Käte Duncker 1914

The Economic Causes of the World War[1]


Source: Käte und Herrmann Duncker: Ein Tagebuch in Briefen (1894-1953), Heinz Deutschland, Berlin 2016, USB-file, pp. 254-256.
Online Version: Marxists Internet Archive 2021
Translated and Transcribed: by a MIA volunteer
HTML Markup: Zdravko Saveski


1) The present world war is not due to the arbitrary actions of certain personalities nor the "racial hatred of the peoples," but rather due to world economic, i.e. world capitalist profit needs and the imperialist antagonisms.

2) Concentration of capital, development of large-scale enterprises, increase of productivity, as well as industrial imbalance of production together with the lack of planning of the entire capitalist economy lead to chronic overproduction. The miserable wages of the proletariat, the high prices of goods driven up by cartels, tariffs and indirect taxes prevent domestic sales. Therefore, the need for foreign sales markets is constantly growing. The huge accumulation of capital resulting from capitalist exploitation demands profitable investment. Such investment spheres with particularly favorable profit prospects are the countries of the awakening capitalism (colonies, semi-cultural states). In this hunt for monopolistic exploitation of commodity markets, raw material areas and safe capital investment places, the capitalist cliques of the various large states come into conflict with each other.

3) This capitalist drive for expansion finds its political expression in the world power politics of the modern great states, in imperialism. The conquest of colonies, the protection of capital invested abroad, the defense against inconvenient competitors require strong armaments at sea and on land. The competition for colonial territories and "spheres of interest" as well as the armament policy create permanent tensions between the capitalist states, which press towards belligerent discharge.

4) The Balkans, Asian Turkey, Persia, Africa and East Asia appear as the main centers of crisis and war of modern imperialism. In the dispute over these territories, Austria and Russia, Germany and England, who for their part have entrenched themselves out of a need for protection, are currently facing each other. The continued existence of capitalism, even after the end of the present war, is very likely to provoke new world wars for the world market and world power.

5) The class-conscious proletariat of Germany fights capitalism as the mortal enemy of the socialist liberation of the working class; it can therefore see no advancement of proletarian class interests in the support of German imperialism. For the capitalist present, too, the expansion of the internal market seems more important to the proletariat than that of the external market. Enhancement of the internal market would imply higher wages and ensure higher wages. The export of capital, on the other hand, increases the exploitation based in the essence of capitalism through wage pressure and price taxation. The plight of the proletariat is further aggravated by the military armament burden and the appalling misery of war.

6) Thus, the vital interests of the proletariat demand an untiring struggle against imperialism. A struggle which can only be waged in the consciousness that socialism alone can complete and overcome this imperialist stage of capitalist development and the permanent danger of world war.


Note

[1] Presentation at a meeting of speakers of women's reading groups in the Trade Union House on Engel-Ufer in Berlin, November 17, 1914.