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1: Perspective And Summary Vol. 1: The Dynamic Psychological Field
Democratic Peace page |
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We may have all possible reasons against war--but how does this help
us when we are unable to say what peace is, can be, shall be?
----Rudolf Pannwitz, Der Friede (1950, p. 8) They have not wanted Peace at all; they have wanted to be spared war--as though the absence of war was the same as peace. ----Dorothy Thompson, On the Record |
This general neglect is unfortunate.
In previous volumes I developed a definite conception of peace, no less than of conflict and violence. This I presented in Chapter 2. Here I will compare and contrast this conception to other meanings of peace. In the next section I will organize the major concepts of peace and their underlying principles to show the relative nature of peace as a social contract. Subsequently, I will consider each principle and associated concepts in turn.
These concepts have diverse meanings and nuances which may even change through generations, as for the Greek Irene or Roman pax. Each, however, implies or asserts some core principle of peace. That is, each has at its center some basic meaning that establishes its primary similarity to or difference from other concepts. These principles are listed in Table 3.2, along with the associated concepts of peace.
I should note immediately that the principles are not necessarily independent. Peace as a state of law, for example, is related to that of order, or of power. But the principles make important and relevant distinctions and serve to classify the concepts by their basic meaning. Also, the concepts themselves sometimes involve more than one principle, either equal in importance to that shown associated with a concept or secondary. Therefore, Table 3.3 untangles these multiprinciple meanings of the concepts.
In all the tables, I emphasize the concept of peace as a social contract for comparison. In discussing the underlying principles, I will, where appropriate, compare and contrast this conceptualization to the others. This will show that, while theoretically given, my conception subsumes a number of alternative concepts and is thereby in line with much thought on peace.
The most popular contemporary meaning of peace is an absence of some kind of antagonistic conflict.
B. For Irenologists. Peace as an absence of antagonistic conflict, violence, or war is also a favorite definition among irenologists.
Depending on the study, this definition may be applied to internal or external antagonistic conflict, violence, or war, and be narrow, middle-range, or overarching
C. For Pacifists. More explicit about the positive nature of peace are pacifists, who believe that no end justifies violence, not even self-defense.
To pacifists peace as nonviolence is usually passive; however, especially since World War II, theories of pacifist, nonviolent action (or resistance) have grown under the influence of Mahatma Gandhi and subsequently Martin Luther King.
D. For Students of International Relations. To students of international relations, many who probably become interested in this field because of pacifist inclinations,
E. Summary. Of peace as a state of nonantagonistic conflict, nonviolence, or nonwar this can be said. It is generally a nonexistent (where there is no violence, there is peace), and thus a dichotomy. It may be internal or external to humanity, human groups, or nation-states, although in international relations research the external dominates; and it usually is passive (recognizing that it can be an active movement, as for Gandhi and King). It is empirical and often normative.
The general problem with this concept of peace is that it functions as a residual of analysis and lacks theoretical or philosophical clarity. Often the conditions, causes, and nature of violence or war are the focus, and peace is the presumed fallout of a better understanding and scientific knowledge, or of actions toward preventing violence and war. Of course, there is the argument that "this is my concept of peace, and I may choose whatever I prefer or value," but close analysis often will show this justification simply hides the blind acceptance of some school or tradition.
Accepting peace as an absence of violence or war begs many questions. Do we really mean to equate a loving, cooperative, or just peace with a peace of bondage, slavery, or injustice?
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Only a mistaken judgment can object to including the interval of treaty in the war. Looked at by the light of facts it cannot, it will be found, be rationally considered a state of peace, where neither party either gave or got back all that they had agreed, apart from the violations of it which occurred on both sides. |
In the New Testament peace could mean the absence of conflict, as mentioned, but also either the health of body and mind or concord. Regarding the latter, peace seems an act of will of those in a conflictful situation.
For Saint Augustine, early Christian father and Bishop of Hippo, peace "between man and man is well-ordered concord. Domestic peace is well-ordered concord between those of the family who rule and those who obey. Civil peace is similar concord among the citizens."
Saint Thomas Aquinas, the Italian theologian of the thirteenth century, questioned in his Summa Theologica whether Saint Augustine was correct. Concord, Aquinas argued, is an agreement between wills consenting to the same thing. Internally, we may have appetites that disagree. Therefore, true peace includes concord, but adds that the appetites within us must also be united. For example, concord reached under threat is really not peace. Peace, then, combines two levels: that between people and that between a person and himself.
One final note on concord. The idea of peace as concord in the literature may mean any agreement between wills, as Aquinas puts it, thus including agreements under duress or threat. However, concord seems often to imply an amicable agreement and friendly relations. In both cases, these would be social contracts, as I use the term, and thus entailed by my definition of peace.
Whatever the sense in which peace in the Old and New Testaments is used, the basic message is that peace is social harmony. For example, shalom, the Hebrew word for peace in the Old Testament, among other senses, means calmness and lack of social disturbance.
Peace as harmony or serenity is an Eastern concept,
'ing ho, specifically means an ordered state of mind, but also can refer to political order. This is similar to heiwa, the Japanese word for peace, which is even written in the same Chinese character. In Japan, however, while still meaning a tranquil state of mind, the idea became more closely identified with social harmony than for the Chinese concept, as in the harmony of one's household or village.
