23 THE PASSING OF THE NATION 22 THE CLASS STRUGGLE In order that we may be able to judge fairly of the tendencies of recent and contemporaneous thought, we must remind ourselves of the ideal political state of the nationalistic mode of thought, which is: Every Nation one State, and every State one Nation.
Bearing this in mind it is safe to say that there has not been a serious nationalistic work written within a generation. All the serious books written on the subject within the past thirty years, whether they come from the pen of the imperialistic school or from that of its opponents, preach doctrines contrary to that ideal. In fact, this point, the complete abandonment of the theory and practice of nationalism, is the only point upon which the two schools of real live thought in the domain politics to day. the imperialists and the socialists agree. Both recognize that the line of division along what are called nationalities does not correspond to the facts of modern life, and they both therefore assume that the so called national state based upon it must be abandoned as unworkable, and something else substituted for it.
On the question as to what that something else should be they disagree: the one school wants an autocratic world state, in which one race or nation would lord it over the rest, exploiting them for its own benefit; while the other wants a democratic world state or federation in which all groups would live together on a basis of equality and without exploitation of one by any other. But this wide divergence in their aims and purposes should not blind us to the fundamental fact that both of these schools and, as have said, they are the only schools of live thought on the subject, agree that the national state is a thing of the past. If any proof were necessary, the very existence of these schools, with no other real thought to offset them, would be proof positive that the facts of existence, the economic foundations of our society, have passed beyond the national stage.
And since the economic facts are beyond dispute, the very existence of these two schools and their unanimity on the point under consideration, is proof positive that modern thought on the subject is abreast of, or at least not far behind, the development of modern economics.
Such was the situation at the outbreak of the Great War.
And the war itself has not changed the situation at least not to our disadvantage. It is true that when the storm broke loose there appeared upon the face of the troubled waters of our existence the foam and froth of which spoke before, and that those who cannot see below the surface of things were deceived thereby. But the foam and froth are disappeariag fast, and the crisis produced by the war, like all crises, has served to accelerate tendencies of development, both of fact and of thought, which were but slowly forging to the front, and to bring out in sharp relief where all may see them facts which might otherwise have remained unobserved except of the few who specialized on the subject. The war has also quickened our perception so that we are now much better attuned to the voice of the new order than we were before the war. And that voice speaks to us in no uncertain accents.
One of the most interesting things in this field that have come since the outbreak of the war is the so called Central Europe propaganda and one of its most interesting manifestations is Dr. Friedrich Naumann remarkable book, Mittel Europa Middle Europe. Central Europe is to be a super state, consisting of Germany, Austria Hungary, Poland, the Balkans, and possibly Belgium, Holland, Italy, and the Scandinavian Kingdoms in Europe, together with certain parts of other continents, forming one political and economic organization, under the hegemony of Germany.
Those who get their information and ideas from newspapers may be disposed to pooh pooh the idea of Middle Europe as being nothing but the old dream of the Pan Germans in new form a dream which is bound to be shattered when the PanGerman hopes of a world dominated by Germany shall have been laid to rest on the battlefields of Belgium and Northern France.
But this is a great mistake. It is true that Middle Europe has considerable likeness to the ideas of Pan Germanism. But only in so far as Pan Germanism itself was based on certain economic facts and politics social factors. For the rest the two are quite distinct.