arance is based on the idea
that there is a fundamental identity of interest between the different
groups engaged in it, which is occasionally interrupted by regrettable
misunderstandings. Both the one idea and the other are an illusion.
The disputes which matter are not caused by a misunderstanding of
identity of interests, but by a better understanding of diversity of
interests. Though a formal declaration of war is an episode, the
conditions which issue in a declaration of war are permanent; and what
makes them permanent is the conception of industry which also makes
inequality and functionless incomes permanent. It is the denial that
industry has any end or purpose other than the satisfaction of those
engaged in it.

That motive produces industrial warfare, not as a regrettable incident,
but as an inevitable result. It produces industrial war, because its
teaching is that each individual or group has a right to what they can
get, and denies that there is any principle, other than the mechanism
of the market, which determines what {41} they ought to get. For,
since the income available for distribution is limited, and since,
therefore, when certain limits have been passed, what one group gains
another group must lose, it is evident that if the relative incomes of
different groups are not to be determined by their functions, there is
no method other than mutual self-assertion which is left to determine
them. Self-interest, indeed, may cause them to refrain from using
their full strength to enforce their claims, and, in so far as this
happens, peace is secured in industry, as men have attempted to secure
it in international affairs, by a balance of power. But the
maintenance of such a peace is contingent upon the estimate of the
parties to it that they have more to lose than to gain by an overt
struggle, and is not the result of their acceptance of any standard of
remuneration as an equitable settlement of their claims. Hence it is
precarious, insincere and short. It is without finality, because there
can be no finality in the mere addition of increments of income, any
more than in the gratification of any other desire for material goods.
When demands are conceded the old struggle recommences upon a new
level, and will always recommence as long as men seek to end it merely
by increasing remuneration, not by finding a principle upon which all
remuneration, whether large or small, should be based.

Such a prin