The World As I See It

by Albert Einstein

  It will be urged against this notion, not without a certain justification, that it over-estimates the efficacy of machinery, and neglects the psychological, or rather the moral, factor. Spiritual disarmament, people insist, must precede material disarmament. They say further, and truly, that the greatest obstacle to international order is that monstrously exaggerated spirit of nationalism which also goes by the fair-sounding but misused name of patriotism. During the last century and a half this idol has acquired an uncanny and exceedingly pernicious power everywhere.

  To estimate this objection at its proper worth, one must realize that a reciprocal relation exists between external machinery and internal states of mind. Not only does the machinery depend on traditional modes of feeling and owe its origin and its survival to them, but the existing machinery in its turn exercises a powerful influence on national modes of feeling.

  The present deplorably high development of nationalism everywhere is, in my opinion, intimately connected with the institution of compulsory military service or, to call it by its less offensive name, national armies. A country which demands military service of its inhabitants is compelled to cultivate a nationalistic spirit in them, which provides the psychological foundation of military efficiency. Along with this religion it has to hold up its instrument, brute force, to the admiration of the youth in its schools.

  The introduction of compulsory service is therefore, to my mind, the prime cause of the moral collapse of the white race, which seriously threatens not merely the survival of our civilization but our very existence. This curse, along with great social blessings, started with the French Revolution, and before long dragged all the other nations in its train.

  Therefore those who desire to encourage the growth of an international spirit and to combat chauvinism must take their stand against compulsory service. Is the severe persecution to which conscientious objectors to military service are subjected to-day a whit less disgraceful to the community than those to which the martyrs of religion were exposed in former centuries? Can you, as the Kellogg Pact does, condemn war and at the same time leave the individual to the tender mercies of the war machine in each country?

  If, in view of the Disarmament Conference, we are not to restrict ourselves to the technical problems of organization involved but also to tackle the psychological question more directly from educational motives, we must try on international lines to invent some legal way by which the individual can refuse to serve in the army. Such a regulation would undoubtedly produce a great moral effect.

  This is my position in a nutshell: Mere agreements to limit armaments furnish no sort of security. Compulsory arbitration must be supported by an executive force, guaranteed by all the participating countries, which is ready to proceed against the disturber of the peace with economic and military sanctions. Compulsory service, as the bulwark of unhealthy nationalism, must be combated; most important of all, conscientious objectors must be protected on an international basis.

  Finally, I would draw your attention to a book, War again To-morrow, by Ludwig Bauer, which discusses the issues here involved in an acute and unprejudiced manner and with great psychological insight.

  II

  THE BENEFITS THAT THE inventive genius of man has conferred on us in the last hundred years could make life happy and care-free if organization had been able to keep pace with technical progress. As it is, these hard-won achievements in the hands of our generation are like a razor in the hands of a child of three. The possession of marvellous means of production has brought care and hunger instead of freedom.

  The results of technical progress are most baleful where they furnish means for the destruction of human life and the hard-won fruits of toil, as we of the older generation experienced to our horror in the Great War. More dreadful even than the destruction, in my opinion, is the humiliating slavery into which war plunges the individual. Is it not a terrible thing to be forced by the community to do things which every individual regards as abominable crimes? Only a few had the moral greatness to resist; them I regard as the real heroes of the Great War.

  There is one ray of hope. I believe that the responsible leaders of the nations do, in the main, honestly desire to abolish war. The resistance to this essential step forward comes from those unfortunate national traditions which are handed on like a hereditary disease from generation to generation through the workings of the educational system. The principal vehicle of this tradition is military training and its glorification, and, equally, that portion of the Press which is controlled by heavy industry and the soldiers. Without disarmament there can be no lasting peace. Conversely, the continuation of military preparations on the present scale will inevitably lead to new catastrophes.

  That is why the Disarmament Conference of 1932 will decide the fate of this generation and the next. When one thinks how pitiable, taken as a whole, have been the results of former conferences, it becomes clear that it is the duty of all intelligent and responsible people to exert their full powers to remind public opinion again and again of the importance of the 1932 Conference. Only if the statesmen have behind them the will to peace of a decisive majority in their own countries can they attain their great end, and for the formation of this public opinion each one of us is responsible in every word and deed.

  The doom of the Conference would be sealed if the delegates came to it with ready-made instructions, the carrying out of which would soon become a matter of prestige. This seems to be generally realized. For meetings between the statesmen of two nations at a time, which have become very frequent of late, have been used to prepare the ground for the Conference by conversations about the disarmament problem. This seems to me a very happy device, for two men or groups of men can usually discuss things together most reasonably, honestly, and dispassionately when there is no third person present in front of whom they think they must be careful what they say. Only if exhaustive preparations of this kind are made for the Conference, if surprises are thereby ruled out, and an atmosphere of confidence is created by genuine good will, can we hope for a happy issue.

