hen it does not gain by war
in a material way, it is likely to gain in power (100).

We have seen this system of class rule at work in very recent times,
and it is a question whether the old ideal of land possession did not
work to the ruin of Germany economically, and indirectly antagonize
the industrial interests of the nation. German politics had been
trying to serve two masters, who were not entirely in agreement.
Germany was still a country of landed proprietors, and these
proprietors always have thrown their weight to the side of war. They
were by no means dominated by a motive of pure greed, and they did not
seek war entirely for their own advantage, but because, we might say,
they are ruled through and through by motives that can be satisfied
only in a militaristic state of society. Their gain from a successful
war is mainly a gain in prestige and distinction. An unsuccessful war,
as we have seen, threatens their extinction as a class. All democratic
movements tend toward land division, or is indeed in part precisely
this process. Aristocracy without land cannot maintain itself.

The economic theory of war comes to its own in the view that industry
now controls the world, that industry is the power behind politics,
and that industrial needs are the real energies that make wars. We
live in an industrial age, they say, and industry rules. Plainly to
find the whole truth about this relation of industry to war is no
simple matter. There are at least three more or less separate
questions involved in it. We need to know whether an industrial state
of society, or the industrial stage of economic development, is
especially prone to cause wars, as distinguished from more general
political and economic interests. We need to know whether wars, in an
industrial stage, do really serve either the interests of industry or
countries as a whole. Finally, there is the question whether those who
control industry and finance do actually create wars.

In the industrial and financial stages of economic development new
conditions arise which certainly must be taken into account in any
theory of war. There are deep changes in national life. The moods of
the city become a new force or a new factor in national life.
Socialistic ideas and new aspects of nationalism and patriotism
appear. There is a spirit of unrest; both pessimistic and optimistic
tendencies in society are increased; the motive of power takes new
forms, and there is a