Moreover, in current English usage one meaning of peace implies quiet, tranquility, and harmony in social relations, such as in the phrases "a peaceful life." "at peace," or "to keep the peace." It is appropriate to ask when peace will come to a region beset by hostile relations, threats, and crisis without necessarily implying simply an end to conflict.
B. And Social Contract. Peace as social harmony is not entailed by peace as a social contract. The former means unity, good order, close coordination of minds or behavior, or social quiet and serenity. Social contracts, however, can be agreements to disagree. They may bring respite from violence and overt antagonistic conflict among hostile or competitive parties, while permitting competition or struggle by other means. Thus, consistent with Soviet Secretary Brezhnev's call for "peaceful coexistence" between communist and capitalist through agreements to avoid or lessen the risk of interstate war, the Soviet Union otherwise struggled to defeat capitalism.
Nonetheless, social harmony and the conflict helix are related as outcome and process. Social harmony should be seen as a particular tranquil state of relations resulting from a long, undisturbed process of adjustment--of increasingly durable and cooperative periods of concord interspersed by less intense and shorter conflicts, as is the increasingly integrated relationship between husband and wife who, in their seventies, have grown older and wiser together. Peace as a state of harmony is thus an ideal of life approached after the conflict helix has long spiralled through its course.
The idea of peace of mind became one of the later meanings of the Roman pax: a condition of conscious serenity.
In early Christianity peace was a mental state, usually interpreted in spiritual terms, although mental and physical health also were ingredients.
ãnti, the Indian word for peace, means a well ordered mind--one to be cultivated regardless of external conditions. Since there will always be conflict and war in the world, complete peace is believed possible only for the individual subjectively.
Peace as inner harmony was also a basic meaning the Chinese, influenced by Buddhism, gave to ho p'ing.
Of course, social contracts and peace of mind are not completely independent. Internal harmony and external concord and consensus tend to go together. And surely, as the conflict helix winds its way toward greater external harmony and less conflict, one can expect an increasingly inner peace as well.
Peace so conceived also implies that war is a particular state of law initiated by a declaration of war, with special rights and obligations, such as regarding neutrals.
The English philosopher Thomas Hobbes provided a clear example of this idea. For him peace was a construct (in my terms)
Hobbes proposed two laws of nature.
John Locke argued this point. He defined a state of war as one of enmity and destruction; the intention to kill another or get him in one's absolute power.
B. And Social Contract. The idea of civil government as a contract to secure life and property and thus end a state of war is obviously consistent with the concept of peace as a social contract; and the approach of the "social contract" theorists (as Hobbes and Locke, among others, are called) to justifying government is also in direct ancestry to my method for determining a just peace, as outlined in Section 5.1. The similarity is only in method, however.
Correlating war to the state of nature and opposing the latter to civil government is wrong in fact and theory. I have dealt with this elsewhere
I will later argue that a minimum civil government does enhance nonviolent peace (Section 7.4.2 and Section 11.1), but this is not to say (any) civil government does. Moreover, I do not identify peace as a social contract with a hypothetical social contract forming a civil government. Such a government is simply one form of social contract.
Peace as abstract law (customary and legislative) should not be confused with peace as simply legislative law, which then identifies peace with a civil government monopolizing force. Abstract law is a broader conception involving as well the law norms that evolve (as structures of expectations) out of social interaction. These distinctions are not at all clear in the literature on peace,
Abstract laws are individual expectations harmonized across a society and that guide social behavior. They form overarching structures of expectations and thereby structure society. They are direct and indirect contracts resulting from diverse conflicts and are based on societal balances of powers.
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is based on power, that is, on the relation between the capabilities of acting upon each other possessed by the political units. Since the relations of power, in peacetime, without being the exact reflections of the actual or potential relation of forces, are a more or less distorted expression of it, the various types of peace can be related to the types of relation of forces. I distinguish three types of peace--equilibrium, hegemony, empire. |
According to Geoffrey Blainey in his The Causes of War,
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One may suggest that the measurement of international power is a crucial clue to the causes of war. War itself is a dispute about measurement; peace on the other hand marks a rough agreement about measurement. |
Even the international law of peace is seen by many as subordinate to such a balance. L. 0. Oppenheim, perhaps the most renowned student of international law, writes:
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A law of nations can exist only if there be an equilibrium, a balance of power, between the members of the family of nations. If the powers cannot keep one another in check, no rules of law will have any force, since an over-powerful state will naturally try to act according to discretion and disobey the law. As there is not, and never can be, a central political authority above the sovereign states that could enforce the rules of the law of nations, a balance of power must prevent any member of the family of nations from becoming omnipotent. |
The Roman concept of pax, which has a number of meanings, also referred to external relations and security due to the predominance of authority of a great power,
Doubtlessly, the balance of power has been a central analytical concept in analyzing international relations (or the relations between any sovereign groups),
I do not imply that peace so conceived is applied only to sovereign group relations. Karl Marx's emphasis on class relations (in his terms) as being the fundamental substructure of a society has influenced many contemporary sociologists. Civil societies--or, indeed, any social system--and their stability (peace) can be viewed through a balance or equilibrium of power.
