes. Two-thirds of the world population (some 1,500 million people) live in conditions considerably worse than those of nineteenth-century capitalism. High estimates of population growth put. the: world total at 10,000 ' million by the year 2000. Given these three assessments as the major premises, Profes- sor Bernal has written a book that is impressive. in its colla- tion and organization of data and the lucidity and logic of its exposition. The work is a high tribute to his intelligence and his guiding humanitarianism as a scientist. He has taken the two major problems of our time—those of nuclear warfare and of the underdeveloped countries—and tried to relate them in a ‘non-political’ approach. I say ‘non-political’, because the book is written in a manner to appeal to the non-communist. So important are these problems that men must offer their solutions regardless of ‘political beliefs— ‘there is little time left for stopping the waste of the world’s resources and manpower in preparing for war’. Vv But terminological concessions are most frequently the tacit reminder or unconscious prelude of doctrinal ones. Although Bernal nowhere suggests it directly, it seems that the class struggle has been raised to the world scale—it is no longer class against class within one State, but simply pro- letarian State against bourgeois State. It is here, at a point which is a travesty of Marxism, that the argument becomes curious. The majority of nations fall within neither group; their status is unspecified. It is in the interest of the bour- geoisie to raise the economic level of these countries to its own on both ethical and comparative advantage criteria. Professor Bernal presumably holds this possible, otherwise he would not have written this book. His aim is vitally important, but can a Marxist regard it as ever remotely feasible? April-May 1959 The argument from ‘interest’ is shaky nowadays. Apart from difficulties in defining ‘interest’ clearly, it still carries some of its utilitarian and laissez-faire flavour, implying that a rational harmony is possible within the world if all men follow their ‘interest’ consistently. Certainly Bernal does not discuss whether ‘all sane men could get together’ without there being some prior fundamental transformation in the economic approach of the western countries to the world, but surely, for a Marxist, this is the important matter. In fact the fundamental transformation is taken by Bernal as almost a mere by-product of the hypothetical process he describes, cnd receives mention on page 231: ‘Capitalist economies may have disappeared at this stage.’ The prole- tarian revolution is, as it were, slipped in to make final fact conform to initial assumptions. It would seem however, in Marxist terms, that the revolu- tion was a prior condition of the ultimate development, not just a possibility. Can the underdeveloped countries be helped to the degree suggested while we have the present western economic system with us? Professor Bernal suggests that ‘rational men’ in seeing ‘the truth’ and so following their ‘interest? can so help regardless of the economy, or, in his words, if we live in ‘a benevolent or at least rational world where countries can see the advantage to themselves in help- ing each other’. Perhaps he intends that we shall see he proposes an impossible task within the given context, and so impels us all to try to change that context (so flocking dutifully to King Street with our pennies)—but the revolu- tionary cry is so muted that he must forgive us if we miss it completely and are led to assume that there are no con- tradictions here and now preventing just the plan he suggests. Vv However, the doctrinal oddities must not obscure the fact that this is an excellent book of its kind—beautifully rational in a world irrational. When we grow used to the arbitrary inhibitions in thinking that seem to govern naturally our attitude to the world, Bernal’s constant stream of fascinating hypotheses in so many different fields of science serve as a very valuable relaxing force that broadens our vision to the limitless. He moves from improving textiles, providing food substitutes, planning gigantic new industrial bases to experi- ments in physical immortality. Too many socialists in Britain have only a fragmented view of issues. The prob- lems are demarcated iri narrow empirical areas, scarcely and obscurely linked only by some assumed ‘basic moral axioms’. Bernal’s is a laudable attempt to unify, to interrelate what is only methodologically separable, and guided by his over- whelming ‘need to persuade people that they have to live together in peace for the simple reason that, if they do not, none of them will be able to live at all’. In simplifying as he has done, it is inevitable he will be accused of naivety. Indeed many of the matters on which he speaks are impossible to assess unless one is an expert in a particular field. The ordinary reader, while understanding, never knows how much is practical possibility and how much mere wishful thinking. Crossman’s charge that ‘a purely scientific training leaves the social conscience sensitive but silly—and very easy to capture’ would be very unjust. Bernal is perhaps one of the most brilliant scientists in this country, not in deph but in breadth of intellectual scope. If he says © ‘the Soviet Union has realized in practice the ideal socialism’, and if we suspend disbelief and grant him our temporary trust, then his book is worth reading as a mine of useful factual and statistical information, if no more. NIGEL HARRIS

[p035] Two Events That Will Interest Our Readers A MEETING of university lecturers, students, teachers and research workers to discuss THE UNIVERSITIES AND THE LABOUR MOVEMENT Speakers: GERRY HEALY, provisional national secretary of the Socialist Labour League; JOHN DANIELS, editor of Labour Review This meeting will be held at the Holborn Hall, London, W.C. 1, on Monday, April 13, from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. * A-SUMMER SCHOOL at a camp in the New Forest The subjects will be: THE MARXIST METHOD IN POLITICS THE MARXIST MOVEMENT IN BRITAIN IMPERIALISM The school will be held from July 26 to August 8, and the cost will be £5 per week per adult (children half price) FETAILS FROM LABOUR REVIEW, 266 LAVENDER HILL, LONDON, S.W.11

[p036] Two Events That Will Interest Our Readers A MEETING of university lecturers, students, teachers and research workers to discuss THE UNIVERSITIES AND THE LABOUR MOVEMENT Speakers: GERRY HEALY, provisional national secretary of the Socialist Labour League; JOHN DANIELS, editor of Labour Review This meeting will be held at the Holborn Hall, London, W.C. 1, on Monday, April 13, from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. « A SUMMER SCHOOL at a camp in the New Forest The subjects will be: THE MARXIST METHOD IN POLITICS THE MARXIST MOVEMENT IN BRITAIN IMPERIALISM The school will be held from July 26 to August 8, and the cost will be £5 per week per adult (children half price) DETAILS FROM LABOUR REVIEW, 266 LAVENDER HILL, LONDON, S.W.II