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PARTISAN REVIEW
prising individuals and companies seek to exploit the protected areas.
While this exploitation is not the primary purpose of the govern–
ments, they conceive of it as one of the advantages of conquest. More
than that, at a time when thinking everywhere is dominated by
economic considerations, the so-called colonialists can increase the
popularity of their cause by using these considerations to justify it.
The public might turn away from them or rebel if they spoke of glory
or national greatness.
As
for the capitalists, why should it be surprising that their con–
duct does not conform with the pattern ascribed to it by vulgar
Marxism? From the standpoint of big industry and the banks of the
Second Reich, there were less dangerous and more profitable enter–
prises than Morocco or the Berlin-Baghdad railroad. The more
that Germany asserterl its claim to a place in the world market, the
more did the capitalist leaders have cause to fear a European war.
In 1911, the falling stock exchange prices, and the intervention of
great financiers with the Kaiser, contributed to the peaceful solu–
tion of the crisis. For capitalism, a war meant the risk of losing more
than it ,could gain in Morocco.
On the other hand, it would not be less erroneous to imagine that
large-scale German capitalism was devoted to the preservation of
peace. The truth is that nothing in living reality conforms to this
vague concept of "German capitalism." This capitalism did not con–
stitute an entity aware of itself, pursuing long-range objectives, and
manipulating popular masses and governments to serve its ambi–
tion. In actual fact, its activities were varied, contradictory, depend–
ing on the actions of individuals and the working of circumstances.
The following of the naval and pan-Germanic leagues was for the
most part lower-middle class and nationalistic in character. In war–
time, manufacturers' associations launched projects for peacetime,
intended to ruin foreign competitors. In the event of victory, they
would have clamored for the annexation of Lorraine and of African
colonies; with similar motives, German banks and industrial establish–
ments colonized the occupied territories between 1940 and 1944.
Some sectors were oriented toward peaceful trade, others were
largely inspired by imperialist ambition. In actual fact, capitalist cir–
cles, with their hesitations and their divergent views, reflected public
opinion far more than they formed it.