A balance in my terms therefore may be an equilibrium; or an equality or dominance; or a hierarchy, empire, or enslavement. That is, it is any relation of powers that parties will accept in order to terminate a conflict.
The concept of this balance of powers in social field theory should not be confused with that of peace as a social contract. This peace is an outcome of the balancing of powers in a conflict situation, and is initially grounded on the resulting balance. This balance can change significantly as interests, capabilities, and wills shift (as American interests and will shifted following the defeat in Vietnam), while the associated social contract remains unaltered.
The theological concept of peace does overlap with peace as harmony in its secular meaning. As for the rest, peace is a construct
It would be inappropriate to engage the concept of justice at this point, for that is the subject of Part II. I should note, however, that peace as a social contract is independent of any conception of justice or other good. A social contract may be just or unjust, good or evil. Nor is justice an essential element or necessary concomitant of peace so conceived. A social contract is purely descriptive, carrying little significant evaluative baggage with such concepts as goal, capability, or expectation. This is a useful aspect of peace in this sense, for it minimizes the importation into analysis of unwanted values. However, once theoretical and empirical analyses reach a useful stage, then one can ask, as I will do here: What is the nature of a just social contract?
"Positive peace" in current usage is associated with Scandinavian irenology, particularly as defined by Galtung, director of the International Peace Research Institute in Oslo, Norway, and editor of the Journal of Peace Research. Since among contemporary students of peace this concept may well be the chief alternative theory of a just peace to one I will present later, I will outline Galtung's full theory here.
B. His Idea of Violence. Galtung believes the traditional concept of violence as the intended physical restraint or harm of another is inadequate. It necessarily leads to defining peace as simply the absence of physical violence, which thereby lumps together under the ideal of peace a variety of diverse social orders--some, such as slavery, quite unacceptable. Therefore, he argues, if a positive-valued alternative to violence is to be meaningful, violence must be redefined so that its negation implies an acceptable, positive peace.
For this reason, Galtung defines violence as "present when human beings are being influenced so that their actual somatic and mental realizations are below their potential realization."
For Galtung, violence defined above is a "mode of influence" about which six distinctions (also called dimensions) can be made.
C. His Structure of Violence. Regarding the actor-action-object distinction--and this is a critical classification--Galtung divides violence into that which is personal, or direct (involving an actor who commits the violence), and that which is structural or indirect. Both cases involve people who are hurt or manipulated, but in the former someone is doing it to another; in the latter the "violence is built into the structure and shows up as unequal power and consequently as unequal life chances."
Structural violence appears, for Galtung, when resources, or especially the power to allocate them, are unevenly distributed: when people are starving and this could be avoided; when life expectancy is much greater in the upper class; when a small elite control the entry into high status. Here, without any prior ethical analysis or normative preparation,
Then Galtung presents his final two distinctions (dimensions) regarding violence: it may be intended or unintended, or manifest or latent. With these and the other distinctions mentioned, Galtung defines a "typology of violence" in which the personal-structural distinctions are basic. In focusing on the means of personal and structural violence Galtung makes his second broad jump, but now back from the ethical to the analytical-empirical plane--again without analysis and as offhanded: "If we accept that the general formula behind structural violence is inequality, above all in the distribution of power, then this can be measured."
D. His Concept of "Positive Peace." The above serves as an introduction to six factors maintaining inequalitarian distributions--that is, "mechanisms of structural violence"
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[Peace] has two sides: absence of personal violence, and absence of structural violence. We shall refer to them as negative peace and positive peace.
For brevity the formulation "absence of violence" and "social justice" may perhaps be preferred.... The reason for the use of the terms "negative" and "positive" is easily seen: the absence of personal violence does not lead to a positively defined condition, where as the absence of structural violence is what we have referred to as social justice, which is a positively defined condition (equalitarian distribution of power and resources). |
E. His Political Theory. Thus, structural violence = unactualized human potentials = social injustice = inequality. Therefore, positive peace = equality = social justice = realized human potentials = absence of structural violence. This equation is stipulated; analysis to support the critical relationships are lacking; and the definitional and substantive problems in the formulation are glaring. One should understand, however, that the critical relationships and definitions are entirely theoretical. Even violence, usually an easily measured empirical concept of physical harm and destruction, is converted into a construct meaning unactualized human potential, then equated in theory with injustice and, thence, equality--each of them constructs.
What is this theory, then? As a careful reading of Galtung should underline, it is a socialist theory of peace.
Regardless, Galtung's conception of a "positive peace" as social justice and, thus, equality stands in the literature in greatest opposition to the view I will develop here. That is, positive valued peace is the minimization of governmental powers (not the maximization implicit in Galtung's view),
In comparison, then, peace within the conflict helix is a broad conception, subsuming a number of ways of looking at peace, such as a civil government or a balance of powers. This is not to say that my view is identical to these, but rather that the conception includes them. For example, peace in my view develops out of a balancing of powers, is based on the resulting balance (or equilibrium), and may break down into violence or war if a large gap develops between the balance and the associated structure of expectations. In this way a balance of powers is an ingredient of peace as a social contract.
