WAR IN MODERN HISTORY

In this chapter we turn to the problem of war. Indeed, it cannot be evaded in a system of thought designed to make some kind of order of the transition from traditional to modern societies. For the progression we have considered thus far—from traditional societies to societies of high mass-consumption—has, as a matter of simple historical fact, been shot through with violence organized on a national basis. Men and the societies they have constructed have not climbed smoothly up the stages-of-growth, once the world of modern science was understood and began to be applied. They did not create, unfold and diffuse the layers of technology and let consumers' sovereignty and its income- and price-elasticities of demand determine the contours of growth. War has drawn resources, shattered or altered societies, and changed the options open to men and to the societies of which they were a part.

Quite aside from the brute historical fact of armed conflict there are three quite particular reasons why this book must deal with the problem of war.

First, the theory of the preconditions period—of the undoing of the traditional society and its supplanting with one form or another of modern society—hinges substantially on the demonstration effect of the relation between modernization and military power.

Second, if this system is to challenge and supplant Marxism as a way of looking at modern history it must answer, in its own way, the question posed under the rubric of ‘imperialism’ by the Marxist analysis, as elaborated by Marx's successors.