  In these great matters success is not a matter of cleverness, still less of cunning, but of honesty and confidence. The moral element cannot be displaced by reason, thank heaven! It is not the individual spectator’s duty merely to wait and criticize. He must serve the cause by all means in his power. The fate of the world will be such as the world deserves.

  America and the Disarmament Conference

  THE AMERICANS OF TO-DAY are filled with the cares arising out of economic conditions in their own country. The efforts of their responsible leaders are directed primarily to remedying the serious unemployment at home. The sense of being involved in the destiny of the rest of the world, and in particular of the mother country of Europe, is even less strong than in normal times.

  But the free play of economic forces will not by itself automatically overcome these difficulties. Regulative measures by the community are needed to bring about a sound distribution of labour and consumption-goods among mankind; without them even the people of the richest country suffocate. The fact is that since the amount of work needed to supply everybody’s needs has been reduced through the improvement of technical methods, the free play of economic forces no longer produces a state of affairs in which all the available labour can find employment. Deliberate regulation and organization are becoming necessary to make the results of technical progress beneficial to all.

  If the economic situation cannot be cleared up without systematic regulation, how much more necessary is such regulation for dealing with the problems of international politics! Few people still cling to the notion that acts of violence in the shape of wars are either advantageous or worthy of humanity as a method of solving international problems. But they are not logical enough to make vigorous efforts on behalf of the measures which might prevent war, that savage and unworthy relic of the age of barbarism. It requires some power of reflection to see the issue clearly and a certain coura
ge to serve this great cause resolutely and effectively.

  Anybody who really wants to abolish war must resolutely declare himself in favour of his own country’s resigning a portion of its sovereignty in favour of international institutions: he must be ready to make his own country amenable, in case of a dispute, to the award of an international court. He must in the most uncompromising fashion support disarmament all round, which is actually envisaged in the unfortunate Treaty of Versailles; unless military and aggressively patriotic education is abolished, we can hope for no progress.

  No event of the last few years reflects such disgrace on the leading civilized countries of the world as the failure of all disarmament conferences so far; for this failure is due not only to the intrigues of ambitious and unscrupulous politicians, but also to the indifference and slackness of the public in all countries. Unless this is changed we shall destroy all the really valuable achievements of our predecessors.

  I believe that the American nation is only imperfectly aware of the responsibility which rests with it in this matter. People in America no doubt think as follows: “Let Europe go to the dogs, if it is destroyed by the quarrelsomeness and wickedness of its inhabitants. The good seed of our Wilson has produced a mighty poor crop in the stony ground of Europe. We are strong and safe and in no hurry to mix ourselves up in other people’s affairs.”

  Such an attitude is at once base and short-sighted. America is partly to blame for the difficulties of Europe. By ruthlessly pressing her claims she is hastening the economic and therewith the moral collapse of Europe; she has helped to Balkanize Europe, and therefore shares the responsibility for the breakdown of political morality and the growth of that spirit of revenge which feeds on despair. This spirit will not stop short of the gates of America—I had almost said, has not stopped short. Look around, and look forward.

  The truth can be briefly stated: The Disarmament Conference comes as a final chance, to you no less than to us, of preserving the best that civilized humanity has produced. And it is on you, as the strongest and comparatively soundest among us, that the eyes and hopes of all are focused.

  Active Pacifism

  I CONSIDER MYSELF LUCKY in witnessing the great peace demonstration organized by the Flemish people. To all concerned in it I feel impelled to call out in the name of men of good will with a care for the future: “In this hour of opened eyes and awakening conscience we feel ourselves united with you by the deepest ties.”

  We must not conceal from ourselves that an improvement in the present depressing situation is impossible without a severe struggle; for the handful of those who are really determined to do something is minute in comparison with the mass of the lukewarm and the misguided. And those who have an interest in keeping the machinery of war going are a very powerful body; they will stop at nothing to make public opinion subservient to their murderous ends.

  It looks as if the ruling statesmen of to-day were really trying to secure permanent peace. But the ceaseless piling-up of armaments shows only too clearly that they are unequal to coping with the hostile forces which are preparing for war. In my opinion, deliverance can only come from the peoples themselves. If they wish to avoid the degrading slavery of war-service, they must declare with no uncertain voice for complete disarmament. As long as armies exist, any serious quarrel will lead to war. A pacifism which does not actually try to prevent the nations from arming is and must remain impotent.

  May the conscience and the common sense of the peoples be awakened, so that we may reach a new stage in the life of nations, where people will look back on war as an incomprehensible aberration of their forefathers!

  Letter to a Friend of Peace

  IT HAS COME TO my ears that in your great-heartedness you are quietly accomplishing a splendid work, impelled by solicitude for humanity and its fate. Small is the number of them that see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts. But it is their strength that will decide whether the human race must relapse into that hopeless condition which a blind multitude appears to-day to regard as the ideal.