As another example, civil government as a force for peace and security is also subsumed, since a civil government (the state) as an institution is usually a direct (historically imposed by conquest), overarching social contract accepted consciously or unconsciously by successive generations. Abstract laws are likewise subsumed, since they help form an overarching structure of expectations, or social contract. And concord, the Augustinian conception of peace, is clearly a kind of agreement and thus a social contract.
There are also a number of conceptions of peace that overlap mine. In one sense, Irene meant a new state of relations following hostilities; shalom, a covenant; pax, a legal relation based on a pact. They also meant an absence of violence or war, currently the most popular conception, and overlap with the idea that a social contract terminates overt conflict (within a specific situation) and manifests its absence in social relations.
Moreover, a number of conceptions view peace as a mental or spiritual state, especially one of harmony, tranquility, and serenity. These conceive peace independently of a social contract. This is not to say, however, that a social contract is wholly external. As so often emphasized here and in previous volumes, this structure of expectations is fundamentally a linking of minds. However, the concomitant mental state may not be harmonious, certainly not if a party agrees under duress. Similarly, a social contract may not define an external state of harmony between the parties, as in an agreement between antagonists for narrow purposes. This is true of particular social contracts, but in the long run if a conflict helix winds through its course without a fundamental change in the conditions of a relationship, then it should eventually achieve a greater social harmony and peace of mind.
Then there are the normative conceptions of peace. As a social contract the concept of peace is value-neutral.
Henceforth, I will call peace, as a social contract, social peace. That is, a structure of expectations = social contract = a social peace. This will clearly discriminate peace as I conceive it from other conceptions, while being consistent with the meaning of peace here. That is, the balance of powers is, except for (physical) force, made up of social powers,
* Scanned from Chapter 3 in R.J. Rummel, The Just Peace, 1981. For full reference to the book and the list of its contents in hypertext, click book. Typographical errors have been corrected, clarifications added, and style updated.1. Quoted in Starke (1968:20).
2. For recent analyses of peace as a concept, see Dedring (1976), Galtung (1969), Johnson (1976), Hogland and Ulrich (1972), and Starke (1968). Zampaglione (1973) analyzes the meanings of peace in antiquity, Ishida (1969) describes its cross-cultural meanings, and Nikhilananda (1969) presents a Hindu perspective. For classical analyses, see Saint Augustine (1952) and Saint Thomas Aquinas (1952), both of whom will be more specifically cited in due course.
3. Vol. 2:1089-1093.
4. I am not exempt from criticism for neglecting the concept of peace. In work prior to these volumes of Understanding Conflict and War I simply assumed peace to be the fallout of a better understanding and control over the causes and conditions of violence. Peace was its absence. Had I initiated my work on conflict with a conceptual and historical study of the meaning of peace, my research probably would have taken a number of different and more helpful turns. For example, my quantitative analyses likely would have been sensitive to operationally (1) distinguishing between just and unjust peace and (2) including data on both antigovernment violence (e.g., riots, coups, or revolutions) and violence by the government against its people (e.g., political arrests, executions, genocide, and terrorism).
5. Because of such a connection between the concept of peace and strategies of conflict, even peace societies have conflicted over the meaning of peace, as Wright points out (1942, Vol. 2:1090n46).
6. Empirical, abstract, and normative concepts are discussed in Section 2.4.3.
7. Such as of peace as an healthy mind and body (according to the Sophist Gorgias--see Zampaglione, 1973:183), as understanding and control (Prosterman, 1972:403), or as an intellectual and moral order dependent on persuasion (Nikhilananda, 1969:293-294).
8. Not covered here are those concepts of peace that are compounds of different ideas: "Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice" (Spinoza, Theological-Political Treatise, 1670).
9. Its original meaning is speculative. For a description of peace and war in classical Greek thought, see Caldwell's Hellenic Conceptions of Peace (1919). However, he offers no characterization of the Greek concept of peace.
10. Zampaglione (1973:26).
11. Ibid., p .27.
12. Ibid., p. 134. See also Ishida (1969:136).
13. See Section 3.4.
14. See Section 3.6.
15. Zampaglione (1973:210).
16. Ibid., p. 252.
17. See Johnson (1976:9).
18. See Johnson (1976, Section 1), who reviews scientific research of those conceptualizing peace as an absence of war. See also Schmid (1968:229, 232). Dedring (1976:19-22) gives an especially useful and well-documented overview of irenology.
19. Starke (1968:21).
20. Melko (1973:1).
21. Galtung (1969:167).
22. I am using these terms as defined in Section 2.3.2.
23. I am using these terms as defined in Section 2.4.3.
24. See Wright (1942:1090). A colleague who is a professor of political science, an irenologist, and a pacifist, insists in discussion with me that he cannot rationally justify using violence for any purpose, even to protect his wife from death at the hands of a murderous rapist.
25. See Gandhi (1961) and Erikson (1969). For a thorough and excellent study of the politics of nonviolent action, see Sharp (1973). A selected bibliography to the large literature of nonviolent action is given by Carter, Hoggart, and Roberts (1970).
26. As I did. See my "Roots of Faith" (1976b).
27. Aron (1966:151).
28. Would he understand Tacitus and Byron?: "Where they make a desert, they call it peace" Tacitus, Agricola, xxx). Similarly, "He makes a solitude and calls it peace!" (Byron, The Bride of Abydos 11. xx).
