The text states that "dreams and aspirations await fulfilment until the mode of producing wealth and its distribution—until the economic forms of society can give material shape to the ideas they held so long before the times." In your own words, explain what Fairchild is arguing about the fundamental relationship between idealistic visions for peace and the underlying economic structures of society.

From the book

ry survey of the projects from time to time advanced to promote arbitration between states, or a League to comprise all. The history of anti-militarism indicates, however, as with every movement making for human progress, that whilst the thought and idealism of some few noble men and women in every age outpaced the collective mind, their dreams and aspirations await fulfilment until the mode of producing wealth and its distribution—until the economic forms of society can give material shape to the ideas they held so long before the times. As we were reminded, with cynical reiteration, during…

rce to guile. It is suggested that by building houses instead of ships and cannon the capitalist order can be preserved. It is more than probable that were the Governments progressively to reduce armaments and to devote the expenditure saved to meeting the cost of universal improvement in the condition of labour, satisfaction, for a time, would prevail among the workers. The improbability of such an agreement is demonstrated by the meagre efforts of Governments in international Labour legislation, by the perfunctory proceedings of the Labour Commission attached to the Paris Peace Conference,…

impending plague, European Socialism succumbed to the fatal contradictions involved in the sanction of national defence. French Socialists said their action in the event of war would depend upon the Germans; the German Social Democratic Party expected to make its course contingent ​ upon the action of the Russian army; and at that day Western Socialism was unanimous in the opinion that the Russian proletariat was the Tzar's scourge against civilisation and democracy. So Europe armed for war. When the cataclysm hurled the millions on the thousand miles of battle front, when the strength of…

← Socialism and the League of Nations ( 1919 ) by Edwin Charles Fairchild → No. 10 in the International Socialist Library, published by the British Socialist Party 4805305 Socialism and the League of Nations 1919 Edwin Charles Fairchild ​ INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST LIBRARY—1 0. Socialism and the League of Nations With a Note on the REDUCTION OF ARMAMENTS By E. C. FAIRCHILD. 3d. London: BRITISH SOCIALIST PARTY 21a, Maiden Lane, Strand, April, 1919 page ​ SOCIALISM AND THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS. An Address delivered by E. C. Fairchild at South Place Institute, London, on Thursday, February 27 th,…

tion, interests and commerce. The foreign policies of the nations still at peace are also determined by trade relations. Our own country desires the open door in the East." Before the war. the normal advance of capitalism in the principal countries was leading financiers and the great industrial magnates towards the adjustment of commercial differences by other means than war. At one epoch war was the missionary of capitalist enter ​ prise, opening up the backward places to the surplus commodity. The passing of Britain's supremacy by the entry of all the larger white populations into the…