  O that the nations might see, before it is too late, how much of their self-determination they have got to sacrifice in order to avoid the struggle of all against all! The power of conscience and the international spirit has proved itself inadequate. At present it is being so weak as to tolerate parleying with the worst enemies of civilization. There is a kind of conciliation which is a crime against humanity, and it passes for political wisdom.

  We cannot despair of humanity, since we are ourselves human beings. And it is a comfort that there still exist individuals like yourself, whom one knows to be alive and undismayed.

  Another Ditto

  DEAR FRIEND AND spiritual brother,

  To be quite frank, a declaration like the one before me in a country which submits to conscription in peace-time seems to me valueless. What you must fight for is liberation from universal military service. Verily the French nation has had to pay heavily for the victory of 1918; for that victory has been largely responsible for holding it down in the most degrading of all forms of slavery. Let your efforts in this struggle be unceasing. You have a mighty ally in the German reactionaries and militarists. If France clings to universal military service, it will be impossible in the long run to prevent its introduction into Germany. For the demand of the Germans for equal rights will succeed in the end; and then there will be two German military slaves to every French one, which would certainly not be in the interests of France.

  Only if we succeed in abolishing compulsory service altogether will it be possible to educate the youth in the spirit of reconciliation, joy in life, and love towards all living creatures.

  I believe that a refusal on conscientious grounds to serve in the army when called up, if carried out by 50,000 men at the same moment, would be irresistible. The individual can accomplish little here, nor can one wish to see the best among us devoted to destruction through the machinery behind which stand the three great powers of stupidity, fear, and greed.

  A Third Ditto

  DEAR SIR,

  The point with which you deal in your letter is one of prime importance. The armament industry is, as you say, one of the greatest dangers that beset mankind. It is the hidden evil power behind the nationalism which is rampant everywhere. …

  Possibly something might be gained by nationalization. But it is extremely hard to determine exactly what industries should be included. Should the aircraft industry? And how much of the metal industry and the chemical industry?

  As regards the munitions industry and the export of war material, the League of Nations has busied itself for years with efforts to get this horrible traffic controlled—with what little success, we all know. Last year I asked a well-known American diplomat why Japan was not forced by a commercial boycott to desist from her policy of force. “Our commercial interests are too strong,” was the answer. How can one help people who rest satisfied with a statement like that?

  You believe that a word from me would suffice to get something done in this sphere? What an illusion! People flatter me as long as I do not get in their way. But if I direct my efforts towards objects which do not suit them, they immediately turn to abuse and calumny in defence of their interests. And the onlookers mostly keep out of the light, the cowards! Have you ever tested the civil courage of your countrymen? The silently accepted motto is “Leave it alone and don’t speak of it.” You may be sure that I shall do everything in my power along the lines you indicate, but nothing can be achieved as directly as you think.

  Women and War

  IN MY OPINION, the patriotic women ought to be sent to the front in the next war instead of the men. It would at least be a novelty in this dreary sphere of infinite confusion, and besides—why should not such heroic feelings on the part of the fair sex find a more picturesque outlet than in attacks on a defenceless civilian?

  Thoughts on the World Economic Crisis

  IF THERE IS ONE thing that can give a layman in
the sphere of economics the courage to express an opinion on the nature of the alarming economic difficulties of the present day, it is the hopeless confusion of opinions among the experts. What I have to say is nothing new and does not pretend to be anything more than the opinion of an independent and honest man who, unburdened by class or national prejudices, desires nothing but the good of humanity and the most harmonious possible scheme of human existence. If in what follows I write as if I were clear about certain things and sure of the truth of what I am saying, this is done merely for the sake of an easier mode of expression; it does not proceed from unwarranted self-confidence or a belief in the infallibility of my somewhat simple intellectual conception of problems which are in reality uncommonly complex.

  As I see it, this crisis differs in character from past crises in that it is based on an entirely new set of conditions, due to rapid progress in methods of production. Only a fraction of the available human labour in the world is needed for the production of the total amount of consumption-goods necessary to life. Under a completely free economic system this fact is bound to lead to unemployment. For reasons which I do not propose to analyse here, the majority of people are compelled to work for the minimum wage on which life can be supported. If two factories produce the same sort of goods, other things being equal, that one will be able to produce them more cheaply which employs less workmen—i.e., makes the individual worker work as long and as hard as human nature permits. From this it follows inevitably that, with methods of production what they are to-day, only a portion of the available labour can be used. While unreasonable demands are made on this portion, the remainder is automatically excluded from the process of production. This leads to a fall in sales and profits. Businesses go smash, which further increases unemployment and diminishes confidence in industrial concerns and therewith public participation in these mediating banks; finally the banks become insolvent through the sudden withdrawal of deposits and the wheels of industry therewith come to a complete standstill.