29. "After ages during which the earth produced harmless trilobites and butterflies, evolution progressed to the point at which it generated Neros, Genghas Khans, and Hitlers. This, however, is a passing nightmare; in time the earth will become again incapable of supporting life and peace will return" (Russell, 1950:9).
30. (1969: esp. 183-186). See also Schmid (1968:223-224).
31. See Section 2.3.2D.
32. Galtung (1969:184). In 1969 "law and order" was left-wing rhetoric for rightwing policies aimed at "protecting a conservative status quo."
33. Ibid. Galtung also points out that emphasis on positive peace alone may similarly rationalize "extremism to the left."
34. Zampaglione (1973:26).
35. Book V, p. 26.
36. Zampaglione (1973:210).
37. Saint Augustine (1952: XIX, Chapter 13). See also Desiderius Erasmus' condemnation of war, The Complaint of Peace, in which peace seems implicitly defined as concord. This sixteenth-century work of Erasmus, a Dutch scholar, has been a very influential historical document of pacifism.
38. Zampaglione (1973:301).
39. Part II of Second Part, 9. 29, Art. 1.
40. Zampaglione (1973:187).
41. Ibid., p. 133.
42. The Western concept of international peace, which stresses an absence of violence or hostile conflict (Section 3.3), is not widely accepted elsewhere in the world. As Ada Bozeman (1971:169) points out,
conflict seems to be accepted everywhere not only as the ruling norm but also as the major and sustaining source of politically significant normative thought and behavior. International peace, as this term has long been understood in the Occidental region, is by contrast an alien concept, Although it is being stressed today in the borrowed contexts of internationalist rhetoric and ideology and in such formulations as "nonalignment," it does not seem to be viewed as an attainable condition in the regional affairs of Negro Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. Nor can analogues be found in any non-Western tradition (excepting that of the Islamic Middle East) either for long-range moral or political commitments to collective security and mutual aid, or for consistent efforts to develop international organizations and international law.
43. Ishida (1969:138).
44. Ibid., p. 139.
45. Robertson (Sermon, Ser. III: xi. 138, 1851).
46. II Kings 9:3 1.
47. Zampaglione (1973:134).
48. Ibid., p. 210.
49. Nikhilananda (1969).
50. Ishida (1969).
51. Taoism shares this concept of peace. Consider Laotse:
----Lin Yutang, 1948:194
- The Tao never does,
- Yet through it everything is done,
- If princes and dukes can keep the Tao,
- The world will of its own accord be reformed.
- When reformed and rising to action,
- Let it be restrained by the Nameless pristine simplicity.
- The Nameless pristine simplicity
- Is stripped of desire (for contention).
- By stripping of desire quiescence is achieved,
- And the world arrives at peace of its own accord.
52. Ishida (1969:139).
53. Zampaglione (1973:187).
54. One problem with the legal definition is determining precisely when, outside of a declaration of war and peace treaty, war legally begins and ends. See Wright (1942: Vol. 1, 10-11).
55. See Lauterpacht's International Law: A Treatise by L. Oppenheim, Vol. I (1955), titled simply Peace. Volume II is on Disputes, War and Neutrality (1952). Peace and war are two parallel bodies of laws. See also Farer (1971).
56. Some legal (declared) wars have involved no violence, as between several Latin American states and Germany during World War II.
57.
Peace is a condition in which there is no use of force. In this sense of the word, law provides for only relative, not absolute peace, in that it deprives individuals of the right to employ force but reserves it for the community. The peace of the law is not a condition of absolute absence of force, a state of anarchy; it is a condition of monopoly of force, a force monopoly of the community.
----Kelson, 1961:22
58. See Reves (1945: 254): "Peace is identical with the existence of law." And "the problem of peace in our time is the establishment of a legal order to regulate relations among men, beyond and above the nation-states."
59. See Section 2.4.3D.
60. Hobbes (1952: Part 1, Chapter 13).
61. By laws of nature he meant precepts founded by reason.
62. Hobbes (1952: Part 1, Chapter 14). Italics omitted.
63. Ibid., Part 1, Chapter 7. Italics omitted.
64. Locke (1952:16).
65. Ibid., p. 19.
66. Ibid.
67. Ibid., p. 124.
68. Ibid., p. 125.
69. Ibid., p. 126.
70. Since for Locke we form a commonwealth to eliminate the "very unsafe, very insecure" (p. 123) condition of the state of nature, implicitly the state of nature is the state of war (in Locke's terms), as it was for Hobbes. However, civil government does not eliminate this state among individuals entirely, for
force without right upon a man's person makes a state of war both where there is, and is not, a common judge. But when the actual force is over, the state of war ceases between those that are in society and are equally on both sides subject to the judge.
----pp. 19-20
In any case, such uses of force within society does not change the fundamental condition: "civil society [is] a state of peace" (p. 212).
