NUARY 3, 1943. Super-National Organization Held No Way to Peace Radical Change in Political Mentalities and Social and Economic Ideologies Viewed as Necessary in Order to Eradicate Economic Nationalism The writer of the following letter was further a nation goes on the road to- government. The same is true of Ger Professor of International Economic ward public regulation and regimenta- many. The Nazis have replaced the Relations at the Graduate Institute of tion the more it is pushed toward eco- Reich's federal constitution by a uni- International Studies at Geneva from nomic isolation. tary government. 1934 to 1940. Prior to that he was Pro- In the days of domestic laissez-faire Under present conditions it does not fessor of Economics at the University a mere customs union could be con- make much difference whether the con- of Vienna. He is the author, among sidered as an adequate means to brush stitution of the suggested union of the other volumes, of "The Theory of away international conflicts. But it is Western democracies is shaped accord- Money and Credit" and "Socialism." different under present conditions. As ing to the legal pattern of unitary gov- His books have appeared in German, no nation is prepared to forsake public ernment or according to the legal pat- English, French, Spanish, Italian, Swed- control of business, a customs union is tern of federal government. There are ish and Dutch editions. not feasible, unless the power to inter- only two alternatives open-either fere with business is vested in a super- trade barriers between the member national authority. This, however states with all their sinister conse- To THE EDITOR OF THE NEW YORK TIMES: would be tantamount to the almost quences, economic nationalism, rival- Recent events on the various battle complete renunciation of national SOV- ries and discord, or free trade between fronts inspire the confidence that the ereignty. the member states and, whatever con- victorious end of the war may be near- er than pessimists expected a few Super-Nationalism Out stitutional label is adopted, strictly cen- tralized super-national government. months ago. Thus plans for the estab- This focal matter has been neglected In the first case there would be dis- lishment of a more satisfactory post- because some people have fallen prey union only. In the second case the war order become more urgent. It is to the illusion that the formation of a President of the United States and the a mistake to assume that it is too early super-national federal union could solve British Prime Minister would virtually to discuss them seriously before the the problem. Clarence Streit aims at be reduced to the status of provincial totalitarian aggressors are completely the creation of such a union for the governors and the United States Con- defeated. The difficulties involved are Western democracies. Count Couden- gress and the British Parliament to the so great that one cannot enter into hove-Kalergi aims at a similar union status of provincial assemblies. It is their careful examination soon enough. for the European countries. Other unlikely that Americans or British Immediately after victory the United writers aim at one for the Danubian would agree to such a situation. Nations will have to face very grave countries. Some powers, they say, problems. Only if they succeed in should be given to the suggested super- Opposition Foreseen solving them can a third and still more national government, the rest should The opposition to an abandonment of dreadful world war be avoided. If they remain with the governments of the national sovereignty would not be moti- fail, future conditions will not differ member nations. 1 Federal government vated merely by reluctance to depart essentially from those prevailing in the did succeed very well in the United from tradition and from constitutional years 1919 to 1939. Economic rival- States and in Switzerland. There is standards sanctified by the proudest ries among the peace-loving democra- no reason to suspect, many people be- memories of national history. To vest cies, and resulting disunion, would pro- lieve, that it would not prove very sat- the power to deal with public control of vide the dynamic powers with the op- isfactory in the great federal union of business in a super-national authority portunity of intriguing and plotting the democracies suggested by Mr. would interfere seriously with the en- anew and of preparing a still more Streit. tire structure of political forces. Pres- terrific assault. These projects fail to take account sure groups which were very influen- of the changes that have occurred in tial within the national frame and No Single Cause the structure of these two federal gov- therefore in a position to determine the This war was not caused by nazism ernments-as in that of all other feder- trend of policies might become power- alone. The failure of all the other na- ations-with the spread of economic in- less within the super-national federa- tions to stop the rise of nazism in time terventionism and socialism. tion and vice versa. American labor and to erect a barrier against a new The federal systems, both in America would not acquiesce in a state of af- German aggression was not less instru- and Switzerland, were established in fairs that would deprive it of the trade mental in bringing about the disaster an age of liberalism, which did not con- barriers protecting its higher wage than Germany's own domestic evolu- sider it a function of government to in- rates against the competition of coun- tion. The Second World War would terfere with the business of citizens. tries in which comparative overpopula- never have broken out if the Nazis had There were in the United States federal tion and poverty of natural resources expected to encounter on the first day customs, a federal postal service and maintained wage rates at a lower level. of hostilities a joint and adequately a national currency system. But in al- British farming would not be pre- armed front of all the nations that are most every other respect civil govern- pared to stand unprotected against the today united in fighting them. There ment was not concerned with the con- competition of American and Canadian was no secrecy about the ambitions of trol of business. The citizens were free agriculture, producing on a much more the Nazis. Everybody knew that there to run their own affairs. The govern- fertile soil. The American farmer was but one means to thwart them and ment's only task was to safeguard do- would not easily agree to free imports to prevent war-collective security. mestic and external peace. from Argentina. But the nations that were menaced did Under such conditions it was easy to Public Control not adopt this program. They pre- divide powers between the federal gov- ferred to cling to their policies of eco- ernment and the governments of the Government control of business is a nomic nationalism, which frustrated all various member states. To the federal method of furthering the economic in- endeavors for the formation of a united government those matters were as- terests of various influential pressure front. signed that went beyond the boundaries groups. The vested interests of those Every one must agree that the aban- of the states-foreign affairs, the con- favored by these policies would violent- donment of economic nationalism is the duct of war, the safeguarding of trade ly oppose a change which might im- main requisite of a future settlement between the states, the management of peril their political power and thereby that could succeed in making peace the postal service and of customs. their economic gains. No pressure last. All plans for a more satisfactory Moreover, the federal government did group is ready to surrender one of its world order are based on the assump- not interfere with the local affairs of privileges in the realm of domestic af- tion that it will be possible to elimi- the states, and the states did not inter- fairs even if its pernicious implications nate economic nationalism altogether, fere with what they considered the pri- for the rest of the nation and for the or at least in the mutual relations of im- vate affairs of the citizen. commonweal are manifest. It would be portant groups of nations. These plans an illusion indeed to believe that a Two Real Capitals take it for granted that the continua- pressure group would be willing to for- tion of the economic wars waged in the This equilibrium in the distribution sake one of its claims in order to avoid past by each nation against all other of jurisdictional powers was entirely inflicting harm on foreign nations. nations would render vain any program upset by the policy of economic inter- We must realize that the very ambi- for the establishment of peaceful col- ventionism. The new powers did not tious plans for a super-national organi- laboration. A political alliance or accrue to the member states but to the zation, even if limited to the Western league cannot work if every member federal government. Every step to- democracies only, cannot be carried out nation is eager to inflict as much harm ward more government interference in this age of public control of business as possible on every other nation by and toward more planning means at and its corollary, economic nationalism. trade and migration barriers, foreign the same time an expansion of the It cannot be expected that the schemes exchange control, monetary devalua- jurisdiction of the central government. for a substitution of an effective inter- tion and confiscation of foreigners' Washington and Berne have become national union or a super-national fed- today capitals in the true sense of the eration for the unsatisfactory Covenant property rights. But, unfortunately, the problems in- word, and the States and the cantons of the League of Nations would be volved cannot be solved simply by the are virtually reduced to provincial sta-