Why Not Kill Them All?: The Logic and Prevention of Mass Political Murder by Daniel Chirot & Clark McCauley

Author:Daniel Chirot & Clark McCauley [Chirot, Daniel]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi
Tags: Sociology, Social Science, Genocide & War Crimes, Violence in Society, General, Political Science, Social Psychology, Psychology
ISBN: 9781400834853
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2010-07-01T06:34:20.488556+00:00

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Chapter Three

societies or warlike nomadic ones, wiping out entire enemy populations was counterproductive because it could eliminate future sources of revenue and potential allies. But if the population with whom Western capitalist powers dealt was considered subhuman, or unable to engage in trade and labor under market conditions, or incapable of costly resistance, there was nothing inherent in the search for gain to make Europeans restrain themselves. Obstructions to gain could then easily turn into genocide or, as in the case of the Irish, callous contempt with murderous consequences.

The history of the twentieth century shows that the palliative effect of world trade, growing commercialization, and widespread exchange may help but is not sufficient to stop the retribalization of societies into nations; to counteract ideological utopias that demand purification through the extermination of ethnic, religious, or class enemies; or to block the most extreme forms of internal conflict within very troubled societies. Economic growth, international trade, and globalized population migrations reached unparalleled levels, yet genocidal wars and ethnic cleansings became, if anything, more severe and common. To explain this turn for the worse—and to understand why, at the same time, new standards of human decency arose that condemn the kinds of atrocities so carelessly carried out by Europeans in colonial situations—

we have to turn to the influence of ideology. Ideology is the basis of morality; together these influence the way in which different societies and groups approach conflict.

Morality and Modesty: Rejecting Certitude Europe’s twentieth-century history is the starkest reminder possible that scientific progress, growing wealth, and increased levels of exchange between and within societies are in no sense protections against genocidal violence. Though ideological currents were already present in the late nineteenth century that mocked the trend toward gradual democratization in Europe, and that were increasingly hostile to capitalist indus-

Limited Warfare

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trialization, World War I was the turning point that let loose the worst aspects of Western modernity.

Yet, World War I should not have happened. Theobald von Beth-mann Hollweg, the German chancellor at the start of the war, was not lying when, asked to explain how it had all happened, sighed, “If only I knew” (quoted in Maier 1989, 279). Unlike World War II, there were no major ideological differences between the principal parties, except for competing nationalisms. The Germans, French, and British were different European tribes, but they shared similar cultures, economic organizations, and even their forms of government—partial democracy for males, but domination by well-established elites—were not terribly different. Austria-Hungary, or certainly the Austrian half, was also quite similar. Among the major powers, only Russia was still a backward autocracy, but World War I was not fought over its obsolete autocratic system.

Europe in the first decade of the twentieth century was at the center of an increasingly globalized economy. Foreign trade as a percentage of gross domestic products was higher in the western European economies than it had ever been before, and higher than it would be again until the 1970s; higher for the United States than it would be until the 1980s; and higher for Japan than it is even today.

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