71. Vol. 4: War, Power, Peace (Chapter 2).
72. The existence of such civil societies shows the need to clarify the nature and dimensions of civil peace (Section 2.3 and Section 2.4). As an example, consider Stalin's rule over the Soviet Union. There certainly was overarching peace at the governmental level, for there was no revolution, no meaningful guerrilla warfare, and no antigovernment terrorism. There was no turmoil, virtually no mass riots, no national strikes. Mass protest demonstrations were unknown. No high official was (to my knowledge) assassinated by disgruntled citizens (although many were murdered in party purges), Yet, at the individual and group level, there was Stalin's war on political competitors, actual or potential dissenters, workers ("wreckers"), farmers ("social prophylaxis"), social groups, nationalities, and undesirables in which at least twenty million were killed or died (Conquest, 1968: Appendix A)[Written in 1998: in subsequent research on this I find that Soviet governments, 1917-1987, likely murdered some 62,000,000 people, as described and counted in my Lethal Politics. See my web site at http://www2.hawaii.edu/~rummel/NOTE4.HTM]. See also Solzhenitsyn (1973-1978). Even wars within a single state can be more devastating than that between states. The American Civil War killed more people than all the European wars in the century between Waterloo and the Battle of the Marne (Wright, 1964:42-43).
Therefore, the French political philosopher, de Montesquieu, was closer to the truth than Hobbes and Locke. In opposition to both he argued that in a state of nature each of us feels weak, inferior, making peace the first law (1952: Book 1, Chapter 3, p. 2). But "as soon as man enters into a state of society he loses the sense of his weakness; equality ceases, and then commences the state of war" (p. 3).
73. See, for example, Nock (1935) and Rothbard (1973).
74. Quincy Wright was also a renowned student of international law. Yet, he was fuzzy about the relationships among law, world institutions, and peace. In A Study of War (1942) he wrote:
Theologians, philosophers, psychologists, mathematicians, economists, jurists, and publicists who have considered the subject carefully have perceived that if peace is to attract opinion and to fulfill its expectations, it must be a positive conception. It must mean justice and order, and it cannot mean those without organization. Experience has shown that in limited areas violence has been prevented only when peace was identified with an organized society which made justice and order its first concern.
----Vol. 11: 1091-1093
This reads as a call for a world government monopolizing force, organizing society, and enforcing peace. This interpretation is supported by Wright's footnote to the last sentence: "Peace has existed continuously within the state." However, in the concluding section to his two volumes, what he means by an organized society is one not much different from the current United Nations system, except that laws (at least regarding the status quo) are nonetheless to "be determined by a body representative of contemporary world opinion" (Vol. II: 1341). Apparently, however, these laws are to be "without teeth." In spite of this and a number of other relevant confusions, I believe his suggestions tend to favor what I call an international libertarian political system (or minimum government) and exchange society structured by abstract laws.
75. For an example of such confusion, see Johnson (76:111-122). For an extensive and scholarly treatment of abstract laws, see Hayek (1973-1979).
76. This problem is particularly evident in the work of the World Law Fund and Institute for World Order, whose goal (among several others) is a world of peace under law. In numerous publications they seem to argue for abstract world laws as the necessary framework for a global society, which, however, usually take the form of centralized world government. An overview work partly commissioned by the Institute for World Order is Wehr and Washburn (1976). For a fair summary of their recent work by an "outsider" and additional citations, see Dedring (1976:53-67).
As an example, Richard Falk, in A Study of Future Worlds (1975: Chapter 40) conducted under the World Order Models Project sponsored by the Institute for World Order, presents a preferred world polity. While he argues that this would be a decentralized polity--with a UN or its equivalent only doubling current size and status, with functional universal agencies only four times their present size and status, and with nation-states losing an average of about half their present capabilities--the powers he actually gives this government would centralize within it world force and coercion.
This world government, through its "World Assembly," would "set world standards and render binding decisions" (p. 237); it would have "world security forces," which would try to operate as a police force rather than an army, possibly intervening in states where human rights are violated (p. 243); it would possibly institute "early warning" procedures and removal arrangements against leaders who might be potential Hitlers (p. 245); it would have "world economic system" organization with control over the world economy (p. 252) in order to alleviate human misery, promote equality, and achieve ecological balance; and it would have a "world monetary and tax policy council" empowered to levy direct personal taxes on individuals (p. 254).
There is much more, including "considerable planning at all levels" (p. 256), but this suffices to give the flavor of Falk's world government. It is a confused medley of powers and functions that add up to an attempt to transform world society into a task-oriented, socialist world organization. International law is then turned into governmental rules directed toward specific ends rather than abstract laws. The whole edifice would in practice require even much more centralization of power than we have seen in the United States in this century as the federal government undertook on a national level some of the same tasks Falk foresees for world government.
Immanuel Kant, among many other eighteenth-and nineteenth-century philosophers, was well aware of the distinction between abstract laws and government rules. Like Hobbes, Kant conceived of a state of nature as a condition "like lawless savages," which, for nation-states, is "a state of war (the right of the stronger), even though there may not be an actual war or continuous fighting (hostility)" (1965: Section 54). What was lacking was a juridical state--a condition of "universal laws," not necessarily civil government (Section 62). Indeed, Kant explicitly rules this out:
A league of nations in accordance with the Idea of an original social contract is necessary, not, indeed, in order to meddle in one another's internal dissensions, but in order to afford protection against external aggression.... But this alliance must not involve a sovereign authority (as in a civil constitution), but only a confederation.
