Tuesday, October 1, 1963

Aggression is Always Wrong

Craig Howell

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Calamity!

A State Department Master Mind

(Rightly or wrongly, as you will)

Avers it is not hard to find

High level Commies in Brazil.

And thereupon—O direful threat,

The worst that has been uttered yet!—

Brazil, all hot beneath the collar,

Administers a crushing blow:

Unless we say it isn’t so

She won’t accept another dollar!

And that’s a switch! For heretofore

The nation that reviled us worst

Was apt to get a little more

Than other states—and get it first.

RALPH BRADFORD

Mr. Howell is a student at Georgetown University.

When a peaceful person condemns all aggressive wars by one country against another, he is understood and applauded by the overwhelming majority of the American people. Yet when the same peaceful person condemns all aggressive actions by the state against its own citizens, he is misunderstood and repudiated by almost all of his fellow citizens.

The “welfare statist” invariably condemns the leaders of any nation who declare war against a small and peaceful neighbor. The same “welfare statist” always voices approval when his own leaders use force at home to despoil some for the alleged benefit of others.

In reality, the conventional rationalizations of the socialists would, if consistently applied, also justify most wars of aggression by one country against another. The libertarian, however, is against the use of aggressive force at home for exactly the same reason he is against it abroad—that is, his fundamental tenet is that no person has a moral right to initiate coercive action against another person. The libertarian is convinced that no person has any moral or legitimate right to advocate or use force except to defend himself against domestic and foreign aggressors who try to deprive him of his life, liberty, and property.

The conventional “liberal,” however, has no basic philosophy on the use of force. For example, examine the various plans he espouses—social security, unemployment compensation, minimum wages, compulsory unionism, subsidies to farmers, price controls, and a hundred similar schemes. Without exception, all are based on the principle of using force against peaceful persons to make them conform to the wishes of others. The primary justification advanced by the welfare statist is that these schemes are popular; therefore, they must also be morally good. But is such a conclusion warranted? Does the popularity of an action affect its morality ?

Now suppose that we applied this criterion to the morality of an aggressive war. Let us say that the people in nation X overwhelmingly desire an attack on country Y—not a rare occurrence in world history. If our “liberals” would be consistent with themselves, they would have to say that the attack, being popular, would also be right. But, naturally, they would say no such thing; they would vigorously denounce such a war, thus admitting that morality is not to be determined by public opinion polls.

A variation of the foregoing theme is the welfare statist assertion that if a given proposal has been duly legalized, then its ethical merits are no longer open to question. So, let us assume that the Parliament and President of nation X have legally authorized war on country Y. Does this meet their moral standards; or will the “liberals” again have to revise their proposition and admit that legality cannot determine morality?

A Double Standard

Reference to the just and unjust causes of war can be particularly valuable when we try to expose the fallacy in what is perhaps the “liberals’ ” most persuasive contention: that the programs of the welfare state aim to help those who are really in need of great help. They usually do not deny that the “social gains” they are seeking are attainable only if the money of some is forcibly seized and granted to others. They do deny that any impropriety is involved in the process; on the contrary, they proudly announce, the welfare state merely enforces the undoubted axiom that one man’s need has precedence over another man’s luxury. “How noble and upstanding!” exclaim many. But the danger of this principle becomes quite clear if it is utilized to judge the rightness or wrongness of an aggressive war. A single, concrete example from recent history can illustrate.

In the 1930′s Japan was certainly in an unenviable spot. There was not nearly enough room or land to support its booming population. It lacked many crucial raw materials. Both industry and agriculture were comparatively backward. Able technicians and skilled workmen were still scarce. If ever a country was in desperate economic need, Japan was. Yet, very few people have gone so far as to maintain that its need fully and morally justified its chosen solution to its problems—aggressive military imperialism. And if Japan‘s wants gave it no right to the land or property of other nations, then whose wants would? The inevitable answer is: nobody’s. This holds true not only for underprivileged countries but also for underprivileged persons. If we really want to help them, as we should, we can contribute to various local, national, and international charities. The essential point remains, however; no one has a right to something he has not earned.

Warlike Measures at Home

At this juncture, let us consider exactly when “liberal” lovers of peace would approve of a declaration of war. We see that their standard of a just war is virtually identical to the libertarian standard of the just use of any kind of force. Only defensive wars and defensive force meet with the approbation of true workers for liberty and peace in the world. Our basic rights come from God himself. So long as we do not use our rights to violate the equal rights of our neighbors, we may exercise our free will as we see fit.

“Liberals” suffer a myopia, an inability to see that aggressive force is used to build the welfare state. True, there is considerably less outright violence in tax collections for interventionism than in full-scale war. Big Government relies much more on the threat of force, rather than on its actual employment, to promote the payment of taxes. But anyone could easily witness the transformation of potential energy into kinetic energy—the threat into the reality—by trying to spend for himself the portion of his taxes which would go for, say, farm subsidies. Not surprisingly, few citizens have made this interesting experiment.

Returning to our basic comparison, we can now say this: the notion that coercive action is a legitimate means to attain some desired goal underlies both the welfare state and the war of aggression. The fact that force is merely threatened to attain that goal does not make it any better. A country that makes unfair demands for money or land from another country is not to be commended if it obtains what it wants by threats instead of by brute strength. Intimidation may be more veiled than outright aggression; ethically, however, there is no substantial difference between the two. Most Americans do not hesitate to condemn both methods, at least, as instruments of foreign policy.

Then why do we not all condemn them as instruments of domestic policy, too? There is no reason why our attitude toward aggression abroad should differ from our attitude toward coercion in our own homeland. The same principles make us realize that compromise with either practice is a moral impossibility, because of their intrinsic evil. If all upstanding citizens regard themselves as perfectly justified when they stoutly refuse to excuse any and all wars of aggression, then no one may logically assail as “wild-eyed extremists” those lovers of liberty who do not approve of any act of coercion to support the welfare state. If all righteous people accept the worth of the Ten Commandments, then no one may logically denounce as “radical rightists” those who do not tolerate wholesale violation of the one that reads, “Thou shalt not steal.” There is no escaping the fact that aggression is always wrong, at home as well as abroad.

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