----Section 54
77. On force as a form of physical power, see Vol. 2: The Conflict Helix (Section 19.7 of Chapter 19). On coercion, among other social powers, see Vol. 2: The Conflict Helix (Section 20.2 of Chapter 20).
78. See Vol. 4: War, Power, Peace (Chapter 12).
79. Aron (1966:151). The meaning of peace as a balance of power is implicit. Aron first defines peace as a suspension of violence. Second, as quoted, he says peace is based on power. Third, he qualifies peace by different relations of power. Therefore, he is conceptualizing peace as a suspension of violence involving one of three power relations; that is, a balance of power.
Note that for me a social contract is based on a balance of powers, but is not itself such a balance. See Section 3.7.4.
80. Blainey (1973:122). Although stated somewhat differently, this is a major conclusion of Blainey's comprehensive analysis: "Wars usually begin when two nations disagree on their relative strength, and wars usually cease when the fighting nations agree on their relative strength" (p. 246).
81. As quoted in Wright (1942: Vol. I, 745), who discusses a longer version of this quote.
82. See Zampaglione (1973:133-135) and Ishida (1969:138-139).
83. For example, see Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War, for a balance of power analysis of peace and war between Greek city-states.
84. "Thus, even if it is admitted that social integration is in part dependent upon value systems, there is also a substructure to social order which is determined by the struggle for power and the balance of power" (Rex, 1961:111). That this is a basic, and not incidental, emphasis on a balance of power can be seen by reading pages 110-113, 122-130, and conclusions on pages 181-182) in Rex, 1961.
85. Compare Buddhist philosophy, where "the Path is a Middle Way, for it carefully avoids both the pitfalls of extreme asceticism and the sophistry of those who claim that self-indulgence will eliminate desire. It lies between the Pairs of Opposites whose equilibrium is peace" (Humphreys, 122-123).
86. Wright (1942: Vol. 2, 1284). Wright conceives of forces as distances between the parties that include political, strategic, intellectual, legal, psychic, social, and expectancy distances (see Chapter 25). For an alternative view, see Burton (1962:48): "A condition of peaceful international relations is not a condition of equilibrium; no static concept is relevant to relations between and among nations."
87. See Section 3.7.4.
88. The situation is a crucial variable here. See Vol. 2: The Conflict Helix (Section 28.3 of Chapter 28), and Vol. 4: War, Power, Peace (Chapters 6. 7, and 8) for the technical development.
89. This concept is central to the balancing and balance of powers. It is developed in Vol. 2: The Conflict Helix (Part II).
90. There are really three levels here: (1) actual interests, capabilities, and wills; (2) what is manifested; and (3) what is perceived by the other parties. For example, I believe President Carter, in 1977-1979, was actually and centrally interested in stabilizing and reducing nuclear, strategic armaments between the United States and the Soviet Union. This interest was manifested in the SALT II Treaty signed with Secretary Brezhnev in May 1979. However, by virtue of this treaty, Carter's underlying interest was perceived to be, on one side of the domestic debate on SALT II, unilateral strategic disarmament, appeasement, or ratification of Soviet power; and on the other, legalization of a strategic American arms build up. For simplicity, in the text I have collapsed the manifest and perceptual levels.
91. Zampaglione (1973:28, 218, 220, 295).
92. Isaiah 48:22.
93. See Section 2.4.3D.
94. See Wright (1942: Vol. 264n12) and Stark (1968:22-23).
95. Zampaglione (1973:186).
96. (1952: Part II of Second Part, Q. 29, Art. 2).
96. (1952: Part II of Second Part, Q.29, Art. 2).
97. "And the work of justice shall be peace" (Isaiah, 32:17). Saint Thomas Aquinas shifts the emphasis from justice to love:
Peace is the work of justice indirectly, in so far as justice remains the obstacles to peace; but it is the work of charity directly, since charity, according to its very notion, causes peace. For love is "a unitive force" as Dionysius says (Div. Nom. iv), and peace is the union of the appetite's inclinations.
----1952: Part II of Second Part, Q. 29, Art. 3
And Martin Luther shifts the emphasis from justice to peace:
Peace is more important than all justice; and peace was not made for the sake of justice, but justice for the sake of peace.
----On Marriage, 1530
98. Of course, peace may be identified with justice in a nonpolitical sense, as Saint Augustine does:
He, then, who prefers what is right to what is wrong, and what is well-ordered to what is perverted, sees that the peace of unjust men is not worthy to be called peace in comparison with the peace of the just.
----1952: XIX, Chapter 13
99. Wright, 1942 (Vol. II: 864).
100. Ibid., p. 1305. Wright mentions this distinction between negative and positive peace; Galtung (1969) later develops the same distinction (without reference to Wright) within a structural theory of violence and defines justice to mean social justice (equality). See Section 3.9.3D.
101. Dulles (1957: foreword). See also Tucker (1960:30-31), who believes: "Justice may be regarded as an essential concomitant of peace" (p. 32).
102. Wright (Vol. II: 1091).
103. This is especially true of the World Law Fund. See Note 76.
104. Galtung is a particularly systematic thinker and an organized writer. It is relatively easy, therefore, to outline his theory without misleading simplification. My outline is based on Galtung (1969). For another view see Schmid (1968) and Dedring (1976:19-22, 210). For an example of the way Galtung developed his concept of positive peace, see Galtung (1971).
105. Galtung (1969:167-168).
106. Ibid., p. 168. Italics omitted.
107. Ibid., pp. 169-172.
108. I believe he means a free market economy here. While this is an incidental point in his analysis, it manifests a critical misunderstanding of self-regulating or spontaneous social systems that underlies Galtung's whole approach.
109. Ibid., p. 171.
110. Although Galtung's prior analysis may be value-loaded, it is still primarily definitional (analytic) and empirically taxonomic.
111. Ibid. Galtung's subsequent explanation as to why he did not use the term "exploitation" instead of "social injustice" is interesting. As a first reason, he says "it belongs to a political vocabulary, and has so many political and emotional overtones that the use of this term will hardly facilitate communication." But surely Galtung must know that justice is a preeminently political concept, and that "social justice" is a concept with diverse meanings, most especially central to socialism. On the problems of the concept of social justice, see Hayek (1973-1979: Vol. 2).
112. Ibid., p. 175. Italics added. In the literature social justice does not necessarily mean equality. See Rawls (1971:4 and seriatim) and Miller (1976), for example. For socialism in which equalitarianism is a critical norm, equality in the distribution of power--while an ideal for some kinds of socialism (such as in the withering away of the state for Marxism)--is impossible in practice. Power must be centralized to control the means of production and distribute resources. Nationalization and close regulation of private corporations, the hallmark of socialism, can be equated with equalizing power in society only through a mistaken understanding of coercive or authoritative power. The most centralized, totalitarian systems in recent history have been socialist (e.g., Hitler, Stalin, Mao tse-tung); and where liberal democracies have moved toward equalitarian (democratic) socialism, as most obviously in Great Britain and Sweden, but also to a lesser extent in the United States, this has meant a great transfer of coercive power to the center--to government decision makers, planners, and managers. Moreover, this is a theoretical necessary concomitant of socialism in practice, if socialism is to be internally consistent. See Mises ( 1951).
113. Ibid., pp. 175-177.
114. Ibid., p. 183. See Section 2.3.2D.
115. I trust the reader understands that I am trying to find the proper theoretical vessel to fit Galtung's analytical soul, and not to depreciate his work or concepts by invidious labeling. Galtung is a socialist, as I understand socialism--in its practical political characteristics (See Vol. 2: The Conflict Helix, Chapter 31) and as a politico-economic theory with "soft" and "hard" versions based on the works of Saint-Simon (1952), Fourier (1901), and Owen (1837), Marx (1963), Engles (1892), Lenin (1917), Shaw (1928), Thomas (1953), and Durbin (1940); and as consistent with the operating principles of democratic socialist parties (see for example Socialism: A New Statement of Principles (1958) by a formerly left-wing but now dominant group within the British Labour Party). And no matter how superficial, his work here summarized is fundamentally political philosophy (e.g., social justice, equality, distribution of power) within a socialist political paradigm.
So many irenologists or peace activists are socialists (some apparently without realizing it) that my characterization of Galtung's position as socialist will probably seem odd. Indeed, the acceptance of socialism in this scientific community is such that some even find it difficult to conceive that Galtung's definition of positive peace could be questioned. Witness Dedring (1976:21), who says that "even traditional scholars find it difficult to reject or dispute Galtung's basic premise of positive peace." This can be only an uninformed comment, for such work as Rawls (1971) deeply questions the idea that social justice, simplistically, equals equality; as those of Mises (1966), Friedman (1962), and Schumpeter (1950), among many others, fundamentally show the error in believing that equalitarianism is, indeed, the best way to promote the achievement of human potentials. For a more recent and excellent analysis implicitly rejecting Galtung's view of social justice, see Hayek (1973-1979: esp. Vol. 2).
Clearly, this volume is also political philosophy, which, by contrast to Galtung, is libertarian (the contemporary label) or classical liberal (the historical label). If the reader feels uncomfortable with the profession of a political philosophy in this area, see Nelson and Olin (1979), who show that historical explanation about the causes of war are part of paradigmatic political theory (ideology). This is also true of the nature of peace.
116. Were not Galtung concerned to connect violence through "structural violence" with the socialist critique of feudalism and capitalism, there is a simpler, less theoretically and empirically problematic approach. This would be to keep the common definition of violence as physical harm or destructiveness, while defining two types of peace as nonviolence. One would be negative, or an unjust peace in some sense. The other would be positive--a just--peace.
117. Galtung has argued elsewhere (1968) that increasing the entropy of a social system will increase the likelihood of peace. Increasing entropy in his terms is increasing freedom from centralized command, which is quite inconsistent with socialism. The problem is that across his studies Galtung has not tried to clarify, analyze, and integrate his political concepts into a philosophically unified political theory. There should be no doubt, however, that equality is a high-order value for Galtung; socialism, the preferred vehicle.
118. See Chapter 11.
119. See Section 2.4.3E.
120. See Vol. 2: The Conflict Helix (Chapter 20 and Chapter 21).
121. See Vol. 2: The Conflict Helix (Section 29.4 of Chapter 29).
122. See Vol. 2: The Conflict Helix (Chapter 28).
